Chapter 74: The Story of Raines Noel Delpheman
Raines arrived home late that night, unable to bring himself to go to the academy.
As he was about to climb the stairs from the entrance hall, he saw a maid rushing by with a basket full of medicine bottles. He felt a surge of anxiety at the sight and asked what was wrong. The maid, her eyes filled with tears, replied in a voice close to a plea,
“M-Madam! She’s in a critical condition!”
Haina’s room was a mess. Clothes were scattered everywhere, torn and ripped, shards of broken glass littered the floor, and half-eaten food stained the bed sheets. But the most disturbing sight was Haina Noel herself.
“Aaaaaaaaahhhh!”
“M-Madam! Are you alright? Please calm down… Calm down…”
Haina threw the dinner tray the maid had brought her and hid under the covers. She trembled, muttering, “I’m sorry, Brother. I’m sorry, Brother…”
The maid, who had brought the medicine, stood there helplessly, tears streaming down her face. Raines watched from the doorway, then turned away.
He felt miserable. He had run away, unable to handle his mother’s condition. He was no different from his father, who had abandoned his family. Delthel hadn’t come home today either.
He didn’t know what Delthel was doing. And he didn’t want to know. Damon had called Delthel an “irresponsible man”, and he was right.
Raines had never realized that his father was such an irresponsible person. But at the same time, he hated himself for trying to understand his father.
He felt trapped in a thorny cage. Damon Keron, who was tormenting Haina, was still hiding in the basement of this mansion. He had power, where he got it from, Raines didn’t know. But he thought of the only solution that could free him from this situation.
‘Sue Byron. Whether it’s right or wrong, I just have to bring Sue Byron to Damon.’
Raines leaned his head against the wall and clenched his fists. The only way to escape this hell. The only key was Sue Byron.
***
It felt strange to be entering the Full Bloom gates after so long. Many students greeted him as he entered the classroom. But Byron wasn’t among them.
She was sitting at her desk, her face expressionless, her head resting on her hand, as if the cheerful smile he had seen yesterday had been an illusion. This was the Sue Byron he knew.
“Ah, Byron, you’re here. …Aren’t you going to welcome me? I came because you asked me to.”
Raines deliberately acted friendly towards Byron, in front of everyone. Both Byron and the other students in the Black Eagle Class were surprised, but he became even more brazen, getting closer to her.
Raines followed Byron around all day. He would smile cheerfully and talk to her incessantly, and the more he did so, the more uncomfortable she became.
“I think we could be good friends. I’m curious what you think.”
Raines had changed his mind since yesterday.
He had to deliver Sue Byron to Damon as soon as possible. But he had realized that he couldn’t physically overpower her or hurt her.
Then I’ll do what I’m good at.
“…Sigh, alright. Let’s be friends.”
He was confident in his ability to make friends. Friendliness. It was one of his many strengths. He had his doubts about whether the self-centered Sue Byron would fall for it, but seeing her reluctantly nod, Raines smiled with satisfaction.
And so, Raines Noel’s ‘friend game’ continued for days.
Sue Byron’s daily routine, as he observed her during their ‘friend game’, was simple. She would arrive at the academy early, organize her desk, then spend her time at the Golden Lion Class, where Enzhe Lopetrefer was, until the first bell rang.
After having lunch with Raines, she would either go see Enzhe again, or sometimes spend time with him. And after the afternoon classes were over, she would leave the classroom without a second thought.
Once class started, she would surprisingly focus on her studies. She would sometimes doze off, but it wasn’t intentional. She was strangely obsessed with her grades, even getting depressed when she did poorly on evaluations.
‘Was she always like this?’
Raines couldn’t help but feel a sense of dissonance as he continued his awkward friend game. Even though they had barely spoken before, Byron had always been a bully who would glare at him and walk past him. But the Byron he was getting to know now didn’t look down on him or act mean to others. She seemed perfectly ‘normal’, aside from her excessive devotion to Enzhe Lopetrefer.
“You’re friends with Byron? Hahaha! You’ve finally started using your brain. Good job!”
Damon, after hearing the report, laughed so hard he rolled on the basement floor. To think Sue Byron would fall for Raines’s tricks. He even wondered if Raines had used a seduction spell.
Raines watched him, his expression blank, then asked casually,
“Damon, are you sure Byron and Lopetrefer beat you half to death?”
Enzhe Lopetrefer, who seemed like the most virtuous person in the world, Melaine Vava, who was doted on by her cousin, Duke Yuna, and Sue Byron, who had a bad reputation but seemed least likely to do such a thing.
As he got closer to Byron, or rather, pretended to, Raines couldn’t ignore the growing doubt in his mind.
Was Sue Byron always like this?
He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know her well. Had she really beaten Raymond to a pulp? The dissonance between the Sue Byron he was seeing and the hidden side of her felt immense.
Maybe Damon was lying. He looked at him suspiciously, and Damon snapped,
“You think you know anything about her after spending a few days with her?”
He clicked his tongue and continued,
“I’m not lying. She’s a real bitch. She must have beaten up dozens of people before. No, she did. She even used torture magic. That pathetic bitch. I knew she was capable of it, but how did she hide it so well…?”
Damon shook his head, his face filled with disgust. Raines nodded. It didn’t really matter what the truth was. He had to kill Byron, as Damon wanted, no matter what.
“See for yourself if you’re so curious.”
Damon made an unexpected suggestion to Raines, who was lost in thought.
“It’s the glass garden. Or rather, the basement of the glass garden… To think there’s such a place in the glass garden.”
Raines shuddered, remembering the unpleasant memory.
“Give up hope. They’re all vicious bitches.”
The glass garden. He must be talking about the sixth-year glass garden.
But Damon’s suggestion was almost impossible. To witness Lopetrefer and her gang beating someone half to death in the glass garden? Was he asking him to stake out the glass garden and spy on them? Raines scoffed inwardly at his absurd suggestion.
But to his horror, the opportunity presented itself sooner than he expected.
That day, Raines finally realized that he was wrong and Damon was right.
Byron was acting strangely that day. She was unusually quiet, her mind seemed to be elsewhere, and she kept muttering to herself during class.
Just like Damon had been when he first arrived at the Noel mansion. Byron was out of her mind, just like Raines had been that day.
As he observed Byron’s strange behavior, he suddenly remembered what Damon had said in the basement.
‘See for yourself if you’re so curious.’
After class, Raines followed Byron, his eyes fixed on her. He wanted to know for sure if Damon was truly the victim. But somewhere in his subconscious, he also harbored a primal curiosity about Sue Byron. A foolish hope, a foolish trust, a foolish desire to believe.
But that foolish hope was shattered.
Raines sighed as he saw Raymond emerge from the glass garden, battered and bruised. Damon had been the victim of Lopetrefer and her gang, and Lopetrefer, Vava, and Byron were indeed the embodiment of evil, just as he had said.
‘Do you need to feel guilty towards those bitches? Don’t worry. We’re doing the right thing. Let’s cut out the real tumors of the capital.’
Damon’s words from a while ago. To think that the children of the Skias, who were supposed to be the pillars of the empire, were the tumors of the capital.
Maybe he no longer had to feel guilty about luring Sue Byron into a trap. They were evil.
But Raines couldn’t shake the guilt and the inexplicable anger that weighed him down.
He suddenly remembered Byron diligently studying in class. Always focused, as if she would never do such a thing in the glass garden.
The Sue Byron he had always known, the Sue Byron he was getting to know, and the new Sue Byron he had just discovered were all different, and it confused him.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Brother. Please, please spare Haina…’
But he chose his mother. It was a natural choice. If he had to choose between the things he loved and the things he didn’t, the answer was clear.
‘…Right, it’s all because of Enzhe Lopetrefer and Sue Byron.’
Raines rubbed his face. Enzhe Lopetrefer and Sue Byron were nothing but the people who had ruined his life. He wouldn’t let his emotions control him. It was time to make a decision.