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Translator: penny
Chapter: 34
Chapter Title: Aira
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Mom died.
...
No.
If I'm going to speak, I have to be precise.
Mom died because of me.
No one had to tell me that. I knew it.
The way she looked down at me, her eyes questioning whether I was truly the child born from her own womb.
She went mad, and in the end, she tied a rope around her neck—
Leaving behind an eerily serene smile on her face, Mother left me behind and departed first.
As if, at last, everything was finally over.
And it was all because of me.
The cake on the table.
The last words Mother left on it.
Since the moment I read those words, I never once thought this wasn't my fault.
A high elf child who couldn't do anything.
A being born into the world who ruined her mother.
The elf kingdom wrapped up the incident very simply.
A child who sullied the high elf bloodline.
A 'regicide' committed by the daughter who drove her own mother to death.
So the verdict was swift and clear.
The crime of incompetence.
The crime of existing itself.
For those reasons, I was locked away in solitary confinement.
A place where no one came.
A place where no sounds reached.
There, for the first time, I realized.
That the final gift Mother left me wasn't just death—it was the beginning of completely erasing me from this world.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
I pressed my forehead to the floor, repeating the same words over and over.
Because it was all my fault.
The sin of being born a high elf yet unable to do anything.
The fall from princess to something less than human in an instant.
A solitary cell crawling with maggots.
Even as I scraped together and licked at the rotting food scraps with my hands, I didn't think any of it was unfair.
This was punishment.
Punishment I deserved.
Because it really was all my fault.
So every day, I spent apologizing to Mother, who was no longer in this world.
And then—
One day, as time passed.
"Oh, you're really here."
"Kyahaha! What the heck, look at that mess. She's a total beggar~."
"To think something like that is a high elf like us... It's truly revolting."
"...Sisters?"
I lifted my head, and darkness fell before my eyes.
How did they know to come here?
Faces I didn't want to see.
Sharing the same blood.
High elves like me.
Green eyes said to receive the harmony of the forest.
But their hair was all white as snow.
The color inherited from the various queens still by the king's side.
The three princesses.
My sisters.
They looked down at me sprawled on the floor and laughed without a hint of hesitation.
Their laughter exploded close by, scraping at the inside of my ears.
The moment I heard it, my body reacted before my mind could.
My shoulders hunched up on their own, and tension gripped my fingertips.
What rose in my thoughts were the various abuses I'd suffered from my sisters under the name of family.
So I wondered.
What had they come for this time?
I'm already in enough pain... Have they come to torment me more?
At that moment—
"Aira. You're being released."
"...Pardon?"
"Released, you idiot."
The words were tossed coldly.
"Father has passed judgment on you."
Second sister Belcia's lips twisted in barely contained laughter.
"Exile beyond the forest. Record erasure~."
Third sister Celcia added with a shrill giggle.
"You're no longer a high elf or royalty. You're just Aira now."
Those words sounded strangely light.
The twins chattered about my sentence like it was a joke, laughing all the while, while eldest sister Elcia simply read out the verdict with utterly indifferent, cold eyes.
"Leave the forest and live quietly until you die."
Even then, I nodded.
No, perhaps I was even grateful.
That the daughter who took her mother's life was granted not execution, but permission to live.
In the late hours of dawn.
Even as I was dragged out the kingdom's back gate following my three sisters, the iron chains remained unbound.
My arms and legs throbbed where the iron pressed.
And the moment the chains released—
I knew.
The instant I passed through this gate, I would vanish completely from the kingdom.
No longer a high elf, nor the king's daughter—just a being left with a single name.
"Oops, you're a bit late."
An unfamiliar voice.
"...Who are you?"
"The one who'll take you beyond the forest."
Standing at the city wall entrance was a withered old man with deeply etched wrinkles, unpleasantly gaunt.
A carriage waiting, he bowed deeply to my three sisters.
'...A carriage.'
In that instant, tears welled up again, ones I thought I'd already shed dry.
Even in casting me out, they intended to treat me as a princess one last time.
Father, who had never once spoken to me.
Still, I was his daughter after all.
The realization overwhelmed me, and I dropped to my knees, bowing my head.
I'm still sorry to Mother.
But I couldn't end it here.
I hadn't given up on the promise to be recognized as a high elf.
Even if cast out now, I would return one day.
As someone acknowledged by Father and the sisters here present.
The moment I clenched my fist, steeling my resolve—
Grip.
"...Huh?"
Both my arms were seized at once.
Right: sister Belcia.
Left: sister Celcia.
Before I could ask what was happening, my body was yanked roughly upright.
As I shook my head, trying to speak—
Flash.
My vision split white.
And then I saw nothing.
"Gh...!"
I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't see.
As if something had stolen my entire field of view.
The moment I opened my mouth to scream, my tongue was roughly seized.
And then, the calmest voice sounded.
It was sister Elcia.
"By His Majesty's command."
Her voice was as dispassionate as reading a verdict.
"To hide your identity and ensure nothing of your life as a high elf ever reaches the world."
Air leaked from my lungs.
"And—"
A brief silence.
"Making you unable to speak serves the same purpose."
By the time those words ended, I could no longer see anything, nor speak a word.
"By His Majesty's command, we take your eyes and tongue."
Sister Elcia's voice remained calm to the end.
"We'll leave your life intact. Be grateful for that much."
"What—"
Sister Belcia mixed in laughter.
"Not that you'll amount to much—just dragged off in a slave cart to some weird place~."
"Maybe you'll find an owner who takes a liking to you there. Pfft. In that state... doubtful."
I couldn't understand what they meant.
Slave cart?
Owner?
The words about taking my eyes and tongue didn't fully register.
I had to speak.
Something—
But the more I moved my mouth, the more air just escaped.
The fact that my tongue was gone hit me late.
My eyes too.
I sensed my sisters' presences fading away, but had no idea where they were going.
I wanted to grab them. To cry out.
Instead—
Clank.
A cold sensation locked around my neck.
The weight of iron pressed on my breath.
"Got it? Follow, you worm bitch."
The old man's voice.
"You're no princess anymore."
The aged elf who had bowed to my sisters now seized my hair roughly with those words and dragged me.
Without sight, my body pitched forward, and I was thrown into the carriage.
That was when it began.
Truly, hell started then.
I was no longer a high elf.
No longer royalty.
A defective slave, robbed of voice and sight.
And bit by bit, I came to understand late.
That no matter how worthless, publicly executing royalty leaves an eternal stain on the high elf bloodline.
So they didn't kill me directly.
Without dirtying their own hands or others', they made me vanish quietly, unknown to all.
By taking my eyes and mouth, rendering me unable to prove my identity.
Then it wasn't execution—just the disappearance of a troublesome princess.
A runaway.
Handled as something like that.
"Ugh?! Fuck... I bought her thinking she looked pretty even without eyes, but no tongue either? What the hell am I supposed to do with this? She wouldn't sell in a brothel!"
"W-well... Can't you take her for cheap? I'll let her go for a song~."
"Fuck... Hold on. I'll modify her to be usable somehow."
Crunch.
Crunch crunch.
"Ah... Aaaah...!"
It hurts.
So much.
What are you planning to use me for?
What do you want to turn me into?
Why pull my teeth now too?
It started with the front teeth.
"Remove these, and she'll be somewhat useful."
A few days later, the spot changed.
Now the molars.
"Nah, this won't work either."
And a few days after that.
"Then pull them all."
All were pulled.
But it didn't end.
"Not unusable. Not yet. A little more tweaking."
I can feel it, even without sight.
This is my body.
All that remained in my mouth was the taste of iron and the metallic tang of cooling blood.
Sensations I would have felt with a tongue came only as pain now.
Sense of time dulled.
I don't even know where I am.
I can't recall when I parted from the old elf who first dragged me away.
"Useless."
Always the same words.
Before high elf—even as a person.
And as a woman, useless too.
'Mom... Is this all because I'm lacking?'
I was just born this way.
Incompetent as a high elf, that's all.
Was that such a great sin?
Bought and sold, bought and sold again.
Each time, under the name of 'modification,' my body shrank bit by bit.
I can tell, even without seeing.
This is my body.
I can't even remember the last time I chewed food properly.
Mom... It hurts.
Take me with you.
Hell or heaven, I don't care.
It's too painful here.
You can hate me.
Keep hating me.
Just get me out of this hell called 'life.'
From the moment I only awaited death, my thoughts stopped.
Not controlling my body wasn't shame—it just felt like one function broken.
But what approached such an Aira was—
"M... Mom?"
Not death, but the warmth of a 'family' that would care for the girl.
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