On my previous life, I had time to contemplate as I didn"t die immediately.
Maybe it was just my life flashing before my eyes but I think that had a lot of things in my mind. Still, I had nothing I regretted more that when I failed to protect the girl.
I smell the scent of wood. It felt quite nostalgic. Maybe since all I"ve felt is the coldness of stone lately.
Thinking this, my mind slowly wakes up.
I don"t feel the usual prison"s cold sensation. It seems that she"s sitting on something warm.
Surprised by this, I check my surroundings and see myself in room packed with bookshelves.
It was about 10 square meters wide. There are bookshelves placed almost bisecting the room and, naturally, along the wall.
Me being here means that the girl was probably moved to this room. However, why mover her now? All I can think is that something changed on that incident.
Just to make sure of her safety, I search my surroundings.
However, the room isn"t that wide so I immediately found her. At the same time, I"m lost for words.
Her once golden blond hair lost it"s color and is now pure white. Probably injured, neck and limbs are wrapped in bandages. And I can"t see I it over her clothes, but even her body seems wrapped up.
From the sharp sensation I"ve grown used to feeling, I can guess that those are from knife wounds.
In that state, she"s reading a thin book on the floor.
Only the sounds of her flipping the pages echo inside the room.
To other people, her dead-looking eyes her complete silence may even mistake her for a machine.
I could only squeeze a gasp. Right now, she"s like a doll. As though touching her would make her crumble, her fragility only adds to transient beauty. But, these fresh wounds and this painful scenery is just another proof that I failed her once again.
My promise to protect her the next time was broken before I even noticed. The voices in my head starts cursing me once again.
I feel like going insane.
From the bottom of my heart, I just want to die.
But if I ever go mad, if I ever die, that means the next time her life is in danger, there would be no one to protect her.
The fact that her wounds aren"t healed only means that the man has lowered his priority on her care. It"s that man we"re talking about, if anything ever happens, he probably would just kill her.
–
That"s why as unreliable as I am, even she probably just sees me as a undependable but, when the time comes that the man decides to get rid of her, I need to protect her.
First, her heart. The only things I can do is make barriers, search the surroundings and sing, so I can only pray that I may be able to distract her from the pain even a bit with my songs.
And if her empty eyes would direct even just a bit of anger at my failure to help her before everything happened, then she can still start over as a person.
Believing this, I sing a peaceful song in the middle of this silence with the softest and quietest voice I can muster.
But being severely shaken after seeing her current state, my voice greatly trembles and I can barely sing the song.
Pathetic. Right now, I can"t even do the only thing I can do.
Still, maybe with this she would show anger at my pathetic state.
Thinking so, I look and see her. Eyes wide in shock and, from the edge of her jewel blue eyes, are tears streaming down.
And then, she faintly smiles and slowly opens her mouth to speak.
「–?」
Her voice clear as a bell was pleasant to the ears.
However, I don"t understand what she"s saying. Just when she tries talking to me.
All I know is that she isn"t angry and that she"s trying to ask something.
『…… Sorry, I don"t know.』
Though I can barely speak through my grief, I somehow managed to reply.
I don"t even know if she would realize that our languages are different. Still, I can"t just ignore her.
After blinking twice, she immediately nods seemingly understanding something and reaches out for me.
As her small thin fingers touch me, my every being instantly goes inside her.
It"s my usual state of haunting her and there"s no mistaking that it"s highly comforting, but I don"t understand her intent.
In the first place, what does she even see me as?
What does she think of her situation? There"s a lot I don"t know. But after talking to her the first time, I feel that she"s a lot more matured than how she looks.
Different from the empty prison, this room is full of books. And in this room full of books, she reads endlessly.
But it doesn"t seem like she already understands all the letters, since she"s mostly reading books with the fewer words per page.
Still, taking in account that she"s never seen leers before, I say she"s rather intelligent.
Compared to me at the very least , who haven"t even learned a single word in the years we"ve been together, she"s much more smarter.
Maybe it"s the reason why, after she reads the book by herself, she points her finger at something and slowly starts to speak.
She"s probably trying to teach me the letters and words.
To help her with her studies and, most importantly, to prevent my earlier mistake from happening again, I decided to accept her consideration. Rather, I can"t really speak up even if I decline.
Seeing that she"s doing this for me, she herself properly recognizes my existence and understands that I have my own consciousness. Moreover, she might have even understood that I speak a different language.
She really is a bright child. When I was her age, I wasn"t even in primary school. At worst, I probably couldn"t even read letters that age.
I probably couldn"t stay behaved and just immediately ran to play outside.
The part of the reason we"re so much different may be also because of her nature. But it"s undoubtedly because she if she"s not this talented she can"t survive. Considering that, her excellence just makes me depressed.
After reading books and having her teach me, I wondered what else she needs to do when suddenly I sense a person approaching near.
Using detection to examine it more, I look like a person different from that man is nearing this room.
To make sure that I don"t make the same mistake for the third time, I concentrate to protect her if anything ever happens immediately.
The visitor stopping at the door, without even knocking, swiftly enters the room.
It was a mask-like expressionless butler that looked a few years older than the man.
Paired with his formal attire, he was extremely eerie and had a tray on his hands.
He roughly placed it on the ground and stood crossed arm with his back to the door. He say something to the girl. Judging from his tone, it was probably something on the lines of 「Eat.」
On the tray was a hard looking bread and some thin looking soup. Still, it was the first food looking food I"ve seen in years, so I was deeply moved.
Even so, it is a shabby meal. And since the man didn"t come, I"m certain that the girl"s value has dropped to some extent. However, he didn"t get rid of her, rather he probably made her study.
Another curious thing I"ve noticed is the black ball-like thing on the tray that the girl intentionally ignored. It doesn"t seem to be food. If anything, it might be some kind of medicine.
The girl approaches the tray, not even giving a glance to the mask-faced butler, tears the bread to smaller pieces and dips it in the soup.
She eats the now soft bread, but I can"t say it"s delicious in any way.
Furthermore, likely due to her not eating any proper food until now, she has difficulty swallowing food. As the bread goes through her throat, I feel it getting stuck a few times, leaving me uncomfortable.
Still, it"s a thousand times better that getting your veins cut and forced with some mysterious liquid.
As the bread and soup are finished, I thought that meal time is done. However, the girl stares at the black ball with a serious gaze.
By how she"s acting, she probably doesn"t want to eat it. However, it doesn"t seem like the mask-faced butler will allow that.
He kept staring the whole time she was eating until now, it"s really uncomfortable. He"s most likely here to observe her.
Resigning herself, the girl swallows the medicine.
In that moment, the area near the stomach began to feel hot and that heat started to spread throughout her body.
From the way if feels, I"m sure that this is magic power. However, it"s going berserk and the amount of it is no joke. You can probably compare it to being given more blood that what the veins need.
If you don"t hurry and circulate the magic power, it"ll end up pooling somewhere, and from there on your body will most likely start to break.
Examining it closely, it looks like to do something about this overflowing magic power, she even directs the flow to each single strand of her hair.
This is probably the reason for her hair turning white.
If by any chance someone who hasn"t used any magic power was to use this medicine, there"s no doubt that they would die.
However, I usually circulate her magic power for her. Maybe thanks to that, even though she"s in pain, she"s able to endure it.
However, I"m sure that it"ll be much more easier for her today. After all, if it"s only this much magic power, it"s not that difficult for me to control.
Since she"s closing her eyes to bear the pain, I quickly seize control of the magic power.
Probably feeling something different, she resisted it at first but then she immediately leaves it all to me.
After directing the flow, I noticed that compared to the girl"s magic power this one is easier to control. Maybe it"s because the magic power from the medicine is not from anyone?
Maybe because the magic power is just injected from the outside, if I just continue to circulate it, it slowly evaporates and disappear.
For it to just disappear is a bit of a waste. If I can make it mine, it might be useful for us in the future.
If possible, I"d like to increase the girl"s magic power so that she can also defend herself, but to ensure her safety I"ll try it on myself first.
Since I just need to force the medicine"s magic power through the tube connecting to my soul, it shouldn"t be that hard.
When I do it all at once, it feels weird, like my soul would break or something so I gently direct the magic power. As a result, even though it isn"t that dramatic of an increase, I can feel my magic power increasing.
Some of the berserk magic power is probably used up.
Before I notice it, the ask-faced butler disappeared and the girl sit there puzzled.
After that, reading time starts once again.
After a while, I float around thinking that I might distract her from reading when she suddenly closes her book and started restlessly looking for something.
And when she saw me, she stopped and stared at me seemingly wanting to say something.
As I was wondering on what she may want to say, the girl started speaking.
I was sounded similar, but not exactly like j.a.panese. It seems like she"s mimicking my singing.
In other words, she"s telling me to sing? Well, singing is practically my only entertainment here. So if she asks to, I absolutely will.
Thinking so, I began singing and the girl happily starts dancing. Without her shackles, her dance now free from it"s chains paired with her now white hair, was reminiscent of a fairy dancing in a fairy tale.
Heya! It"s a me, Lyly! Today"s chapter is a little bit too much for our already traumatized protagonist, but they"re getting better.
From now on, I"m going to be a bit more busier so from on next week it"ll be 1-2 chapters a week. I"m still trying to get my typing speed up, so maybe I"ll be able to go back to 3 per week.
Anyway as usual, please feel free to comment any typos, constructive criticism, nonconstructive criticism if you"re feeling spicy, general opinions, theory crafting even, edit fixes needed and any suggestions. Thank you for waiting and see you soon.
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