Chapter 38: Chapter 38

Chapter 38

After finishing his words, Daniel suddenly laughed loudly. With the bizarre laughter, Azela unknowingly frowned and turned her gaze away. He held her shoulders tightly and continued his words.

“After all, when I’m by your side, everyone becomes unhappy. I shouldn’t have met you.”

“….”

Azela stared at him with pity. He always blamed others for things like this.

“…It’s not that you’re unhappy by my side, it’s that you don’t know how to do anything right.”

“What?”

“If you knew how to do your job properly, Duke Ferial would have wanted to do business with you, Daniel, not me.”

He sharpened his teeth with Azela’s reply. As he came closer, Daniel growled as if he was about to chew on her.

Nonetheless, she still gazed at him with pity and added.

“It’s me who is unhappy, not you… It’s me who is by your side.”

Azela’s last words caused silence in the bedroom. Even though the window was clearly closed, the candles flickered in the cool breeze from somewhere. His gaze on her no longer contained any emotion.

Daniel lifted his bent upper body, letting go of the shoulder that he was holding tightly. And, he looked down at her with her cold gaze.

“…Is that why Irene by your side died like that?”

“….!”

Azela’s eyes, which were straightening her crumpled shoulder sleeves, fluttered slightly. She tried her best to pretend she was calm, although Daniel couldn’t miss her small change. He wanted her to be hurt somehow.

“When Irene died, you acted like you couldn’t… Now, look at this. The person you loved is dead, and you are living a more glamorous life than then.”

“Daniel.”

With him scoffing, she glanced up at him.

Azalea bit her lower lip so hard that blood gushed out while her fists twisted in anger. Seeing her trembling with anger, he continued his speech with an evil smile.

“What do you think? Doing business with Duke Ferial… You don’t even remember Irene anymore, do you? Look. After all, you were just that kind of person.”

Daniel giggled, grabbed his stomach, and laughed grotesquely.

The candle that lit the bedroom flickered again in the cool wind. Azela clenched her fists tightly. If she didn’t, she thought she’d pick up something she could see right away and stick it on his neck. For Irene’s next life to be happy, she had to put up with it…

Azela’s fingernails went deep into her palm.

“Look, Azela.”

Daniel bent his torso closer to Azela’s face. Her green eyes were filled with maddening anger. He had a bright smile on his lips and continued his words.

“Who, between me and you, makes those around them unhappy?”

…The devil was on his face.

* * *

“Irene, no—!”

Was this a dream…?

Azela watched what was happening in front of her with a blank look.

A familiar situation that seemed to have been replayed many times was unfolding in front of her. There were Irene and Daniel, and Azela from the past sitting and crying without doing anything as if sitting in the audience watching the show, Azela was at the back and watched all of this.

“Irene, Irene!”

Her red blood was dripping onto the white carpet. Meanwhile, Daniel was smiling, and Irene was lying on the floor. Her former self just kept screaming and crying.

She thought it was a dream, but it wasn’t.

This was not a dream, it was her past that she had forgotten for a while, and it was a reality that actually happened. Recognizing this, Azela, who was watching it as if she was going to vomit, hurriedly shut her mouth to cover it.

“Why… Why are you doing this, Azela?”

Although Azela spoke with a trembling voice to her former self, she didn’t move as if the voice couldn’t be heard from there.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at the three of them. She tried to move forward with a fierce expression, though her body didn’t move any further as if something was blocking her. She shouted loudly, waving her fists in the air angrily.

“Azela, move! Protect Irene…!”

However, in the past, she was a fool who couldn’t even get up on her own. All she had to do was hold the dead irene in her arms and cry and scream to call the doctor. Azela screamed again and was suffocated just by looking at it.

“Why, why aren’t you moving…? Why are you just crying? She’s a precious person you have to protect. Why… Why is she suffering like that? Pick up the sword and stab Daniel. Raise the sword and stab the knight who killed Irene, Azela—!”

Tears that she had been holding back for so long poured down her cheeks.

And, at that moment, Irene’s eyes, which had not closed, met hers. She was staring straight at the ‘Azela of the present’ beyond herself in the past. At that, Azela’s whole body stiffened as if she was frozen in the gaze.

“You seem to be doing well these days, Madam.”

Irene, lying on the rug, bled and whispered quietly to the present Azela. Red blood dripped from the corner of her lips.

“Ir, Irene…”

“Seeing you smiling makes me very happy, too, Madam.”

“I…I want you to be happy in your next life…”

“It seems to me that the Madam is trying to be happy in this life.”

Irene’s red blood ran down and soaked Azela’s feet. It felt sticky and uncomfortable. Even though she wanted to run away, Azela couldn’t move at all as if bound in the blood. Then, she cast her eyes on her former self as well.

“…This is you. You’re the one who did nothing.”

Tears of blood were flowing from her own eyes. Her hands trembled as Azela of the present looked at her past self and Irene.

All she could do was just stand in place, as helpless as she was back then. Her white, tired lips trembled violently. Irene, whose neck was twisted in a bizarre appearance, continued her words again.

“Don’t be happy, Master.”

“….”

“I was so happy… you didn’t forget me, Madam.”

“…Irene, I never forgot you. I—”

“Don’t smile, Madam.”

Irene spoke with a grotesque smile on her lips. At her resolute voice, Azela could not continue her words.

“I…I died for you, Azela.”

The moment she met Irene’s fluttering eyes, Azela woke up with a deep breath. As she watched the endless darkness, she felt her breath clogged in her chin, and her eyes widened.

“Gasp…!”

There was something strange… Something was going wrong.

“…Gasp!”

Something was strange. She was just waking up as usual, but it was different. Azela raised her trembling hands and scratched her neck. She had no memory of how she normally breathed in and out.

She can’t breathe Azela couldn’t breathe, as if someone had blocked her nose and mouth. She had hyperventilation symptoms caused by excessive stress.

“Hah… Hah…!”

The surprise soon turned into great fear. Her hands and toes were trembling, and her heart was beating so loud that she could hear it as a drumbeat in her ear.

Weep flowed from Azela’s eyes, regardless of her will.

“Some…gasp…somebody…”

Death was nearing her eyes.

It was as if Irene, whom she had seen in her dream a while ago, was waving her hand at her. Even though she thought it didn’t matter if she died, she could not hide the great fear that was approaching in front of the death she was facing.

Azela’s eyes turned to the bedroom door. She wondered if someone would open the door and come in, but the wind soon disappeared. It couldn’t be… No one came to visit her in the middle of the night.

Her gaze then turned to the slightly open window.

Lately, as a Zagnac, he has been rarely visiting at night… Still, it was more likely than the bedroom door opening.

Azela looked at the window with a tearful gaze.

‘Please… please.’