Volume 4 Chapter 5 Part 3 (1/2)

Volume 4 Chapter 5 Part 3

Translator: Kurehashi Aiko Editor: Queenie

Following Elizabell’s gaze, the boy looks behind him.

From the backstage, the islanders arrive on the stage, carrying weapons and torches. They must have tailed the boy all the way here to Elizabell’s hut, and while to boy started to realize that and despair over it, the islanders got closer and pointed their weapons at smiling Elizabell. But she, clearly annoyed, just pointed her hand at the islanders, who in turn dropped their weapons and fell onto the ground, looking as though they were suffering tremendously.

「You got so agitated that you were ready to turn towards violence, I see.」

Elizabell started laughing, seeing her would-be assailants on the ground, helpless and completely at her mercy. While she laughed, the boy looked at her in silence.

「It’s alright. If they are smart enough to not do anything to me I won’t harm them… What’s the matter?」

Elizabell tried to reach out her hand towards the boy. But her hand was never able to connect. Right before she was about to do that, a single word escaped from the boy’s mouth.

「Monster…」

「!!」

The girl’s eyes open wide in shock. The boy and the islanders leave the stage as the lights grow dimmer. Now, the only person left on the stage was Elizabell, the Black Witch herself. Her lips were trembling. Her shoulders were shaking. But there was no one around to hug her and tell her that everything was going to be alright.

Had this boy’s words really cut so deep into Elizabell’s heart? Or maybe he was playing around with her all this time? As the suspicion starts to grow inside of her heart, Elizabell starts laughing. I suddenly remembered that man’s face. Up until he was taken in by the Lancet family he was isolated and did not know what love is. This story seemed to be very much the same. I just hoped that they wouldn’t have someone like that inside of it.

Even though I knew it was just a mere play, I would like for that man to never get to know the story that was behind the Black Witch. Those were my genuine feelings.

「…… Fufu.」

A quiet laughter, as if you were throwing small pebbles into a pond. It was coming from Elizabell’s mouth. She then put her hood back on to hide her face and hair and disappeared from the stage as the lights went out for but a moment. Then, the adult Elizabell was back on the stage, wearing the same kind of hooded robe.

It was a spectacular stage device to use, but no one around the audience was applauding or commanding them for that. Instead, the eyes of everyone present were focused solely on Elizabell, whose laughter was becoming more and more hysterical.

「AhahahaHAHA!!! I see! So it was me! I was the most stupid person out of them all!」

Then the curtain fell onto the stage and the troupe master emerged onto the stage once more, shaking his head in sadness.

「After that incident, the boy stopped visiting Elizabell’s house. The islanders would no longer get close to the part of the forest where Elizabell would live. Some time after that event, a certain incident would occur at Nibbiellata Isle. An unknown disease began to spread throughout the Isles. The rumor began to spread that it was the curse of the witch and that in order to save the Isles and their inhabitants, there was no other way but to kill the witch once and for all. There was only one person who disagreed with all the rest. The boy. That particular boy. He decided to visit Elizabell’s house one last time, dragging his sickly body with utmost hardship.」

The curtain rises again, presenting adult Elizabell and the sickly boy in front of Elizabell’s hut. Elizabell was looking down at the boy with an ice-cold stare, the coldest one yet presented since the start of the performance.

「Why did you drag yourself here? I don’t want to see your ugly face. Be gone.」

The actress playing Elizabell shows him a cold stare and an expression full of hatred and disdain, something that requires a lot of acting skill to actually pull off as natural…… I knew it was just an act, but the boy looked as though he was about to cry.

「I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry, Elizabell! I apologize, so please help the islanders! If you don’t do something about this disease, everyone on the Isles will die!」

The boy’s hand grabbed onto Elizabell’s robe. But she just shook it off with visible disgust.

「Could you give me some of the herbs you gave me the first time I came here……?」

「Are you being serious right now?」

「Eh?」

Elizabell smiled in a cruel way while looking at the boy. Then, she started to tremble with hysterical and maniacal laughter, unlike anything I have ever heard before.

「Are you so dense that you didn’t realize it? It was me who sent that plague upon you! Fufu, it was me all along! My name is Elizabell, a Black Witch that brings about the disasters!」

「No, that’s impossible! Elizabell would never do that! The Elizabell I know wouldn’t do such a thing! It’s just weird……!!!」

「Oh, that’s awfully rich coming from someone like you. Someone who called me a monsters so eagerly.」

Elizabell keeps on laughing maniacally. But even so, her expression was brilliant and magnificent, making it so that everyone in the audience couldn’t take their eyes off of her. I was amongst those people.

「Can you really blame me? That I could no longer hold back my anger and my hatred? Everyone hates me whenever I go. So why shouldn’t I retaliate and fight back with the vapors of disease that kills everyone indiscreetly!?」

「Elizabell!!」

The boy shouted as though he was about to cry. Then he took a small knife out of his pocket and jumped at Elizabell with it, trying to stab her in the chest. The ladies throughout the audience shriek upon seeing that. I continued to look upon the stage as if in some kind of a trance. The boy managed to sink the knife into Elizabell’s chest, and she falls onto the ground while still laughing. Now it was the boy who was looking down on her, tears dripping down his cheeks.

「I don’t expect you to forgive me, but…… I love you, Elizabell.」

The boy then puts the knife’s blade to his own throat and slits it while the light of magic stones dances around on the blade’s surface. Then the boy falls down alongside Elizabell. The light fades again and the scenery changes from the forest back to the cityscape. We all watched as the islanders were recovering from their illness one after another.

「Speaking of which, where is that boy?」