The Art of Healing Bread (4)
A nightmare that began anew as soon as one ended.
Iriel couldn't tell where her dream ended and where reality began.
She opened her eyes on a hard bed without any blankets.
It was a pitch-black space without a single light.
‘Where am I……?’
An eerie chill washed over her body.
‘C-Cold…….’
She rubbed her goosebump-covered arms and looked around.
After a while, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she felt strangely familiar with the space.
“This is…….”
“This is…….”
The basement of Eustia.
The very place where Zeke had always waited for her.
“Zeke……?”
“Zeke……?”
Her voice echoed against the walls of the cramped room.
“Zeke!”
“Zeke!”
She called his name again, but only her own voice returned.
Iriel got up and walked towards the closed door.
Click.
Click. Click. Click.
She grabbed the doorknob and turned it, but it was locked tight and wouldn't open.
The candle on the bed had long since burned out.
In that dark shadow, Iriel was left alone.
She walked along, feeling the wall with her hand, but all she felt was the cold touch of the brick.
Iriel waited for Zeke to return.
She hoped that he would burst through the door at any moment, calling her name.
Time passed without her eating or drinking anything.
How long had she been here?
She didn’t know.
Meanwhile, Iriel muttered Zeke's name,
She banged on the door and cried for help,
She threw her body against the door, proclaiming that she was the Duchess of Eustia.
However, all of these things only had meaning when there was someone else besides herself.
Iriel started to self-harm while crying.
“Why, why doesn't it hurt!”
“Why, why doesn't it hurt!”
No matter how much she scratched her body with her nails, she couldn't feel any pain.
The insensitivity to that pain brought a fear that felt like she was losing herself.
“If it doesn't hurt, it's a dream! Then I have to wake up!”
“If it doesn't hurt, it's a dream! Then I have to wake up!”
To escape this nightmare, Iriel became increasingly extreme.
She squeezed her neck until she choked,
And she banged her head against the wall.
She thought that if she died here, if she finally died, she would be able to wake up from this terrible nightmare.
However, it wasn’t allowed.
Now, having given up everything, Iriel curled up and trembled on the hard wooden bed.
Darkness and silence descended in desolate silence.
“……What, what in the world is going on……?”
“……What, what in the world is going on……?”
“Stop copying me.”
“Stop copying me?”
Gasp.
Iriel turned her head in the direction the echo came from.
She must have misheard, but the tone just now……had changed.
“Wh……. What……!”
“Wh……. What……?”
Iriel swallowed hard and closed her mouth.
Goosebumps erupted all over her body.
“What is it!”
“What is it?”
“Z-Zeke……. I'm scared…….”
“Z-Zeke……. I'm scared……?”
The echo mimicked her voice more and more clearly.
Iriel shut her mouth tight.
So that the echo wouldn’t appear anymore.
Then, the echo began to speak for itself.
“Zeke……?”
“Mine……?”
“Scared……?”
The corner of the room opposite the bed, where the shadows were darkest.
A dark shape began to take shape on its own.
Iriel's eyes widened as she stared at ‘it’.
It sucked up the surrounding darkness and gradually grew in size.
It started out the size of a fist, then the size of a rabbit, then the size of a deer…….
And finally, the size of a human.
It was none other than her own form made of shadow.
“What……. What is that……!”
“……What am I……?”
“Monster!!!”
“M-Me……. Me……. Iriel……?”
It mimicked her voice,
It mimicked her body and face,
And now it even started to mimic her name.
“Shut up! You fake!”
Iriel mustered all her courage and shouted.
“Fake……? Am I……am I, a fake?”
“Yes!! You fake!! Go away!”
Iriel shouted, screaming.
Then, although its expression couldn’t be seen because it was all black,
It somehow looked very angry.
“Zeke is mine……?”
Thump.
“H-Help me, Zeke…….”
“Zeke is mine……?”
Thump.
“Zeke is mine……?”
It was approaching.
Iriel shook her head and slowly backed away.
It was approaching.
Iriel looked around for something to use as a weapon.
It was approaching.
Then, she saw a candlestick. The candle had completely melted away, leaving only the metal stick.
It was approaching.
Iriel gripped the candlestick tightly in her hand.
And now it was approaching quickly.
“……Z-Zeke!”
Iriel squeezed her eyes shut and swung the hand holding the candlestick.
“Zeke is mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Flash!
Thump, thump—
Gulp.
“Uh…….”
Iriel opened her eyes.
A sweetness gently passed down her throat.
The familiar taste of bread soaked in milk.
‘This is……. Elise’s bread…….’
Soothing her hunger,
It warmed her body.
Iriel chewed on the bread that had entered her mouth without even opening her eyes properly.
She kept chewing.
Chewing and chewing.
Unbelievably….
The more she chewed on the bread, the less her body trembled,
And the feeling that the fear, loneliness, sadness, and horror were slowly disappearing…….
Iriel shed tears of relief.
‘I’m alive…….’
And when she opened her eyes.
Only then,
The stoic face she had been searching for,
The stoic face she wanted to see so badly,
Came into view.
Black hair and black eyes.
Zeke Clayman, looking at her with a worried expression.
“……Z……”
She tried to call his name, but her throat was dry and her voice wouldn't come out properly.
Iriel impulsively tried to get up.
“Uh……?”
But her body lost its strength and fell back down.
Thud.
Strong arms caught her falling body.
Iriel took in Zeke's face as it drew closer.
She didn’t blink, as if she couldn’t miss a single moment.
Iriel reached out and touched Zeke's face.
Like a child learning how to feel, one by one.
Forehead,
Eyebrows,
Eyes,
Nose,
Mouth…….
And she pulled his face with both hands
And kissed him.
* * *
Crash!!
The thrown chair hit the wall, bounced off, and fell to the floor.
Recently, the hysteria of Dios, the swordsmanship instructor at Ramielli Academy,
Had only gotten worse.
“Zeke, Clayman……. That bastard…….”
From head to toe, there was nothing about that young punk that he liked.
From the very first time he met him, it was the worst.
No, perhaps this ill fate was preordained from the moment he was tasked with preparing for Zeke’s entrance ceremony.
If Zeke had properly apologized to him at the entrance ceremony
And showed him some material respect, he might have let it slide to some extent.
After all, Dios had no intention of getting off on the wrong foot with someone who was connected to the Duke.
However, from their first meeting at the entrance ceremony, Zeke ignored him completely and humiliated him.
So, as part of his revenge for that,
When he heard that the Second Prince had been beaten by Zeke,
He tried to use this as an opportunity to kick him out completely, but even that failed.
So, were Zeke Clayman's swordsmanship classes better than his?
Of course, the size of the classes he and Zeke taught were not comparable.
In terms of the number of students alone, Dios was teaching several times more students.
However, no one at Ramielli Academy could ignore Zeke Clayman's swordsmanship classes.
Selena, the daughter of Duke Yohaiden, who seemed to have a connection with Zeke from the beginning,
Iriel, the daughter of Duke Eustia, was known to be at odds with Selena.
And for some reason, the Second Prince, who had a grudge against Zeke, was also attending his classes.
The daughter of the Gilbert family, vassals of the First Prince, also attended his classes.
Even if all the students in Dios's class were gathered together, they wouldn't even compare to one of them.
The minimum number of students.
But the maximum amount of power.
Being a small group only made them seem even more special.
As if only those who had endured the bizarre difficulty of that demonstration class could join their ranks.
And the only person who had endured it was a humble commoner girl.
As the situation turned out this way,
The academy students who had initially ignored Zeke’s class
Became curious about and began to admire that mysterious class.
At the same time, those who participated in Dios's classes
Were branded with the infamous stigma of being those who couldn’t handle Zeke’s classes and ran away.
This only further fueled Dios’s inferiority complex.
Dios gulped down the strong liquor straight from the bottle.
Thud!
He slammed the bottle on the floor and gritted his teeth.
“……Swordsmanship classes aren’t some kind of social gathering for brats……”
Dios tried to find a way to get revenge on Zeke,
But there was nothing he, a mere count, could do to Zeke, who was surrounded by the Duke and the royal family.
So all he could do was sigh and drink.
“Ugh.”
With a flushed face, he burped.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Who is it?”
He frowned at the sound of someone knocking on the door.
“Lady Yuri Gilbert of the Gilbert family is here to see you.”
“Yuri Gilbert……? The one who attends that bastard’s classes……?”
It was someone from the First Prince who had come to see him out of the blue.
Dios frowned.
‘What’s going on?’
“Tell her to come in.”
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