I Want To Be Your First – R19 - Chapter 92

Ariel stopped breathing the moment she heard those words.

There were many that said she was cursed. It was as normal as breathing for others to discriminate against those who are lacking by labelling them as cursed.

However, the person that’s before her currently had a similar colour to the person that said she was cursed.

That shaman.

The shaman that was brought by her father.

“It’s not that there’s a problem with her eyes… This is a curse. If the ducal princess gives birth to a child, that child would also be subjected to the same curse.”

Her father, taking those words as nonsense like he would do so normally, flew into a rage and drove the shaman out of the castle. Apparently the shaman was difficult to bring there… ever since then, his whereabouts were unknown.

Why was he suddenly talking about that? Ariel stiffly wiggled her fingers and took a step towards the man with difficulty.

“I’ve met before…Someone like you…”

“I can tell from your reaction. So you’ve met one before.”

When Ariel nodded her head, the man smiled broadly.

“The lady has good luck. Very few people have such fortune.”

Looking at the man that spoke words that she didn’t understand, Ariel lowered her wary gaze.

“What do you mean by fortunate… Do you know me?”

“What do you mean by knowing you when it’s my first time meeting you today? I just recognized it as there’s the same energy as me.”

“…How? How can you… How can you be sure that I’m the same as you?”

Berthwald, who was observing the situation, cut in while looking at the man with doubtful eyes.

“You, what do you think Ariel looks like?”

Ariel’s reaction was too serious for him to be dismissed as a madman. When he was asked if he could see the energy, the man rebutted impertinently with a narrowed forehead.

“I can’t exactly explain what she looks like. Only those that can see would know that… The lady can also feel me, right? Isn’t that why you followed me?”

At the man’s question, Ariel, who was blinking, slowly nodded her head in response.

She felt it, so she followed it. She didn’t know its exact meaning, but she could immediately understand the feeling that he was referring to.

When she expressed her affirmation, the complexion of the man who had kept maintaining a playful expression immediately changed. Before the man could say anything, Berthwald intervened and raised another question.

“What does ‘Servant’ mean, and what is this curse you speak of? You…perhaps. What exactly do you know about this curse?”

A man with gray eyes that was similar to Ariel’s. The way he spoke about a curse and feeling, Ariel’s expression, who dismissed her doubts and nodded, it seemed as if they’d be able to find clues about her eyes.

The man looked at Berthwald with a dissatisfied look, before a bitter expression appeared and he shrugged his shoulders.

“I wouldn’t know even if you had held onto me abruptly and asked. Servants are also just wandering all over the place, and were picked up by a sage or a mage from some point onwards.”

“……”

“The lady is like me, right?”

The only one who understood the meaning of his question was Ariel. She opened and closed her mouth, unable to respond momentarily, before managing to give an answer.

“Yes, I’m… the same. I can’t see.”

“Oh, my… Just from her voice, she seems to be a very young girl, so it must have been very difficult for her to live without sight. The world is indeed a cruel place.”

The man clicked his tongue, pointed at Ariel and spoke.

“I’m like you, too. I’ve been like this from the time I was born, so I thought I was just born as a moron, but when I consulted with a wizard or someone like that, he said that it was a curse. Well, he said that he knew very little about this as he lacked information.”

“Wizard…”

“I had always thought it was nonsense… So that’s how it is. I now know after seeing the lady.”

“……”

“It wasn’t a lie. A curse… it’s a real curse. Is it true that people used to curse others? To someone like me… Haha… Now that I look at it, everyone would…”

Remorse could be heard through the man’s voice. Although he was facing Ariel, she instinctively realised that the man was seeing something far away, and not herself.

The man looked at Ariel with a complicated expression, and seemed to have dismissed the thoughts plaguing him, before opening his mouth relievedly.

“From the way you chased me hurriedly, it seems that the lady is in an extremely urgent situation… I really don’t know much. I’m sorry that I don’t have any answers.”

“There’s…nothing like that. It’s alright.”

“I don’t have any regrets as my days are numbered, but the lady has to continue like that…”

At the sound of his sympathetic voice, Ariel lowered her head slightly in agreement.

Was it because they were in the same boat? While she has received countless sympathies thus far, the sympathy this man in particular gave tugged on her heartstrings. Ariel suppressed her rising emotions and she spoke with difficulty.

“Is there really no way to get better?”

“Well… I’ve travelled all over the continent in order to fix this, but it was for naught. In the first place, there was only one strange person that told me it was a curse. The rest were just scammers. Wizards and shamans…”

“Me too! I’m also like that. I tried everything possible, but it didn’t get any better…”

“Right. Whether it’s a curse or something, it didn’t get better despite all the possible medicine I consumed. I was robbed of my money by scammers and became penniless. If I had believed that person’s words from the very beginning and went to a proper wizard, would it have gotten better?”

“…Wizard… You’d spoken about a wizard before.”

Ariel’s voice trailed off as she tilted her head and raised her eyebrows awkwardly.

“Are there really wizards? Although I’ve heard about them often, I have never seen any real wizards. I just believed that it was fake, just like a fairy tale or a legend.”

“So did I. I had just thought of them as a bunch of weird people. I don’t know if they actually exist.”

“Is that so…?”

“Even so, that’s fine. The person that told me it’s a curse said that he wasn’t a real wizard, so maybe there’s a ‘real wizard’ out there somewhere. Well, from what I picked up, I heard that their legacy had collapsed and the number of wizards remaining on the continent doesn’t even reach ten.”

With a self-deprecating grin, the man added.

“Continue to search with the attitude of grasping at straws. Whatever it is, you have to do it to the best of your abilities. Well, it’s too late for me. I came here because I wanted to gaze at the sea of ​​Pahar before I died… hoho.”

The man frowned and laughed with an unusual expression. The wrinkled mouth showed the traces of tiresome years.

“Don’t give up, lady, and get rid of this d*mned curse.”

After leaving that last sentence behind, the man turned quickly and disappeared into the alley, as if his previous sluggish appearance had been fake.

Looking at the man’s position with widened eyes, Ariel slowly turned towards Berthwald. The dim rays of the setting sun fell upon her pale face.

Ariel held her trembling hands and bit her lip, before opening her mouth to speak in an extinguishing voice.

“Can I believe his words?”

Unsure of how he should respond, Berthwald remained silent. Ariel didn’t seem to be waiting for an answer, and closed her mouth and lowered her head with a futile expression.

In the midst of an ambiguous silence, the only word that filled Ariel’s head was ‘curse’.

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The duo didn’t converse at all until they returned to the mansion.

It was difficult to start a conversation with Ariel, who was engrossed in her thoughts, and Berthwald didn’t want to have to ask her about it, so they remained silent.

Although she had a lot of things she wanted to ask, she wasn’t sure what to ask about. Berthwald leaned against the window and looked out at the dark sea at night, immersing in his deep thoughts.

Was there any meaning in verifying that man’s words?

It was the conclusion that Berthwald reached after examining the situation in detail. No matter where he looked, that man was a suspicious person, and his words didn’t hold any context.

However, Ariel’s reaction… Her surprised face and the particular obsession with the word curse were, on the contrary, a measure to prove the validity of that man’s words.

With words that only they knew and eyesight that only they could understand, the man and Ariel were sharing something that Berthwald himself wouldn’t understand.

Curse, feeling, wizard, servant…

He couldn’t even figure out where he should start from. Berthwald held his forehead as he looked back at their conversation from the beginning.

Dark blue eyes that were immersed in deep thought were reflected on the closed glass window.

“Count?”

Perhaps she was ready to rest, Ariel, dressed in a thin chemise and a shawl, opened the door and entered the bedroom. Since Pahar was in the south, it has always had a warm climate, but because winter was winter, it was colder in the mornings and evenings. Thinking that she was dressed too thinly, Berthwald pulled the shawl that was loosely draped over her shoulders closer.

“It’s late. Are you not tired?”

“I was about to come over immediately, but I was held up by Eva. She asked me why so many baby products were delivered, so I answered her honestly, and she seemed as if she was about to cry. I was delayed as I was soothing her.”

Eva was originally affectionate and softhearted, so she must have been deeply moved by the talks between the young master she had raised like her own son and the madam she took care of like her own daughter. Eva’s reaction appeared before his eyes clearly, and Berthwald let out a bitter smile.

“Apart from Eva… I think my wife’s eyes seem puffy as well.”

“…I’d follow along if someone beside me laughs, and when someone cries, I would do so as well. Eva looked like she was about to cry, and I got emotional for no reason.”

Ariel held her cheeks with both of her hands and murmured to herself self-deprecatingly, “Aren’t I someone that likes to laugh and cry?”

“Oh, that’s right! Eva asked me to deliver this. The… the previous Count. It’s a letter from your father.”

As she spoke the word ‘Father’ clearly, Ariel took out an envelope and handed it to Berthwald.

Berthwald stared at the envelope that was handed to him with a complicated expression, before opening the letter reluctantly.

The way he opened the letter made his annoyance clear. Most of his father’s letters were accompanied by troublesome work, so he couldn’t help but dislike it.

“What other orders are you sending me?”

A strange light flashed across his face as he scanned the letter half-heartedly. The more of the letter’s contents he read, the more suspicion took over his expressionless face.