Headnote:

Before we dive into the chapter, we would like to share with you a part of the ‘reading legend’ again, we hope it will help you understand and follow the chapter a bit more comfortably.

“ Dialogue ”

‘ Thoughts ’

[ Text or letters ]

{ “Dialogue in the past or a memory” }

– – – – flashback/end of flashback – – – – 

– – – – –

Returning to his cabinet, Ed rummaged through the desk’s drawers for some stationery.

‘Neither Levi nor Linhardt gave me a straightforward answer.’ 

In response to the request for advice from his cousin, which happened for the first time ever, Linhardt reacted mockingly. 

{ “Look at him trying to take the easy way out again. I’m telling you, this guy is far from being a decent human.” }

While Ed had turned away from them, Levi asked him to do his best to express his sincerity whether it was verbally or in writing.

Ed interpreted the unexpected word ‘writing’ as a hint. 

‘Come to think of it, writing is the most preferred and valuable means of correspondence throughout history.’

But because Ed hadn’t written a letter himself in years, even the most common pieces of stationery were out of his sight. 

‘After Grandpa passed away, I never had to write a personal letter to anyone…’

Finally, in the third drawer he opened, Ed found high-quality stationery made of thick paper. He sat behind his desk and took the entire box out. However, even with its thickness it felt like there were way too few sheets. He had a hunch that it would take some pages to express himself without being misunderstood. Unsatisfied with his find, Ed looked at the handful of papers with a solemn expression. He then searched through the fourth and fifth drawers for another box of stationery. After piling them all up like a mountain, he took out one sheet and placed it neatly beneath the paperweight. Every move he made seemed to be part of some kind of sacred ritual.

However, with the snow-white paper in front of him, fear suddenly engulfed Ed. 

‘What if Liloa doesn’t accept it even if I tell her the whole truth? What if she still despises me and refuses to see me?’ 

Ed was at a loss for what to do and had a difficult time deciding what to write. 

‘Liloa’s heart… How can my will penetrate abstract feelings that can’t even be seen with the naked eye? It’s all just so distant and secluded. It seems impossible unless a miracle occurs… Looking back on it now, even the smallest acts of kindness that Liloa has shown me in the past feel so valuable… How could I have overlooked that marvel and taken it for granted? This was something I should never have done… Then again, it was a planned betrayal from the start, and I knew it would cause Liloa only pain… But maybe…’

As ink dripped from the nib, Ed decided to start at the beginning and called for Lil.

[ Captain, ]

‘But Liloa is no longer my captain… It might just offend her if she reads this.’

Ed crumpled the letter and threw it somewhere before placing a clean sheet in front of him. After rubbing the sweat from his palms several times, Ed took hold of his pen again.

[ Lil, ]

‘This, too, is equal as offensive…’

Ed flicked his pen. His attempt to erase what he had just written down ended with a new piece of paper. 

[ Liloa, ]

Suppressing the emotions that arose when he read the name, Ed cleared his throat for no apparent reason. His pen moved once more after a brief pause. 

[ I first saw you at LeBrun. ]

‘Aspirant Liloa… To be honest, I didn’t like her at first. Every time I saw her, I experienced an unpleasant and strange sense of defeat. 

When the Ruwa tribe was annihilated, and only the ruins remained after everything burned down, those ruins were all I had. So, I clung to them desperately. Obsessed with the idea that the answers couldn’t be found in any other way, I dismantled the buildings and dug the ground of the meadows. Back then people called me crazy, but it was an unbearable time for me not to go crazy. 

That’s why it was astonishing for a mere child*, who grew up seeing and hearing only good and pretty things, to understand the same truth that I had to obtain in such a hard way. Now, years later, I would describe such an ugly and stuffy reaction as ‘a damaged pride’…’

In addition, Lil went further, she was able to discover reasons that Ed was unable to. Whereas Ed was still investigating a case, Lil had already reached abstraction, and when Ed had only just reached that same abstraction, Lil had already leapt to a higher deduction. 

‘Liloa never gave me a chance to become her equal and that fact was unpleasant and hard to endure…’

Around the time he still denied such reality, dismissing it as nonsense, Ed realised that Lil wasn’t someone who lived an easy childhood. It suddenly became so clear and noticeable, that Ed often asked himself how he didn’t recognize it before. Even with him actively trying to find out more about her, stories and rumours ridiculing her reached him faster and in larger quantities than any other investigation he tried to do himself. Anecdotes differed from how she was an unscrupulous and reckless girl since she was a child, to how her mother’s education and her brother’s admonitions were futile. Similar stories  and even worse were excitingly passed on from one person to another. Her brother became increasingly concerned about his marriageable-aged sister’s dowry, so he tried to put an end to all rumours about her. But the more he did, the more interested people became.

‘Fun fact was that most of the guys who cursed at Liloa behind her back were also the same guys who were lined up in an attempt to dance with her.’

But while Ed didn’t dare to go that far, he was no exception to those who had taken her lightly. 

‘She was just a child in my eyes and I often wondered if there was a way to ignore her achievements and devalue her.’

But whenever he looked at Lil again after meeting her, he found himself peeking longer and longer,  and unable to even stand upright out of shame.

‘She was and is a being I’ll never be able to reach. Her enlightenment came not from cutting open her friends’ stomachs or killing her loved one with her own hands, but from the enlightenment that came so naturally to her. 

If there’s a word to describe Liloa, it will be genius. And from the moment I admitted that, it became difficult for me to bear how much Liloa stood out to me.’

Ed wasn’t mature enough to overcome his painful inferiority complex and face her. With his archaeology in its infancy, he thought that perhaps this gap in their knowledge could be bridged in a matter of time. If given another year or two, he could accelerate his research…

Nonetheless, while Ed was limited by his immaturity and inexperience, Lil grew day by day. Just when one would think she couldn’t be more dazzling, she shone even brighter the next day. And she remained unwavering in the face of mockery. In contrast, Ed became increasingly nervous. He couldn’t receive any spoils of war because he hadn’t yet been commissioned. He longed to decipher the ruins and relics scattered across the continent, and if he could do so and bring them together, he might be able to make a leap forward.

This was the course of his life until the Duke of Mireille told him something.

 – – – – – – – – flashback* – – – – – – – – 

“She’s ‘that bitch’.”

“That bitch?”

“If you hear the stories about her, you would want to catch her right away. A bitch like her should be snatched by the hair and dragged into a dungeon.”

“…”

“It’s embarrassing to admit, but there was such a beast-like bitch in my house. One who couldn’t be tamed at all. Unsubmissible and untenable, that crazy… Hmm! Kheum! Anyway, she was at least very nice to look at from the outside. I don’t know if you know…”

“Who the hell is this person you’re talking about?”

“Liloa. My little birdy.”

“..!”

Ed’s body froze. If he had been standing, he would’ve most likely stumbled. After a pause, he looked at Mireille, suddenly conscious of his heavily pounding heart. 

‘He couldn’t possibly have noticed this, but I’m not sure.’ 

But no matter how much Ed tried to calm down, his heart felt like it was about to explode. 

‘Wasn’t she dead? I even heard that they held a funeral a few years ago.’

“I don’t know if you know Liloa…”

“No.”

After responding, Ed quickly gauged whether his answer was too fast. Fortunately, Mireille only held his head high.

“Actually, she’s not dead. Allow me to explain. The truth is, she didn’t die, she just left the house. Completely disappeared with my jewels, including a relic. That cheeky bitch.”

“You know about artefacts…?”

“Not at first, no. But because of a business I’ve been interested in these days, I was going through books to do some research. And… look at this. Isn’t this my family’s necklace?”

Ed pretended to read the book Mireille held out. With all of his nerves focused on Liloa, he couldn’t think of anything else. So, he waited for a while before taking his eyes off the book, assuming enough time had passed to safely say that he had read the page. 

Ed then asked, as calmly as possible.

“How can you be sure she’s alive?”

“A terrible bitch who disappeared just like that, how could she be dead? I tried to track her down but to no avail. But I can assure you, though, that bitch is still alive, no, she has to be alive. She can’t just screw me over and then die. And if she really is dead, that would screw me over even more… If that’s the case, I want you to find her body and dig it up…”

 – – – – – 

Footnote:

‘That’s why it was astonishing for a mere child,…’ = The child Ed speaks of is Liloa. Ed was already 22 when he first saw her and Liloa was only 15 years old, therefore the ‘child’ reference.

 This flashback is a continuation of the conversation Ed and Mireille had way back in chapters 34 and 35, volume 2;

“Who on earth is the woman I’m looking for in exchange for this information?”

“She’s…”

“…”