Tiendavis - For Perfect Salvation - Chapter 67

“Since you can’t be a saint, are you wagging your tail at Sion?”

Miel’s voice was full of malice. Ibi answered the question, which was punctuated with the intention to deliberately crush her.

“Yes.”

It was a calm voice.

“It’s a kind of insurance.”

It was somewhat confident.

“You never know how things will turn out.”

Ibi didn’t find her spontaneous answer particularly shameful. Above all, it was true.

Miel’s eyes widened as Ibi answered so nonchalantly. But that was only for a moment, and Miel smiled sweetly again like a poisonous mushroom.

“Ibi, you never change. When you were underground, you clung to that dog.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Why would Miel be?”

“It seems like you’re jealous of me constantly going after him.”

“I’m not jealous, I’m upset. It’s all Miel’s, but Ibi is ruining it as she pleases.”

Miel lightly complained while poking at Ibi’s blouse strewn on the floor with her toe.

Ibi tried to pull the blouse away from that ill-mannered behavior. But Miel resisted by putting strength in her foot, and as a result, the thin blouse was pulled taut like a tug of war.

After a brief struggle like that, Ibi glanced up at Miel and said in a chilling voice,

“Do you want to roll down the stairs again?”

“If you want to be unable to walk alone, go ahead and try.”

But Miel’s returning voice was no less formidable.

Ibi and Miel, these two people had been destined rivals since they first met in the underground of the tower.

Ibi greatly disliked Rohika Sedro, who had deceived her and imprisoned her underground, and she equally hated everything about the tower that oppressed her under that woman’s orders.

So, Miel Sedro, who strutted around as the tower’s heir and treated the tower’s underground as her own playground, could not be pleasing to her eyes either.

Miel likewise found Ibi, who was arrogant and received special treatment unlike other voice slaves, irritating in everything she did.

Ibi took full advantage of being favored by the tower master to be thoroughly insolent to Miel, and even when Miel made the occasional effort to be nice to her, Ibi kept coming at her to the end.

So Ibi, who was fifteen at the time, and Miel, who was thirteen, became mortal enemies within a week of meeting, not only growling at each other whenever their eyes met but also actively trying to harm each other whenever the opportunity arose.

As a result, Ibi had each of her limbs broken at least once by Miel Sedro, her forehead split twice, and was locked in solitary confinement as regularly as eating meals. Even in solitary confinement, she suffered various hardships such as being doused with water or enduring the noise of sticks hitting the iron door.

Miel also had no less harrowing experiences because of Ibi.

At that time, Ibi was mainly the type to use structures, and thanks to that, Miel occasionally rolled down stairs, fell from railings, had her hair set on fire, was buried in piles of flour, or was locked in a secluded warehouse and starved for two full days until she was rescued.

The war between the two little devils was fierce, and the tower’s servants took neither side. Because there was no perfect winner or loser, and no pure victim or perpetrator – they were both equally vicious.

So the watching servants could only hope. Hope that one of them would succeed in killing the other so that the tower master wouldn’t become enraged.

The perfect bad relationship between these two people lasted for a full 3 years in the tower’s underground, and naturally continued even after Ibi came out to the Tienda social circle.

The only fortunate thing was that because the tower master had personally warned Miel not to interfere carelessly since she was in a bet with Ibi, Miel couldn’t dare touch Ibi outside.

Instead, Miel would invariably appear and latch on whenever the opportunity arose. Just like now.

“Do you like me?”

“Ibi, are you crazy?”

“No, I’m not crazy. Why do you keep following me around when you don’t even like me?”

Since she won’t back down quietly, I should just poke at her pride a little to drive her away.

Ibi let go of the blouse Miel was stepping on with this thought. Then she sat on the bed and mocked the venomous Miel.

“You said this whole tower is yours. Then why don’t you play with that instead of coming to me like this? Could it be that everything you have is not much to speak of?”

“Usually, you keep what’s yours nicely tucked away and go after what’s trying to run away. I guess Ibi wouldn’t know this since she doesn’t have anything.”

“Is that so? Then you should go after Sion too, right?”

Though she had never once called the Count Laurel by name before, Ibi deliberately spoke as if they were close.

“He didn’t even turn around when you called him.”

Although she had responded calmly earlier, Ibi was quite annoyed by Miel’s mention of wagging tails. So she returned the favor in kind.

“You were the one wagging your tail earnestly, weren’t you? I do it because of my situation, but why do you? Do you perhaps like him? Is that why you were ignored like that?”

At Ibi’s mockery, the smile disappeared from Miel’s face.

When the smile that had been lovingly pushing up her chubby cheeks vanished, Miel’s youthful face became as cold and desolate as a porcelain doll.

“Ibi, you really seem to have a knack for choosing only the words that make me want to kill you. Even though I keep trying to teach you to know your place.”

Miel muttered quietly with such a face.

“Why don’t you understand? Whether you become a saint or return underground, Ibi is still a slave either way. Insurance? Do you think Sion would still be interested in you like now if he knew your situation? Surely you don’t think you have that much value to him?”

“No, not at all.”

Ibi answered unconsciously to Miel’s sharp question. Then she clicked her tongue inwardly.

She wanted to confidently say ‘Of course, my darling will do anything for me’ to provoke Miel further, but she couldn’t because of the curse.

So instead, Ibi added this:

“But he would at least turn around if I called, wouldn’t he?”

Miel stared silently at Ibi, as if Ibi’s provocation had struck a nerve. So Ibi stared right back at Miel.

After glaring at each other like they would devour each other for a while, Miel smiled again, thin as a crescent moon.

“I wish I could break your arms and legs like in the old days.”

Miel let out a long sigh as if it was truly regrettable. Then she added this:

“You’re right. Miel likes him. That’s why I want to bury Ibi underground forever.”

While Ibi was pretending to be surprised at the sudden honesty, Miel turned away as if she had lost interest.

“And Sion is originally Miel’s. I won’t give this up, so don’t think about stealing it.”

Miel muttered as if warning and left just like that, and Ibi stared blankly at that small retreating figure.

‘Huh, really?’

She really likes the Count? That Miel Sedro?

At the last purification ceremony, Miel did speak in an affectionate voice as soon as she saw the Count.

But Ibi only thought of it as Miel’s attitude towards dealing with an equal.

Because there’s no way the evil Miel Sedro could have such soft feelings of affection for another person.

Moreover, the Count hadn’t appeared in Tienda for 7 whole years. So if there was any connection between Miel and the Count, it would be at most that they were both high nobles, and that Miel, that brat, might have crossed paths with the Count, who was about to have his coming-of-age ceremony, when she was a snot-nosed ten-year-old.

Yet to say she likes him means she’s harbored an unrequited love for at least 7 years, does that make sense?

‘Well, I guess…’

Ibi tilted her head and then recalled the Count’s face, and somehow felt defeated as she understood.

Sion Laurel is an excellent Count in every aspect except for his temperament.

Even if he appeared after a 17-year absence instead of 7, young ladies would fabricate memories of first love that never existed as soon as they saw him. Especially for the arrogant Miel Sedro, Count Laurel might be the only choice that matches her lofty status.

But to think that Miel is in unrequited love.

Count, congratulations. How nice it must be to be so outstanding.

Ibi thought this and laughed mindlessly, then abruptly stopped laughing.

Because the moment she addressed the Count in her mind, memories she had barely pushed to the edge of her consciousness suddenly surged forth.

―It’s alright, just sleep.

At the voice that flashed through her mind, Ibi shuddered without realizing it.

But it was already too late. Following the voice, the sensations of that night awakened one by one.

The firm arms carefully supporting her weight, the broad chest she could lean into as if burying herself, the body heat hot enough to warm her cooled body again.

The Count was a person opposite to Ibi in every way, and yet everything Ibi felt when touching him was familiar.

‘No, no, no, it can’t be.’

Ibi shook her head in anguish. But after a moment, she bit her lip again and held her forehead.

Ah, why did I run away when I went to meet the Count then? If I had properly confirmed it that day, I wouldn’t need to be so anxious like this.

Ibi scolded her past self, then reflected again. In fact, even now, Ibi didn’t have the confidence to face the Count.

After the Wisteria Festival, Ibi suspected, almost to the point of certainty.

That the astrologer who had abandoned her and Count Laurel might possibly be the same person.

At first, Ibi laughed at this excessive idea. But there were too many things that didn’t add up to just laugh it off.

Several characteristics of the astrologer that could only be explained if he were ‘Count Laurel’.

Yet the Count’s definitive answer that he was not the ‘previous Count Laurel’.

And the Count’s puzzling attitude of excessively defending and reproaching the astrologer.

All of those suddenly came to mind, and in Ibi’s head, the images of the astrologer and the Count overlapped into one.

And at that moment, Ibi sobered up completely.

Ibi lay on the bed that the Count had carefully put her in and muttered ‘it can’t be’ about a hundred times.

And she tried her best to think of reasons why it couldn’t be.

First of all, the astrologer Ibi met when she was young was an adult. And the Count is only 4 years older than Ibi.

So if the astrologer and the Count were the same person, the astrologer would have to be someone who came from the future.

Oh my, goodness, it can’t be.

No matter how messed up Tiendabis is, could such a thing really be possible?

…It might be possible. Since the moment this vast continent rose into the air, the ancient principles might as well be dead.

Thanks to that, Ibi agonized all night and then went to find the Count without thinking.

Then, just seeing the Count’s reaction, she somehow got scared and ran away in confusion.

‘Ahhh…’

Ibi felt as if her stomach was upset. She couldn’t even grasp where to start thinking and organizing things.

So she was constantly avoiding this terribly tangled skein of thread until she felt mentally prepared.

This alone was more than overwhelmingly burdensome, but in the midst of this, there was another hypothesis that was giving Ibi a headache.

The culprit who cursed Ibi.

The only person who meets all the conditions Yubia told her about is Roble Tuha.

But the Count said the saint doesn’t know anything.

If that’s true, and if it’s really possible to go back in time.

‘Could the person who cursed me… also be from a different time…?’

Ibi thought blankly, then hugged her shoulders at the eerie feeling.

It felt like something overwhelmingly vast was surrounding and revolving around her.