Chapter 229: Chapter 215 – Hello, My Old Friend

Peaceful days continued after that, but perhaps it was only on the surface.

Since we had no way of knowing whether the operation worked or not, due to all means of communication being monitored, I could only hope for the best while waiting.

All kind of communication still happened, be it the occasional video calls with them or even letters.

Yes. Although our technology allowed us to communicate faster wherever we were, there was still charm in a letter that we couldn’t get in other form of communication and so, our people still sent letters to one another.

There were also magical letters with all kind of magical effects we could customize to our liking.

For example, when the envelope was opened, all sort of beautiful flowers rained from it as the letter was being unfolded for us to read.

Anything that we could imagine and create with magic, we could do to a letter other than customizing the papers, and the likes of it.

But since all kind of letters were also read and monitored before they could be passed to us, there weren’t any kind of magical effects in it, but the customization of the letters and the feelings from reading it were different!

 

For longer stuff such as narration about Alt-nii’s trip to a landmark in Cielle, he would use letter to better organize his thought.

After all, when it was told via call, he would just make gestures and gibberish such as…

“And when we visited the flower garden, all sort of butterflies were whoooshhhh! Just like that, and then you know, there were petals wheeee—ing around the area and then the wind went—”

But in the written letter, everything was coherent and written in a beautiful language.

So yeah, we would still receive letters occasionally.

Luca also sent me letters at times, and of course he also sent his little sister letters.

Kiri was close to Leticia, so I heard he had also written Leticia letters.

And Leticia saved every letter Luca and Kiri sent her in a precious-looking box.

 

“Aren’t you going to do the same, Lyra-neesama?”

Little Leticia asked me when I admired her going through the efforts to save the letters in order in a special box.

“Uhm well…”

I saved every letter I had received, but just… not treating it like a treasure to the extent as what Leti did.

Anyway, I managed to deflect her question somehow.

 

“I also organized mine in a separate box, but it’s not as exquisite as yours,” Phoebe-san said.

Perhaps due to their similar statuses as the princesses of a country, Phoebe and Leticia had gotten closer these days.

Phoebe-san also tried to mingle and play together with me and other nobles around her age, but she still bonded the best with Leticia.

This was of course a good thing for all of us.

Although Leticia won’t be the future ruler of this country, she was still our princess. Her having a good relationship with Cielle kingdom’s future queen would be good for the future.

 

We managed to maintain a good relationship with Phoebe-san and the other delegates Cielle had sent. And even when Phoebe-san mingled with me and my other friends including Carbuncle, we managed to keep Carbuncle’s identity a secret.

Everything seemed to be safe, much to my relief.

 

Today was exactly the same day like any other day.

And on this day, our family received the letters addressed to us from the delegates.

There was nothing out of ordinary.

And like always, all of us would read the letter privately in our own room, as we knew a letter was privately written to the recipient.

If not, Alt-nii wouldn’t have written one for each of us. He would have written one letter for all of us if it was meant to be read together.

 

Since we received the letter before dinner, we all finished dinner and cleaning up before we went to our own room to read the letter and rest.

I was all relaxed after eating good dinner and even having a good bath before this, as I opened the letter.

But the moment I opened it, my heart sank.

 

I finally knew for sure that the peaceful days I got to experience these past few days were nothing but only a façade.

Yes. Out of a sudden, with no rhyme or reason, I received an urgent message written by Alt-nii.  

At a glance, it seemed to be a normal letter talking about small stuff like one would do when they wrote back to a family in a faraway place. However, there were codes that only our family and the royal spies associated with our father knew of. Though we were confident that they wouldn’t find anything wrong with this, it was still very risky and would be grave if he were to be found out, so our family agreed that this method would be used in the last resort, if push comes to shove.

Yet, despite that…

I managed to receive such a message from him.

What does this mean?

 

From the moment I received the message and understood what it was, my heart couldn’t stop racing.

Many speculations ran through my mind as I opened the encrypted message and began deciphering it slowly, making sure that there was no mistake on my end as this was vital to the information I would receive.

 

Flashback played in my mind as I did so.

We have thought really, really carefully of this operation.

Celeste also promised to take all the blame, saying that she was still King Deus’ relative and if he still had it in his heart, he wouldn’t go as far as killing her and the others, and then going on a war with Riviera…

Since Celeste promised that, it meant that everything was her idea and that the others were clueless.

King Deus would probably still be angry at us, the Rivierans for not putting up guard and fall for Celeste’s tricks.

We all agreed that it was the best.

 

But then…

What are we to do if Celeste were to betray us?

To be honest, that was the question that never popped up during our strategical meeting. For we saw Celeste having no reason to do that. And my family trusted Celeste, especially Alt-nii.

 

Yet…

It was exactly the content of the urgent message that Alt-nii wrote himself.

 

--Dear Lyra,

The operation’s been halted.

For some reason, Celeste has told King Deus about our operation.

Our status has taken a free fall from esteemed guests into hostages!

Rest assured, it doesn’t seem King Deus will do anything to us.

His beloved daughter’s in Riviera, after all.

You are reading story I Didn’t Even Want to Live, But God Forced Me to Reincarnate! at novel35.com

This mission has become a ‘do-or-die’ mission.

But… The thing is, we can’t really do anything now.

We’re under a tighter surveillance and all…

It shames me to say this, but we really need help.

If possible, can you not alert the adults—gah, we’re adults already, but you get what I mean?

I know there’s gotta be a reason for Celeste to do this.

From Altaire—

 

After rereading the content of the letter many times over and over again to the extent I memorized the content, and not finding anything else left to decipher, I froze the letter before destroying it to unrecoverable pieces, as per what I was taught in my family regarding what to do upon receiving such a letter.

But I did all of this while I was on autopilot, as my mind went blank.

 

After sitting blankly for a few moments, my head was finally filled with unstoppable thoughts.

It can't be.

No, no, no, no!

Alt-nii is in danger!!

Luca and Kiri are there too… and the other people I know…

My anxiety skyrocketed as the faces of the people dear to me and the good people that I knew appeared in my mind.

They were all now exposed to danger.

This was the first time in my life that I experienced something like this…

 

What can I do?

What to do?

My mind was in shambles as I tried to analyse things.

 

They are all now in danger because…

My pupils widened upon trying to find a solution of the problem by defining the roots of the problem.

Right… They’re all now in danger because of…

Celeste!! Why?!

When my train of thoughts brought me to this conclusion, I could feel anger rising up as I recalled everything that had happened that led us to this.

 

Why?!

This is her idea to begin with, yet it seems like she’s doing fine because she’s the one betraying those willing to help her?

This is so unfair!

No, I hate this!

I trusted her…

We trusted her…

Alt-nii loved her and still tried to justify her actions, but this is just too much of a betrayal…

I can’t accept this.

How could she?!

I regret trusting her so much and even took a liking to her…

Liar!

Liar!!

Traitor!!

I never knew that it was this easy to go from liking someone to hating them.

I thought it was impossible, but here I was, experiencing it first-hand.

 

All sort of feelings rose up in my chest that I thought I was being overwhelmed by it all.

Sadness, anger, disappointment, hatred, anxiety… You name it.

There was no positive emotion that I was feeling at this moment.

 

I wasn’t even sure if I was having a panic attack or what, but I knew that everything felt so suffocating that I could barely breath.

I sat on my bed, trying to calm myself down, but it was of no use.

The familiar heavy atmosphere enveloped me once more.

 

Oh, is this what I was told about my dark magic overwhelming me during times when my emotions are unstable?

I thought the trigger would only be my thinking of my dark, past life…

I thought that after overcoming it and detaching myself from my past life, I’d be free of this thing but…

I guess I was wrong.

Hello darkness, my old friend.

 

I smiled bitterly upon realizing what this was.

I would be so dumb if I still hadn’t realized what this was, even after I had practiced my dark magic more and learned more of it, including the past events where my negativity had affected me and my dark magic.

Even so…

This time was unlike the past time.

It was way too heavy, too suffocating for me to withstand.

 

[Lyra?]

Fenrir seemed to notice that my situation was getting worse and appeared to call out to me, but it was too late.

Seeing that I was safe on the bed and that I wouldn’t alert anyone else, I succumbed to this uneasy feeling that was overwhelming me and fainted.