NOVEL WEB Chapter 56
This episode dives into Anela and Agail’s backstory.
If you’re not a fan of side characters’ stories, feel free to skip this one.
It’ll upload as usual at 6 PM today.
A shadow cast at my feet. When Anela looked up dreamily, she saw a man standing there with an umbrella.
“Are you feeling better now?”
At his question, Anela nodded.
“I’m okay. I figured this would happen anyway.”
‘Okay, huh…’
The smoke from his cigarette slowly spiraled into the air.
“Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For everything.”
Anela let out a sigh.
“Honestly, you didn’t have any reason to trust me, did you?”
“It was just a deal.”
At his words, Anela forced a bitter smile.
“That’s true. Don’t worry. I’ll definitely keep my promise.”
“……”
“What’s wrong? You don’t believe me?”
He shook his head, hesitantly asking.
“Are you… thinking about going back to the Square?”
“I guess so. I’m not expecting to take my mother’s place anymore. Still, that’s where I belong, right?”
Anela was certainly a talented mage in the Square, but if you asked whether she could aim for the Master position—
‘Well…’
Seriously, that thought wavered. It only grew stronger as she looked at Agail. His mistakes were unforgivable. Yet, the Butterfly of Covenant didn’t kill him… perhaps due to that talent.
A sister who couldn’t fill her brother’s shoes for three whole years. The inferiority complex. What was she even thinking?
‘……’
A long silence followed. Embracing the coffin, Anela murmured.
“If I had mustered the courage back then, would things have been different?”
“Courage?”
“The day Agail first killed someone…”
Anela cautiously recalled the past.
She was still regretting it.
Rushed and foolish, her past self. From that day five years ago, perhaps forever onward.
‘Agail.’
Her brother always took the lead.
At first, it filled her with joy. But at some point, their mother’s attention waned. So did the expectations from those around them. Still, she didn’t hate Agail. Yeah. Until he surpassed her.
‘……’
When she first lost to Agail, she celebrated him with joy.
At a family gathering, she gifted him a parakeet. Her brother was delighted, and she smiled.
In that moment.
After that day, it became increasingly hard to see her brother’s face. Day after day… the times she lost to Agail kept piling up.
Eventually, realizing she could no longer beat him, despair settled in as she locked herself in her room.
She didn’t even bother to see Agail’s worried face when he came looking for her. So many days passed, and when she finally emerged due to hunger, her existence had long been forgotten.
The mother eventually declared Agail the successor, leaving her in despair.
No one had expectations of her anymore. Her lack of talent held her back. The wall of talent that she couldn’t close in on with effort exhausted her.
Thus, the inferiority complex continued to grow.
Every time she saw Agail, her shortcomings became glaringly obvious. She purposefully ignored him to avoid feelings.
‘So.’
Slowly, everything began to go awry.
Excessive expectations can crumble a person. The indifference of a loved one gnaws at someone.
Agail began to change.
Where once there was a smile, there was now cynicism; where laughter once echoed, derision began to creep in.
Yet their mother remained indifferent, and Anela frantically struggled to keep up with Agail.
She held her inferiority complex. Agail bore his wounds, while time flowed quickly.
One day, she accidentally witnessed her brother kill someone.
When she asked why, he simply shook his head. She still didn’t really know the reason. But looking back now, it wasn’t impossible to guess.
Because the dead man’s attire was suspicious.
Startled, she closed the door and hid.
How long had it been? She heard Agail sobbing outside the door. But she still couldn’t step out. The brother she saw beyond the doorknob was smiling.
“Anela.”
Broken and weeping, he called for her name endlessly. It scared her so much.
She trembled under the blankets until he finally stopped crying and left. The shadow cast beneath her door was especially large.
Perhaps at that time, her brother had already been consumed by a demon?
The incident drifted into obscurity.
After that day, Agail exhibited a fanatic obsession with the concept of being alive. As if he couldn’t accept the very fact of existence.
It all began then.
“Madness.”
The madness in her brother’s eyes started to show. She brushed it off lightly. No, she didn’t even realize.
The whip of their mother, the expectations of the world. Agail lived up to it all.
There was no longer any comparison between them. The gap had widened to an extent that comparing them became meaningless.
What she worked herself to the bone for, he accomplished without a care. Inside her was festering pain.
Then one day, Agail, for the first time, failed to meet their mother’s expectations, and he killed the parakeet he had been raising.
The parakeet she had given him.
She didn’t ask anything, and he didn’t say a word.
Later, Agail stuffed the dead parakeet for decoration.
And so time passed once again.
By the time the parakeet’s color had dulled, ah yes, five years ago, Agail killed someone affiliated with the Square.
No matter how you looked at it, he couldn’t evade punishment.
Agail bowed his head, but the eye she caught a glimpse of was shaking madly.
That was ecstasy.
Her brother became a madman who found joy in murder. And as if wishing for one last thing, he called out their mother’s and her name.
“Mother and Anela.”
It was chilling.
She couldn’t help but tremble at the thought that perhaps Agail might kill her. But looking back, maybe it was a plea.
Please, someone stop me.
If she had cast aside her inferiority, let go of the impatience, and reached out—if only she had mustered a bit of courage, maybe they could have changed.
But she was laughing.
Her astounding brother was being punished. The thought that he might lose the position of successor of the Square thrilled her heart.
…Of course, that didn’t happen.
The case once again drifted into obscurity.
By that time, Anela and Agail had become estranged, not even seeing each other’s faces.
And as time flowed on, her brother’s more serious crimes came to light.
What she later heard was that Agail had been stealing the magic power of others for himself, in an incredibly cruel manner. In the end, Agail was exiled.
It was unexpected. Her mother thought she would have him killed. Was it mercy? Or was it regret?
A little more time passed, and her mother told her.
“Go find Agail and bring him back.”
It was a brutal statement.
Her mother was telling her to chase after her brother’s shadow.
Ah. She realized she couldn’t even be her brother’s shadow.
“Mother.”
She collapsed in that place as if breaking apart.
She couldn’t see her mother’s expression, but she neither wanted to bring back Agail nor could she.
What was she thinking? Did she wish for her to die to find relief?
…She didn’t know.
Three years passed. Although she received some help from the Square, it was passive. She hesitated to even think about fighting Agail. She knew well. Unless her mother personally came, no one could catch Agail.
All the while, she faintly heard news of her brother as hollow time continued to drift by. By then, she was ready to give up. Just, just try to live this way.
“Gu Jin-ha.”
At that moment, she heard about this man.
The Team Leader of Dawn’s 3rd Squad. An exceptional swordsman… maybe this man could stop Agail? When she met him, the passion she thought had died down flared back to life.
Three years. It was three years that felt entirely inconsequential.
But once hope arose that she could return, those three years turned into a lament. Yes. This man was her hope.
So while Agail was away, she teamed up with him to break through the gap her brother had created. They ended up fighting an Agail who came back too late.
She thought they could win.
That after three years, they could capture her brother once more.
It was an illusion.
Her brother had become a monster.
In the end, both she and he fell into a reverie.
In the vision, she saw their childhood selves.
As time slowly passed.
In the dream, they were different.
They were joyful and happy.
It hadn’t turned to ruins like this.
If only she had had a bit more courage.
‘……’
So she realized it was an illusion.
The dissonance was so strong that even knowing it was fake, she didn’t want to wake up.
Her mother and her, along with her brother.
In the vision, they were happy together. It was so miserable that when she woke up, she didn’t want to return to reality.
That’s why.
When she returned to reality and endlessly gazed at the dead Agail, what he wanted to show her wasn’t this? They could have been like this. In the end, what he wished for.
She bitterly lamented.
“It’s too late.”
Things had already become irreparable.
Her brother’s sins were not something that could be cleansed. They couldn’t be covered up. Naturally, he had to pay the price… and so he faced death at the hands of some wolf.
‘……’
Her heart felt hollow. As raindrops fell into the stagnant puddle, she finally woke from her long thoughts.
“…It’s nothing.”
Just when it seemed she would speak, she shook her head. He didn’t say a word to her. Instead, he shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around her.
“Are you alright?”
“Even if I said I was, I’m not. I’m fine…?”
Eventually, something slipped down her cheek, and after standing there for a while in a daze, she weakly moved her lips.
“You really have no sense.”
At her sudden remark, he tilted his head.
“I told you to put away the umbrella.”
She hugged the coffin tighter.
On that day, it rained the whole day.