༺ A Flower That Came To The Sunset ༻
“E-Excuse me…”
“…Who are you?”
A girl approached the ruins that were now controlled by the guards after the incident at the hero’s inauguration ceremony.
“This area is off-limits. You can’t enter without permission…”
“P-Please, let me in…”
But the girl with messy hair and a disheveled appearance was met with suspicion by the guards.
“I-I’m also a… concerned party…”
The girl was none other than Roswyn.
But the guards blocking her way did not recognize her.
“This… Could it be…?”
Even so, the guards recognized the Hero Party’s certification she pulled out.
– Swoosh…
“E-Excuse me…!”
Taking advantage of the guards’ slightly relaxed demeanor, Roswyn slipped into the ruins.
“Let her be. If we interfere with a member of the Hero Party, we’ll only make trouble for ourselves.”
“But still…”
“Perhaps she lost a lover. Let’s turn a blind eye for a few hours.”
“Hmm…”
The guards who had been talking amongst themselves noted her pitiful appearance and decided to let her be and resumed their guard positions.
“Maybe… Maybe it’s not too late yet…”
Having easily entered the ruins, Roswyn sniffled with a red nose and looked around.
“I might still… be able to save him…”
Despite the slim chance of survival for someone buried in the rubble for so long, she clung to the keyword ‘missing in action.’
“I-I’ll save you… Hero…”
As she got closer to the debris, her hope grew little by little.
“Just wait a little longer…”
Roswyn started to feel a faint glimmer of life as she started to pull out detection scrolls, excavation scrolls, and emergency potions from her guild.
“I’m going to…”
However, that glimmer faded the moment she looked at the detection scroll.
“………”
Even with the best scroll that she brought, there was no sign of life detected.
“Ugh, uh…”
Deep down, she knew it was hopeless.
But her defense mechanisms and avoidance tendencies, which had always raised her pride, had led her to this point.
But delaying the inevitable conclusion wouldn’t change the outcome.
“I need m-much… better scrolls…”
Roswyn knew this, but still, she began tearing the scrolls she held, sobbing as she knelt down in the middle of the debris.
“The Hero… can’t die… I-I never even got to thank you… Y-You can’t die…”
The Hero, who had been the reason for her life and kept her alive until now, died while only receiving hatred from the world and his own helper.
And she was there when it happened.
She had been of no help and even delivered healing potions to his enemy that inadvertently led to Frey’s death.
As she was about to presume such terrible and frightening facts, she desperately tried to come up with another answer.
“You… What are you doing here?”
“…Eek!?”
Someone appeared next to her as she continued to tear up scrolls and mutter to herself.
“Who are you…? How did you get here…?”
“I-I…”
The person was none other than the chief of the Imperial Investigators.
“Excuse me, but could you please verify your identity… No, never mind. I finally get to go home after a few days, and I don’t want any more headaches.”
The days-long investigation finally concluded, and he, relieved to be finishing up and heading home, looked at the uninvited guest who suddenly appeared at his workplace with an annoyed expression.
“U-Um, by any chance… about Frey. Is there any information on Frey?”
However, Roswyn recognized him as one of the regular patrons of her guild and asked him a question.
“…Frey, you say?”
He felt a tingling sensation as Roswyn asked.
“Well, uh… that is…”
In fact, he had recently taken a bribe from Isolet and announced a fabricated fact about Frey’s death.
“I think you should look at this!”
However, as befitting a symbol of the empire’s corruption, he quickly put on an unfazed expression, pulled out a newspaper, and handed it to Roswyn.
[Breaking News] Frey Raon Starlight Confirmed Dead.
– A ‘shock’ to find his body in the ruins… currently being transported to the hospital
– The first-ever Duke to be stripped of his nobility, becoming a nobody…
“…………..”
The newspaper contained more than Roswyn could handle.
“Well, will you take your leave until I get off work…?”
“…….”
“…Then, I’ll leave you for now.”
Even as the Chief Investigator scratched his head and left her side, Roswyn’s gaze remained fixed quietly on the newspaper.
[Breaking News] Frey’s Body Missing.
– Transport team, while moving the body to the hospital, claims to have been attacked by angry citizens.
– Cause of death & legitimacy of report currently unknown…
– Investigator in charge claims the verification was flawless…
“…Hic.”
Thus, having read the entirety of the information on the second page of the newspaper, Roswyn buried her head in the rubble.
“Huuuu… uuu…”
Roswyn began to tremble and sob.
“I-I’m sorry… sorry… Frey…”
Clenching the debris, she muttered in a trembling voice.
“You were the Hero… I was supposed to help you… You kept me alive until now… I should have saved you…”
Her expensive clothes, which she had been boasting among servants and adoring men, were in tatters.
Her pale, delicate hands, never having done rough work, were cut and wounded by sharp fragments.
Her beautiful and sensuous face, which enchanted many men, was now a mess of tears and dirt.
“Uuuuu…”
These circumstances only made Roswyn crumble further.
The expensive clothes and the luxuries she wore every day were all because of Frey’s extensive support.
Her smooth hands, which had never done rough work, were because Frey had been doing most of the dirty work behind the scenes.
She had just thought her investigative skills were excellent.
And her face she had been tending to every day for the hero was actually made by Frey.
No matter what she did, her face was becoming gaunt, and it wasn’t until a year after Frey was visiting her that she started to gain some weight on her face.
“The one who truly helped me… was you…”
Finally facing the inevitable ‘conclusion,’ Roswyn felt the reality of these facts.
“The one I should have served… was none other than you…”
But it was too late for regrets.
“Woooo…”
Lulu’s words, ‘You should’ve done better’, echoed in her head.
.
.
.
.
.
“I-I couldn’t help it…”
After spending a while crying and burying her face in the debris, she was eventually chased out when it was time for the investigator to get off work.
“What could I have done differently?”
Wrapped in the cold winter wind and trembling, Roswyn muttered with a pale expression as she neared her guild.
“I-I couldn’t have known…”
She staggered, like she was about to collapse, and murmured with her fist clenched tightly.
“I-if I had known… would I have helped…?”
But at that moment, an unclear memory flashed through her mind.
“W-what is this?”
She felt as if she had said something like this before.
She caught a glimmer of a recent dream where she saw herself become crippled.
“Hah, hah…”
Emerging from the wave of unstable memories, something dawned on her.
“Now… what do I do?”
The grief and regret of mistreating and leaving her benefactor and idol to die was followed by immense fear.
She was terrified just thinking about what would happen to her and to the world.
How would the world, who still believes that Frey was a villain, react if they found out that he was the hero? What sort of panic would come?
What kind of end would it bring to the world that had abandoned the Hero?
And without him, how would she, who could not live without him… how would she meet her end?
“N-No, I don’t want this…”
She remembered being sick in bed as a child and hating it intensely.
Coughing and spitting up blood-streaked phlegm, unable to keep down food or medicine that was good for her body, feeling dizzy for a long time, and waking up to find the date had changed.
She also remembered her parents’ faces as they stared at her with eyes that grew colder and colder with each passing day until they stopped speaking to her altogether.
“I… don’t want to die… uh?”
Roswyn approached the guild’s entrance with a terrified look on her face and soon began staggering again.
– Thud…!
“Uhhh…”
Eventually, she fell to the ground at the entrance.
“Why am I… so dizzy…?”
She had been feeling dizzy and unsteady for hours, maybe days, and now, looking puzzled, she suddenly realized something.
“I-I… did not receive flowers… and already?”
She trembled and murmured to herself.
“…Am I dying?”
Sadly, her words were true.
It had been well over a month since she last received a flower from Frey.
Even though she had been healthy for over a decade, it had been enough time for her fragile body to start succumbing to death once again.
“Cough, cough…”
Terrified and did not know what to do, Roswyn covered her mouth and started coughing.
“Blood, blood…?”
Her hand was covered in blood.
“Uh, uhhh…..”
She had coughed up blood for the first time in almost ten years.
“I-I don’t want to die…!”
She used all her strength to get up, opened the entrance door, and rushed into the guild.
“M-Miss Roswyn!?”
“When did you leave…?”
“M-Move…!”
Then, she ran to her room with all her might.
“I-I must… touch the flower…”
As her room came into view, she blinked her eyes full of tears and murmured.
“I don’t want to… die like this…..”
Her face was smeared with the terror of facing death.
The fear of ‘death’ that had slowly overtaken her when she was diagnosed with a terminal illness and whenever she was on the brink of dying as a child came back to haunt her more than anything else.
“Ah…”
But when she entered her room, she suddenly lost her words.
“……….”
Her room was filled entirely with flowers given by Ruby.
Though she couldn’t identify it at the moment, it was clear that the girl was an enemy of the Hero.
– Flutter…
Even those flowers had all withered away.
– Thump…!
In such a situation, her legs gave way again and she collapsed to the floor, then she soon mumbled in tears.
“S-Someone please help me…..”
But, of course, there was no one to help her.
“P-Please… save me…”
There was no one to save her either.
“Ugh…”
Realizing this painfully, she fell to the ground and began to tremble as the pain began to take over her body.
“Ah…”
It was then that she truly understood how important Frey had been to her.
“Cough, cough…..”
But it seemed to be too late.
– Creak…
“Miss Roswyn.”
Just then, someone opened the door to her room.
“Fr…ey…?”
As she recalled Frey, who used to visit her with flowers and a smile, she called out his name and slowly reached out her hand.
“A parcel for Miss Roswyn.”
“……..Ah?”
But it wasn’t Frey who arrived, it was a delivery man.
“I’ll be going now.”
After handing her a small box, the delivery man looked at her sickly appearance with a look of disgust before disappearing.
“………..”
She flinched at a gaze she never thought she would receive again and then quietly lowered her eyes.
“What’s… this…?”
There was no information about the sender.
The recipient was only marked as “Roswyn Solar Sunset,” and the date the box was packed was written on it.
The date on the box was from about a year ago.
– Rustle, rustle…
After staring at the box for a while, she opened it with an apathetic attitude, clearly having lost all hope.
“…….Huh?”
Her eyes widened in surprise.
“This is…….”
Inside the mysterious box was a red flower and a yellow flower.
– Buzz…
And at that moment.
> Everything About the Hero (V)
– Reading completed.
A system window popped up in front of her.
> Everything He Did
The item ‘Everything He Did’ shone brightly.
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