WTBFCY Chapter 28

The baron who followed the maid and found his baby in the corner room didn't punish the butler for disobeying his orders. Instead, he smiled brightly and fixed his gaze on the baby's hair. He had just now noticed that the baby's short hair, barely beginning to grow, was red.

That evening, the baron moved the baby to the baroness's room, feeling as though he'd discovered treasure.

The black faerie watched everything—the baron locking the baby in a room full of arsenic, cackling with glee.

'If I devour the baron, I'll absorb his memories too.'

She didn't want to do that. She didn't want to mix that bastard's filthy memories with Mila's. In the end, what she chose was the poison the baron had collected.

Tracing through Mila's memories, she opened one of the glass bottles hidden inside the closet in his study and poured it into her shadow. Then, the moment the baron drank his tea with a pleasant expression while contemplating what to do with the baby, she stretched her shadow long from the ceiling and poured the poison into his teacup.

She watched the baron crawl toward the door, writhing in agony, but she didn't feel particularly relieved. Mila could never return.

"Augh..."

The baron's screams woke the baby. She covered the baby with her shadow to block out the sound, then stroked those soft cheeks and smiled gently. At Mila's smile, the baby laughed with pure happiness. A face full of love.

While she faced the baby, the baron's hand—which had been clawing at his throat as though his flesh was burning—lost its strength and dropped to the floor with a thud.

The demon that Mila couldn't escape no matter how hard she struggled when she was alive had died so easily it was almost laughable.

So futilely.

"..."

A tear rolled down Regina's cheek as she stared at the now-empty birdcage. Even though she hadn't seen all of Mila's memories, the brief glimpses had been heartbreaking. Regina squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them and wiped her eyes with one hand before looking down at her palm.

"I absorbed her again. This time I could see the memories immediately without even dreaming."

She could clearly feel the power entering her body. Compared to last time—when it vanished instantly like water soaking into parched earth—this time it remained in her body, however faintly.

And Regina still recognized herself as Regina.

Mila's memories hadn't mixed in and caused confusion. She'd simply seen them naturally, as if hearing someone else's story. Regina still didn't feel hunger. If anything, her body felt lighter.

"Why am I different from them? I've never felt the extreme hunger that Mila experienced in those memories."

Moreover, unlike the black faerie who had Mila's appearance from the start, Regina hadn't possessed Regina Evelyn's appearance from the beginning. She'd only had the memories.

Regina looked at her face in the mirror hanging on the parlor wall. Her eyes were still transparent violet. As she traced the area around her eyes in the reflection, she suddenly wondered: Why was she the only different one? What if she wasn't a black faerie but something else entirely?

CRASH!

Regina, who'd been lost in thought while looking in the mirror, whirled around at the sudden loud noise. Noah stood in front of the half-torn parlor door, gripping a pistol. At that fierce presence, Regina's gaze automatically went to his gun.

"I definitely just sensed a black faerie's presence, but where did it disappear to?"

"Oh, I found it. But..."

It seemed Noah had noticed the presence when the black faerie was absorbed into Regina. At his question, Regina's shoulders stiffened and she hesitated before answering, swallowing nervously. Then Noah's blue eyes swept the room once before narrowing with suspicion and stopping on Regina.

Thunk.

"Ow...!"

Frightened by that sharp gaze, Regina stepped back and bumped her head against the mirror right behind her. Seeing Regina bend forward and clutch the back of her head at the more painful impact than expected, Noah let his guard down and asked in exasperation.

"What exactly are you doing right now?"

"Ugh, that hurt. I panicked a little... The black faerie that was here got absorbed into me. I thought it would be aggressive like the one we saw on the train, but it wasn't at all."

"What? Absorbed?"

An unexpected answer. But the black faerie's presence, which had vanished without a trace, told him Regina was telling the truth.

"Yes, and it wasn't the baroness—it was sitting in this birdcage in the form of a bird."

"A bird?"

Noah looked at the empty birdcage Regina pointed to, then put the pistol back inside his coat as he approached. Catching sight of this from the corner of her eye, Regina breathed a secret sigh of relief.

"If it had transformed into a bird, that means it devoured a bird after the baroness? Why would it do that? The hunger wouldn't have disappeared either way."

"Because she wanted to protect Lady Mila's daughter. She was afraid that if she absorbed another person, the black faerie's nature would grow stronger and she wouldn't be able to protect the baby. So she endured it."

"Suppressing instinct just because of an absorbed human's memories—that shouldn't be possible..."

Noah stared at the empty birdcage with a strange expression after hearing Regina's words. Was that the kind of hunger you could endure just by trying? Then he paused and turned his head to look at Regina.

"You... did you read the memories immediately after absorbing the black faerie this time?"

Regina, who'd been about to explain the whole situation, stopped at Noah's sharp observation and nodded.

"Yes, last time I saw them through a dream, but this time the moment it touched my hand, its form crumbled and the memories came in together. I wonder what was different this time?"

"Who knows."

It wasn't that the conditions for reading memories had changed from last time—Regina's power had grown. Noah realized it immediately. Compared to how he slowly built his strength by gathering the essences of dozens of black fairies, her growth rate was absurdly fast.

'Absorbing black fairies and even growing stronger...'

He had no idea what kind of existence Regina actually was. He couldn't decide whether it was all right to just leave her be. But then again, he didn't particularly feel like killing a young faerie who hadn't killed any humans and couldn't even molt because of it.

Maybe it would've been better to eliminate her at the start.

"I can't ask Ezra about this either... Damn it, this is so annoying."

His head felt complicated. Noah muttered quietly and left the parlor. He hadn't noticed that this was the first time he'd ever hesitated to eliminate a black faerie.

Regina followed him and voiced what she'd been thinking.

"Um, Noah! So, about that—what if I'm a hybrid faerie like you? If I think about it, maybe the reason I can absorb black faerie power and memories is because I'm actually a hybrid."

If that were the case, he wouldn't need to agonize like this. Noah tore open the crooked parlor door and answered.

"No. If you were a hybrid faerie like me, I would've noticed more easily. The power I absorb doesn't react to humans. Same goes for hybrids. If you were a hybrid, you wouldn't have felt pain."

But Regina had definitely felt that pain then—the agony of her heart burning. Remembering it, Regina felt disappointed that her small hope had vanished, but she tried not to show it. Still, she couldn't accept it right away and asked again.

"But still, you haven't met every single hybrid faerie in this world, right? What if there's a case you don't know about? You said yourself that hybrid fairies are extremely rare to be born—almost a miracle. So how can you be so certain I'm not one?"

"You're..."

You're not. Noah wanted to say exactly that, but he belatedly met Regina's eyes. Seeing the desperation in them, he found himself trailing off.

"Well... yeah. Maybe you are."

"Right! So there's a possibility? Yeah, I thought so too—that maybe I'm like you."

"Yeah, sure."

Imagination is free. The answer she wanted to hear had already been decided. Finding it too bothersome to explain at length, Noah gave a half-hearted reply. Leaving Regina, who was greatly relieved by that insincere answer, he walked into the corridor.

"Anyway, another dead end."

Noah looked out at the estate's windows, now dark, while listening to Regina's footsteps following him. He needed to prepare to leave. His purpose here had already vanished.

The red sunset that had been gradually spreading disappeared in an instant, and the half-cut white moon filled the pitch-black window.

Early the next morning, Regina left the estate following Noah. He immediately had a servant call a carriage and boarded it. They were heading to the train station to get to the next destination.

"Where are we going next?"

"Waaaah."

"We need to head north, but we'll pass through the capital. There's no direct train line from Epola territory to the north."

"Waaaaah."

"What? I didn't hear you."

"...Can't you do something about that crying? I'm going to lose my mind at this rate."

The baby's crying that kept interrupting the conversation made Noah press his fingertips hard against his brow.

"S-sorry, sir."

The maid holding Mila's baby hunched her shoulders and hurriedly tried to soothe the child, but the crying only grew louder. With Noah's expression quite sharp, cold sweat ran down the tense maid's back.

"Of course babies cry! But look how tiny her cheeks and fingers are. See? Aren't they chubby?"

Regina simply seemed fascinated as she lightly pinched one of the baby's fingers between her thumb and index finger. When she showed it off to Noah like that, he nodded.

"Yeah. Chubby like a caterpillar."

"A... cater..."

Regina looked down at the baby's tiny finger she was holding and couldn't immediately deny Noah's words. Chubby caterpillar—maybe that wasn't entirely wrong. Still, that expression seemed too much, so Regina pouted and carefully touched the baby's cheek.

"Kyauu!"

Moved by that soft, warm sensation, Regina was rewarded when the baby reached out her hands and smiled brightly. Somehow touched by it, Regina grasped that small hand tightly.

"So this baby is coming with us to the capital?"

"Yeah. From what I hear, this baby's relatives are all just as worthless as humans can be. She won't have a good time if she stays at that estate anyway, so it's much better to take her and leave her at a facility run by a monastery."

Hearing those words, something in Regina's chest stung. She couldn't tell if it was pity or because of Mila's memories she'd seen. She simply hoped this baby wouldn't have a hard time and would be happy.

"Um... Regina Evelyn's maternal uncle—I mean, one of them—holds the rank of count. His estate is close to the capital too. I met him a few times when I was little, and I remember both he and his wife being truly elegant and kind."

"So?"

Regina had been staring at the baby's crying face, lost in thought, when she suddenly brought up relatives. Noah looked puzzled.