NOVGO.NET Chapter 229: Astrid [1]
Chapter 229: Astrid [1]
“Saintess!” Astrid called out, but the silence that followed told her no one was there.
The vast emptiness of the Lily of the Valley pressed in on her until she realized she was all alone.
Her gaze wandered around until settling on the reception desk at the far end of the hall. Approaching, the staff gave her a brief rundown of the rules and the customs she was to follow during her stay.
Guided through winding corridors, she was eventually led to her assigned room. Once inside, with the door closing slowly behind her, Astrid sat down and contemplated.
“This place is….”
Something about the structure felt familiar. The room itself was different, yet the reception area and the halls’ design were something she had seen before.
“Was it mother’s home…?”
The thought seemed impossible, but she couldn’t shake it. Her mind wandered to the home where her mother had grown up. When she was younger, her mother had often taken her there to meet her grandparents, the Barielles.
Perhaps it had to be said, but the Barielles were northern nobles. Astrid was no stranger to the north herself, given her bloodline.
“…Maybe I’m just imagining it.”
She exhaled and shook her head. Still, the uncanny resemblance between this place and her mother’s old home remained in her mind. It was a thought she couldn’t easily ignore.
Rumble——
The ground shook, and in the next instant the Lily of the Valley began to tremble. Cracks snaked along the walls as dust fell from the ceiling.
Alarmed, Astrid rushed out of her room and into the halls. There, she stumbled upon a group of Scholars.
“Excuse me!” she called out.
One of them turned, eyes widening. “Huh? Princess?! Why are you—”
“What’s going on?” Astrid pressed.
The Scholars exchanged uneasy glances before one finally spoke.
“It’s a long story… but to keep it short, Marquess Astrea has decided to take initiative…”
Rumble——
Another tremor shook the ground. The demonic miasma around the Lily of the Valley began to collapse. It felt as though the world itself was coming to an end, and fear spread quickly among the Scholars.
——Astrid….
In the middle of their frantic discussion, Astrid froze. A familiar whisper reached her ears. She swallowed hard and turned her head toward the source of the strongest concentration of energy.
That was where the voice was coming from.
Her mother’s voice.
As one of the Scholars tried to speak, preparing to discuss their next move, Astrid no longer listened. She ran off and ignored their cries entirely.
“Princess!”
They rushed after her, but before they could close the distance, a figure appeared and cut them off.
“No.”
“Who are you—”
The question never finished.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The next moment, all the Scholars collapsed. The figure stepped past the unconscious bodies calmly.
“….A miscalculation.”
* * *
“You know, I’ve been thinking about it for some time,” Vanitas began. “You’ve really left quite a mess.”
——Are you speaking to me… or to her?
“You’ve practically torn open my head just to wear her face. You might as well be her embodiment.”
——Is that so?
“Congratulations, then. You’ve succeeded, Lily of the Valley.”
Vanitas’s gaze swept the empty corridor. He had ensured no one else was around. It was only him and the embodiment of the Lily of the Valley, Julia Barielle.
“Why her? Of all the souls you’ve consumed, of all the people I brought here, of all the memories you could’ve imitated, why continue to portray her?”
The Lily of the Valley had never revealed itself to anyone else but Vanitas. He had confirmed it by asking the surviving scholars.
The Lily of the Valley smiled.
——Why does the human heart refuse to acknowledge what it desires most?
Vanitas’s brow furrowed. “Desire?”
——Even the strongest of men have cracks in their armor. Yours simply happens to be her.
“Do not presume to understand me.”
——I don’t need to understand you. You bring her to me every time you close your eyes.
While others had either chosen to reject the visions outright or surrender wholly to them, Vanitas was different.
Those who rejected the desires shown to them stuck desperately to their reason, enduring the torment of emptiness. Those who succumbed and embraced their yearnings were inevitably devoured by the Lily of the Valley until nothing of them remained.
But Vanitas embraced it differently. And the Lily of the Valley knew that.
He did not reject the phantom, nor did he succumb to it. He acknowledged it, accepted it for what it was, and approached it like a wound he refused to let heal.
By doing so, he robbed the Lily of its victory.
Desire to him was not temptation, nor was it solace, but proof. Proof of his existence, of his sins, of the life he could never reclaim.
And so, while the Lily of the Valley fed on others until they were nothing more than husks, it became insistent, frustrated, and perhaps even fascinated.
Because he could not be consumed in the same way.
“Julia.”
——What is it?
“I missed you.”
Vanitas no longer knew whose voice left his lips. Was it the heart of Vanitas that remained, the remnants of Chae Eunwoo, or perhaps the amalgamation of both?
——But I’m here in front of you, Vani.
“Yes, you are.”
This was not the first time he had spent time with Julia. He had lived through countless lifetimes beside her, again and again, along the endless currents of the rivers of fate.
Yet no matter how many times he saw her, it always hurt. Painfully so. Irrevocably so.
And it was that very pain that reminded him, no matter how many times he had died, he was, in the end, still human.
“You smile the way she did. You speak the way she did. You look at me with those same beloved eyes she once had. No—”
Vanitas shook his head.
“You speak the way you spoke in the past. You look at me as you did back then.”
She was truly a lovely woman. Lovely enough to make the world itself pause. Lovely enough to embed her presence into his very soul.
But she was also the origin of his ruin.
“Even if I tried, I could never run from you. No matter what face you wear, no matter how much I tell myself you’re gone, I still see you.”
Vanitas stepped closer.
“If there weren’t people waiting for me outside, I would gladly give my life to you.”
Step——
“I would spend the rest of my years here with you, without regret. All I want is to stay by your side forever.”
Step——
“But because I know I can’t… it hurts all the more.”
There were moments in this world when phenomena arose that even he could not fully comprehend. Whether born of human will or the soul itself, Vanitas could never say with certainty.
The closest word for it was stigmata.
Just as Vanitas himself had three stigmatas, gifts that defied the very foundation of magic, perhaps Julia Barielle’s own stigmata was intertwined with the Lily of the Valley.
It was the only explanation.
For no spirit, no demon, no phantom, no matter how flawless their imitation, could so precisely mirror the depth of what Julia had been to him.
Not just her voice. Not just her face, but the pull on his heart.
It was too perfect to be an imitation.
This was not the shallow temptation the Lily of the Valley used to ensnare and consume the souls of others.
No, this was something else entirely.
Perhaps a resonance that reached beyond longing, piercing the very core of his being.
“Julia.”
Vanitas cupped her face.
“I have loved you more than I know how to say.”
Their lips met. Julia Barielle closed her eyes, letting her hand fall steady at her sides.
Rumble——
The very foundation of the Lily of the Valley trembled. Vanitas, summoning every ounce of his will, drew in the demonic essence saturating the air.
Through the vow of the spirit that had bound itself to him, Abyss, he peered into the heart of the phenomenon itself.
Julia’s eyes widened. She thought to push him away, to break the kiss, yet her arms refused to move.
The irony was suffocating. The Lily of the Valley, whose essence was to devour all who entered, was itself being consumed by a single man.
Sweat traced the curve of Vanitas’s cheek as an indescribable, burning pain coursed through him. His veins pulsed with a deep, sickly purple glow.
And yet, despite the excruciating pain, it all meant nothing under the warmth of Julia’s lips.
——Vanitas!
——Marquess!
Voices cried out from behind, but he paid them no mind. A shrill ringing filled his ears, melding with the sound of the Lily of the Valley’s very structure cracking apart.
Every noise bled together, yet ultimately faded into nothing.
Vanitas drew Julia closer, refusing to break the kiss. As he did so, he felt the warmth on her back slowly melting away. Julia Barielle, just like the Lily of the Valley itself, was fading away.
Perhaps this was the last time he would ever see her.
Shatter——
The windows burst apart in succession. The ground beneath fractured. Cracks spread through the walls and ceilings alike. What had been a grand illusion of permanence now collapsed into nothing but ruin.
Vanitas tightened his grip as if his arms alone could keep her from dissolving into nothing.
’Why must I lose you every time I reach for you?’
’Why must the world insist that I live on when all I ever wish for is to rest beside you?’
The cracks spread further. The air screamed with the collapse. Yet to him, there was only her. Only Julia, and always Julia.
’After losing Charlotte, I tell myself that I’ve grown numb to loss.’
’But here I am, breaking again. ’
The sting in his throat grew unbearable, but no tears came further. Tears would never be enough for her.
’How do you always find the pieces of me no one else can reach? ’
’How do you always take them when you leave?’
His forehead pressed to hers, his breath trembling.
’I should have let you rest.’
’I should have let the memory of you die when you did.’
’But I dragged you with me, into my heart, my dreams, and my sins.’
’And now, at the end of it all, I’m still too weak to say goodbye.’
Her warmth faded further like a dying flame, and his heart lurched with every pulse of her fading life.
“…Vani,” she whispered.
“…!”
Vanitas gasped. The miasma of demonic energy surged, and the agony tore through his body. Even he could not suppress the scream that ripped from his throat as Julia Barielle dissolved into nothingness before his eyes.
And then, silence.
In the aftermath, Vanitas stood motionless, his chest heaving and his face shadowed. Around him, the Lily of the Valley crumbled.
“V-Vanitas… I-I don’t understand…”
The trembling voice reached him, yet he didn’t so much as glance back.
“P-Please… explain yourself….”
At last, Vanitas turned his head.
“T-That was my m-mother… wasn’t it?”
Astrid stood there, looking at him with an indescribable expression on her face.
“Princess… step back.” Selena, who had been by her side, quickly pulled her back. “The Marquess just consumed a demon whole… no one knows what the aftereffects will be—”
“Vanitas! No—Professor!” Astrid broke free, ignoring Selena’s warning as her voice rose to a scream. “What did I just see?! W-Why was my mother here?! Why were you…”
“….”
This world would never let him rest.
“I see.”
It took, and took, and took again.
“…Even you, Astrid.”
While others lived and laughed, moving forward with joy, for him, every step forward only meant losing more.
It was cruel.
Utterly, mercilessly cruel. And in that moment, Vanitas realized something he should have known from the very moment he opened his eyes.
“I-It’s true… isn’t it? W-What Karina said… that you—”
“That’s right.”
Vanitas Astrea had always been a villain.
“I killed her.”
A villain who had nothing left to lose.