At the same time, Lucy, who had swatted away Liel’s hand, stood up and backed away.

Liel followed suit and stood up, muttering.

“…… You’re doing this again.”

“Liel…….”

“I told you to not let me (my hand) go.”

His gaze went to her ankle, as if he were going to grab her and pull her toward him at any moment. Lucy sucked in a breath.

Step by step, each time she took a step back, Liel matched her steps.

“I told you that wasn’t a good option either.”

It might not be a good choice, but it wasn’t a wrong choice. Lucy trusted her instincts.

If she did what Liel told her to do, she might never get out of this mansion.

As soon as she reached that point, she turned around without hesitation.

Shaak—!

“Heok……!”

If a white snake emitting a reddish glow hadn’t jumped out of nowhere and bared its teeth at her, she would have immediately opened the door and fled.

Opaque liquid dripped from the snake’s sharp fangs. Lucy’s heart thumped irregularly as she checked the melting floor.

“Lucy, if you do this…….”

From behind her, she heard Liel’s raspy voice. He must have been aware of the snake’s presence because he didn’t seem surprised.

Or maybe…….

Liel had ordered the snake to stop her.

Lucy turned her head slightly to look at Liel, who, for some reason, was smiling ecstatically.

She felt a chill run down her spine.

“I will have no choice but bite you.”

He said it as if he had no choice, but his smile made it seem like he wanted to.

* * *

The only good thing about her misfortune was that Lucy was more frightened by Liel than by the snake.

As a result, Lucy was able to run out of Liel’s room, dutifully ignoring the snake in her path.

She didn’t stop running until her bare feet hit the hardwood floor and then the rough dirt.

“What’s wrong with him!”

The words she’d been holding in finally spilled out of her mouth.

But her cry was barely an echo in the dense canopy of trees.

“Why does liking lead to being locked up?”

She wanted someone to tell her everything is a lie, that she was dreaming, that she was still out cold.

Heok, huk…….

She spit out a string of words out of frustration and was already out of breath. Lucy wasn’t a fast runner to begin with.

Her being slow was one thing, but her biggest problem was that her legs tire more easily than others.

If she had to guess, today would be the day she ran the longest and fastest.

“Ugh……!”

In her frenzied running, she occasionally caught her clothes on branches, which nearly sent her tumbling forward again and again, but she managed to rip them off before she could regain her footing.

After a few times, Lucy noticed something was wrong.

There was no trail.

Not that there was a path on the way down as there was on the way up. Or, more accurately, the path had disappeared.

Stopping dead in her tracks, Lucy looked around in panic. She looked around, but there was no sign of a path.

There was nothing but dense trees and untended grass. There was the occasional tree with a bare trunk, but that was it.

“Uh……?”

It was then that a chill ran down her spine and she heard the most unwelcome voice of all.

“If you’re done running, let’s go back.”

Liel’s voice came from not far behind her. Lucy looked around again, but there was no sign of Liel.

Fear struck her again.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Lucy slammed her fist against her numb thigh and started running again. At that moment, she thought she heard a giggle.

At this point, there was only one thought running through Lucy’s mind.

If she got caught, she’d be in trouble. Liel might really be locking her up.

The more she thought about it, the more terrified she became because it seemed not so far in the future.

Still, Lucy forced her shaky legs to move, trying to deny what was to come.

Even though she knew it was a futile effort.

“Aah!”

With a lone scream, Lucy’s body slumped to the ground. Her foot caught on an overhanging tree trunk and she fell.

“Please, please!”

Lucy scrambled to her feet and stumbled forward.

When she realized that a large tree was holding her up, she grabbed her knees and tried to pull herself up.

“Did you fall?”

Again, a calm voice came from behind her.

“Don’t run like that. It’s dangerous.”

The voice was creepily low and sweet, and at first glance, it sounded like it was worried about her. But she knew it wasn’t.

If he really cared about her, he would have stopped her from running in the first place.

Lucy hadn’t run away.

Liel had simply let her out of her cage for a while.

His reasons for doing this favor were unimportant.

Turning and leaning her back against a tree, Lucy called out to him, her voice as frightened as ever.

“……Liel.”

Kneeling down in front of a breathless Lucy, Liel grabbed her calf and said.

“Of course I want to see you gasp for air.”

Liel had always loved it when Lucy gasped for air or glared at him. Whenever she did that, her whole attention was on him.

“Me, why are you doing this to me, what the hell…….”

Lucy asked, trying to calm her pounding heart as a cool hand pressed against her calf.

She hadn’t rejected him right away; she had asked him to at least give her some time to think about it.

He said he understood.

Then why is he trying to lock her up?

Lucy knew the truth, in a way. That the turned Liel was trying to lock her away just because he liked her.

She knew it, but she asked him anyway. To stall for time, to find an excuse to get away somehow.

“Don’t look at me like that. It makes me really want to bite you.”

All the while, Lucy was glaring at him, just as Liel had hoped. If it weren’t for the smooth epidermis wrapped around her ankles, she would have glared back with one last defiance.

“…….”

Lucy slid her gaze down to her ankle, and soon her field of vision was filled with a white snake, coiled around her own ankle, its mouth open to the limit.

The snake’s skin was as white as Liel’s hair, and its eyes were red.

A white snake.

Lucy’s gaze traveled to Liel’s right ankle this time. His knees were bent, so his right ankle was clearly visible.

And there, where it should have been, was the snake tattoo.

No way…….

Once again, Lucy turned her gaze to the snake.

‘Are you the snake……?’

Lucy’s face quickly turned to horror.

Even the glossy sheen on their epidermis looked exactly alike, as if they were trying to prove that they had once been one.

At the same time, a bright light flashed through Lucy’s mind.

She thought back to the years she’d spent trying to prevent the blackening of her best friend.

Her resentment reared its ugly head again.

He said their friendship was tedious to him, but if he considered her a friend for even a little bit, for even a moment, at least he shouldn’t have become corrupted.

No, he didn’t think of us as friends, and that’s why he’d gotten himself into this mess.

Ungrateful bastard.

Lucy raised her eyes at Liel in defiance, and Liel laughed so hard he couldn’t have been happier.

He’s turned evil, and he’s really gone mad.

For Lucy, the snake with its mouth open, ready to bite me at any moment, was no longer an object of fear.

At this moment, Lucy was more afraid of Liel smirking in front of her than she was of the snake wrapped around her ankle.

Liel’s golden eyes glinted in the moonlight. Lucy’s mind went blank as his beautiful face and fearsome golden eyes blended together.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to regain her composure.

Liel, who had been watching her closely, smiled in triumph.

“It’s time to go home, Lucy. You belong in my room, not here.”

Lucy quickly shook her head at the absurdity of his argument.

She had a home to return to. Even if there was no one there to welcome her anymore.

A horror worse than death loomed over her. Lucy suddenly missed the dead Anise. She even missed her parents, whose faces she couldn’t remember.

Grandma, Liel is crazy.

If Anise were alive, she would have punished him instead of her.

Lucy asked cautiously, imagining such a ridiculous thing.

“What if I follow you……?”

What if she go back to his room, and then what? He’s not really going to lock her up like he did to Dioletta in the original, is he?

She knew what he was going to say, but she wanted him to tell her it was a joke.

Liel hadn’t actually said he was going to lock her up yet.

She thought that was what he meant when he said she couldn’t get out, so she didn’t want to take any chances.

Just as she was beginning to compose herself, Liel tilted his head to the side and laughed languidly.

Soon his lips opened, and a low voice spilled out.

“To see only me, touch only me, and hold only me for the rest of your life…….”

A dejected Liel trailed off. Lucy stuttered, horrified, as his shocking words continued.

“A …… and……?”

No, this is not happening……?

Looking into Lucy’s pale face, Liel jerked his jaw in a lazy motion, ending the conversation.

“I’ll lock you up.”

At the moment her faith was shattered, a sob escaped Lucy’s mouth.

Kkakk—

The cawing of a crow was immediately heard, and at the same time, a strange aura poured out once more.

Then, as her vision blurred, Lucy instinctively knew her time was up.