The Bad Ending of an Otome

Ironically, Edmund Gloucester was as informed about atheism as he was about theology and was well aware of their strategies. 

They utilized living people’s blood and flesh as offerings since it was the most effective, the largest ‘price’ to their gods.

Magic and theology are widely regarded as ‘separate things.’ 

Edmund’s concern with both arose from his conviction that theology eventually contained sorcery that demanded a human soul or body as payment. 

Only his butler, always a step behind him, accompanied Edmund Gloucester as he nursed a need for an unchanging light from a very young age between a mother who never looked at him and a father who loathed him.

Human emotions are too malleable, like perishable things that rot and collapse. 

So, where is the everlasting, then? 

In God? 

Magic? 

The entire world? 

What are the laws of the universe? 

He wanted anything in this universe to indicate something unchanging, whether it was God, magic, devils, or anything else.

When he encountered Ophelia, he was taken aback. 

He understood he was the sole pure light that had come to Earth. 

His increased research was motivated by a wish to retain this ‘light’ known as Ophelia on Earth for a little longer.

His foolish mother, who imagined she’d become queen by bearing the king’s child; his father, who hated taking a woman rejected by the king and looked down on his child; and even the king, who turned his back on it all, were insignificant in comparison to that light. 

Yes, they were only that.

‘Lord Edmund Gloucester, you are…’

That woman’s voice stayed with him. 

Edmund’s face curled in annoyance. 

She had been an annoyance from the beginning. 

He assumed she was arrogant but never expected her to be this bold. 

What did she believe she was? 

To him? 

Perhaps he wouldn’t have been as disturbed if her eyes had been filled with rage and scorn. 

But something surged within him when he felt the warmth of her hand on his. 

This woman, as well, is a live, warm human being. 

He was aware of this, but why? 

Why did she, like Ophelia, feel like something that would vanish?

‘Do you even know what it means to like someone truly?’

Any semblance of compassion in her eyes seemed to shatter and collapse. 

What’s the deal with those eyes? 

Why? 

She couldn’t possibly be unaware of such feelings.

If the overwhelming emotion he experienced when he thought about Lady Ophelia and the urge not to miss a single move of Lady Elodie weren’t what he thought, what were they? 

He should have answered that it was she who didn’t get it. 

But when those obsidian-like, thinly polished eyes peered at him with an unfathomable intensity, he found himself dumbfounded.

She appeared to be a deity, and he felt like a sinner who was unconscious of his status. 

He broke out in a cold sweat and fell out of breath. 

Why? 

Ironically, she was the one who didn’t get it. 

Ophelia and Elodie were similar in certain ways…

“Master?”

“…Dig up more weaknesses of that maid.”

Edmund Gloucester clenched his teeth and made an audible sound.

“And don’t miss out on any other background checks.”

“Understood, Master.”

Edmund stared out the carriage window as the sky darkened. 

His eyes glowed darkly, as cold as set lava.