The Return of Lilietta

Episode 2

The woman, who had been so absorbed in her outfit that she had forgotten about him, was startled. Her eyes met his again.

A delicate face like a doll. The appearance of young Lilietta remains intact.

Leonhard was instinctively convinced.

That woman is Lilietta del Nissa Lascail. His only sister who disappeared ten years ago.

He felt his hair turn white. He quickly reached out his hand towards the woman.

“LiLi… … !”

But before he could hug her, the woman withdrew her hand. Then she looked at him with a wary expression.

“Who are you?”

Leonhard looked down at the woman’s sharp face.

This expression was quite different from the radiant Lilietta he knew. She looked cold, dry, and tired.

Still, it was definitely Lilietta. It couldn’t have been anyone else. That face, that voice, that outfit.

But why can’t I recognize my family?

That felt stranger than the fact that ten years had passed and he had reappeared in the same clothes as when he disappeared, only older.

He asked, half-asleep.

“Don’t you remember me, Lili?”

“Lily?”

The woman tilted her head and looked up at him. Then she sighed.

“Well, it looks really sad, I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“… … ?”

“You’ve got the wrong person. My name is Rita, not Lili.”

“Rita… … you say?”

Leonhard chewed on the name. It felt like another nickname for Lilietta.

‘Could it be that she lost her memories of her childhood after she went missing? She even vaguely remembers her name, so she might have become Rita.’

He cautiously called her again, this time by her real name rather than a nickname.

“Lilietta.”

“No, just Rita. It’s not such an old-fashioned name.”

“… … What’s your last name?”

“pascal.”

Rita Pascal responded annoyedly, clutching her long hair and squeezing it dry.

“I’m going crazy, why did my hair get so long… … What’s up with that, and why is it this color?”

The woman looked at her hair, which she was clutching, with wide eyes. Her wet blonde hair was shining like pure gold under the sunset.

A woman who had been hurriedly looking down at the lake saw her face reflected in the water and opened her mouth wide.

“This is… … not me.”

She muttered in a daze and fumbled with her face, then flinched and looked down at her hands. They were slender and white, without a single blemish.

“… … This is ridiculous. Whose body is this?”

Leonhard, who had been watching the scene from afar, answered the question.

“Lilietta del Nissa Laskail.”

The woman looked back at him. He added with mixed feelings.

“This is my sister who went missing 10 years ago.”

“This is your sister?”

The woman pointed at my body as if it were an object and asked me back. Leonhard washed his face dry and answered slowly.

“No, I mean you’re my sister.”

“… … .”

She was silent for a moment, then muttered, letting out a sigh that seemed to be welling up from the pit of her stomach.

“Ha, I’ve seen all sorts of things, but this is a first.”

“Lily, I know you’re confused, but calm down for now… … .”

“Look, let me say this again, I’m not your sister. I’m someone else who, for some reason, ended up in your sister’s body.”

“Someone else?”

“Yes. My original body wasn’t like this. We either switched bodies… or I became a ghost and possessed your younger sister’s body.”

The woman continued speaking, frowning as if her head was aching.

“… … Thinking back on the situation before I lost consciousness, it seems like it was the latter. I would have definitely died, damn it.”

Leonhard stared at the woman with a strange feeling.

The natural mixing of profanity, the unfamiliar expressions and attitudes.

Why do I have a gut feeling that the person who asserts that she is not Lilietta but someone else is really my sister?

‘Because it’s Lily’s body? Or… … .’

The thought was short. Whether she was the real Lilietta or not, the conclusion was the same that we couldn’t leave her like this.

“First of all… … .”

Leonhard took off his jacket and offered it to her.

“Let’s go home, Rita.”

“house?”

“The sun is setting and you can’t stay here like that. Let’s go home.”

“… … .”

The woman hesitated, looked up at the setting sky, looked down at her body wearing only wet pajamas, then reached out and took his jacket.

“I can’t help it. I’ll have to ask for your help for a while.”

As she put on her jacket, Leonhard approached her. He calmly asked the woman, who stepped back cautiously.

“Are you planning to walk barefoot?”

“ah.”

“Okay, get on.”

He turned around and leaned back. The woman hesitated, then sighed deeply and climbed onto his back.

“……thank you.”

Leonhard didn’t say anything in response and just walked towards the duke’s residence.

I remembered my childhood, playing by the lakeside and carrying my sleeping younger sister back home.

The weight on his back was as light as it had been then. He had grown as much as Lilietta had grown. It was as if he had gone back in time.

The woman, looking back at the lake that had now become distant, suddenly muttered.

“The sunset looks like a silk shawl.”

Leonhard stood still. The woman on his back asked curiously.

“what’s the matter?”

“No, nothing.”

He shook his head slowly and started walking again, with some certainty.

* * *

Pascal was a great wizard and a master combat instructor. He was famous for raising orphans he brought in from somewhere and turning them into excellent warriors.

The children raised by Pascal entered the battlefield in their early to mid-teens. They displayed shocking force and adapted to the battlefield with surprising speed.

As Pascal’s children all achieved great things, people would ask him how he always found such talented orphans.

Each time, Pascal simply said that it was the result of special training.

At the end of that ‘special training’, whenever he sent the children out to the battlefield, he would always say the same words.

“Do not fear death. Your death, Lord, Lord, death is… … .”

The brown-haired boy recited Pascal’s maxim in a trembling voice.

Clank. Rita loaded the magazine, pulled back the slide, and released it, continuing the boy’s speech.

“Your death will be the seed of hope.”

The boy glanced back at her. Rita smiled reassuringly.

He swallowed dryly and asked quietly.

“Aren’t you scared, Sister?”

“what?”

“Everything. Those damn demons, this dog-like situation we’re in here isolated in, we’re about to… … .”

The reality that we’re all going to die.

The boy continued in a hoarse voice. Rita reached out and stroked his head roughly.

“Eww, what, what is it!”

“You will never die, Luca.”

“yes?”

“There are so many seniors who will die before you, so why are you, the youngest, dying? Worrying about useless things.”

“That… … What!”

She added, pressing the boy’s head as if trying to say something.

“Don’t be afraid, I will protect you with my life.”

“No, it’s my job to protect!”

“Does the battlefield always roll along according to roles? You just do whatever you have to. You still have a long way to go, you still have a long way to go, you little punk.”

“Ugh, don’t treat me like a child! I’m Pascal too!”

“Rita.”

Someone called out to her as she teased the boy. She was a woman with short black hair and glasses.

“Ollie?”

“Hey, give me your gun.”

“… …Why all of a sudden?”

“Oh my, it looks like it hurts. Give it to me.”

She took Rita’s gun as if she was snatching it away, looked over the barrel, and then sighed as if she was satisfied.

“You overdid it again, again. Live life to the fullest, Rita Pascal.”

“Oh, why! It’s okay if it’s not broken!”

“As long as it doesn’t break down, that’s all? How many times have I told you that if you try to force something that’s overheated to move with your body, its lifespan will be shortened?”

A woman with gnashed teeth quickly took apart the gun and reassembled it except for one part.

“Okay, take this.”

“What, what did you take from my gun?”

“Your anti-shit parts.”

“What the heck is that? When did you put that in?”

“I put it there to tell you not to push yourself too hard, but I took it out because I thought you were pushing yourself harder. I completely released the limit so you can increase the output, so now just yell at the gun instead of your body.”

“Wow! Really? You lifted the output limit? It’s completely unlimited now? That’s so cool… … Wait, but what if this breaks?”

“I’ll fix it if it breaks, so you’d better break the gun instead of your body, which is hard to fix. Do you understand?”

“Thanks, Ollie!”

As Rita smiled brightly and hugged her, the short-haired woman pushed up her glasses and sighed.

“I bet you’re the only one who likes your gun much more difficult and dangerous to handle, Rita.”

“What, Rita, did you release the magic gun limit? Did you do something fun?”

A head of golden brown hair bulged out from above the half-ruined wall against which they were leaning. He was a tall, thin man.

“You always say things to me, but honestly, you’re crazier than me. Aren’t you?”

Rita glared at him, frowning.

“Shut up, Ethan.”

“Look at what a crazy weapon it has become.”

He tried to snatch Rita’s pistol. At that moment, a surge of electricity shot out of Rita’s hand, which was holding the pistol, and his hand was knocked away.

“Oh, hot!”

“Where are you going to touch me so carelessly?”

“Oh my, the Musketeer is not catching the evil spirit he told you to catch, but is supporting a person! Oh my!”

As the man clenched his fist and started to fuss, Rita raised her gun-holding hand high and smirked.

“It was your fault for trying to touch the gun without permission in the first place… … .”

Another man appeared behind her and snatched the gun away from her.

“Rita Pascal, what did you do to the gun?”

He was a handsome, black-haired man with a good physique.

His right eye was covered with a blindfold, and a large scar was visible, extending from the inside to the outside of the blindfold. His only pale yellow pupil was carefully examining the stolen gun.