WTBFCY Chapter 27

Rain fell so heavily she couldn't lift her head. She'd lost her body heat long ago. Through fading vision, she felt the real end approaching. Milla had sensed the end since being locked in that sickening green room. Yet she hadn't been consumed by hatred.

In a way, she might have been glad to escape that prison like this. Just being free from the demon's gaze—standing outside her door every evening, watching intently for when she would die—made her feel happy. She had no attachment to life.

May the next life bring freedom.

"Waaah, waaaaaaah!"

But the piercing cry made Milla's heavy eyelids tremble and open narrowly. She lifted her hand—white beyond pale, nearly blue—and used all her remaining strength to pull the crying baby in her arms closer, curling her body around the child.

Baby, don't cry.

Her small struggle was so insignificant. Ice-cold rainwater streamed down and dripped onto the baby's face—unbearably heartbreaking. If only she could wipe away the rain falling on that tiny face and hold the child in a warm embrace to comfort the baby to sleep.

"Waaah, waaaaaaah!"

At the baby's anguished cries, Milla fought desperately to keep her dimming eyes open. Rainwater and tears mixed endlessly, streaming down her face. Her soul seemed submerged in a deep pool of suffering.

Milla gasped for breath at the thick sadness bleeding from her heart. Wasn't this too unfair? Even if she had to go like this, even if this was her dirty fate and the end of her miserable life—not the baby. It shouldn't be like this for the baby.

Fwoooosh.

The endlessly pouring rain felt spiteful. She resented how it stole the baby's warmth. But already her vision held only blurry afterimages. It can't be like this. Please, help us. Anyone, I beg you, just save the baby.

Her shoulders went numb as strength rapidly drained from her body. Milla sensed the end but couldn't close her open eyes. With unseeing eyes, she used all her strength to pray. If there's a god—no, any being at all—I'll offer my soul, so please just save the baby.

Did her desperation reach someone?

A miracle happened to Milla as she drew thread-thin breaths.

It had existed as spores deep in the forest for a very long time. A faerie that didn't recognize itself as a faerie, drifting through the forest like dust. Swept away by the unprecedented rainstorm, flowing down with the rainwater, it happened to reach Milla.

Whoosh!

The black faerie absorbed Milla right after she died.

A shadow like a gathered puddle of water wrapped around Milla in a circle, then slowly took human form. Finally, it exhaled a long breath and opened its eyes to find fierce rain pouring from all directions. The force was so violent it felt like being stabbed all over.

As she slowly looked around, the forest reflected transparently in her inhuman black eyes. All memories belonged to Milla, but a black faerie's instinct existed beyond them.

In her arms, a baby exhausted from crying slept with thin breaths. Looking at that small thing, she suddenly felt part of her body was empty.

"...Not enough life force."

The black spores swept by rainwater and touching this body were insufficient. Even taking perfect human form was difficult. Since she hadn't completely absorbed a life, she couldn't molt either. She needed to immediately absorb another life—a life of the same species as this body.

If she didn't, she would die.

What entered the black faerie's vision was the tiny baby in her arms. The eyes, nose, mouth—all so miraculously small that just gazing endlessly made time fly. Milla's daughter. Also a mass of life force with almost no accumulated memories—prey more attractive than any other existence to the black faerie.

"I'm hungry..."

Lacking strength, half-darkened and distorted, Milla lowered her head toward the baby and opened her mouth wide. Did the baby sense her presence? The limp baby suddenly opened her tiny eyes narrowly and looked at her. The small life—face swollen from crying, pale white from losing warmth to rainwater—saw her mother's face and smiled weakly.

"......"

A smile about to collapse at any moment, yet shown with desperate effort. The moment she saw that tiny smile, Milla's memories surged like a broken dam with fierce momentum, pushing aside instinct and filling her completely.

The baby crying endlessly in her arms, listening to that sound until the very end before closing her eyes in despair—everything came back instantly. The baby who had been screaming and wailing now saw Milla's face and smiled with satisfaction, reaching out small, chubby fingers toward her.

...Ah, you cried so hard because you wanted to see this face.

"Baby..."

Tears dripped from the eyes of the black faerie that had become Milla. Black tears fell onto the baby's cheek. She reached out a hand with unclear form and gently stroked. She'd lost emotion but retained memories. She could never be Milla, yet simultaneously was Milla.

Despite the terrible hunger that seemed to shatter her body, she turned her head away and curled up. She closed her eyes, wrapping the baby with her body inflated large to prevent the rain beating on her back from reaching below.

She opened her eyes when she heard human voices from far away. The forest at dawn after the rain had cleared was wrapped in thin fog. The black faerie looked down at the baby sleeping soundly beneath her, then raised herself and smoothly turned her head toward the sound.

"B-butler, sir. Are you really sure this is okay? If the master finds out later..."

"The young master ordered us to abandon the baby anyway, and he'll lose interest and forget in a few days. We can raise her in the maids' quarters until then."

Rustle.

She considered devouring them for a moment, but feared that absorbing more humans would blur the original entity's memories. The stronger the faerie nature became, the thinner her attachment to the baby she now held would grow.

While she hesitated, they'd approached so close that voices sounded right nearby.

"Butler, sir, with all that rain yesterday, how could that baby be alive? Really, let's not look at something disturbing and just go back, yes?"

"Be quiet and just guide the way."

The man looked with displeasure at the back of the old butler walking ahead.

'They say when you do something you've never done, death is near. That old man must not have long left.'

The butler who hadn't blinked even when multiple people died before his eyes—now entering the forest at dawn to find a baby—was ominous. But the man was a servant from outside the estate. In a position that only handled dirty work, thinking too much shortened one's life. He grumbled internally but didn't stop walking.

Swoosh!

"Aaagh!"

Then suddenly a large shadow passed before his eyes. He covered his head with both hands, staggered back, and tumbled. Something beast-like climbed swiftly up a tree with a rustling sound. Even at a glance it was human-sized, making his spine go cold.

"What are you doing?"

"Butler, sir! Over there, a beast, a huge beast...!"

The butler had gone ahead, discovered the sleeping baby, and run over to pick her up in surprise when the man started shouting. As the butler frowned and snapped at him irritably, the man stammered and pointed at the tree.

"What?! A beast?"

Startled by mention of a large beast, the butler looked up sharply, then sighed at the sight of branches too thin to support even a cat.

"How pathetic. What beast could climb those thin branches? A squirrel at most. Stop wasting time and get up!"

"N-no. That's not it."

It had definitely been a shadow large enough to cover him. But when the man looked up, the tree had only a few small branches, so he rubbed his eyes in disbelief. No matter how he looked, it didn't seem capable of supporting a human-sized beast. The surrounding trees were the same.

Then his gaze stopped at one spot. The deeply hollowed ground and empty space.

"That spot..."

It was where the man had dumped the maid's body yesterday evening. The disappeared body. The moment he realized it, a chilling shiver ran down his spine. He'd disposed of bodies more than once or twice, yet somehow looking at that spot made goosebumps rise all over his body. The man grabbed the wet ground and scrambled up hastily.

"Together, let's go together! Butler, wait!"

The man ran after the butler who'd already gone far away. The maid—where had the maid he'd dumped gone?

Sssssss.

Meanwhile, the black faerie that had stretched its head long above the man's head slid down to the ground like flowing water once he disappeared. While instinct to devour humans and Milla's memory of wanting to protect the baby collided and she hesitated, the man had fled.

"Baby..."

The faerie stared at the direction the man had disappeared, then lost form again, becoming like muddy water and seeping into the ground. Then she began moving toward the estate where the butler and man had headed.

As the butler said, the baron showed little interest even when baby cries were heard in the estate again. The baby was raised for a while in the most remote room of the estate by the maids' hands.

Unable to endure the hunger, the black faerie caught and ate the beasts in the estate one by one. But that was mere momentary relief. Still, she maintained that precarious state while staying near the baby. She could endure because a month hadn't passed yet. After eating the last red bird in the drawing room, she stayed in bird form during the day and became Milla in the evening to soothe the baby crying at night.

Perhaps she could live like this for a long, long time. Until this little one grew up and walked, ran calling for her and embraced her, and eventually met someone she loved to live happily ever after like a princess in a faerie tale. She would be with her.

The black faerie leaned her head against the crib railing, gently shaking the baby's tiny fingertips as she imagined this.

But that time didn't last long. The baron happened to see baby clothes held by a maid passing through the corridor and grew suspicious.