The cake shattered into pieces.
The once-cute shapes and decorations turned grotesque and were covered in dirt.
A cold wind brushed past.
Elia, who had been staring blankly at the cake, shifted her gaze to me.
“Why…?”
Her expression twisted.
It was the kind of look an innocent person might have when their goodwill is ignored.
In this light, she really did seem like an ordinary person.
But, of course, she was far from ordinary.
I stomped on the cake lying on the ground once more with my foot.
“Why, you ask? I just told you earlier—Kalian hates cake.”
“Then why do you keep forcing it on him? He clearly refused. Do you think Kalian is someone who can’t manage without something like this?”
“No…”
If anyone was being unreasonable, it wasn’t Elia—it was me.
However, Elia shrank back as if she had committed some grave mistake.
“I’m sorry. I was certain that you both liked cake. I’ll be more careful next time so this won’t happen again.”
“Do whatever you want.”
“I didn’t mean to ruin your mood. I just wanted to get along with you two, so I tried to choose a gift that seemed perfect… Please don’t take it too badly.”
“Well, since we’re done here, can we leave now?”
Without waiting for her reply, I grabbed Kalian and moved away from the scene.
Elia remained where she was, watching us as we walked off into the distance, along with the cake crushed on the ground.
“Wasn’t that a bit harsh?” Kalian asked worriedly.
I shook my head.
“I told you before, didn’t I? Elia is someone we need to be cautious of. We have to keep our distance like this.”
“Still… She was just trying to give us a gift to be friendly.”
“You know what I meant when I said we should be careful, right?”
“I know. But somehow, I feel like this isn’t the right way. I don’t think she’s a bad person.”
“Innocent fool.”
I had warned Kalian early on to keep his distance from Elia.
Since then, he hadn’t met her privately, but it seemed he hadn’t let go of his initial impression of her.
Regardless of what he thought, my actions today were necessary.
If we didn’t overtly create distance like this, Elia would naturally try to close the gap.
And beyond maintaining distance, it was about time to deal with Elia more directly.
She had already served her purpose in helping Lumia overcome her trauma.
There was no longer a need to let her run free.
What I did just now was a kind of provocation.
I wanted to push her into taking “some kind” of action, especially considering she might already harbor hostility toward me.
After sending Kalian off first, I waited on a bench.
Normally, a carriage would have come to take me back to the lodging, but today, it wasn’t a carriage I was expecting.
“Wade.”
Elia appeared behind me.
In the pitch-black darkness, she approached as naturally as if she’d been there all along.
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” I turned around as if I didn’t know anything.
She answered with a casual smile.
“My mind was all over the place, so I was wandering around, and I just happened to see you here.”
“You’re not here because you had some other idea in mind, are you?”
“What do you mean by ‘other idea’?”
“You probably know better than anyone what I mean.”
“I feel a little embarrassed, like you’ve read my mind. Yes, to be honest, I’ve been following you for a while.”
“Why were you following me?”
Elia’s gaze, with a trace of amusement, briefly lingered on my neck before returning to my face.
She clasped her hands together and hesitated.
“I wanted to have a serious talk with you. Maybe over a meal somewhere, to make things more comfortable.”
“Really? Sure, why not.”
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing. I just thought you’d obviously refuse.”
“Having a conversation over dinner isn’t a big deal. Besides, I had something I wanted to tell you too, so this works out.”
Yeah, this works out perfectly.
I didn’t expect her to ask me to dinner, but either way, it’s still in line with what I wanted.
Elia and I visited a suitable restaurant and ordered food.
She skillfully prepared a meat dish and placed a portion on my plate.
“Please, enjoy.”
“I can manage my own food. Don’t bother. So, what is it you wanted to talk about?”
I asked as I casually picked at the dishes before me.
Meanwhile, Elia hadn’t touched the food she ordered.
After a moment of hesitation, she spoke.
“I know you dislike me. I came here to ask why.”
“Dislike you? Did I ever say that? Or did someone else?”
“No one said it, but I’ve felt it.”
“Hmm… Well, you’re not wrong.”
At my indifferent reply, Elia gripped the fork and knife in her hands a little tighter.
“So, I was right? I’ve felt this way for a while now. Even when we first met, and especially that time you tore up my doll at the hospital.”
“At first, I wondered if I’d done something wrong. But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t figure it out. Even today’s incident was the same.”
“So, you’re here to confront me about why I’ve been treating you badly?”
“I’m not here to confront you. I just want to know the reason.”
Once again, she carefully prepared a piece of meat and placed it on my plate, flashing a bright smile.
“I want to clear up any misunderstandings between us, Wade. If there’s something I lack, I’ll do my best to fix it. So please… don’t hate me so much.”
“Something you lack, huh…”
After eating in silence for a while, I set down my utensils and leaned back in my chair.
Then, I pointed toward an onion sitting in the corner of the restaurant.
“Do you see that onion over there? You’re like that onion.”
“An onion?”
Elia tilted her head in confusion.
“An onion has layers of skin. Even after peeling one layer, there’s another underneath. And when you peel that one, there’s another layer still. You have to keep peeling and peeling to get to the core. That’s exactly like you.”
“Like me? How?”
“It means you’re a hypocrite. You act nice on the outside, wearing a mask of kindness, but inside, you’re dark and deceitful. Am I wrong?”
Her eyebrows furrowed slightly.
“A hypocrite… In a way, you might be right. No, you are right. I do have a habit of putting on a cheerful front while harboring negative thoughts. But is that really so wrong?”
“I don’t know how much you understand about my inner thoughts, Wade, but is it truly wrong for me to want to be a bright, cheerful person despite that?”
Look at this girl.
She’s scarily adept at coming up with the kind of words a genuinely good person might say, right on the spot.
I chuckled softly and shook my head.
“That’s not wrong. The problem is, you don’t truly mean it. Even what you just said—you made it up, didn’t you?”
“Why won’t you trust me that much?”
“Why? Because I know exactly what you’ve done and what kind of person you are.”
“What are you talking about?”
Elia responded as if she truly had no idea. I leaned in close and whispered in her ear.
“You tried to kill Lumia with poison, murdered her family with that same poison, and recently, the mess you created in Noiren—it’s all your doing, isn’t it?”
“…W-What?”
Her face showed pure confusion, as if she didn’t understand a single word I said.
But I pressed on.
“I know it was all you.”
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t bother pretending. I have evidence of everything you’ve done.”
“E-Evidence?”
“Yeah, evidence. I’ve kept quiet until now, but don’t expect me to turn a blind eye forever.”
“Haha… You’re joking, right? That’s enough. It’s not funny anymore.”
Her eyes wavered.
The claim about evidence was a bluff, but my confident tone seemed to have rattled her.
That was enough for now.
Leaving Elia frozen in place, awkwardly laughing like a broken doll, I exited the restaurant.
She sat there, still staring after me, her laughter growing emptier by the second.
After finishing the encounter with Elia, I boarded the carriage heading back to the lodging.
“You provoked her intentionally, didn’t you?” Maria appeared from the shadows, sitting across from me.
She must have witnessed the entire exchange.
“I can’t leave her alone forever. It’s about time to deal with her.”
“What if she keeps pretending she doesn’t know? Well, I guess if that happens, you can just crush her by force.”
“Overwhelming her unilaterally isn’t the point. Fortunately, it seems my provocation worked, so you should start preparing too.”
“What do you need me to do?”
Maria and I discussed how best to respond when Elia revealed her true nature and acted out violently, as well as how to turn that situation to our advantage.
Clatter.
The carriage jolted roughly.
Maria, sensing something was off, opened the window and questioned the coachman.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing at all,” he replied.
“We are headed to the lodging, right?”
“Of course. This carriage is smoothly heading to hell.”
“I see.”
The coachman’s voice was eerily calm, but he was clearly not in his right mind.
I had noticed earlier that the carriage wasn’t heading toward the lodging but somewhere entirely different.
Clack, clack.
The carriage gradually came to a halt in an unnervingly silent location.
The sound of hooves ceased completely, and the coachman said nothing more.
Maria and I exchanged a glance before I opened the door and stepped outside.
The street was bathed in red.
It was the moon.
A large, blood-red moon hung in the sky, casting its eerie glow over the unfamiliar street.
“Welcome,” came a voice.
As I surveyed the surroundings, Elia emerged from the shadows of an alley.