Chapter 91
The journey had been uneventful until Kierne and Hailon started arguing.
Cheshire played with Hata’s front paws, tail, and ears inside the carriage.
Then, at some point, a strange feeling crept over her.
It was an indescribable sensation.
So many emotions tangled together and surged up all at once.
Her heart squeezed tight and began to race.
Only when she noticed her hands trembling finely did Cheshire realize.
She was afraid of something.
This mix of sadness and anger wasn’t her own emotion.
It was hard to endure, so she squeezed her eyes shut.
Thump, thump, thump…
Listening to her heartbeat, she slowly traced the roots of the emotions flooding in.
Her skin prickled sharply, and she snapped her eyes open wide.
‘A fairy?’
The cries pouring out from a fairy on the verge of madness were affecting Cheshire.
It was an encounter with one of her kind at a completely unexpected moment.
In that instant of confusion, she couldn’t react at all.
“…!”
A massive wave of power surged through her.
Cheshire shoved Hata off her lap and bolted upright.
Isuel, who had been peacefully reading beside her, looked up with startled eyes.
She knew her behavior must seem odd.
But this wasn’t the time to hesitate and weigh things out.
Cheshire flung open the carriage window.
Since it was a side window, she propped the frame with her head instead of her short arms and shouted.
“Everyone, get out of the way!”
But Cheshire’s cry was a hair’s breadth too late, missing by the width of a single blade of grass.
Her vision flipped upside down.
The fairy’s illusion realm had unfolded.
“…!”
Cheshire’s body, which had just been inside the carriage, was now plummeting through the air.
As she fell from sky to ground, she scanned all around.
Meeting another fairy like this.
And entering another fairy’s illusion realm—it was all a first.
‘What is this…’
Cheshire blinked in bewilderment.
Her own illusion realm was grotesque.
A chessboard filled with broken and shattered toys, man-eating flowers, thorny bushes, and more.
Yet even so, Cheshire’s realm brimmed with vitality.
Everything moved energetically, mischievously tormenting those trapped inside.
But here, everything was dead.
Under a sky where red and black lights swirled chaotically like a vortex, dry grass sprouted sparsely from the black earth.
The murky river flowed sluggishly, without a trace of liveliness.
At a glance, it seemed more like stagnant water than a flowing stream.
The forest visible in the distance was made entirely of thorn trees and brambles, from which a constant, somber sound emanated.
It could have been the wind whipping through the trees, or perhaps someone’s pained groans.
The illusion realm was a mental domain constructed from the fairy’s subconscious.
Cheshire could guess what state the owner of this eerie realm was in.
The fairy was on the brink of madness.
“Cheshire!”
As she fell toward the ground, Cheshire spotted Kierne.
He had landed first and was reaching out toward her.
Cheshire tumbled right into Kierne’s arms.
Kierne let out a sigh of relief.
He held her close for a moment to calm down, then muttered quietly.
“If you fall one more time, Daddy’s heart might fall out too, Cheshire.”
This fall hadn’t been her choice.
She wanted to make a small excuse, but she couldn’t.
Cheshire called out to Kierne weakly.
“Daddy…”
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
Kierne examined her in alarm.
Cheshire slumped limply in his arms.
The unstable fairy’s torrent of emotions was pouring in, making it unbearable.
Trapped in the illusion realm, the feelings hit even more directly.
Tormented by emotions that weren’t her own, Cheshire murmured softly.
“I want to get out of here…”
Kierne’s eyes narrowed as he grasped that something was seriously off with Cheshire.
A warm hand gently covered her back.
He lowered his voice soothingly, speaking in a gentle murmur to keep her from feeling anxious.
“Daddy will get us out of here right away.”
He said that without even knowing where they were.
But knowing Kierne would make it happen just as he said, Cheshire simply nodded quietly.
He patted her comfortingly while slowly surveying their surroundings.
Taking in the bizarre, gloomy landscape piece by piece, he muttered.
“What the hell is this place…”
“It’s a fairy’s illusion realm.”
The answer came from elsewhere.
A white flash gleamed.
Black thorn trees and brambles shattered into pieces as Hailon appeared.
Kierne’s face twisted into an expression that said, ‘Of all people, stuck in a place like this with that guy—how annoying.’
Ignoring that, Hailon first checked on Cheshire’s safety.
She wasn’t injured, but seeing her wilted like dying grass, he slightly furrowed his brow.
“Cheshire’s not right. Illusion realm or whatever, we need to get out of here fast.”
“…It doesn’t seem like a normal illusion realm. To escape, we’d have to fulfill what the fairy wants…”
Hailon had entered and exited Cheshire’s illusion realm multiple times.
He immediately recognized this as an abnormal realm and murmured while slowly checking around.
“It seems like she’s being chased and wants help.”
“What makes her think she can trust us?”
Kierne asked a perfectly reasonable question.
Hailon’s blue eyes flicked toward Cheshire.
The answer was Cheshire.
‘She must have sensed the aura of her kin.’
Those trapped in the illusion realm with Cheshire were Hailon and Kierne.
Both had been in close contact with Cheshire for a long time, spending much time together, and they were the strongest in the group.
It seemed she’d drawn in these two, who carried a strong fairy aura yet possessed great power.
Hailon, who thought Cheshire was Lichesia’s daughter, had pieced this together.
But he didn’t bother explaining it out loud.
He simply stated the conclusion.
“The fairy chose us, so if we want out, we have to meet her demands. That’s the quickest and safest way to leave.”
The fairy had trapped people in the illusion realm but hadn’t shown herself.
She was probably hiding, disguised as grass or a tree.
She must be barely holding herself together.
Kierne, irritated by the presumptuous fairy, was growing fiercer in his gaze.
“Demands…”
He let out a short, mocking laugh, his red eyes flickering with an ominous light.
That was when it happened.
A massive vibration shook the ground with a boom.
The dry earth cracked open with sharp snaps.
Thorn trees shot up from the fissures.
Men entangled in the thorns writhed noisily, vomiting black liquid with retches.
“Damn it, talk about bad luck!”
“We almost had her…!”
Spewing thick curses, they were slave hunters.
Not just any rabble—these were highly skilled hunters, like the ones who had pursued Cheshire in the past.
Specializing in capturing fantasy beings like fairies and people of high status to sell as slaves, they were in a frenzy at encountering a fairy after so long.
As they hacked away at the thorns with daggers to escape, they spotted Cheshire, Kierne, and Hailon, their faces registering surprise.
They must have thought they were the only ones trapped in the illusion realm.
Facing the slave hunters head-on, Cheshire’s face drained completely of color.
‘It hurts…’
It felt like someone was screaming nonstop inside her head.
The fairy’s hatred, rage, fear, pain, disgust—all the negative emotions.
The suffocating feelings made Cheshire feel like she was losing her mind too.
Especially since Cheshire herself had no good memories of slave hunters, she couldn’t help but get swept up in the emotions.
‘But she’s not wrong.’
Her vision blurred.
Warm blood pulsed from her heart, flowing through her veins.
‘I understand her. How scary and painful it is.’
The emotions of the fairy going mad mixed with her own past memories.
The ones who shot arrows into fleeing legs, laughing as bodies tumbled and rolled.
The laughter as they grabbed her hair while she crawled away on the ground.
The burning orphanage. Screaming friends. The teacher begging to at least spare the children.
The young fairy who could do nothing.
‘I wanted to kill them.’
If she’d had power back then, she would have killed them all in the most horrific ways.
A faint red gleam passed over her pink eyes.
The anger was unbearable.
Something began boiling up inside her.
It rose gradually, gradually, until it crossed the line.
The erupting emotions swallowed Cheshire whole.
“Cheshire?”
Someone’s voice brushed her ear, but she didn’t hear it.
Flowers began blooming at her feet.
The flowers that blossomed in a circle beneath Cheshire soon spread out like bursting paint.
Vibrant flowers covered the land of death, and butterflies made of light stretched out in all directions.
The ground, once submerged in darkness, was now blanketed in countless flowers and butterflies.
Cheshire’s eyes were on the verge of turning completely blood-red.
With a low sigh, a large hand gently covered her eyes.
“Why are you so angry?”
Kierne, shielding Cheshire’s eyes with his hand, coaxed her softly.
“Chesha, just stay still. Babies don’t do hard things.”
He whispered in a voice tinged with the faint scent of blood.
“Stuff like this is for Daddy to handle.”
