9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 116 - White Raven Order ― Erika 2 (1)

“His Excellency the Great Supreme Leader has declared that the only way to overcome this crisis is through the unity of our people, instructing us not to stop but to sprint full force ahead, as the path to a ‘great and beautiful Schufaben’ lies right before our eyes. Additionally, according to announcements from the Supreme Leader’s office, His Excellency dined with priests from the Schufaben diocese yesterday at 3 PM, requesting their assistance in comforting and unifying the people…”

Erika switched off the chattering radio. With the droning sound gone, the office fell into silence.

The office was decorated cleanly and simply, just as she preferred. If you knew how much money had been invested when building this headquarters, you’d think it looked rather plain.

Lucas had insisted that no matter how much it cost—even if it meant going into debt—the features he wanted absolutely had to be included.

So the building’s walls became thick enough to withstand several cannon shots, the interior was packed with soundproofing and sound-absorbing materials, the windows were fitted with bulletproof protective magic, and earthquake and fire detection spells were cast throughout the entire building.

When Oscar joked about whether they planned to use it as a fortress if necessary, Lucas nodded with a completely serious expression, saying they might.

Opening the large window, humid wind rushed into the room along with the noise.

“Is it going to rain?”

She muttered while touching her hair, which had absorbed the moisture.

Well, it was already July. Around this time, Schufaben usually had one or two heavy rains or storms.

The plaza and roads in front of the building were unusually quiet. Until recently, protesters demanding they immediately destroy the continent and take revenge on Rubellia had swarmed here, making it noisy.

Ugh, she was sick to death of it.

Of all places, they had to hold those protests in front of the Redan Company building. Without the company’s consent, they had turned this place into some kind of sacred site.

Lucas might have actually liked it, though.

Whether due to the weather, the protesters had retreated too, and she was getting a bit hungry—maybe she should go down to the café below for coffee and snacks.

Just as she was thinking that, someone knocked on the door.

“Executive Director, you have a visitor.”

After the stock purchase that reorganized the company structure, Erika had been promoted from president’s secretary to executive director—though it wasn’t really a promotion.

Considering her actual responsibilities, this was normal. Until now, it had been a bit of playing pretend.

Anyway, a visitor—could it be Hannah coming to deliver a letter?

Erika closed the window again and asked through the door.

“Who’s the visitor?”

“He says he’s a butler.”

***

The sky was thick with clouds. The air felt heavy, making even the carriage seem to move sluggishly.

Erika quietly closed her eyes and leaned her head against the carriage cushions.

“Miss.”

The butler calling her with a voice trembling as if choked up looked much older than when she’d last seen him.

Erika suppressed the emotion that surged up and asked coldly.

“What brings you here? I distinctly told you I wouldn’t accept any contact from the main house.”

That’s why, shortly after leaving home, she had returned all the letters her father sent.

Lucas had teased her asking if she wasn’t curious, and her response was still vivid in her memory after she’d hit him.

“I’m not curious. It disgusts me.”

Yes, it had disgusted her.

Her father, who pretended to be blind, deaf, and mute for money.

Her father, who fawned over those in power while showing not an ounce of gratitude to those who worked themselves to the bone in his factory.

“But Miss.”

Then why.

“The master is gravely ill.”

When she heard these words.

“The doctor says he might not make it through this week…”

Why did her mind just go completely blank?

“Doctor?”

“Dr. Enke came to examine him.”

The butler said anxiously to the dazed Erika.

“He asked me to tell you, didn’t you hear?”

Richard had probably stayed silent.

Years ago, Erika had gotten angry saying she didn’t want to hear news from that side. Richard had respectfully honored her decision.

She had definitely been grateful for that consideration.

But now, why…

Why was she hurriedly getting into a carriage following the butler, returning to that detestable house?

The Brightner estate was shrouded in heavy silence.

It was so consistent that the moment Erika set foot in the house, she felt suffocated.

The butler brought Erika to her father’s bedroom door and withdrew.

In the empty corridor where even the servants were nowhere to be seen, Erika stood frozen like time had stopped, her hand on the bedroom door handle.

How many minutes passed?

“Idiot, if you’re going to do it, do it. If not, don’t.”

She startled at the voice that suddenly rang in her ear and turned around, but behind her was only the ornately decorated corridor wall.

“Lucas?”

Was it her imagination? Muttering to herself, she unconsciously turned the door handle.

Before she knew it, the door slid open with a soft sound.

Her father’s appearance was completely different from what she had imagined during the carriage ride.

He hadn’t become gaunt and skeletal from worry, nor had he aged double like the butler.

His body was still plump as before, and his reddish-brown hair, not yet gray, was as thick as ever.

The only difference was that his once-fierce eyes had become dim and unfocused.

That made her feel even more spiteful.

He looked too healthy, making her annoyed at herself for worrying about him, unable to believe it was real.

Her father, who had been lying in bed, opened his eyes at the sound of her footsteps and looked surprised.

“E… rika…”

A weak voice leaked out.

“You… came.”

He tried to smile but failed, his lips trembling.

“Well… were you happy? Leaving home, it must be… hard.”

That mocking tone, right to the end.

Erika looked down at him and spoke in a calm voice.

“Do you know, Father? I never loved you. Not once.”

Her father flailed his hand as if trying to reach her, but couldn’t.

“I think I was seven years old when we went to the amusement park. You asked me if I was happy, remember? And I answered that I was the happiest person in the world? Well, that was a lie.

Oh, and you remember this too, don’t you? This was when I was in middle school. When I went to visit the factory and found out. How you framed that worker who was trying to establish a labor union as a reactionary. How you sent him to Ossel.

I thought you were insane. This world was insane, the Supreme Leader was insane, and you were insane too.

When I cried and begged you to stop, what did you say? Do you remember?

You said if you didn’t do this, our whole family would die. That we’d die at the Supreme Leader’s hands. You told that ridiculous lie, Father. But I didn’t do such things, and I’m still alive.

Do you know how much I suffered because of your lies? Whenever I tried to speak my mind, you always told me to keep quiet. You said if I just stayed silent, I could live more splendidly and elegantly than anyone…

But that’s strange, isn’t it? Living that way was so painful. I wasn’t happy at all.

I really wanted to tell you. That all of this was brought on by yourself.

That we fought, that Mother got tired of trying to stop us and lost her voice, that when I look back on my time living in this house all I remember are painful and agonizing moments, that I’m saying these things now.

It’s all because of you, Father. You made us this way.”

Before she knew it, Erika realized tears were streaming down her face.

Countless unknown emotions mixed together, bursting out as curses from her mouth, as thick teardrops.

“Ah, ha, ha, Father, let me say it again. I never loved you. I was never happy being with you. Not even once.”

It was a lie.

When they went to the amusement park, when her father pushed her on the swing in the garden, when they made a big cake together for her mother’s birthday, when they dressed up in pretty clothes and took photos.

She had been happy during all of it.

Looking back on her childhood, there were only memories that sparkled like jewels.

She had always been the daughter who loved her father most in the world.

Until she went to her father’s factory and saw the wailing workers.

She was ashamed of that fact, didn’t want to acknowledge it. She wanted to turn away from it, wanted to say only hurtful things to him. Childishly.

“So…”

Through her tear-blurred vision, Erika saw her father’s face. His face turned pale blue, mouth gaping wide.

“Urgh!”

He made a choking sound and clutched his chest.

“Ah, Father!”

Once again, Erika’s mind went completely blank. She panicked at the sight of her father foaming at the mouth and convulsing.

“Isn’t anyone here?! Butler! Butler!”

She ran to open the door, then frantically pressed the bell at the head of the bed.

Ring-ring! Ring-ring! Ring-ring!

Soon there were hurried footsteps.

The butler and servants rushed in, giving her father injections and medicine in a chaotic scene.

What happened next, she doesn’t remember well.

When she came to her senses, she was standing alone in the empty corridor.

Her father was dead.

Erika belatedly realized that the last words he heard from his daughter before dying were ‘I don’t love you.’ Terror washed over her.

Suddenly she sensed someone nearby.

Turning around, she saw a woman thin as a twig wrapped in a gray shawl.

“Mother…”

The woman’s cracked lips slowly opened.

“Never… come back again.”

It was her mother, whom nothing Erika did could cure.

Terrified, Erika stumbled backward. Then she turned and ran away.

“Miss!”

She heard the butler calling frantically, but didn’t stop.

Outside, torrential rain was pouring down. She ran out of the estate, stepping through the muddy garden soil.

Her memory cuts off again.

***

When she came to her senses, she was in front of the company.

Rain was falling so hard you couldn’t see an inch ahead.

Looking up at the darkened building where the employees had already gone home, she remembered the days when this tall building was a small tavern.

The days when she bustled around the rowdy customers while working frantically, yet straining her ears to catch every word.

Every night she and her friends would talk about this and that, saying they’d create a better world.

Surely they had more power now and could do more than back then. But that better world—she had no idea where it was.

Whatever noble things they had accomplished, war still broke out and countless people suffered.

They said her father’s collapse was also due to the turbulent times.

When the economy fluctuated, the factory became precarious, and swept up in the Supreme Leader’s aggressive corporate acquisitions, her father was driven out of the factory he had built with his own hands. None of the workers mourned him.

Finally, when he received the bank’s order that even his rights to the land and facilities would be confiscated, her father collapsed…

Erika gasped for breath with her soaked face.

She just wanted to pretend none of it had happened. If only she could return to those days when she was busy at the small tavern.

Then suddenly, the heavy rain stopped. No, she could only hear pattering sounds above her head.

Someone had reached over her shoulder and was holding an umbrella over her.

“Did you come here wanting a drink?”

It was a man with a pale face and a crooked smile. The moment Erika saw him, tears that had stopped began flowing again.

“Sob, sob…”

With her coat and skirt completely soaked, her hair hanging down and plastered to her face in an unsightly state, she just cried.

Lucas wrapped his arm around Erika’s shoulder and patted her.

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and cry.”

***

Even after dawn passed, the downpour showed no signs of stopping.

The window of the small house behind the building where Erika lived shook as if it might shatter in the wind.

When Erika came out after washing with warm water, Lucas, who had been sitting at the dining table, showed her a large bottle of liquor.

“Here, what you were looking for. Really strong stuff.”

Liquor was poured into ice-filled glasses. They clinked glasses with a crisp sound.

Lucas didn’t ask anything.

After repeatedly taking a few sips and setting it down, Erika spoke in a deeply sunken voice.

“Father passed away.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s my fault.”

Once she started confessing, words poured out endlessly like a burst dam. She spilled out all the stories she had kept in her heart.

How she loved him but said she didn’t.

How she was happy but said she wasn’t.

How she wanted to return to those times yet didn’t want to.

How she didn’t know what she had been doing.

How she didn’t regret her choices but was afraid.

How she couldn’t forgive her father but missed him.

Only after pouring everything out did she raise her head.

“Actually, I…”

But what she saw across from her was only disheveled black hair.

Perhaps from drinking to keep her company, Lucas had fallen asleep at some point, sprawled across the table, breathing peacefully.

“Oh, really.”

Sighing, Erika reached out and lightly touched Lucas’s hand.

Then she leaned on the table and closed her eyes.