Please Kill Me - Chapter 138
“But it feels like I’ve been living too lazy a life.”
It seemed Igor wasn’t quite himself.
“If it weren’t for that, there would be no reason for this peaceful life to feel so hollow. I started thinking that maybe if I engage in some action that involves blood and guts, this feeling would disappear.”
Was it possible that Igor had cut away something that shouldn’t have been removed while trimming rotten onions? Perhaps he had cut out his appreciation for peaceful daily life or his sense of duty as a human.
“If I experience real combat, the lax discipline will be set straight, my satisfaction with life will be restored, and if I swing a sword once, this emptiness will be filled!”
“…Even so, I won’t be sparing with you.”
“How did you know when I didn’t even bring it up?”
Vasily genuinely began to wonder what the elite forces taught about this so-called ‘fulfillment’. Having come from a family of Rostislav’s retainers, he lived a life far removed from the elite forces’ harsh existence.
Yet, just because he lived a life distant from them didn’t mean he was entirely unfamiliar with them. At the age of thirty, he never imagined he’d be so exasperated by the so-called ‘fulfillment’ of the elite forces.
‘Everyone’s lost their minds.’
After two months of dealing with Igor juggling three kitchen knives and Olga, who constantly threw bread knives at the wall insisting on sparring, Vasily began to think he was the only sane person left in the estate.
No matter how he looked around, everyone seemed to be off in some way.
Stepan and Sonia constantly maintained Yekaterina’s room and belongings, ensuring they were always ready for her return.
While their behavior seemed impeccable, keeping everything exactly as it was when the guest stayed was far from typical, especially considering that the guest would never return to the estate.
Moreover, even the stable keeper was unable to shake off the delusion that Yekaterina might return at any moment, obsessively changing the horseshoes every day as if she might come back to ride. It seemed everyone was reluctant to accept the fact that Yekaterina had disappeared.
Perhaps because they held her in such high regard.
It might be that their deep affection for Yekaterina was what made them cling to such delusions. For instance, the first thing Vasily heard after returning to the estate was, “Is the Miss still alive?”
— It’s such a relief to hear she’s alive!
— We were so anxious, thinking she might have left us forever since we hadn’t seen her.
The staff, who seemed to have lost sleep over searching for Yekaterina in the past few days, only began to relax and smile with relief when they heard she was alive. Ahough their smiles quickly vanished after learning that she would not be returning.
Nonetheless, their genuine concern for Yekaterina was undeniable.
Vasily also realized he shared similar feelings.
‘When did she become so integrated into Rostislav’s world?’
He visited the room where Yekaterina had been confined.
In the middle of the cozy room, where it seemed Yekaterina might just walk in with her usual indifferent expression and lie down, was a large rocking horse. Vasily had seen Yekaterina on this rocking horse occasionally—though, more accurately, he had seen her pretending not to ride it.
‘If she sensed even the slightest hint of presence, she would quickly get off the horse and act as if she hadn’t been riding it.’
Despite Yekaterina’s swift movements allowing her to dismount and pretend otherwise, she couldn’t stop the rocking horse from swaying. Sometimes, the absurdity of Yekaterina’s nonchalant demeanor juxtaposed with the rocking horse’s movement seemed quite cute.
As Vasily thought about this, he couldn’t deny how much he missed her. She was too significant to forget, like an indelible stain.
‘If I and others feel this way, then how about His Excellency….?’
He wanted to ask Leonid openly, if only he could. What was the real issue? Was he missing the Miss so much?
Leonid was like a tower on the verge of collapse, a dam ready to burst. It was so obvious on the surface that it felt inevitable that it would eventually crumble.
Because of this uncertainty about what would happen to Leonid when that moment came, Vasily couldn’t bring himself to ask. At least, he could never bring himself to be the one to cause the dam to break.
How could any loyal servant be involved in destroying the master they serve? Especially since Vasily would have remained loyal to Leonid even without the influence of Rostislav’s magic.
So Vasily deliberately avoided seeking news from Offenbach. In fact, no one in the estate dared to seek information from Offenbach. Sometimes, distancing oneself can help ease the longing.
‘How long I can endure this precarious balance, I don’t know…’
Vasily hoped that this delicate balancing act would continue for just a bit longer—for the sake of Rostislav and for Leonid himself.
Then, unexpectedly, news reached him.
