How to Live as the Mad Duke’s Fake Daughter - CH 83

Then the brothers who had been fighting loudly stopped and looked back at me.

“What? Lily, what’s wrong?”

“Is Brother annoying my angel by being noisy?”

“You were the one who started this fight”.

“Both of you are noisy.”

Alan noticed my strange mood and lowered me to the ground.

His expression, seen through my fingers, was serious as if the world had collapsed.

“Are you sick? Pedro, Hugo, let’s call the doctor…”

“…Dad, I’m fine.”

I straightened my back and pushed my chest out before things got bigger.

“Just… It’s because the rainbow is so pretty.”

I took a deep breath and smiled widely at everyone.

I hope I had successfully hidden my darkened heart.

***

Deep at night. A black figure rose from below the magic stone lamp that lit up the ducal castle.

Soft as mud, the figure glided along the thick shadows and stopped tall in the corner of the courtyard.

The black chunks came together and gradually transformed into a human form.

A person halfway between a boy and a young man walked out of the darkness.

He swept his shiny silver hair and looked up. On the outer walls of the castle, was a sloping roof that rose layer by layer.

Among them, a small figure was visible on the narrowest roof. It was immediately recognized as Princess Lilietta.

He found ‘her’.

Benimus glided up the wall in his half-transformed body.

He sat narrowly on the edge of the roof.

It was dark because it was a night when the crescent moon rose, but the detection of waves in the wind was clear as if it had been drawn.

When Benimus returned fully to his human form, that girl looked back as if she had felt a presence.

“…Oh, Benny.”

There was no strength in the voice calling him.

“Somehow… I felt like you were coming.”

She motioned for him to come over. Her muslin nightgown slid down, revealing her moon-white wrists.

There was no way Benimus could refuse her call.

As he got closer, she gripped the hem of his shirt that had reached her fingertips.

“Look at that. It’s pretty.”

With her other hand, she pointed to the twinkling night view in the distance.

Thanks to the duchy’s distribution of magic stones to the commoners to commemorate the recapture of the Western Continent, the night streets were as bright as the day.

“…In the past, I envied that light.”

She muttered in a distant way.

“I wanted that light. I also prayed to God to put me in the shining world…”

She released her grip on his and opened her arms wide.

The thin pajamas that seemed light enough to fly away fluttered nonstop in the wind.

In the midst of this, the ribbon that seemed to have been tied by someone else was firmly fixed.

It must have been the head-maid, or her family members.

“Then look at this. My wish really came true.”

Her lips trembled. A faint smile appeared on her bright red lips.

“Benny. I…”

She looked up slowly.

“I’m in this place…”

Face to face, Benimus looked at her and raised his eyebrows for a moment.

“I’m happy.”

Her emerald eyes were wet. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were contorted mercilessly.

“I’m the happiest right now.”

She seemed about to cry at any moment as she spoke of the happiness that would soon disappear.

“I… got used to it. To this house. To this family.”

She clenched her pajamas as if holding back the pain.

The breathing mixed with the wind was rough like a fish out of water.

“I ended up being happy.”

These words… She almost seemed to die of suffocation at any moment.

“How dare I steal someone else’s life.”

At the end of the sentence, there was terrifying shame.

Benimus held her in his arms, her who was groaning in pain. Even as he slowly brushed away her tangled hair, her trembling did not subside.

“I can understand when I have it in my hands.”

She muttered. It was a very small whisper, but Benimus could understand every single word.

“I don’t deserve the light.”

She shrank like it stung under the dim moonlight.

Benimus looked at her like that and turned his left hand into a monster’s.

The hand that turned into black liquid rolled into a dome shape and covered over the heads of the two.

The liquid that fell to their feet also changed into the same shape, and the two lids stuck together.

A large sphere trapped both of them.

The view was blurred. Darkness came, even the moonlight did not shine. It was a small and quiet space just for the two of them.

As the strong wind disappeared, her rough breathing calmed down little by little.

“…I thought about what would happen to me after I left the barrier.”

A soft voice resounded in the silence.

“I will be blind at first. Because I can’t see anything. So I will have to change my eyes to black.”

She pressed onto one of her eyes with the bottom of her palm.

She seemed to be imagining what she was talking about.

“I’ll get hungry, and my legs are going to hurt. So, at that time, I’ll have to change my body…”

It wasn’t a lament that spit out a sense of shame. She was certain of the end.

“If I wander around in the dark in a completely different form than I am now… I will forget who I was.”

She sighed for a moment, then murmured a little.

“I think I’m going to be a monster like that.”

Her voice, although cracked, was calm. As if she had imagined what she had just said several times before.

“Benny.”

She waved her hand in the air as if looking for him. It was pitch black, and it seemed that she could not see anything ahead.

Benimus, who suddenly turned his eyes to the side, grabbed her hand and pulled her towards him. The body temperature that touched his arms was warm.

She spoke reassuringly.

“If I’m completely crazy and not afraid of death…”

She knew better than anyone else about the monster she was talking about

Evil spirits hovering around the dazzling World Tree like fire moths and wandering in the desolate darkness.

Changing to become like them was a terrible punishment for her, who longed for the light.

And, rather than becoming a monster, the cruelest punishment was…

“Will you kill me then?”

Dying alone in the dark.

“So that I, who became a monster, will not return to my father.”

It was a selfish and bittersweet request.

The boy, who acted like he would pick a star for her if only she requested, shut his mouth and didn’t say anything.

The black curtain surrounding the two of them melted. Their vision brightened in the dim moonlight.

She was looking in the wrong direction, thus their eyes met. Her emerald eyes were wet.

Benimus pressed his fingertips against her flushed cheek.

Unlike him who had dried up to the floor, she was always lively.

She laughed and cried well because of her desperate desire to live.

Benimus remembered her appearance without missing a single strand of trembling hair.

From the moment they first met until now.

While observing her in silence, a small ripple occurred in his dull heart.

He was happy, yet sad, to follow her.

Emotions had been transferred. It was as if he was a fragment from her.

This was probably because she was so special to him.

“…That request cannot be granted.”

Benimus belatedly replied.

It was natural. There was no way the boy could kill the girl.

“…I see.”

She pursed her lips and nodded awkwardly. She seemed to have expected to be rejected.

“I’m sorry, I made a strange request.”

“No, it’s not.”

Benimus patted her shoulder and looked at the night view that continued like the Milky Way.

Unlike her, he had never been envious of a shining world.

The boy was rather comfortable in the dark.

What he wanted was not light, but another darkness that would make sense of the void.

“I…”

After a moment’s hesitation, he added softly.

“I’ll be by the Princess’ side”.

Benimus imagined the peaceful darkness where only the sound of their hearts remained.

There, there would be nothing but two of them. Neither the fake moon that shone brightly, nor the land she looked up and yearned for.

“When the Princess is happy, or when the Princess is unhappy.”

No matter how beautiful the light, if it hurts her, it shouldn’t exist in this world.

“…I will be by your side.”

The firm declaration made her say nothing more. She just put a hand around his back and gripped a part of his shirt like she was hanging on to it.

The trembling transmitted through the body was pitiful.

Benimus wrapped one arm tightly around her waist.

On a roof high like a cliff, he held her body for a long time.

Firmly, so they would not fall below.

***

As soon as morning dawned, I washed my face.

With my eyes hidden under the palm of my hands, I was crying. Occasionally, I pressed down on my swollen eyes, but soon the door swung open and Yuria rushed in.

“Princess, I heard the Crown Prince came to see you!”

It was quite a rude act for Yuria, who was always obedient to me.

However, instead of an apology, she made a fuss, perhaps she was distracted by the crown prince’s visit.

‘I knew this was going to happen…’

There was no way Yuria, who liked gossip, could just ignore something like this.

I nodded my head roughly as I looked in the mirror. Then Yuria raised her voice more and more.

“When are you going to hold the ceremony? You have to finish your debutante first, so next spring? You’re going to make me the bridesmaid, right? Oh my God, to think the day will come when I will become the Princess’ bridesmaids!”

“…It’s not like that.”

I shook my head and sat down on the bed. Perhaps because of last night, the end of my voice cracked a little.

“What do you mean?”

Yuria quickly brought the footrest.

I cleared my throat and answered.

“If it’s about the proposal, I’ve declined it.”

“What?!”

Yuria was astonished, like she was the one whose marriage was broken.

“I beg your pardon? When?”

“What do you mean ‘when’? You don’t know? As soon as Her Majesty the Emperor first brought it up, I immediately refused.”

The marriage proposed directly by the emperor was rejected at the Imperial Palace’s banquet, so there was no way that rumors could not have spread.

Yuria, of course, nodded; she already knew that.

“I thought you were just kidding. Since usually, it’s better to refuse a proposal three or four times before accepting it.”

“If you’re going to accept it, isn’t it the same whenever you accept it…?”

“Ehyy, are you going to marry a guy who gives up after one kick?”

It was a confusing concept. Seriously, I really don’t know much about the relationship between men and women.

“By the way, why did you refuse?”

Yuria did not give up and enquired.

I couldn’t tell her the details, and it was too cumbersome to do so, so I returned an appropriate answer.

“…I don’t like the Crown Prince.”

It was an obvious excuse, but Yuria’s eyes widened.

“Oh my God, that rumor is true?”