Chapter: 131
On her way back to her room after finishing her external schedule.
“Skarlet, I’m coming in… Ah…”
Sofia knocked on the door to her adjacent room, hoping to soothe the fatigue of the day, but as she entered, she was greeted by the empty space of a room that should have held someone, and she couldn’t help but smile bitterly.
“…Indeed. She really left the mansion, didn’t she, Skarlet…”
The only person she could comfortably approach in the house, where she hadn’t been able to indulge in any whims, had left without even giving her a moment to prepare herself.
Last night, when Skarlet suddenly announced that she would be leaving the mansion, Sofia thought that the inevitable had finally come to pass.
She had always suspected that Skarlet, who hated being in debt, would eventually decide to leave the mansion.
In fact, it was Sofia who had forcibly brought Skarlet into the mansion, disliking the idea of her living in poverty in a shabby house.
It wasn’t right to force someone who wanted to leave to stay, so she had even considered letting her go if Skarlet expressed her wish to leave.
But who would have imagined she would leave so quickly?
“…Who on earth moves out in such a rush?”
She had heard that the Dolos family sent compensation money to her, but she never imagined Skarlet would pack her bags and flee the mansion the moment she got the money.
At least she could have been given time to prepare… If so, she wouldn’t have shown such a melodramatic scene, crying and pleading for her not to go this morning…
…No, even if she had time, Sofia would likely have begged her not to leave just the same.
Because,
“…I didn’t want it to be like this. I just wanted to continue living together.”
That was her true intent.
With a heart full of regret, Sofia murmured to herself and closed the door to the room where Skarlet had once stayed.
Even now that she was gone, the remnants of her longing overflowed, making it hard to bear.
Skarlet had said she was precious.
So, she did not want to burden Sofia any longer and decided to leave the mansion, claiming she didn’t want to be in debt again.
Sofia couldn’t understand that reasoning one bit.
If they were really precious to each other, shouldn’t they be able to endure any burdens between them?
She wanted to be that kind of relationship with Skarlet.
A relationship where they relied on each other, where Skarlet could lean on her, and she could do the same with Skarlet.
She wanted to be close friends.
But Skarlet seemed to avoid relying on Sofia, almost to the extent of obsession.
It was disappointing, and as she let out a deep sigh returning to her room, her phone, which she had kept in her pocket, rang.
Sofia took out her mobile phone, tilted her head at the name displayed on the screen.
It was Yoon Si-woo’s name.
Since the last time they rescued Skarlet together from her kidnapping, they exchanged numbers to share updates about her, but they rarely contacted each other.
They hadn’t spoken since she informed him that Skarlet moved into Astra’s Mansion.
Curiosity piqued, Sofia answered the call.
“Yes, Yoon Si-woo? What’s up?”
[Sofia, didn’t Skarlet live at your mansion? Has something happened to her?]
“…If it’s Skarlet, she said she was leaving the mansion starting today and left. Have you met her?”
[Well, Skarlet asked if she could live with us, so I allowed it… I just don’t understand why she’d suddenly want to leave your mansion to stay at our place…]
Sofia felt her head spin with this newly acquired information.
…So she left to go to Yoon Si-woo’s house?
Holding her throbbing head, Sofia asked Yoon Si-woo.
“…Well, she said she was leaving the mansion after receiving compensation from Dolos. But it’s odd that she chose your house of all places—any idea why?”
[Oh?! When I asked her… she said she felt safest beside me… Um, anyway, if nothing’s wrong, then I’ll hang up!]
The call ended abruptly, and Sofia stared blankly at her phone, mumbling to herself.
“…Huh? Why?”
She had left because she didn’t want to impose on anyone.
So why was it that she ended up at Yoon Si-woo’s house?
Was she okay with relying on him but not on her?
Huh? Does that mean that Yoon Si-woo is a friend, but she isn’t?
Lost in these swirling thoughts, Sofia finally collapsed onto her bed.
She buried her face into the pillow to muffle any noise, wriggling around as she began to whine.
“Waaah, Skarlet is such a fool! You should rely on me too! Is Yoon Si-woo’s place secure, but mine isn’t?! Be my friend… Ugh…”
It wasn’t that she was angry with Skarlet.
She was just frustrated.
The only person Skarlet seemed to open up to was Yoon Si-woo, not her.
Filled with this frustration, she decided to cool her head off and headed towards the terrace in the hallway.
However, there was already a guest present on the terrace.
“Oh, First Elder.”
“Sofia. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“I won’t decline.”
Sofia sat facing the First Elder, who was drinking tea at a table on the terrace, and politely accepted the offered tea.
As she sipped the tea, now familiar to her, the aroma of the brewed leaves slowly calmed her spinning head.
However, her mood was still low, and as if she wouldn’t care, she sighed, bringing the First Elder to speak up.
“You seem to be lost in thought. Is it about that girl? I heard she left the mansion this morning?”
“…Yes.”
Trying to act composed in front of the First Elder, she couldn’t hide her feelings as she replied, and perhaps he sensed it as he chuckled.
“Hoho, just yesterday, I had tea and talked with her like this. I never would’ve thought she would leave so suddenly.”
“…I don’t understand why she left so abruptly either. It’s not like there was someone bothering her in the mansion.”
“…Indeed.”
At the Elder’s comment, Sofia’s ears perked up.
It was the strange intuition she had whenever he spoke.
It felt like the sensation one gets when sensing deception…
While pondering this, she noticed something across the Elder’s line of sight and widened her eyes, asking him.
“Elder, didn’t you have a pot for your treasured orchids right here? Where is it?”
At her question, the Elder smiled bitterly and replied.
“…That, you see. Something must’ve gone wrong yesterday, as it was dead. I told Sebastian to throw it away.”
“…It suddenly died? That’s quite strange.”
…It truly was bizarre.
The Astra family, though in this state now, were High Elves known for living in harmony with the forest.
For their cultivated plants to suddenly die without cause was nothing short of a mystery.
What on earth happened? While she was curious, what bothered her more was the suspicious feeling she had picked up from the First Elder earlier.
As she focused on that, she could somehow sense that he was hiding something from her.
Intuition is notoriously unreliable, yet perhaps because she was the last remaining contract holder of the star spirit, Sofia knew that her intuition wasn’t to be dismissed.
Recalling the missteps she had taken in ignoring this sense and the benefits she had gained when trusting it, Sofia felt the need to confirm it and drank the remaining tea in her cup before standing up.
“Thank you for the tea. I’m just going to take a stroll in the garden.”
“Is that so? You have to wake up early tomorrow too, so don’t walk for too long.”
After bowing her head in respect to the First Elder, Sofia left the terrace and headed to where the servant Sebastian had helped her with her schedule earlier.
“…Miss? What brings you here at this hour?”
“It’s nothing much, but I heard that the Elder’s cherished orchid died. Did you throw it away?”
“The pot? I’ve stored it in a cart in the garden. I was planning to throw it away along with some branches we trimmed from the garden tomorrow… Is there something you need?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just curious.”
As she listened to Sebastian’s words and stepped out into the garden, she spotted a cart piled high with branches in a corner of the garden.
Looking inside the cart, she saw a familiar pot nestled between the branches.
The orchid, once vibrant and healthily painted in vivid hues, was now completely wilted and dried up, as if it had never been thriving.
And as she picked up the pot to inspect the dead orchid, trying to understand what could have happened to it in just a few days,
“Oops?!”
-Clang!
Suddenly, a burst of light emitted from her hand, startling her and causing the pot she had lifted to drop and shatter.
Sofia was momentarily flustered at breaking the pot but quickly regained her composure upon realizing it was going to be thrown away anyway.
What mattered now wasn’t that she broke the pot, but the cause of the phenomenon that had just occurred.
Taking a deep breath, she sat on the ground and reached out to touch the broken pieces.
Nothing responded on the pot.
Then…
As she reached for the dirt and orchid sprawled on the ground, the light shimmered in her hands again.
She felt her expression stiffening.
Her ability—more precisely, the power of the star spirit—was the ability to purify the corrupt.
That it responded on its own meant there was something within this pot that was worthy of purification.
Most likely, it was miasma, as well as remnants of dark magic or curses that had existed long before.
Trying to discern the specific type, she infused the dead orchid with light. Sadly, she felt like there was a scream pulsating from the decayed orchid.
Unknowingly, she clenched her teeth tightly.
It was a trace of a curse embedded with intense vengefulness.
Though it had faded over time, with what was left, this was a curse of a level that couldn’t be found in stores.
Similar to poison, its effects had been used for murder in the past, dissipating over time without leaving traces.
Such a horrific curse should only be found in textbooks—why was something like this here…?
Furrowing her brows and focusing, as she cleared the curse’s aftermath, Sofia pondered over why it was here, when suddenly, she felt a sensation as if the fragmented puzzle pieces in her mind were locking into place one by one.
The conversations she had with the Elder replayed in her head.
-They needed time to sort out the filthy, dirty matters unworthy of Astra.
-There hadn’t been any contact from Sator lately.
-Hoho, just yesterday, I sat with that girl, enjoying tea and chatting. How sudden was her leaving.
And she covered her mouth, overcome with nausea.
The First Elder had been suspecting Skarlet.
He had attempted to eliminate her with a curse, but perhaps he had changed his mind, or she figured it out and they failed.
Ah, why hadn’t she caught onto it sooner?
-There’s no one troubling her in the mansion…
The reason she had to leave the mansion in such a rush.
-When I asked her. She felt safest beside me…
For her, this mansion had never been a place where she could feel secure.
Though Sofia might have been on her side, Astra was surely not.
Then what kind of feelings had Skarlet harbored during her stay in the mansion?
What had she been putting Skarlet through all this time by bringing her here?
-Miss, all those plans were made for you.
-You are a precious existence that cannot be exchanged for anyone else.
Who was to blame?
Astra?
Herself?
Or perhaps it was herself for being born into Astra?
Completely lost, Sofia gazed up at the stars in the night sky.
Why has it come to this?
Yet of course, there was no answer.
Her outstretched hand, twisted and contorted, cast a shadow over the sky.
Though she could cover the stars in the night sky with her hand, she could not cover the original sin that was Astra.
Filled with sorrow, Sofia quietly broke down in the garden.
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