Chapter 104: Regret?!

"Why..."

Still crying, Saraya yanked hard at her own hair, tangling her already disheveled black locks even further. "Why did I do that?"

Vylana stood silently at her side.

Saraya raised her tear-streaked face. Her voice was so choked that the words were nearly unintelligible. "I could have been with him."

She tried to draw a breath, but it caught in her throat. Then the memories Saraya had spent all this time refusing to face came flooding back.

The small apartment they had once shared. Erik in the kitchen, an apron tied around his waist. Breakfast always set in the seat she was used to taking. On the nights Saraya came home late after drinking, he would still wait for her. When she complained of being tired, Erik never asked why she was returning at that hour. He simply fetched her some water in silence.

He knew Saraya did not like overly sweet food. He knew she hated certain types of monster meat because of their gamey smell. Even when they were nearly out of money, Erik had never asked how much she could give him. Nor had he ever used the care he showed her as an excuse to demand anything in return.

Back then, Saraya had thought all of it was perfectly ordinary.

Only now, after meeting seven different men, did she realize that the things she had once taken for granted were things none of them had any desire to do.

Saraya lowered her head, tears dripping steadily onto her knees. "I should have still been the one waking up beside Erik every morning. He should still have been cooking for me. I should have been the one he protected..."

Her voice grew softer and softer, yet every word made her chest ache more.

Saraya bit down hard on her lip, trying to hold back her sobs, but she could not. "I could have been the one he proposed to, too."

The tears would not stop falling.

"Why couldn’t I see it back then?"

Vylana did not answer.

Saraya clawed at her hair and bent over, crying until her breathing came in broken gasps. "Why was I so stupid? If I had only agreed to a trial Contract back then, if I had only taken one step toward him, if I had only refused to listen to those things..."

She sobbed, and it took several attempts before she could force out the next sentence.

"Then... I would be the happy one now."

Vylana watched her for a long time.

The coldness on her face gradually faded, replaced by a complicated expression. It was true that she had once wanted to take Erik from Saraya. It was true that she had deliberately made Saraya doubt him. Vylana had never denied either of those things.

But now, even Vylana understood just how foolish she had been then.

If Erik had not chosen to leave Saraya himself, perhaps Vylana would never truly have had a chance. But that chance had not been created by a few words from Vylana. It was the result of the choices Saraya had made again and again over the course of three months.

At last, Vylana let out a soft sigh, and her voice gentled.

"Cry."

Saraya remained curled over with her face buried between her arms.

Vylana looked at her and spoke slowly. "At least this time, don’t blame Elowen. Don’t blame Erik. And don’t blame only me, either. You can hate me for what I did, but first, take a good look at what you did yourself."

With that, Vylana turned and walked toward the door.

Saraya remained on the sofa, crying.

When her hand reached the doorknob, Vylana paused slightly. She seemed as though she wanted to turn back and look at Saraya one more time, but in the end, she did not. The door closed behind her with a soft click, leaving Saraya alone in the dark room.

Her sobs gradually quieted.

Saraya did not know how long she sat there. It might have been only a few minutes, or perhaps longer. Her throat hurt, her eyes burned, and her body was nearly drained after crying for so long. In the end, all she could do was sit motionless and stare into the darkness before her.

Then, a strange man’s voice suddenly sounded directly inside her mind.

"Do you want him to regret it?"

Saraya slowly raised her head.

The room was still completely empty. The door ahead remained tightly shut. Yet the man’s voice in her mind was so clear that Saraya nearly felt as though he were standing right beside her.

She looked around, caution gradually appearing in her eyes, swollen red from crying. "Who are you?"

No one answered that question. The man’s voice simply continued, strangely gentle and calm.

"Do you want Erik to realize that he made the wrong choice?"

At the sound of that name, Saraya’s body trembled. Her lifeless eyes slowly widened.

"Erik..."

"Yes, Erik." The voice sounded as if it were comforting someone who had just suffered a terrible wound. "You are in this much pain only because he left you."

Saraya frowned faintly.

Even though her mind was on the verge of collapse, the last sliver of reason within her reacted at once. She had been the one to reject Erik first. She had been the one who refused the trial Contract. She had even—

"No."

The man’s voice abruptly cut through her thoughts.

Saraya froze.

"You made only one mistake." His voice remained impossibly gentle, as though every word were searching for a reason to free her from her guilt. "But Erik punished you by giving everything that could have been yours to another woman."

Saraya’s pupils contracted slightly.

The image of Erik kneeling before Elowen immediately rose in her mind. The ring in his hand. Elowen’s smile. The tenderness in Erik’s eyes when he looked at her.

All of it was exactly what Saraya had cried herself exhausted over after realizing she had lost it.

The man’s voice asked softly, "Do you regret it?"

Saraya stared into the empty space before her. Her lips trembled as she answered in a quiet voice, "Yes..."

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes..."

"Then why should you be the only one in pain?"

The moment those words sounded, an extremely thin black line began to appear beneath the skin of Saraya’s wrist. It was so fine that it was nearly impossible to see. Slowly, it crept along her veins like a root winding its way beneath her flesh.

But Saraya felt none of it.

The man’s voice continued to guide her. "If Erik truly loved you, then he should have waited."

Saraya blinked, her gaze beginning to blur. "Wait..."

"Yes." The voice immediately responded. "If he truly loved you, why did he choose someone else so quickly?"

The black vein beneath her wrist began to spread up her arm.

Saraya shook her head faintly. "No... Erik, he..."

"He left you."

"No..."

"He betrayed you."

Saraya immediately clutched her head, panic entering her voice. "That’s not..."

But the other party gave her no chance to think.

"He lets you suffer while he is happy with other women. He proposes to someone else, holds someone else, sleeps beside someone else. And what about you?"

The black lines had crawled past her elbow and continued toward her shoulder. Saraya began to gasp for breath. Her eyes, already red from crying, gradually lost focus as that voice repeated the images she feared most.

"He is happy, while you have nothing left."

Saraya slowly lifted her head, her face nearly expressionless. "I..."

"You lost Erik."

She slowly stood up. Her body was still weak from crying for so long, and her steps were unsteady. But the black veins beneath her skin had already crawled past her shoulder and spread toward her neck, drowning out the small amount of reason Vylana had forced her to face.

The man’s voice asked once more, "Do you want him to regret it?"

Saraya was silent for several seconds before she nodded faintly.

"Yes..."

"Then go find him."

She turned toward the door and began to walk. Her first steps were slow, but the farther she went, the colder her expression became.

The voice in her mind continued to tempt her.

"As long as he disappears, no one will be able to take Erik away from you again."

Saraya stopped.

That was clearly completely illogical. If Erik disappeared, then she would be even less able to have him. Yet Saraya’s unfocused eyes no longer held enough clarity to recognize the contradiction.

She opened the door and stepped into the hallway, her lips murmuring softly.

"I have to make Erik... regret it."