I Need the True Ending to Graduate - Chapter 89

“What did the letter say? Why did she leave the village?”

His mother asked in a serious yet curious voice. His father fell silent for a moment, then answered without hiding his troubled feelings.

“It seems the count’s family offered to sponsor her. Since her skills are outstanding, they said that if she does exactly as instructed, they’ll send her to an academy in the capital.”

“An academy? You mean the academy I’m thinking of?”

“….”

His father remained silent. Even without seeing him, Evan knew. He knew that his father had quietly nodded.

Hearing this news, his mother was startled and asked again, “My goodness. Calypse Magic Academy… But isn’t that a place only nobles can enter?”

“From what I hear, it seems you can enroll if you have a noble sponsor’s guarantee. They said Count Karl Evenhart would become her patron.”

After hearing his father’s explanation, his mother continued in a voice tinged with confusion, “But still… why would a noble of that standing make such an offer to a commoner girl with nothing?”

“….”

“A noble wouldn’t make an offer like that without any compensation. And how would someone so high up even know that Lucia was in this remote mountain village?”

“It seems the magic school noticed her magical ability and made the connection. Apparently, there are occasional cases where they connect exceptionally talented students with nobles. From the teachers’ perspective too, she has outstanding talent.”

“My goodness….”

At the completely unexpected answer, his mother covered her mouth with her palm and let out a sigh.

“But being favored by a noble and having her talent recognized are good things, so why did she need to leave in such a hurry? Without saying anything even to her family….”

His mother raised a reasonable question. At that, his father seemed to let out a deep sigh and scratched the back of his head as he spoke.

“I don’t know the details either. I didn’t see the letter myself. But from what I’ve heard, it seems the count’s side wanted it that way.”

“…Wanted what?”

“That is… in exchange for studying at the academy and being taken on as a ward, she was to completely sever ties with the village.”

At his father’s answer, his mother drew in a sharp breath in shock.

Under the blanket, Evan clenched his fist. His fingertips trembled with emotions he couldn’t tell apart, whether it was pain, anger, betrayal, or pity.

“What kind of….”

His mother unconsciously raised her voice, then briefly glanced toward Evan’s face. Thankfully, it seemed she hadn’t noticed that he was awake, and her gaze withdrew.

Lowering her voice even more, his mother said carefully, “I really can’t understand it, honey. No, what does studying in a good place have to do with cutting ties with one’s hometown, that they’d force a child who’s just come of age to make such a choice?”

“….”

“Did they think we’d drain Lucia dry or something? Or that we’d be jealous of her and harm her? Even if we live without much, still, what do they take people for….”

As his mother poured out complaints that could have been dissatisfaction or hurt, his father let out another deep sigh as if he agreed.

“How would I know the hearts of those high and mighty people. I only heard it that way. They decided to support her on the condition that she cut off all contact with her family and the villagers.”

“….”

“They said that until she made her decision, she absolutely must not discuss it with anyone and had to choose on her own. So she simply made her choice. …To go to the capital.”

“Then why did the school, knowing all of this, not say a single word to us? If the school arranged it, shouldn’t they at least have given the parents some notice or contacted us?”

That too was a reasonable point.

In a somewhat subdued, troubled voice, his father gave his answer.

“It seems they didn’t know either.”

“…How could they not know?”

“It seems it was a condition proposed while speaking privately with Lucia, without going through the school. The school side said this was their first time encountering a case like this too, and they were flustered.”

“I don’t believe that.”

His mother shook her head and replied in a voice filled with anger and distrust.

“They knew everything and still did it, those people. Didn’t they say they personally connected her with a noble? And yet, in the middle of the night, the child suddenly disappeared and the entire village was turned upside down. After bringing the situation to this point, is saying ‘we didn’t know’ supposed to be the end of it?”

His father didn’t say much, seemingly agreeing with his mother’s words.

Unable to contain her anger, his mother continued, huffing, “She’s the same. After all the years we’ve lived together, how could she leave without saying a single word to us? Did she even think about Evan? Evan ran around desperately trying to find Lucia, calling her name like that….”

“….”

“Haa. I can’t understand it. Those so-called teachers at the magic school, that noble who I don’t even know if his name is Karl Evenhart or Evilhart, and Lucia, who threw away her family and everything else just to study a little… I can’t understand any of it. All of it, I just can’t understand.”

That was where the conversation between the two ended.

A cold and awkward air settled over the room.

Perhaps feeling stifled, his father walked over and flung the window wide open. His mother didn’t stop him.

Listening to all of this, Evan felt the cold wind blow in through the window.

The lonely wind brushed over his sweat-soaked face as it passed.

The wind was cold, his body was hot, and his chest hurt.

Suffering at the same time from a severe cold he’d never experienced in his life and a heartbreak he’d never imagined he would experience made it so painful he could hardly breathe.

But what hurt Evan the most was the intense, hard-to-describe emotion that came from heartbreak.

From that shapeless emotion, which felt like his heart and organs were burning black, like his body was shattering into pieces of glass, a tangible pain tormented him.

He was sad and despairing enough to want to die, yet at the same time, he hated and resented Lucia enough to want to kill her.

Holding that uncontrollable emotion, impossible to cast away, quietly in his arms, Evan fell asleep while crying softly.

***

Only after a week had passed since Lucia left the village was Evan able to get back on his feet.

It was the worst cold he’d ever had in his life, but having collapsed and slept on the ground that dawn, it was only natural.

Evan got out of bed looking half dead, as if he’d just returned from the grave. Then he washed his body, which had been drenched in sweat.

After changing into clean clothes, he checked the condition of his ankle, which he’d sprained when he’d tripped over a stone.

Everything was normal.

While Evan lay sick in bed, the village returned to its daily life as if no such commotion had ever occurred.

Except that Lucia was nowhere to be seen.

Most of the villagers, having learned the full story of the commotion, seemed to share Evan’s mother’s opinion.

They couldn’t understand any of it. Leaving suddenly without saying a word after all the years she’d spent here, accepting those conditions without protest no matter how unavoidable they might have been, or wanting to study so badly that she’d even abandon her family over it. None of it made sense to them.

Even Lucia’s family, who had at first been sunk in shock and despair, later came to regard her as a traitor and treated her as if she’d never existed in the first place.

Naturally, all of the villagers’ sympathy turned toward Evan.

As if it weren’t enough that he’d been engaged to such a strange woman, to be betrayed on top of that, they looked at him with pity and soothed him, telling him to forget Lucia and marry a better woman.

However, Evan couldn’t return to his daily life calmly like the others. He felt even less inclined to marry another woman.

As soon as he got up, he took out the necklace he’d bought at the shopping district, the one he’d meant to give Lucia.

This was something he’d bought by spending all the money he’d worked hard to save for months, an item he’d purchased thinking of no one but Lucia.

Evan hurled it down onto the floor, then stomped on it with all his strength.

Crunch.

The sound of the fake gemstone shattering into powder beneath his foot rang out eerily.

Evan stared silently at the fragments of the gemstone and made a decision.

Unlike the villagers, he couldn’t sort out his emotions by simply branding Lucia a traitor and cursing her.

He wanted the Lucia who had abandoned him to be just as miserable as he was.

As miserable as the time he’d spent happily choosing a gift while thinking only of her.

As miserable as the despair and resentment he’d felt on the night she’d ignored him until the very end, even though he’d shouted desperately for her to listen to him.

In the end, he wanted revenge on Lucia, who had chosen the glittering hand of a noble instead of a life with him.

He wanted to make her regret abandoning him, to make her as endlessly miserable and wretched as he was, to tear even her hands away if she clung to his trouser leg begging, and trample her under his boots.

Like the broken and shattered necklace.

With that resolve, Evan quietly closed his eyes and placed a hand over his solar plexus.

The pitch-black hatred and desire for revenge, burned down into hardened knots, were vividly palpable at his fingertips.

One month later, Evan left the village to acquire, at a price, the greatest honor and status he could.