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Translator: Vine
Chapter Title: The Rival
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My first thought was, 'why?'
Isabel would never forgive me for slandering Lucas.
So, I thought her anger would never subside.
But for some reason.
Isabel's anger was clearly fading now.
'What did I miss?'
I didn't know.
Act 3 revolved around Nikita.
So I was so focused on Nikita's situation that I hadn't considered Isabel.
"Isabel."
In that case, it was better to.
"Didn't you gloat about defeating me, the one who slandered your friend? Where has all that spirit gone?"
It was better to ask directly.
Beating around the bush wouldn't get me an answer.
I turned a curt face towards Isabel.
Isabel clenched her fists.
But her fists quickly relaxed.
My eyes narrowed slightly.
"Yes, that's right."
Isabel said that, quietly looking down at her open hands.
A hollow laugh escaped Isabel's lips.
"But then, this thought suddenly occurred to me."
The light in Isabel's eyes began to dim.
"The thought of whether I have the right to corner you, who disgraced Lucas. That kind of thought."
Anger can indeed fuel a person so fiercely that it can make them live their life anew.
But sometimes, because it burned too brightly.
Just one small trigger can cause the flame to die out.
"Me? After Lucas died, I did nothing."
Isabel slowly trembled, looking down at her empty hands.
Her tightly bitten lips quivered.
After hearing the news of Lucas's death and the shock that followed.
Isabel had let go of everything in the world.
She had also let go of her own life.
The sunflower, having lost its sun, was tragically withering away.
"I just... stood there, blankly, unable to properly accept reality. Just still, still. No, wait."
Isabel's empty eyes looked up at me.
"It's just as you said last time. I definitely tried to die with Lucas."
She had lost her most precious friend in the world.
The permanent separation from a friend she had grown up with her entire life was a devastating event that shattered her world.
She didn't eat, and she didn't drink.
She didn't sleep either, simply repeating days of blank staring.
"I just wished I could die like that."
But with the passage of time, up until now.
Isabel had realized.
"And yet, I,"
Isabel had clearly wished for death.
"By what right,"
She had simply wished to die with Lucas, living only because she couldn't die.
However.
"Do I act like I'm speaking for Lucas?"
She realized what a mistake that was.
Lucas had faced an Apostle and died to save others.
Isabel knew this better than anyone.
Lucas died to save others.
Yet she couldn't accept Lucas's death and tried to die the same way.
This was the choice Lucas would have hated, grieved, and been tormented by the most.
Isabel, to the deceased Lucas,
Had tried to become the worst kind of friend, one who died following him.
Isabel covered her face with her hands.
Then, as if tearing at her own face, she squeezed her hands, letting out a cry of anguish.
"How, how could I have the nerve?"
Thick teardrops fell from Isabel's eyes.
"I, who tried to do such a thing to the deceased Lucas."
Isabel couldn't bear the burning anguish in her chest and sank to the ground.
Clearly, the one who suffered the most was the deceased Lucas.
Even knowing that, she had tried to inflict more suffering upon him.
Isabel felt truly sorry and heartbroken, unable to bear that fact.
"How could I…."
Isabel was consumed by self-loathing.
Self-loathing is poison.
A virulent poison that constantly gnaws at a person until nothing is left.
Isabel had been brought back to reality by anger.
Because of that, she replayed the mistake she had almost made and realized how pathetic it was.
The moment she realized.
Isabel couldn't go back to before she realized it.
"As long as she's burning with that kind of fervor, she won't think of dying."
She must have replayed my words over and over again.
And in that process, she came to understand.
That she, living with such fervor for Lucas,
Was merely using Lucas as an excuse to keep living.
How pathetic it was to live solely on anger.
Realizing this, she began to crumble once more.
"...So, are you going to just stand by if your dead friend is slandered?"
Isabel cherished Lucas more than anyone.
I asked her, consumed by self-loathing, if she would tolerate someone disgracing him like that.
Isabel fell silent.
Seeing this, I pressed my lips together and asked.
"Isabel Luna."
Calling her full name, I took a step closer.
The Isabel I knew was always like a bright sun.
Even if she became a sun burning fiercely with anger.
She wasn't someone who would be consumed by self-loathing and become less than a candle flame.
"Is that all your regard for your friend amounts to?"
"Then!"
Isabel shrieked as if in agony.
Marks from her own hands were left on her face.
"Then what am I supposed to do?! I tried to die with Lucas!
And yet, despite that, I got angry about Lucas being slandered and trained so desperately again!
Shamelessly, without even realizing that I was the one who disgraced Lucas the most!"
Isabel's hand pressed hard against the rampart floor.
She pressed so violently that her fingernails broke, and blood welled up.
"But you, whom I thought disgraced Lucas, were actually doing what Lucas would have wanted more than anyone else…."
Only then did I understand why Isabel had changed.
That day I awoke again in the Gray Forest.
Isabel had seen Lucas, who died throwing himself to save others, overlaid with me.
That's why Isabel kept avoiding my gaze.
Seeing me reminded her of Lucas.
And made her recall what she had tried to do to Lucas.
"I was just a selfish girl who got caught up in Lucas being slandered and entered the magic academy to change that…."
Accordingly, Isabel's emotions continued to be unstable.
So she immersed herself in training, as if escaping.
To overcome her self-loathing, she desperately tried to learn sword fighting from Ban.
But as a result of that immersion,
What she heard from others was talk of her dating Ban.
Isabel had experienced Lucas's death only a few months ago.
The fact that she, who had lost a precious friend, seemed happy enough to be dating someone.
This plunged Isabel even deeper into despair.
So she unleashed her anger on her friends.
The sword she thought she was wielding for Lucas was a sword she wasn't even worthy of wielding.
And to others, the sword she wielded for Lucas seemed to be a sword she wielded for her own happiness.
Seeing her like that,
"What's wrong with being selfish?"
I asked what kind of nonsense she was talking about.
Isabel's head slowly lifted.
"People can't live their entire lives solely for others. Of course, everyone lives for themselves. I'm the same."
It's obvious that everyone puts themselves first.
"That's human nature, and a natural action."
My eyes met Isabel's.
Isabel began to listen intently to what I was saying.
So.
"Isabel, let me tell you something. What you're doing right now is just an act of feigned righteousness."
"...What?"
Here, I struck hard.
"You tried to die with your dead friend. And because you tried to do such a terrible thing, following your dead friend, now you'll just stand by and watch your friend be slandered.
What kind of monstrous, idiotic nonsense is that? Either play the good guy or be selfish; pick one."
I took another step closer to Isabel, showing my irritation.
The blazing sun was directly above my head, casting a shadow.
My red eyes glinted in the shade.
"Your friend is dead. The dead don't speak. If you follow him to death, you'll just become another silent one.
Your friend won't grieve over that. A dead person can't grieve anyway."
Isabel was bound by the ghost of Lucas.
So, to save Isabel now,
I had to use even the ghost of Lucas.
"Conversely, if you had died, and your friend Lucas heard someone slandering you, do you think he would have said the same thing as you?"
Isabel's shoulders twitched.
This was a fact we both knew.
Absolutely not.
Lucas would never have stood by and let anyone disgrace Isabel's death, no matter what.
"You said you didn't want to disgrace your friend any further."
I stated coldly.
"Isn't what you're doing right now the most disgraceful thing you could do to your friend?"
Remaining silent when your precious friend is slandered, claiming you have no right.
That was truly the worst possible action for Lucas.
Isabel's eyes trembled violently.
"I still believe Lucas's death was a stain on the history of Jerion Academy and an act that failed to set an example for many students."
I once again uttered the words that had ignited Isabel's anger.
"Isabel, what about you?"
Stained with tears, she bit her lip tightly.
She clenched her blood-stained hands into fists.
Then looked up at me again.
In her eyes, which had lost their light just moments ago,
A small flame flickered once more.
"...No. Lucas gave his all to save others. No one should devalue that."
Isabel steadily built up her resolve once more.
Not an unstable foundation like before.
Now, it was a solid foundation of will for her to stand upon.
"I have no intention of letting what happened to your friend happen again.
Your friend's death is a disgrace that Jerion Academy must overcome."
Isabel retorted.
"Lucas's death was a noble sacrifice.
Lucas's will, sacrificing himself for others, is an exemplary trait that everyone should inherit."
Isabel's opinion clashed with mine.
Before I knew it, Isabel had risen to her feet.
I had decided it the first day I saw Isabel.
I couldn't be a sun for Isabel, like Lucas was.
So, at the very least, I decided to be her moon.
Even if she mistook moonlight for sunlight.
I resolved to make the sunflower lift its head.
"Isabel, I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye. You're exactly the kind of person I can't stand."
"The feeling's mutual. I hate you too."
Just like the first day I saw Isabel,
Her eyes glared fiercely at me.
For now, this was enough.
Now that the ghost of Lucas had been placed upon her,
Isabel would live on, if only to uphold Lucas's will.
"Right, then we'll have to see whose opinion is right, won't we?"
My role wasn't to comfort Isabel, to embrace her, or to help her rise again.
In Isabel's episode,
My role was to be the rival and enemy Isabel had to fight against.
My role was complete.
Below the ramparts.
I saw Isabel's friends, with whom she spent time, running towards us.
Sharin, her best friend, was among them.
They would be able to listen to Isabel and take care of her.
I turned around.
"...Hanun Airey, just one question."
At that moment, Isabel, turning away, called me by my name for the first time.
"...Have you ever met Lucas?"
Had she sensed something in my words today?
I looked at Isabel for a moment, then turned my head.
"I don't know. Perhaps I met him somewhere by chance."
It was better to leave a question mark than to deny it and invite unnecessary suspicion.
Leaving those words, I left Isabel.
Even after I left, Isabel simply...
Just quietly watched me disappear below the ramparts.