Last Chance [Extra #2]

Part 4

Thanks to Sol's help, Elena's wound healed quickly. The lady, however, was too weak to stay awake, so she went back to sleep. Her mother stayed by her side the whole time, while her brother and father worked with Sol to help the knights who got injured during the fight against the Imperial knights.

It was ironic, truly. The Imperial knights did their best to not kill the family's knights during the fight, but had no problem letting the Cardinal kill a defenseless lady. It was difficult to understand. The Count and Edgar also thought it weird that the knights didn't kill anyone, especially since they faced such resistance from the Heroux family, though they were grateful that no one died. The family had already suffered a lot during the time Elena stayed unconscious, and almost everyone left them. The maids, the knights, and even their friends abandoned them when they lost their wealth and power. Although the Count wasn't an overly influential person in the high society, he had enough wealth to be held in high esteem by other nobles. Sometimes, money prevailed over tradition. Even old families had to respect Count Heroux, as he was one of the richest people in the empire.

That wealth, however, diminished considerably after Elena's disappearance. The amount of money it took to find her, and then heal her, was enormous. Even the sapphire mine the family owned didn't bring enough profit to cover the expenses. The Count's family spent more money than they could earn, and within less than two years, they went from one of the richest families in the empire to one of the poorest. They were now considered fallen nobles, who had nothing but their titles to their name.

Once all the knights were healed, the Count gathered everyone in the grand hall of his mansion and revealed the news of his daughter's awakening. Everyone was beyond elated to hear it, knowing how difficult the last two years had been for their masters. They wanted their young lady to wake up as much as her parents did. Lady Elena was the apple of everyone's eye, the ray of sunshine that brightened the Count's mansion. Beloved by everyone, she grew up lacking nothing, and to see her so hurt and fragile was heartbreaking.

Elena, however, was oblivious to their worries. She'd been asleep for over ten months, and before that, she was gone for a little over a year. For almost two years, the Count's family didn't have any contact with their beloved daughter, and now that she was finally awake, they almost lost her again because of the Cardinal. She was almost killed right in front of her parents' eyes.

Having heard the great news, the whole staff working at the Count's mansion hastily went to work. There was a lot to do, from helping the young lady bathe to preparing her dinner, getting her new dresses to wear, and tidying up the greenhouse so she could rest there.

The Count was grateful to see everyone so enthusiastic, and thanked them for their efforts before going back to see his daughter. He felt the need to be with her at all times, though it would be really difficult to do that. He had a lot of responsibilities.

Fortunately, Edgar was home as well. He could share the Count's workload, and that would make it much easier for both of them to spend time with Elena.

"She's still asleep," the Countess smiled softly as her husband and son entered Elena's room.

"Alright, we'll be quiet," Edgar carefully took a chair and put it beside the bed so his father could sit down. "The chef said dinner will be ready in less than two hours. I told him to prepare something light for Leena. She probably can't eat anything solid yet," he adds, accidentally using his sister's nickname. Just like he called her 'Leena', she jokingly called him 'Gerda'. Those nicknames were anagrams of their given names and were only used when the siblings were alone. Edgar didn't mean to slip up like this, but he couldn't help himself after seeing his little sister suffer for so long. He wanted to believe Elena heard him and would soon wake up. The family barely got a few minutes with her, only to lose her again.

However, this time, everything was different. Elena would certainly wake up, and everything would be fine again.

That was why the family didn't lose hope. They believed that their lives would be back to normal soon.

Celosia, once again lost in the dreamland, traveled through the memories of the real Elena, trying to understand her more. During the ten months she'd been asleep, she couldn't access many of Elena's memories due to being constantly imbued with magic. Her body couldn't withstand the two different powers and ended up falling into a coma to reduce the harmful effect they had on it.

Elena's memories were mostly colorful and happy. She loved her family dearly, and they doted on her a lot, as she was the youngest. Her brother used to protect her from everything he considered a threat, be it a spider in the garden or a boy she met in town. He stopped everyone and everything from getting close to his sister, and seeing how happy the two children were together, Celosia felt even worse to have taken Elena's place.

She felt guilty for taking Elena's place.

Whenever she entered a new body, she looked through the memories of its previous owner to find out their dream. She then did everything she could to make that dream come true. It eased the guilt she felt for stealing their lives a little.

However, when she tried to do the same with Elena, she couldn't find anything that would give her any idea about what she wanted to do with her life. She didn't have a dream. Celosia found it hard to believe. It had never happened to her before.

Without knowing what Elena wanted to do, Celosia couldn't fulfill her dream. She could only try to live a happy life to make it up to the pitiful noble lady who lost her life in such a brutal way.

Because of the fact that Celosia kept the memories of the previous owner of the body she entered, she could also see the way they died. Due to that, she remembered all deaths her previous bodies suffered. They varied from dying of old age to being brutally murdered. She not only remembered the deaths that happened before she entered the body, but she also experienced her own death later on.

With each time she reincarnated into a new vessel, she lost a piece of herself. Perhaps that was why her father cursed her. He wanted her to suffer for killing her mother during birth, even though it wasn't even her fault. Celosia found it irrational of her father to blame the child for being born. It wasn't like she asked to be conceived and brought into the world.

At first, Celosia didn't consider her curse a bad thing. She considered herself immortal, knowing that unless she was killed by someone who loved her, she would never die. The first few lives she had led her to a different conclusion. Immortality could never be considered a blessing.

She tried her hardest to break the curse, but each time, she was horribly disappointed. None of the men she dated or married before had genuinely loved her. She found out about that the hard way. She drove them to the point of killing her, either by manipulating them with her power or drugging them up. She acquired some powerful drugs in one of the worlds she lived in. It was so different from this one, much more... advanced. There were tall buildings made of glass, mechanical vehicles that drove exceptionally fast and complex technologies that could do absolutely everything. What Celosia found most interesting was the thing called the Internet. At first, she didn't understand what it was or how it worked, but she found it exceedingly useful in the long run.

The one thing she couldn't accept in that world was the concept of virtual money. It was the only thing she couldn't copy with her power. Celosia, in fact, had a special ability. It allowed her to replicate everything she had ever seen or touched, with the exception of living beings. During her time in that advanced world, she spent a lot of time on the magical Internet and looked through shipping sites that listed hundreds of thousands of items. She indiscriminately copied each and every one of them, keeping them in the empty space she had created that served as her repository. From there, she could summon everything she replicated at will. It made her life much easier later on, as she didn't have to worry about earning her keep while she tried to fulfill the previous body owner's dream.

Suddenly, she found a special memory in Elena's mind. The young lady was with her family at a festival, happily munching on a caramel-covered apple as she watched the fireworks. It was the happiest memory she had.

Celosia finally found Elena's dream.

It was family. A happy family.

It was the most difficult dream to fulfill in all the years Celosia had lived. She didn't feel confident she could achieve that.