#088
They were such pitiful tears that the usual me might have cried along with her. But having exhausted the potion’s power, I now silently watched those tears and then gently took her wrist to lead her. I was tense that she might refuse, but she followed behind me while crying, holding the desert fox that was also crying mournfully for its owner.
The place I went to was in front of Licht’s statue. Licht, sitting with a grief-stricken face, was still in his frozen statue state. Come to think of it, there was one dog statue on each side of him. I recalled the Siberian Husky and Elkhound I had seen in the study.
‘These must have been frozen too.’
I let go of the hand that had been holding Celia and stepped back to watch them.
Celia, who had been shedding tears while looking at Licht for a long time, finally moved. She bent over Licht, cupped his face, and kissed him. It was a kiss drenched in tears. Hot teardrops fell ceaselessly onto the ice.
And finally, the moment I had been waiting for came.
Flaaaash!
Light burst and enveloped the two people. The light was so blinding that I covered my eyes to protect my vision and waited for the effect to disappear.
[Mansion Owner Licht: Farmer blessed by the gods. Thank you for granting my request.]
When the special effect finally disappeared and I opened my eyes, the two people were standing side by side holding hands and looking at me. I surveyed them with suspicious eyes. On the surface, they were a beautiful couple of a handsome man and beautiful woman, but… I couldn’t tell what they really were.
‘What are these guys? Did they become ghost NPCs? They’re not monsters, right?’
“I shall return what was entrusted to me.”
I thought Licht was talking about Carlisle. So I was grumbling internally about why he was referring to a person as an object, calling him an impudent ghost, when what appeared sparkling in the air was unexpectedly a part of a frozen tree.
“Fragment of the Sacred Tree?”
I was bewildered by the sudden development. Why was a Fragment of the Sacred Tree appearing here? Hadn’t the hidden dungeon opened yet?
Despite my confusion, when I received the Fragment of the Sacred Tree, a quest window suddenly appeared with a ding.
[The Secret of the Frozen Mansion quest has been completed. Please receive your reward.]
[Reward: 2 bottles of Tranquility Potion, 10,000 Rual]
Ding.
[You have obtained the Forgotten Snowy Mountains hidden quest reward!]
[Fragment of the Sacred Tree 3/5]
[Essence of Air]
[Farmer’s Watering Can]
Ding.
[Quest: Take the Fragment of the Sacred Tree and find the Administrator of the Sacred Tree!]
It seemed the hidden quest had also started on its own without asking. Wasn’t this too much? To me, who was standing with my mouth agape in disbelief, the mansion owner couple gave one more word of thanks and tried to disappear.
“Thank you, Raon. Let’s meet again when the world is stable.”
He called my name familiarly, but this wasn’t the time to point that out. Was this bastard joking?
“Wait! Hey! What if you just leave like that? What about Carlisle?”
When I grabbed him, Licht finally threw something toward me as if he had just remembered. What I automatically caught reflexively was a potion in a very small bottle. So… like eye drops? When I looked at it puzzledly, Licht tapped around his eyes as I had guessed.
“You know what’s needed.”
It seemed he was indeed saying to put eye drops in Carlisle’s eyes to remove the ice fragments. I was relieved it was simpler than expected. Having gotten what I wanted, I was about to let them go when one curiosity came to mind.
“Wait, just one more thing. Let me ask just one more thing.”
Licht stopped mid-turn and looked at me. His face said to go ahead and ask.
“What did you mean earlier when you commanded Carlisle in the name of the Sacred Tree? What’s your relationship with the Sacred Tree?”
Licht cast a puzzled look at me.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Then who else should I ask about it?”
Licht stared at my face intently. We looked at each other like that. After a while, it was Licht who chuckled and turned his head away.
“Not yet, I see. Then I cannot say anything. You must realize it yourself.”
“Not yet? What exactly? What does that… Hey, Licht!”
Licht, leaving behind an incomprehensible answer, ignored my violent calling and disappeared while holding Celia’s hand. The Siberian Husky and Elkhound went with them too. I was left alone in the snowy garden in an instant.
I stood there for a moment looking at the empty space where they had disappeared in disbelief, then suddenly came to my senses when a gust of snowy wind blew and slapped my cheek. This wasn’t the time for this. I had to quickly wake Carlisle and return. I couldn’t understand what was going on at all and there were more than a few unsettling things, but since I had somehow solved even the hidden quest, it could be said to be efficient in a way.
As I was about to retrace my steps and enter the mansion again, something was sparkling enthusiastically where Celia’s statue had been. It was a sparkle I hadn’t seen in a while.
“Ah, right.”
My terrarium glass bottle was left there all alone. The desert rose that had been inside and the fairy tale book that had been placed beside it had all disappeared.
“I can’t lose this.”
I had confirmed it was an item suitable for a farmer’s identity, something that could grow things. It would definitely help when reviving the farm someday. While carefully collecting the glass bottle containing the Essence of Earth and Water, I thought about the Essence of Air I had received this time. It seemed like they were giving the four elements.
‘Earth, water, air. Then next would be fire?’
There were five pieces of the Sacred Tree to collect. Would there be no fifth essence, or would they give something new?
Having such thoughts that didn’t yield any useful answers, I entered the mansion again.
“Carlisle.”
As I entered the bedroom, I called Carlisle carefully.
The bedroom with dim lighting was quiet. As I approached the bed, sure enough, Carlisle was lying properly and sleeping. He seemed paler than before, but fortunately he was still breathing.
“Are you really Snow White?”
I sighed automatically. Looking at his face sleeping like the dead, I felt strangely moved somehow. I gently caressed his face. Had I developed some affection during this time? I felt strangely tender.
“Well, in the end you’re Kai with ice fragments stuck in your eyes.”
I coughed awkwardly and tried to shake off the unfamiliar feeling. I took out the eye drops Licht had given me and deliberately giggled mischievously as I pried open his closed eyes and put in one drop each, then waited for him to wake up.
“……”
There was no reaction. My mood froze slightly. Once more. This time I was a bit tense and put in two drops each. The potion flowed from around Carlisle’s eyes like tears. My mood became even stranger.
Carlisle Lightinger and tears. It was an incongruous picture. But thinking that way, I felt like I had seen him shed tears sometime before.
Did a tearful illustration appear in the game when I notified him of divorce? No. He was sad but didn’t shed tears.
‘Then when is this memory from?’
My chest felt hollow.
While caught up in strange feelings, Carlisle didn’t open his eyes. My anxiety increased. Had the mansion owner lied? Was he actually an evil monster trying to harm us in the end?
No, that couldn’t be. Even if he really was a monster, no, because he was a monster, he had to follow the game’s rules. Returning Carlisle to me if I returned Celia was a promise.
‘But the answer to what becomes easier to break the lighter it is was “promise.”‘
Recalling the quiz questions and answers I had with Licht, I became anxious.
“No. The quest is already over. There’s nothing to be anxious about. I’m just misunderstanding something.”
I deliberately spoke aloud to comfort myself. What did Licht say when he gave me this? He said I would know what was needed.
“Isn’t it putting it in Carlisle’s eyes? What did I do wrong?”
I carefully retraced what had happened in the garden earlier. Celia melted the ice and woke up, but she actually changed her heart after shedding tears at my story. And the mansion owner broke his own curse after Celia kissed him while shedding tears.
Tears and a kiss.
I looked down at Carlisle lying there like a cold corpse. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty wake up from kisses. And Kai comes to his senses when the ice crystal melts from Gerda’s tears.
A kiss was simple enough. I had done it earlier and Carlisle had really woken up from sleep. The problem was that he wasn’t in his right state.
Then what remained was my tears, but this was really the problem. I wasn’t an actor, and above all, I had drunk a Tranquility Potion not long ago, making it difficult to bring up emotions. Of course, I hoped Carlisle and I could safely escape this mansion, but that didn’t mean I was in a relationship where I would cry and wail over Carlisle.
“Was it saying I needed to act out tears? To use eye drops because my acting skills are lacking? Do fake tears work too?”
A ridiculous thought occurred to me, but I had no other ideas right now. I looked at the eye drops in my hand. I had already used more than half on Carlisle. I tilted my head back and carefully dropped the eye drops into my eyes. After blinking a few times, I felt my eyes getting wet. I recalled Celia dropping tears.
‘This much probably isn’t enough.’
Just in case, I put all the remaining eye drops into my eyes, leaving only three or four drops. I felt water droplets flowing down my cheeks.
‘In this state… should I kiss him?’
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
