WTBFCY Chapter 9

Click!

"Hm?"

The trigger pulled without warning. It made noise but nothing else. The cylinder's rotation felt light.

Noah raised an eyebrow and opened the chamber. Just as he thought—no bullets.

"Tsk. Didn't even fire many shots."

He glanced down at Regina, who had frozen with her breath stopped, and clicked his tongue. He rotated the revolver's cylinder to check the chamber, then tucked it back inside his coat.

"Hii-eek!"

Regina came back to her senses. Her trembling legs pushed at the ground as she struggled to escape. But her body had no strength. She could only push uselessly at the ground. Tears poured out from unbearable fear, blurring her vision.

"What to do. I wanted to use this to tell if you're a faerie or not. I don't have spare ammunition right now."

"P-please spare me! Is anyone there? Please, please!"

"Will you wait here while I get my bag from the mansion?"

Noah's words didn't reach Regina's ears. She only struggled desperately to escape the madman. With all her strength, her dress hem tore free from under Noah's shoe. She didn't miss the chance. Regina grabbed the dirt and crawled forward.

Noah sighed lightly at the sight.

"Right. Of course you won't wait. That was just talk."

"Kyaaa! Let go, let go!"

Noah grabbed the crawling Regina by the scruff of her neck. She flailed her arms and legs. But he held her easily with inhuman strength in one hand and pressed her firmly to the ground.

"Don't, let go, let me go!"

Regina's face pressed into the dirt. Her whole body shook. Noah held her down casually with his right hand while using his teeth to pull off his left glove.

"I'll make it quick. Just hold still a moment."

His neat hand emerged from under the white glove. When Noah's cold fingertips touched the back of Regina's neck, she stopped screaming and struggling abruptly. Instinct sensed danger.

"It's more certain near the heart. Well, you might be human, so I'll just do it like this."

Noah spoke with annoyance and concentrated force into his fingertips.

His blue eyes rippled faintly. A hazy mist seeped from his palm. It burrowed into Regina's skin and instantly latched onto her heart, then began pulling hard.

"Kgh, ah, ahhhhh!"

Regina held her breath with an urk at the intense pain of her heart being pulled out through her back. Then she immediately screamed as if being torn apart. Noah smiled at the black faerie energy seeping into his palm with admiration.

"Ah, just as I thought. The energy was so weak I wasn't sure, but you are a black faerie. To think there was another one."

"Ahhhhh!"

Regina couldn't understand what the man was saying. She just wanted to escape this pain. The agony made her limbs tremble and her vision swim. She clawed wildly at his solid hand with her nails, but the hand gripping her neck didn't budge.

"...Can't even molt. You must have been born recently."

Noah looked puzzled when Regina didn't shed her human form despite the extreme pain. Two lower-tier black fairies born in the same area around the same time—very rare.

"Ahh, ahhh!"

Tears streamed down Regina's face.

It hurt so much she just wanted it all to end quickly. She squeezed her eyes shut. In the darkness, images of her nanny, Emma, and Margaret flashed past. The afterimages of people she loved filled her closed eyes, then stopped at her mother and father's faces.

Her body shook with pain and misery. Desperate just to live, she reached out her fingers. Something touched the tip.

That moment.

A refreshing energy rushed violently into Regina's body through her fingertip. It felt like water bursting through a blocked dam.

'A little, just a little more!'

After several fumbling attempts, Regina finally grabbed something solid tightly.

Crackle!

It crumbled to ash in Regina's hand, then became white spores that began absorbing into her body at tremendous speed.

"...?!"

Noah had been absorbing Regina's energy. Suddenly a fierce force pushed his hand away. He pulled back involuntarily and stumbled backward. His expelled hand tingled.

Noah looked down at her with wary eyes, then flinched in surprise. The black faerie corpse he'd just dealt with was crumbling under Regina's hand. She was absorbing the black faerie's remains.

He'd never seen this phenomenon before.

"Damn it!"

Startled, Noah rushed to stop Regina, but the powder that had become white light already soaked into her body without exception. Rather than Regina pulling it in, the particles seemed to crave her.

"How can faerie absorb faerie?!"

While Noah stood confused, Regina finished absorbing the corpse completely. She hunched over, gasping for breath. Very faint lights trembled like transparent wings on her back, then scattered into the air immediately.

"Huk, huuk!"

The sensation that had crashed over her like a fierce current wrapped around her heart first—the heart that had felt like it would be ripped out. Starting there, it spread throughout her body with a tingling sensation. It felt like she'd been submerged in water and finally emerged.

Regina tilted her head back and exhaled long and slow like someone who'd held their breath for ages.

Her wavy black hair covered her shoulders and waist. Through the fallen strands, her eyes shone like amethysts as she looked directly at him. Noah felt a chill down his spine.

"......"

Noah shifted his stance at the eerie sensation. His blue eyes darkened with killing intent.

"...I'm a person."

Regina's words were quite unexpected given that. Noah had been tensely on guard. He frowned at her out-of-place statement and asked back.

"...What?"

"I'm a person! Regina Evelyn. The only daughter of Baron Evelyn's house."

"What non—"

Noah started to say "nonsense" but closed his mouth again. Only then did he realize the entity before him had been born very recently.

"...Are you denying reality?"

"You can see, can't you? I'm human! You're the monster!"

"Look, I'm sorry, but I'm not a black faerie. I'm a half-blood of black faerie and human. I'm also the kind of being who can kill black fairies like you."

"I'm human!"

Regina glared at him with intense eyes. Quite different from moments ago when she'd trembled just meeting Noah's gaze. But despite that spirit, Regina's arms were shaking.

She still firmly believed she was human, but she couldn't not know she'd just absorbed a monster's corpse. Her eyes were filled with confusion and fear.

Noah weighed whether to kill Regina immediately or not.

"...Well, there's no point killing you now. You haven't molted, so I wouldn't get an orb anyway. Plus a faerie absorbing a faerie—never seen that before. Maybe I should hold off on killing you right away?"

"I'm not the black faerie you're talking about. Really."

Regina repeated the same words like a parrot. Noah showed he had no more will to fight and stepped back. He shrugged, then looked at Regina as if he'd had a good idea.

"Ah, right! How about this? Black fairies have to absorb a living creature once a month anyway, or they feel extreme hunger. If you can't resist that hunger and kill a human, then I'll eliminate you."

Noah smiled with a relieved face as if he'd solved the problem. Regina stared up blankly at the man she couldn't communicate with, then realized.

He wasn't having a conversation with her right now. He was just debating whether to kill her or not.

"You're good with that too, right?"

"...Y-yes."

Maybe this was her chance. Her chance to survive this insane murderer.

Regina swallowed and nodded. When Noah looked satisfied, Regina watched him carefully, then stood up awkwardly and approached Emma.

Get your head straight. When that bastard lets his guard down, take Emma and go home.

"Emma, Emma. Wake up."

Regina shook sleeping Emma's shoulder with trembling hands. She glanced to the side. The man stood at a suitable distance with his arms crossed, watching Regina. He clearly intended to follow wherever she went.

"Emma..."

She squeezed her eyes shut and called Emma again pleadingly. A small groan came, and Emma opened her eyes.

"Ugh, my head..."

"Emma! Are you awake?"

Emma sat up holding her splitting head. Others were waking from sleep too—groaning sounds came from here and there. Regina's face brightened as she urgently supported Emma.

"Emma, are you okay? Get up. Let's hurry back."

Regina turned her shoulder to support Emma's arm. The arm she was holding suddenly slipped away. Startled, Regina turned around. Emma was looking at Regina with an even more surprised expression.

"Wh-who are you?"

"What?"

"Ah, you don't need to help me up. Why was I even collapsed here..."

Emma refused Regina's touch and stood up despite the throbbing dizziness. Regina panicked at Emma treating her like a stranger and reached out.

"E-Emma? What's wrong?"

Regina's face twisted as if she'd cry any moment. Emma was confused but collected herself and asked.

"Um... do you know me? I'm sorry. I'm a bit dizzy right now... But who are you?"

"...Why are you really doing this."

Emma looked at Regina as if seeing her for the first time. That expression and atmosphere were genuine.

Regina felt tears about to burst out in fear, but she forced them down. She turned sharply toward Noah, who stood watching indifferently with his arms crossed.

"You did this, didn't you? Give Emma's memory back!"

Noah shrugged at Regina's words.

"No. The opposite. The illusion you cast on her disappeared."

"Illusion?! I don't know anything about that!"

When Regina shouted with resentment, Noah turned his head away in annoyance.

"That's your power. Newly born black fairies instinctively spread that power. You wanted to burrow into 'Regina Evelyn's' life, so you cast a hallucination on the people around you."

"Don't talk nonsense! Hurry and change it back, change it back!"

Regina staggered up and approached him. But she barely walked a few steps before swaying and falling, grabbing Noah's clothes hard.

Startled, Noah caught Regina's elbow and supported her body, but Regina's legs had already given out. She clung to him as she knelt.

Even then, she gripped his clothes tightly and wouldn't let go.

"Give it back...!"

"......"

Regina's stubborn face was already drenched in tears. Noah looked down at that face silently, then suddenly spoke in a gentle voice.

"If accepting reality is so hard, shall I help you?"

"What?"

Noah gently wiped Regina's tear-soaked face with his gloved hand.

"I could just kill you right now."

"...!"

Regina lost her words. She stumbled backward from him, then her legs gave out and she fell to the ground with a thud. The man smiling beautifully like a painting just watched her.