CHAPTER 438: RYONA

"...Okay Zephyra, it’s been a few days... and we’ve made no progress at all," Pandora says to me with a frustrated expression.

"I-I’m sorry..." I apologize for failing her again.

"Stop! Stop apologizing for everything, Zephyra. It’s as annoying as you failing to even eat by yourself. You know I can’t keep letting you drink fluids from my tail every day, right?" she complains as I try to apologize, but she puts a finger on my lips.

"No, no more apologies. I swear I’ll hit you if I hear one more ’I’m sorry’... Do you know how frustrating this is? I’m supposed to be taking care of Lycoris and Eclipsya, but I’m here teaching you how to eat again and how to hold the bare minimum of a normal conversation."

"Do you know how strange it is not to be able to have a real conversation with you? All you know how to do is apologize, beg, and get excited when I touch you. And you don’t even seem to be making a real effort to try and get better."

"And it gets worse when I see you cry if a maid or someone enters the room! You are my queen! And rumors have already started spreading about your reclusiveness. That itself isn’t exactly a problem, but I hate rumors that tarnish your image like this."

"...I-I’m sorry..."

"DON’T APOLOGIZE!" she shouts, frustrated.

"I-I-I’m sorry..."

"..." She looks like she’s really going to hit me, but gives up. And I’m not doing it on purpose; I just got used to apologizing whenever she was angry.

"Sigh... Zephyra, today is the Memorial of the Fallen, an event to bid farewell to those who died in this war... It’s also a final honor for Lilith, for her duties and the things she did..."

"I... can’t stay here for the next few hours. It would be dishonorable to Lilith if I didn’t appear at the memorial. She was my friend and died in a war that started because of me."

"You understand you’ll be alone for a few hours? Not that I expect much from you when you’re alone, since you just mechanically read books anyway," she asks while I nod affirmatively, trying my best to follow her requests.

"Good. However, I can’t just leave you completely alone. Maids will be outside, ready to receive orders, and I’ll also leave Lycoris here."

"You are her mother. And since we left the cave, you still haven’t seen Lycoris. Did you know she’s been following you? It’s not enough to just give her meat, Lycoris needs your milk too."

"She even tried to nurse from me, but I don’t have milk, so it obviously didn’t work. She needs your milk."

"And you need to give it to her. After all, she needs a lot of food, and your milk, which will be full of my magic, is necessary for her to grow up healthy."

"O-Okay..." I hide my disgust for Lycoris as Pandora gives me a sweet smile. She seems to want to stroke my head, but pulls her hand away.

"Good... I’ll be leaving now... If you need anything, just call me and I’ll appear... and try to stop apologizing. I really, really hate those constant apologies," she says, walking towards the door.

"..." She gives me one last worried look and leaves the room. As soon as she’s gone, I feel strange and empty, as if something important had disappeared and I shouldn’t have let it.

But soon someone invades the room. I look at that child who looks so much like me. But unlike when normal "invaders" enter my "World," I don’t cry. I just look at her with disgust because she is also part of my "world."

She was also in that cave and participated in everything, so I don’t have the same reaction I have with others.

"Maah!" She makes an excited sound as she runs towards me. She looks happy as she climbs onto Pandora’s bed.

"..." She tries to hug me, but I put my hands in front of me, not letting her touch me.

"Don’t touch me..." I give her a light push. She seems surprised by the rejection, looking at me with confusion as if she doesn’t understand. Her wings flap softly and her tail moves strangely.

"Gaah!?" She tries to approach to hug me again. I shift uncomfortably until I see she’s close to hugging me. I push her with all my strength, sending her tumbling off the bed. I hear the thud of her hitting the floor.

"..."

"...?" She gets up from the floor and looks at me, hurt and confused.

"Ryona..." I call her Ryona. I won’t call her Lycoris, because I know Pandora gave her that name as an act of love. But I don’t love this child; I hate her.

So the only name that comes to mind is "Ryona," and that’s because it’s a name Pandora once mentioned to me during a sexual encounter we had. According to Pandora, it means a fetish for violence against women.

Considering the context of where Lycoris was born, my hatred for her, and the pain she caused me, to me, Lycoris is Ryona. I might mentally call her Lycoris, but I can’t bring myself to call her Lycoris as if I loved her.

"Don’t touch me. You... at most, you can only drink my milk... and that’s only because Pandora asked." I wouldn’t even let her drink my milk if it weren’t for Pandora’s request. I don’t want Pandora to be angry with me, so I have to allow it.

"..." Lycoris’s eyes contract, forming vertical pupils that give her a wild look, before they become round again as she realizes I’m angry with her.

Her tail droops limply while her wings tilt down sadly, and she seems much more subdued and timid than her previous excited self.

"..." She runs around the room, probably looking for something, and continues for a few minutes until she figures out how to open Pandora’s drawer. She rummages through the things inside, throwing some items on the floor, and soon grabs a glowing vial.

Because it’s glowing and looks pretty, she seems to mistake it for something good, so she runs back to me, extending her little hand to give it to me.

"Gaah!! Bahh!" She holds it out and waits eagerly. I simply slap her hand, followed by the sound of glass shattering on the floor. Lycoris’s eyes widen and she stares at me with tears.

"..." She goes back to the drawer and starts rummaging through the contents again until she grabs my mother’s diary, the gift Pandora had given me, and just throws it on the floor, looking for something else.

"!!!" This infuriates me. I get up from the bed and run to my diary, one of the few mementos I have of my mother. I pick up the diary carefully, seeing that it’s undamaged, although the cover has a dent in one of the metal parts.

"..." I see Lycoris appear in front of me with another glowing vial. But this time, instead of just refusing, I slap her face. The sound of flesh striking, followed by silence, creates a strange atmosphere as I put the diary back in the drawer.

"...Don’t touch my things anymore, Ryona," I say coldly, with disgust, as I return to the bed after seeing her cheek turn red with the mark of my slap. Ryona stands still in the same spot, in a strange state of shock.

As if being slapped was something she couldn’t comprehend or understand. Finally, she realizes what happened and starts crying silently. Her tears drip onto the floor as she places the vial on the dresser.

I can’t treat her well. Everything about her fills me with repulsion and hatred after she made me suffer so much. There’s no way I can give love to her, who appeared in my life like a thief who stole my happiness.

Everything I do for her will only be because Pandora asked. I won’t do anything beyond what Pandora asks of me.

"..." Lycoris comes to me again, tears in her eyes. She looks at me and opens her mouth to make a sound, but gives up and just stares into my gaze. She finally seems to understand that my look for her is only disgust.

She trembles upon meeting my eyes, finally realizing that, unlike Pandora, who looks at her with love, I only look at her with this cold contempt.

"...G-Gaah!" She opens her mouth and rubs her little hand on her belly, indicating she wants food. I look at her, seriously considering letting her go hungry. Maybe if she doesn’t eat enough, she’ll die over time.

But Pandora immediately comes to mind. If I let Lycoris starve to death, Pandora will be angry, and I can’t live without Pandora by my side. So I decide to feed her.

"Come here, Ryona," I say coldly, extending my hands. She extends hers while I pick her up and place her on my lap. I pull my dress and bra down, exposing one of my breasts.

"Eat," I just say that. Whether she eats or not is no longer my problem. I’m not going to feed her carefully. Just letting her stay on my lap is already too much interaction.

"Y-Yaah!" She makes a sound as she opens her mouth and latches onto my breast, beginning to suck while firmly holding my breasts to stabilize herself on my lap. As she suckles, she stares into my eyes as if seeking approval or affection, but quickly looks down upon realizing how I’m looking at her.

’Why can’t I be different...’ I tilt my head back, looking at the ceiling. I know there’s something wrong with me. I know I shouldn’t hate my daughter, and I know that when Pandora touches me, something is wrong.

But I can’t fix it. Pandora is trying to be gentle with me, but whenever she’s gentle, something feels wrong. If Pandora is stressed, then it’s my fault, and if Pandora hurts me, it’s love.

I know that at some point this logic must be flawed. If I look at the past, Pandora was affectionate and we loved each other, so why do I now need her to hurt me to understand love?

And why do I want to be hurt by Pandora, but hate Lycoris for hurting me? I don’t understand. My mind is a confused mess of emotions and desires.

In the end, all I know is that I love Pandora, and Pandora loves me, so I need to endure no matter how much she hurts me. And that’s all that matters, even if at some point pain became necessary for love to exist.

’...’ I try to ignore the sucking sound while thinking of Pandora. Just thinking of her hurting me makes my heart race and I blush with shame. My mind returns to the pleasure I felt in that cave.

But the irritating sound of Lycoris here shifts my focus to the pain that egg caused me, and the reason Pandora is punishing me. Finally, my mind reaches a conclusion.

I don’t hate Lycoris just because she hurt me. The difference between Pandora hurting me and me liking it, and Lycoris hurting me and me hating it, is that I only love Pandora.

And Lycoris’s existence represents everything that threatens the love I receive from Pandora. Lycoris is the reason Pandora punished me instead of giving me love before. This broken reasoning has some basis, which makes me faithfully believe in it.

Even if it’s just a way for my brain to escape the pain, disappointment, and the feeling of being cast aside.

"Finished, Ryona." I push her away from me, removing her from my breast. This is the most I can let her touch me before I really do something very bad to her.

Because every second, this unpleasant desire to make Lycoris disappear surfaces. If Lycoris died, Pandora would go back to giving me love in the way that feels right.

However, Pandora would also hate me if I killed Lycoris. So I’m stuck in this unpleasant dilemma of only being able to hate her, unable to do much beyond physically hurting her if she tries to get close in a way I don’t want.

"..." Lycoris stares at my breast, seeing the drops of milk trickling down. She still seems to want milk, but upon meeting my gaze, her wings just shrivel and she gives up on doing anything.

"..." I pick up a book from the bedside table and start reading, ignoring Lycoris’s existence. When Pandora isn’t here, the only thing I can do is read books to feign the normality my brain fought so hard to create.