OHNIR – Chapter 68
Chapter 68: Missed
Now, having received her approval, the duke's daughter finally looked a little more satisfied.
"My cooking skills were mostly inherited from my mother." In a good mood, Gloria picked up her knife and fork, moved the first slice of lemon from her cod to the edge of her plate, and finally deigned to answer Kelusta's questions.
"I heard her say that Aunt Ricana was always quite the gourmand, picky about everything from main courses to snacks. She wouldn't tolerate ingredients she disliked, nor would she accept food that didn't taste good... Over time, just so the two of them could have their three meals and afternoon tea in peace, my mother had no choice but to teach herself to cook for a long time. Only then was she barely able to satisfy Aunt Ricana's demanding palate."
"Aunt Susan was so good to my mother," Kelusta remarked with a sigh, her expression filled with a deep sense of nostalgia.
She paused, then turned to Gloria as if she had just remembered something, and asked tentatively, "But, Lux, I don't think I've heard you mention Aunt Susan in a very long time... Did something happen? How has she been? Is she well?"
...
Gloria stopped eating and looked up, her deep blue eyes gazing intently at the brown-haired girl's bewildered face.
After a long silence, she lowered her eyes again, sighed softly, and said in a low voice, "Ruth, my mother... she passed away many years ago."
With a clatter, Kelusta's knife and fork fell onto the table beside her plate. Her eyes widened, and she gasped sharply. She stared blankly at Gloria, then shot up from her seat in shock. "How is that possible—" she said, her voice filled with disbelief. "Aunt Susan was so young. Why... why would she..."
"She died in childbirth."
Gloria's expression was calm on the surface, but it concealed a layer of lingering sorrow. Her tone was mournful, like someone standing before a tombstone, reciting a eulogy word by word.
"Fate is so dramatic... After all this time, decades later, my mother ended up sharing the same fate as her dearest friend."
Decades apart—Ricana had died giving birth to Kelusta; her best friend, Susan, had breathed her last in a pool of blood just after Wend was born.
That was the "same fate."
Kelusta suddenly realized that the black-haired woman, who seemed so cold but was actually soft-hearted, was now just like her own mother... gone from this world, silently, at a time when she hadn't even noticed.
"...I'm so sorry for bringing this up, Lux."
Kelusta's eyes reddened. She lowered her head, walked around the table to Gloria's side, and pulled her into a tight hug.
The embrace was filled with the brown-haired girl's sorrow, a grief more than a decade late.
Gloria returned the hug, instantly understanding. Beyond the sadness for Susan's death, Kelusta was grieving for those carefree years when her memories were lost.
The dark magic had eroded the people and promises she had sworn to remember forever, leaving not a trace. Now that time had passed and her memories had returned, she suddenly realized just how much she had missed.
"I should have brought flowers for Aunt Susan the very first day I arrived in the capital," the brown-haired girl said, her face buried in Gloria's shoulder. Her muffled voice was slightly choked. "I miss her, Lux... I'm sorry."
Her voice trembled as she apologized, though for what, it was unclear.
Gloria pressed her lips together. Lowering her head, she keenly felt the dampness on her shoulder.
She sighed inwardly, raising a hand to gently stroke the back of Kelusta's head. Softening her voice, she was the one to offer comfort to the girl who had just recalled the past. "There, there, don't cry. If your Aunt Susan saw her little Ruth this upset, she would surely blame me for not taking good care of you."
The silver-haired girl picked up a soft silk napkin from the table, leaned down, and carefully dabbed away her tears. "When the day of remembrance comes, I'll take you to lay flowers," she sighed softly. "Don't be sad, Ruth. It was a long time ago—see? Even I don't cry anymore."
Kelusta looked up at Gloria's gentle face and, for some reason, felt her heart ache even more.
She reached out, her hand trembling slightly as she cupped that exquisite cheek. A film of moisture clouded her golden eyes, blurring Gloria's face as she spoke, her voice full of heartache and pain. "All these years... Lux, after Aunt Susan passed away, it must have been so, so hard for you, wasn't it?"
...
Gloria froze for a moment.
After a long moment, a faint smile touched her lips. Her slender fingers smoothed Kelusta's hair. Her deep blue eyes were as clear as the ocean, and looking into them, one could see they were filled with somber nostalgia and grief.
"It wasn't hard," the ever-praised duke's daughter said, meeting Kelusta's gaze before looking away, out the window at the azure sky. "My mother's dying wish was for our family to continue living happily... I will fulfill her wish and protect our happiness. To do that, the first step is to make the Silentdis family even stronger."
"Power, glory, wealth, status... It may sound worldly, but for the nobility, these are the prerequisites for the 'happiness' we must maintain."
"Therefore, we must often choose our side carefully," the duke's eldest daughter said pointedly, her gaze returning to the brown-haired girl whose head was bowed in her embrace. "Only by standing behind the right person can one continue to enjoy a respected position and a fulfilling life—that, of course, is beyond doubt."
This was the family's legacy, the mission of the nobility, and precisely the life that Susan, as the Duchess, had wished for her husband and children.
...
Kelusta closed her eyes and took a deep, silent breath.
Her cold fingertips clutched Gloria's long skirt, her knuckles trembling and creaking faintly. The blood in her veins seemed to freeze, a bone-deep chill spreading through her skin, forcing her very heart to pause.
In that moment, she tasted despair.
The hidden meaning in the silver-haired noble's words had mercilessly destroyed every last one of her hopes and expectations.
...Wealth, glory, power, status.
Persedoro, the Goddess of Deceit, would provide the Silentdis family with a continuous stream of power, and with absolute power, they could easily obtain all those things.
But Kelusta... she was no goddess, just an ordinary human. She had no way of providing the family with any of the things Gloria demanded.
This future savior of the Nobili Kingdom didn't even dare declare to Gloria that she was the "right person" for Gloria to stand behind.
Every crushing defeat from the original timeline was still vivid in her mind. Even on the True Ending route, with the System, more information, and more items, Kelusta didn't dare to be blindly confident that she could turn the tables.
...Because her opponent was a living god, not some simple human or demon.
But even with such a difficult goal and an increasingly grim situation, the current Kelusta still couldn't accurately assess which factions she could definitively control.
—The people of Seaside Town were her natural allies, but they were just ordinary folk living peaceful lives. They didn't understand magic, power, or the struggle for divine right, much less the cruelty of war.
—The considerable power of the Demon Realm remained an unknown. Although she intended to use Musen as a key piece to disrupt the board and turn the tide, he had not yet returned to the demons. As an inside agent, he was currently useless.
—A large portion of the Royal Family's power belonged to Princess Starangui. The king's faction, meanwhile, was a behemoth that a commoner like her, with no background, had no way of approaching directly. Her only viable connection was Prince Satrick, but if she rashly grew close to him, she would likely be dragged into the undercurrents of a power struggle, becoming his subordinate and losing all initiative.
—And as for the most crucial piece, the Silentdis family, she had thought Gloria's awakening of light magic would be a turning point. But now it seemed the opposite was true. The once-stable scales were beginning to tip toward the Goddess of Deceit, all because the chips Kelusta held... were far too few.
Could it be that, even with a second chance, fate could not be rewritten? Would the two girls who had once promised to be together forever still end up on opposing sides, once again raising the curtain on a cruel war?
—She refused to accept that.
Kelusta's arms around Gloria's waist tightened. The golden eyes buried in the embrace gradually darkened. The brown-haired girl's beautiful face grew taut with a serious expression, one that was both incredibly determined and frighteningly calm.
Now that she had remembered the past and was slowly beginning to understand her own heart, she would never allow Gloria to remain on the side of the Goddess of Deceit and become a direct instrument in the destruction of Seaside Town.
The quiet little town on the coast was the home she had to protect, and Gloria was the person she had to hold on to—the person she loved most.
She would have it all.
"...Ruth? Ruth? What are you thinking about? Come back to me."
A gentle voice pulled Kelusta from her obsessive thoughts. She looked up, dazed, at Gloria's impossibly beautiful face. Gloria was watching her with concern, raising a hand to once again wipe the corner of her eye. "I called your name a few times, but you didn't answer," she asked worriedly. "Are you still upset?"
Kelusta sniffled and nodded slightly, her voice hoarse. "Very."
Her sadness wasn't just for the late Aunt Susan, but also for the pitch-black future that lay before her.
...
At her words, Gloria fell silent for a moment, quietly gazing at the brown-haired girl's dejected and somber face.
After a moment, she suddenly reached out, wrapped an arm around the girl's neck, and, to Kelusta's surprise, slowly leaned in. Gently and solemnly, she pressed a kiss through stray strands of hair onto the girl's smooth forehead.
"L-Lux..."
Kelusta's eyes widened, her fingertips creeping up Gloria's arm as she accepted the brief, ambiguous kiss with a mixture of surprise and confusion.
Gloria gave a low chuckle and pulled back slightly. She looked down at the brown-haired girl's crimson cheeks, her gaze so gentle it was as if she were looking at her own, easily flustered lover.
"Don't be sad," she repeated, her gaze fixed on Kelusta. "As a reward for drying your tears... Little Ruth, I'll tell you another secret—"
"What is it?"
Gloria's eyes curved into a smile as she leaned close to Kelusta's ear and whispered, "The secret is... your Aunt Susan actually passed away with a smile."
Kelusta froze, repeating subconsciously in confusion, "With a smile...?"
"Yes, a smile," Gloria said.
"Because for her, death was a farewell to us, but it was also a... 'long-awaited reunion' with Aunt Ricana."
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