ORPDRL Chapter 18

 Episode 18

“Geez, geez! I knew you’d be acting like a complete fool without me around!”

Smack! Smack!

Brunhardt was dumbfounded, his mouth hanging open as a girl appeared out of nowhere and smacked his back repeatedly. He couldn't respond at all.

“...Alicia?”

Snow-white hair and violet eyes, unlike the direct lineage of a Grizzly—those unmistakable features belonged to Alicia.

For thirty years, Brunhardt had longed for his daughter’s face. He began to wonder if he had dozed off during a meeting and was dreaming.

“This can't be. Alicia, how...?”

Brunhardt’s disbelief was met with Alicia clicking her tongue, clearly frustrated. She had always been sharp, even when she was alive, often finding her father exasperating.

“No one else can see me. The time we have to talk is brief, so focus!”

Smack!

Alicia clapped her hands right in front of Brunhardt’s face, then climbed onto the round table in the center of the Hall of Frost and grabbed his cheeks.

“Alicia...”

It seemed like Alicia had a lot to say, but Brunhardt spoke first.

With his face buried against his deceased daughter’s feet, Brunhardt looked like he was on the verge of tears.

“Alicia, if I ever saw you again, I wanted to offer my life in apology. That has been my lifelong wish.”

His gaze drifted to the long sword he always carried. Since Alicia's death, he had never let it leave his side.

The sword he himself had driven into his daughter’s heart.

Recognizing the sword, Alicia smirked and pinched her father's nose.

“Hah! What are you saying? Don’t you dare die. If you die, I’ll never forgive you. No, even if you’re reborn, I won’t forgive you.”

“What?”

Brunhardt's eyes widened at Alicia’s words.

He stammered.

“Don’t you resent me?”

Brunhardt had always believed his daughter would resent him even after death. That was why he had lived an empty life, merely existing under the Grizzly’s command.

“Why would I resent you?”

But Alicia, standing before him, only frowned as if she didn’t understand. Seeing his daughter’s confused expression, Brunhardt slowly opened his mouth.

“Because it’s my fault you lived and died in such agony. I couldn't overcome the curse of arrogance, and I knew you were born out of wrath. I let it happen.”

Brunhardt could have prevented Alicia’s birth. He remembered those quiet nights when he wept, wishing she had never been born, unable to control her wild magic.

‘So, the fact that my wife died giving birth to Alicia is not Alicia’s fault, but mine.’

Alicia had blamed herself her entire life, but it was never her fault.

“Dad, it’s not because you were arrogant.”

Alicia tilted her head slightly and scrunched her nose, as if to say Brunhardt’s thoughts were completely wrong.

“I knew you were foolish, but I never thought you’d stay foolish for thirty years after I died.”

It seemed her words had grown sharper during their time apart. What had she experienced while wandering the world as a spirit?

Brunhardt’s mouth fell open with a sigh, and Alicia burst into laughter at how foolish he looked.

“Dad, you loved me from the moment you knew I existed. You couldn’t stop me from being born because you loved me, not because you were arrogant.”

More than anything, his wife—Alicia’s mother, Hasne—wanted to have the child, even knowing she would be born carrying the curse of wrath.

“So how could I possibly blame you?”

Alicia closed her eyes and rested her face against Brunhardt’s forehead. Even in death, she worried about him.

He was a blunt, clumsy, and foolish father who knew nothing but his family.

“How could I resent a father who kept acting foolish because he loved me too much?”

Alicia’s violet eyes glistened with tears.

Brunhardt, startled by his daughter’s tear-filled eyes, quickly cupped her cheeks.

“But didn’t you say you felt sorry for the Grizzly? That you felt guilty for causing so much damage—”

“Of course, I felt sorry.”

Alicia interrupted him, hurriedly continuing.

“For the next child born with the curse of wrath.”

Among the curses of the seven sins, wrath grew stronger with each generation.

Since Alicia had died at nine, unable to control the power of wrath, she expected the next child wouldn’t survive past five.

“If I had managed to endure the wrath, if I had tried to break the curse, that child could have lived a normal life.”

Alicia hoped no one else would suffer as she had. But she had failed to find a way to break the curse, ultimately dying from magical overload.

“But I don’t feel the slightest bit sorry for those pig-like elders. Why would I? So what if I destroyed a few buildings during my magical outburst?”

Alicia snorted, glancing at the frozen elders and retainers of the Grizzly family, who hadn’t moved as if time had stopped since she emerged from the Eternal Lantern.

“Dad’s earnings over the years could have built three more houses by now!”

Though Alicia didn’t know everything that had happened after her death, she had heard enough from Letty to understand how much Brunhardt had suffered.

“So stop being foolish, you fool of a dad.”

Alicia patted Brunhardt’s shoulders with teary eyes.

“I have to go now. Promise me you won’t keep acting foolish.”

The Eternal Lantern wasn’t eternal. Alicia could only interact with Brunhardt for as long as the flame burned.

“Alicia, Alicia. Don’t disappear.”

Brunhardt, sensing that his daughter had only been able to visit him briefly, clung to her desperately.

“Take me with you.”

Brunhardt wanted to die. If that was the only way to be with Alicia, he would choose it.

“Alicia, please…”

Alicia frowned and pushed him away.

“Dad, if I take you with me, you’ll become an evil spirit. Do you want to turn your daughter into an evil spirit too?”

“....……”

Brunhardt couldn’t say anything in response to Alicia’s sharp question. He closed his mouth, unable to find the words. His wrinkled face, still handsome but marked by the passage of time, was soon wet with tears.

“…Don’t cry, Dad. I’m sorry.”

Alicia sighed softly, wiping the large tears streaming down Brunhardt’s face with her hand.

“Dad, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for dying first.”

She didn’t need to ask how Brunhardt had lived after losing her.

Alicia felt sorry for the next child of wrath destined to be born into the Grizzly family, but more than anyone, she felt sorry for her father, Brunhardt.

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, Alicia.”

“It broke my heart that I couldn’t say that before I died. I’m so glad I can say it now, even like this.”

The Eternal Lantern was fading. Alicia glanced at the flickering light, hastening to add more words.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Love is not arrogant, Dad. That means Dad is no longer the Grizzly of arrogance.

As Alicia finished her words, her body slowly began to fade.

Her snow-white hair fluttered like the first snowfall, and soon, Brunhardt’s beloved daughter disappeared from the world.

“……....”

Brunhardt lowered his gaze to his hands, tainted by dark magic. They were still blackened, but something felt different.

‘I am no longer arrogant..’

Love could not be arrogant. Brunhardt’s curse had long been broken by Alicia’s love. It was just that, drowned in sorrow, he hadn’t realized it.

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