Chapter 82: The Sin Committed in a Dream - 1
The closer they were, the more deeply they hurt each other—and because they were close, she had no choice but to hate them.
That was what family meant to Isolde.
Chains that oppressed her. She had resolved that one day, she would surely break free of them.
It had been the immature thoughtlessness of a time when she knew nothing.
‘I really was so childish all this time.’
Because they were close, they could cherish her more than anyone else. And because of that, they could hold her.
Isolde had not realized until now that they were not chains that oppressed her, but a fence that protected her.
"Thank you for loving me."
Swallowing back her tears, Isolde thanked her family once again. Isabelle, too, answered with tears welling in her eyes.
"Thank you for accepting our love."
At Isabelle’s response, memories of the past surfaced in Isolde’s mind.
Back when Isabelle’s curse had not yet manifested.
The two sisters had run about hand in hand. At night, they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms.
They had certainly gotten along so well then. When had she started to hate Isabelle?
‘How stupid.’
Isolde had a family close at hand who loved her, yet she had wandered elsewhere searching for love. She felt pathetic.
‘Ian must have known this.’
Isolde turned her head, looking for Ian.
She wanted to thank him. But no matter how hard she looked, Ian was nowhere to be seen.
"Hello~"
Two nuns were waiting inside the cabin.
They were Reina and Kate, who had often visited Isolde while she was in isolation.
"You’ll catch a cold at this rate. Hurry and warm yourselves up. Kate, you got the fire ready, right?"
"It’s already ready. Have some warm tea. It’ll help keep you from catching a cold."
"Thank you, Sisters. I don’t know how to repay you for helping us this much."
"Hehe, it’s fine. It’s our duty, after all."
At Adelia’s thanks, Kate scratched her head shyly.
Surprisingly, she was not used to receiving gratitude like this.
"Reina, where did my husband go?"
"Brother Ian went to meet the witch he mentioned before."
"Could I meet her too?"
"N-no, absolutely not! Witches are dangerous! And you don’t need to thank her, either. She did it because she wanted to!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes! So please don’t even think about meeting the witch, Sister Isabelle."
"O-okay, so quit getting so close to my face."
Seeing Isabelle and Reina, who unexpectedly seemed rather close, Isolde was puzzled.
‘Did they ever have a chance to become friends?’
She was curious, but Isolde could not bring herself to ask about their relationship.
Ever since she had been cursed, her self-esteem had been shattered, making it too difficult for her to speak to others first.
Perhaps Reina understood how Isolde felt.
Reina approached with a bright smile.
"Sister Isolde, you don’t have to keep your head bowed like that."
"What?"
"Look at this."
"Eek?!"
When Reina held out a hand mirror, Isolde reflexively covered her face.
She was afraid to see what her hideous face had become.
"It’s all right. Take a look."
"T-then..."
At kind Reina’s words, Isolde gathered her courage and looked into the mirror.
"Huh? My face..."
Isolde ran her hands over her face.
Smooth skin and finely defined features.
The oozing sores were gone, and the pus-filled swellings had vanished without a trace.
It was proof that the curse which had tormented her had disappeared.
"Congratulations. Your curse has been lifted."
"How?"
"Because you received true love."
"Wasn’t love only the condition for having the curse cured?"
Isolde had heard from Vanessa that, like Isabelle, her curse could only be cured if she received true love.
However, that was only half true.
"Curing a curse and lifting a curse are clearly different things. A cure means overcoming the curse through an outside force, while lifting it means undoing it by using the curse’s own principle against it."
"Then what happened to me?"
"Yes, Sister Isolde, your curse was lifted. It’s even more difficult than curing one, so rest assured."
"So that’s why Ian said he could cure it whenever he wanted."
Adelia, who had been listening beside them, quietly murmured.
Now that she finally understood Ian’s intentions, she clenched her apron tightly.
Meanwhile, Isolde still seemed unable to understand part of it. Tilting her head, she asked Reina.
"Did you know from the beginning how to lift the curse?"
"No. Every curse has a different method of lifting it, and we only know a few such methods."
"But if you were here, that means you knew my curse would disappear."
"Yes. Brother Ian told us it would be lifted."
Reina’s answer only made Isolde’s head hurt more.
Something suspicious kept circling through her mind.
"Sis, I’ll explain the rest."
Adelia stopped Isabelle, who was about to tell her sister everything.
"Do you really have to tell her?"
The family had only just begun getting along. There was no need to stir up trouble now.
But Isabelle’s resolve was firm.
"Mother, I don’t want to hide the truth from my family anymore."
"Isabelle..."
In the end, Adelia had no choice but to yield to her daughter’s determination.
"The curse you received, Sis, was cast by Ian."
"W-what do you mean?"
Isolde was dumbfounded by Isabelle’s sudden explanation.
Isabelle continued.
"More precisely, he changed the curse of hypersexuality you were supposed to receive."
"For reference, if you get cursed with hypersexuality, you can consider a woman’s life to be over."
Reina added that explanation from beside them, but Isolde barely heard it.
"I don’t understand. Why would Ian curse me?"
"I asked Ian to do it."
"You did?"
"Yes. I told him I wanted to be close with you again, like we used to be. This was all something I brought upon myself, so please don’t hate Ian."
"..."
After Isabelle’s explanation, Isolde remained silent for some time as she tried to sort through her thoughts calmly.
"I still don’t understand. Ian is just an ordinary hunter, isn’t he? How could he change a curse? Even nuns can’t do that."
"Well..."
Isabelle hesitated briefly at her sister’s point.
Was it really all right to explain without discussing it with her husband?
"Don’t be too shocked, but Ian regressed."
"Is that true? You mean Ian traveled back in time like the Hero?"
"Yes. It’s all true."
Isabelle’s answer left Isolde and Adelia utterly startled.
Such things only happened in tales of the Hero’s adventures.
"That was why Ian loved me from the very beginning, too."
Isabelle told everyone about what had happened before the regression.
How Ian, betrayed by his wife and driven out of his village, had met her after she was abandoned by her family and left in the mountains.
The days they had spent whispering love to one another in this cabin.
How she had eventually died, unable to endure the curse, and how Ian had given even his soul to the goddess in order to save her.
Isabelle told them everything.
"How could this be..."
Adelia, listening at the side, could not contain her shock.
Yet in a way, she understood.
Ian’s actions, and the boundless affection he showed Isabelle, had never been ordinary.
On the other hand, hearing the story made Isolde remember something Ian had said.
"Perhaps Miss Isolde knows better than I do."
At first, she had thought he was referring to someone from the village.
But as she heard Isabelle’s story of the time before the regression, she realized that was not the case.
"I-Isabelle, that ex-wife who betrayed Ian..."
"Sis..."
"She isn’t the woman I’m thinking of, is she?"
At Isolde’s question, Isabelle hesitated for a moment.
It was obvious her sister would be shocked if she told her.
But she had to say it.
She could not hide the truth forever.
"She is."
"Haha, it was me? The woman Ian was talking about was me?!"
To the anxious Isolde, Isabelle delivered the final blow with a sad expression.
"You were Ian’s ex-wife—the one who had an affair and even became pregnant with another man’s child."
"Aaaahhh!"
At her younger sister’s answer, Isolde let out a scream, then began to thrash about.
"Isolde, get a hold of yourself!"
"No. I want to die. I have to die!"
"Stop it! It isn’t something you did now!"
Adelia was right.
What Isabelle had described was a story from before the regression.
It was not something the present Isolde had done.
Even if wrongdoing had been committed, it was the Isolde from before the regression who had done wrong, not the Isolde of now.
But Isolde answered in a trembling voice.
"What does that change?! It means I’m ultimately the one responsible for destroying this family! I’m the trash who abandoned her sister, turned her mother into a whore, and betrayed her husband!"
Out of her mind from the shock, Isolde looked ready to slash her own throat with the fireplace poker.
"Stop!"
Reina calmed her with holy power.
"Sister Isolde, you should be apologizing to Brother Ian, so what do you think you’re doing?!"
"A-apologize? Do you think someone like me can be forgiven?"
"No. You’re the first woman as trashy as you that I’ve ever met in my life."
"R-Reina?"
"S-Sister?!"
Kate and Adelia, standing nearby, were aghast at Reina’s shocking words.
As if it were not bad enough that Isolde had lost her mind, Reina was hurling cruel insults at her instead of soothing her.
But Reina did not stop.
"Goddess Helia said that even an affair committed in a dream is still an affair. Needless to say, something that happened before a regression counts as well. This may feel unfair to you, Sister Isolde, but—"
"I know that too!"
Isolde spoke as tears streamed down her face.
"Ian suffered because of me all that time."
"You understand that well."
Holding out a handkerchief to Isolde, Reina said,
"Then why are you trying to make such an extreme choice when you understand it so well?"
"I’m scared. If Ian rejects me, I think I’ll really go insane."
"You still have to apologize."
"Will Ian accept my apology?"
"How would I know?"
Reina smiled kindly.
"But if he’s the Brother Ian I know, I’m sure he will."
. . .
After finishing Aurora’s special lesson on [Soul Devouring], I headed straight to my in-laws’ house.
I had expected a warm, cheerful atmosphere, but...
"Isabelle, where did Isolde go?"
"Well... she’s still at the cabin by the lake."
"What?"
No, why?
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