RAMHM Chapter 121

Olivia Lucia

The sword whistled past my face with a sharp swish.

Rhodness slashed through the front of my dress that Rotsy had been gripping and yanked me toward him.

Rotsy snorted.

"You're quite good at lying. You've known Bliea for years. How dare you try to deceive me."

The scrap of fabric left in Rotsy's hand turned to ash in an instant and scattered.

"Bliea Acacia was... your disciple?"

"Bliea, Acacia? So she's picked up a cute surname in the meantime. That girl was never the cute type."

Rotsy's smile had already vanished, her face now hidden behind Rhodness's back.

"Stop the useless talk and tell me everything you know."

Rhodness positioned me behind him and issued the warning.

"Before that impudent girl Bliea suddenly left, she once said something to me."

I quietly slipped out from behind Rhodness and listened carefully to Rotsy's words.

"If the day ever came when she returned to me..."

Rotsy's eyebrows twitched momentarily, as if recalling that moment.

"It would only be when she was dead."

"!"

"How could she come back if she was dead... I didn't understand what she meant at the time. But seeing you, pretty blonde miss, now I understand."

"Bliea said... that too?"

"You understand now, don't you? The one who needs to tell everything they know isn't me—it's you, miss."

Slam!

Slam, slam! Slam!

The open windows and front door shut by themselves. Rotsy glided toward me.

"Bliea—where is that child now?"

"In a coffin."

I wrapped my trembling body in my arms and answered.

"In a coffin where the dead belong. I pushed Bliea in there instead of me."

Blood vessels burst red in Rotsy's eyes. The confusion in those eyes instantly transformed into rage.

"But she's alive."

"What?"

The rage scattered ambiguously, and now her eyes shot out suspicion.

"I'm not Bliea Acacia. I'm a princess of the Pirreta duchy in eastern Ronteaux. Adrienne Pirreta."

"...Pirreta."

A subtle tone cut through the air.

"If you want to hear the story of how I've lived as Bliea, help me."

"Why should I?"

I forced strength into my trembling legs, straightened my body, and lifted my chin.

"One for one."

"What?"

"I'll follow your method, Rotsy. If you want to hear it, help me."

As we stood at an impasse, Rhodness positioned himself between us like a judge, glaring at Rotsy as if ready to cut her down at any moment.

I briefly explained the situation from the moment I opened my eyes as Bliea until now.

Whether the legend that she'd lived over a thousand years wasn't entirely rumor, she listened without moving, no matter what I said.

"That's quite a grand tale to hear in a little cabin like this. So, what can I help you with?"

"Tell me about the mana stone coffin I just mentioned."

I pulled out my mother's necklace and showed it.

"How can a pebble-sized mana stone in this necklace become the key to a mana stone coffin? And if it can, why wouldn't it open in anyone else's hands—only mine? You can answer that, can't you, Rotsy?"

"..."

Rotsy took my necklace without a word. Without even opening it, she closed her eyes briefly, then opened them.

"Have you ever been to a mana stone mine?"

"No."

"Mana stones are originally massive chunks like boulders. Long, long ago, when the power now called sorcery was proudly called magic—in those days, the coffins of ancient royalty were all made from that mana stone. To prevent them from being easily opened by physical force from outside. They exploited the characteristic that objects made from the same chunk of mana stone recognize and lower their guard around each other, creating coffins and keys from the same source."

Rotsy's eyes narrowed as if recalling the past.

"That's the story passed down. The key is only symbolic. It represents the hope that the dead would open the coffin lid in Abadhelia and emerge to live eternally—they'd place it in their hands or store it among treasures inside the coffin. It means no one should open it from outside. The reason it won't open in anyone else's hands is singular: ancient royalty with magical power would infuse their own magic into the raw stone that would become their coffin before they died. So a mana stone containing magic only responds to the coffin, key, and owner of that same magic."

"Then did Bliea obtain that mana stone coffin and infuse it with magic knowing this would happen? Does that mean Bliea has magical power?"

"You didn't know? That child had magical power. That's why she came to me seeking instruction. But even if the raw stone of the coffin and key are the same, if magic has been infused, it would only respond to the owner of that magic—so that doesn't explain why you could open that coffin. Magic responds to find its true owner. There's no way it wouldn't recognize that you're inside Bliea's body."

"Either way, it seems certain Bliea planned something to save me. Though I don't know why the coffin and key responded to me when I have no magical power."

From beginning to end, Bliea.

Only by assuming she orchestrated everything to save me could the questions about this impossible situation be resolved.

That fact alone made me want to collapse, my legs losing their strength.

"Sit if you want to sit. Seeing your reaction, at least I know you didn't kill Bliea while she was lying still and stuff her in a coffin."

As if Rotsy's legs were losing strength as well, a chair slithered up behind her.

"So, is your body completely healthy now?"

"I haven't had a medical examination, but I'm not sick anymore. I don't feel weak either."

"When did you take the medicine of living death?"

"The most likely time is right before I died—the medicine the family physician gave me to swallow. It was unusually large compared to usual, hard to swallow..."

"That must be it. If it's certain Bliea stole my medicine, that's the one. Though it was crudely oversized."

"But the physician had no connection to Bliea."

"That's for you to investigate. If Bliea intended to make you take that medicine, the best time would be when you were weakest—right before death."

Rotsy drank the cold tea with a troubled expression. My mouth was parched as well, so I followed her lead and drank the tea. The horribly astringent tea snapped my mind alert.

"...Why did Bliea do it?"

"..."

"Why did Bliea save me? More than that, why did she try to show me the truth even while giving up her own body? On the way here, I've felt countless emotions about her, but now it all feels pointless. Now I genuinely want to know about her, to wake her and talk with her."

Rotsy emptied the terribly astringent tea cleanly and turned her gaze to me.

"I spent years with that child, but I don't know much about her. She always had many secrets. I'll have to acknowledge it. I have no choice but to help you. I may look like this, but I'm the scholarly type—I can't stand not knowing."

For the first time, we felt a sense of kinship and met each other's eyes. Rotsy's eyes, which had been tinged with rage, now began to sparkle with interest.

That's when it happened.

A presence stirred outside the door Rotsy had firmly closed, and soon someone knocked.

"Who is it?"

Rhodness answered without taking his eyes off Rotsy and me.

"Your Highness! Someone has come looking for the lady!"

"What?"

In the middle of the night. To this vast baobab forest. Someone came looking for Bliea.

Rhodness and I simultaneously froze and exchanged glances.

"Who did they say it was?"

"They won't reveal their identity, fearing she might flee. It's a woman."

"...Olivia Lucia."

Rhodness immediately murmured that name. It was a name that had flashed through my mind like lightning as well.

"If she's looking for Bliea rather than the miss, I'd like to meet her too."

Rotsy permitted the woman to join us despite our frozen state.

Rhodness cast a glance at me as if asking whether I'd be all right.

I nodded quickly. If she'd come all the way to this treacherous place in the middle of the night, it meant she was that desperate, and it would be easy to obtain information from someone so desperate.

With Rhodness's permission, Neil threw open the cabin door.

The area in front of the cabin was teeming with the group that had arrived late.

Those who appeared to be guards grumbled about coming to this eerie forest in the middle of the night, but quickly shut their mouths when a black silhouette turned its head.

The silhouette was as small as Rotsy.

When Neil stepped aside, the black silhouette slowly approached the doorway.

"Lady Bliea...?"

Gray-brown hair pulled up. A face aged but not deeply wrinkled. A gaunt woman with a slightly hunched posture entered, leaning on a cane.

The moment I confirmed the woman's identity, I stumbled backward.

"Bliea..."

The woman's voice, which had been calling me desperately without answer, cut off abruptly.

"Oh, dear Lord!"

Her wooden cane fell with a thud and rolled across the cabin floor, and the woman's eyes turned blood red.

Olivia Lucia.

She was indeed my nanny who had raised me.

"Dear Lord. Dear Lord. Oh, God..."

She covered her mouth with wrinkled hands and lifted her drooping eyelids. Her jet-black pupils dilated so extremely that if she hadn't been gasping for breath, I would have thought she'd died standing up.

"My lady?"

Olivia recognized me instantly.

"My lady, my lady? Lady Adrienne? Is it you? Lady Adrienne! Lady Adrienne...!"

With a face full of mixed emotions, she floundered, then immediately shed tears in streams.

As if the purpose of finding Bliea had been completely incinerated from her mind, she grasped my hand without hesitation as I leaned against Rhodness.

"Do you know how shocked I was when I heard the news that you had passed away? This nanny felt such pity for our departed mistress, such pity for you who were always sick—I cried and cried for all hundred days and kept fainting!"

"...Nanny."

At that single word—nanny—Olivia collapsed with a thud. Questions like how she got here were now useless.

"Have you met Lady Bliea? Heavens. What a thing to happen in this world!"

Though I too was struggling to collect myself amid confusion and grief, I had to ask.

"Nanny. How do you know Bliea?"

"The mistress must have been watching over you in Abadhelia!"

"Answer my question first, Olivia."

Following her as she collapsed, I knelt down and gripped both her shoulders.

The nanny, who had been shedding tears frantically and calling for my mother, seemed momentarily startled by my intensity and gaped wordlessly.

"Lady Bliea is, no."

Once again, tears welled up in her black eyes and began to tremble mercilessly.

"Miss Bliea is..."

Simultaneously, her face contorted as if pleading desperately with me, pouring out the grief she'd suppressed.

"...your twin sister."

With those words, Olivia burst into the sorrowful tears she'd been pressing down deep in her core.