A Porter Kidnapped by a Wizard

006. The end of unrequited love

Even in the purple sky, the moon was still there.

Across a river bathed in moonlight, there was a single daffodil in bloom.

“I’m here.”

When Phrygia saw the daffodil, she greeted her like a person. It was an unexpected look. Contrary to his cold first impression, is he only affectionate towards flowers?

She gets down on one knee and caresses her flower carefully. For some reason, Endymion felt sorrowful.

“It’s a bit like standing and talking.”

After a while, she straightened her legs and made a small gesture towards the ground. Then, a miracle occurred in which a tree trunk rose from the dry land, and the tree trunk formed the shape of a will.

“Shall we sit down?”

Before Freesia could accept, she sat down. After that, Endymion and Selene sat down, and they faced each other.

“You must have a lot of questions about each other. I’m curious about how you got here, what your identities are… And you’re probably curious about what you saw earlier and where you are.”

“I heard that it is a fairy forest?”

“…I don’t know where I heard it, but it’s not entirely wrong. More precisely, it’s a forest of nymphs.”

Is it because it was unexpected to know where this place is? Freesia widened her eyes. But that’s for a while. She soon regained her composure and asked the question in reverse.

“Then how did you get here?”

“We came here from another world.”

Endymion was worried as he watched the conversation between the two.

‘Should I really believe that?’

A different world, it was so sudden that I felt like I had nothing to say even if I was treated as a mere dreamer. Even a fairy would find it hard to believe that…

“Really? I believe you.”

“…Do you believe me?”

“There’s no reason not to believe it. In fact, it would be nonsense to get in here unless it’s in such an unexpected way.”

Unlike Selene, who remained unconcerned despite his unexpected quick acceptance, Endymion was a bit perplexed.

“What kind of place is this?”

I understand that it is a fairy forest. However, it would be a bit absurd if it was a reasonable way to open the door from another world for that reason alone.

“In the old days… outsiders could enter here besides us. But after one incident, it became a forbidden land that no one could enter.”

“The Forbidden Land?”

“I got the god’s wrath.”

“Who do you mean?”

“All the sisters except me.”

As she said that, Freesia’s eyes looking up at the sky were vague. She said.

“The story could be a bit long, is that okay?”

In response, Endymion looked straight at Selene. She was concerned that somehow, while she was listening to the story, the passage she had left open might close.

“It’s okay. Even if it’s delayed a day or so. By the way, can you tell me a story about what you did to incur such anger?”

“As you like.”

Time goes back hundreds of years.

“…Wait a minute, a few hundred years ago?”

“Yes.”

“Then… no, sorry- I interrupted you. Please keep talking.”

It was a distant time. Upon hearing her words, her Endymion mind became complicated. He thought to himself.

‘You mean it’s been here for hundreds of years?’

I didn’t even feel like I was with anyone. For the old solitude seemed to peep beside her as she tended her flowers.

‘Like I did.’

It was a sense of kinship.

Endymion kept getting distracted, but he pushed it away and tried to focus on Freesia’s story again.

“Once upon a time, a long time ago, a human came to the nymphs’ home in a deep forest where people rarely go.”

His name was ‘Narcissus’ and he was a very handsome boy.

“They didn’t lose their way, but they confidently revealed that they wanted to live here. Originally, they would have said no and kicked them out, but… We couldn’t do that.”

Because he is so handsome.

“Our eyes are never low. However, because he is so handsome, everyone fell in love with Narcissus..”

It was said that it soon led to courtship.

But Narcissus refused to accept it. One day passes, two days pass… It was only natural that the longer he stayed in the forest of nymphs, the more confessions he rejected.

“That’s right, it was around the time that all the sisters’ confessions were rejected except for me.”

The nymph’s virtuous pride was shattered when he refused to accept the confessions of any of his sisters.

Since no one could connect with him, they all began to resent Narcissus.

“The sisters loved Narcissus…But they did what they shouldn’t have done because they were resentful of being rejected.”

Resentful, resentful again… Did the nymphs who cursed Narcissus every single day reached the sky?

Narcissus was really cursed. And that curse is…

“…The curse of falling in love with oneself.”

He didn’t love anyone and ended up loving himself.

She heard that Narcissus saw his reflection in the river and fell in love with it and jumped into it.

“…A tragedy.”

It is a tragedy of a boy who was too handsome. Because he didn’t accept anyone’s confession, he was cursed and had to die.

“How… like that.”

Endymion felt sorry for the evil committed by the fairies, no, the nymphs. Perhaps it is because he feels a sense of kinship with the character Narcissus.

I don’t know if Narcissus would agree even if he was alive, but it’s because it’s not like anyone else for someone who was a genius in some way to become unintentionally unhappy.

While he was in a state of confusion, Freesia’s story was not yet over. She calmly continued.

“The gods were furious with the nymphs who united under the cause of love and killed Narcissus. So he cursed the sisters and our homeland.”

The god said, “The nymph who cursed recklessly will turn into a butterfly and wander this forest forever.”

“Then the butterfly I saw earlier…”

“Once upon a time, they were my sisters and younger sisters. Now they have fallen into beings polluting the forest…”

I wonder if my appetite is bitter at the horrors experienced by those who have been together for a long time… Phrygia’s expression at the mention of them looked very distressed.

As if it would collapse at any moment if someone touched it from the side.

“Everyone except me has become a butterfly. The sisters who have lost even Izzy and only have tenacity remain, struggling to leave this place where they can’t leave.”

It was a few hundred years ago, and the nail was nailed in before it even started. In other words, Freesia said that she had spent that long time alone and alone.

At this point, Endymion let her sincere curiosity out of her mouth.

“Aren’t you resentful?”

“What do you mean? The sisters who made it impossible to leave this forest and turned into butterflies? Or the culprit, Narcissus? Or… Do you want to resent the god who gave us this ordeal?”

The words came out like a rapid-fire cannon.

It was not a feeling that would go away if left alone. Freesia listed the suspects without a moment to catch her breath, as if bursting out what she had been holding back.

She looks self-deprecating and shakes her head in vain.

“No, I’m stupid and I can’t blame anyone. I don’t blame God because the sisters’ faults were obvious to anyone. And the sisters’ feelings… I honestly understand.”

Only then did Endymion understand why her eyes were sad as she looked at Narcissus.

“…You loved him too.”

“…….”

She just didn’t confess, but she must have been like the beings that have turned into butterflies now in her heart.

That was a rather sharp point.

At that, Freesia seemed to be silent, but she gave a small reply.

“Love is… Not what I want.”

She said that perhaps, she would have confessed if she had the courage, and that she might have met the same fate as the other sisters, she said.

However, the decisive reason why it couldn’t be done in the end.

“I lacked the courage to confess to him.”

She says that after seeing the other sisters get rejected, she couldn’t confess even more.

Before the incident, Phrygia had been closer to Narcissus than any other nymph, so she was.

“I think he thought that if he confessed… even that string that was connected to him might break, so he might leave this forest.”

For a long time, more than a few hundred years, no… Perhaps it was something she hadn’t been able to tell anyone about for a longer time than that.

It would have been unreasonable for her to tell such a story to her sisters, who could be seen as her rivals.

“What is love?”

Meanwhile, Selene, who was listening quietly uncharacteristically for her, asked a question for the first time. She looked genuinely incomprehensible.

Freesia glanced at her, then looked at her daffodils again with her thin smile. She then opens her mouth slowly.

“Sure… I wanted something like this at first. Like you, I didn’t understand. So I denied my feelings.”

That’s not the case, that’s not what Narcissus had in mind. She denied and denied again.

“But, at some point, the thought of him stuck in my head.”

I remembered him no matter what.

“When I sat across from him and talked about small things, I couldn’t help but smile. It was so much fun. Even I thought it was strange.”

She treasured all the time she spent with him and looked forward to the time she would spend with him.

“Once… Seeing the sisters who were rejected one after another and badmouthing Narcissus, I thought, what if I become like that? I tried to stay away from him. At that time, I was… I was a coward afraid of being rejected. I felt like I was going to do it.”

In conclusion, it was futile, but…. Tears soon formed in her swollen eyes.

“It has become too precious before I knew it.”

I’d rather… If only she hadn’t had a deep relationship with him. If she hadn’t even met her, she might have boldly confessed and cut off ties.

Narcissus was already deeply infiltrated into the daily life of Phrygia. The biggest problem was that she had become an inseparable part of it.

Ttuk- Ttuk-

“And… If that person gets hurt because of my confession, I’m so sorry…”

As if it was difficult to control her emotions any longer, Freesia shed several tears in a row that were as big as her grief.

Selene looked at her with a gaze that still did not know her.

“…Fairies are long-lived species. Even though humans only live for a moment of you? You mean you still loved them?”

I wonder if it was because I asked a very obvious question. The tears that hadn’t stopped flowing from Freesia’s eyes stopped for an instant. It’s only for a moment, though. She was soon in tears again. But her face was accompanied by a bright smile that had never been seen before.

“Because I love you. I don’t care about little things like when a burning fire will go out.”

“I’m sure you’ll regret it?”

“Maybe. But even that is proof that I loved him, so I think those things are so precious to me.”

“You can’t understand the fairy’s way of thinking…”

“It’s not just me, you too will someday come to understand these feelings. Or maybe already…”

At her strange end, Selene sternly dismissed her with a snort.

“Love? I wouldn’t do anything unhelpful in such a life.”

“Yes… everything is your choice.”

Phrygia looked at Selene and thought, just as she sees her younger sister, the nymph.

‘However, the moment you recognize love, you will realize it.’

That it is not a question of whether it is helpful or not.

At that time, when the wind blew, Freesia woke up, wiping her tears. Then the wooden chair went back into the ground.

“I guess it’s time to say goodbye. We didn’t talk much, but… It was a meaningful time for me.”

“Wasn’t that all?”

Selene also frowned as if she had sensed her group coming towards her.

“It’s impossible to get rid of them all. I don’t even want to… They were, at least once, my family.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“You two can go back now. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Endymion stared blankly at her calm, weak Phrygia, then suddenly opened her mouth.

“I don’t know what you’re going to do… I can see the river and the flowers.”

“Then you already know.”

The white and soft bare feet lightly step on the white grass. Her feet headed for the river where daffodils bloomed.

“If I jump from here, will I become a flower? I hope God will feel sorry for me.”

“Looks like you’re about to commit.”

Even though Selene stabbed her in the face, what was she hiding now? Freesia’s face was in full bloom with an awkward smile that had never been seen before.

“The past days when I couldn’t leave this place anyway and had to endure for a long time alone. Why did I hesitate all along… I thought about it once. Maybe… It was to meet the two of you.”

I brushed off all the remaining lumps. All that remains now is to climb the road that will be the last.

“If I disappear, the swarm of butterflies will naturally disappear. One thing is certain. Because you two believe in me, I will be able to return in time.”

Endymion’s eyebrows twitched.

“Are the butterflies disappearing?”

“That…Was the only method of atonement I received as I was left alone.”

“You mean a deal?”

At Selene’s words, Freesia’s reaction was unreasonable.

“Me? I can’t believe it. It’s only because God took pity on me that I got a chance.”

“Even though it’s not your fault?”

“I can’t say I’m innocent either.”

That word admitting guilt without guilt. Endymion wanted to correct this, saying no, you didn’t need to sacrifice.

‘But, I guess you wouldn’t want that.’

It was the face of someone who had already made up his mind. If it was her choice, she, as her third party, would not argue with herself.

As Phrygia looked at the flowing river, she suddenly turned to Selene. She closed her distance for a moment, giving advice so small that only Selene could understand it.

“You… I hope you don’t find out too late.”

“What…? What does that mean?”

There was no answer to that. Freesia smiled and walked slowly into the river without further words.

Bak-Bak-

More and more… , The back of her as she walked more and more into the water looked very unconcerned. Unbecoming of her on the road of no return.

… ….

Soon, on the land where she disappeared, Endymion was intoxicated by the lingering aftertaste of a short relationship.

“Selene.”

“Why is that?”

“Can I ask you a favor?”

“What please?”

Originally, I wouldn’t have said such regretful words. The story of Phrygia left Endymion regretful.

“I wonder if you can protect that flower from the swarm of butterflies.”

“…Before, only he couldn’t understand it, but now even you can’t understand it.”

“Uh… Can’t I…?”

When there were signs of misfire, Endymion pretended to be pitiful and tried her performance.

“What to do…”

“This is my request.”

As if desperate, she held Selene’s hand with both her hands and stared at her with her serious eyes.

“Selene-sama…?”

“…….”

Didn’t it work? Around the time Endymion was seriously contemplating whether she should use another move.

Food Deuk——

The darkness that came over me in an instant, it wasn’t just the ground.

The swarm of butterflies adorning the sky boasted countless numbers reminiscent of a pitch-black night.

A dark place where all four sides are covered with darkness. Seeing the world turning black, Selene, who was very slightly blushed, let out a low sigh.

“I didn’t bring you here for this…”

The halo of light forming around Selene is soft, and it reminds me of the moonlight that was floating just a moment ago.

Took-

As she gestured over her, a cloud of light floated above her in the sky.

“Wait a minute.”

“Uh, yes?”

“You can tell him to close his eyes… But just in case.”

Selene, who seized Endymion by the collar in one breath, did not give her a chance to resist. She leaned back and put her hand on his back to keep him from falling over.

Like a lady’s posture after a dance.

Char Leuk – Selene’s black hair that flowed down her sides covered her vision like a curtain.

‘Suddenly… ‘

Endymion had no choice but to watch. Her beautiful face thrusting her face over her own, her pupils like black pearls.

‘It’s beautiful.’

It was an unconscious admiration.

In the meantime, the cluster of lights that touched the butterfly instantly reconciled into a fierce light and spread throughout the world. As he tried to hide his gaze, Selene pressed her hand to his cheek to stop her gaze from returning.

“Don’t look, you’ll go blind.”

Her breath hits me squarely with each word.

‘Tickling feeling….’

Why?

Endymion did not want to escape from this moment.