Chapter 379
She was forced to stand in the center of a room filled with cold, judgmental faces of family members.
Her eyes did not dare to meet anyone's gaze, lowered in fear and helplessness.
She was accused as the sole perpetrator of a tragic incident—total amnesia that had befallen her stepsibling.
That stepsibling had previously confronted Erietta with malicious intent, intending to take her life.
Ironically, the one who had truly saved Erietta and caused her stepsibling to lose their memory was Ilux.
Yet that truth never surfaced, or perhaps it was deliberately buried.
Before a family tribunal that had already decided she was guilty, Erietta's voice was utterly useless.
As a result, since not a single rebuttal or defense was heard during the meeting attended by all the main descendants of the Bathee family, one final resolution was reached.
The decision was ratified unanimously, a verdict Erietta would never be able to deny or oppose in any way.
The ruling was firm and merciless.
First, Erietta was no longer permitted to enter Star Academy.
Second, she was forbidden from becoming a student at that academy again, severing the only path of education—and perhaps escape—that she possessed.
And most suffocating of all, third, Erietta was not allowed to go anywhere.
She was required to remain forever inside the Bathee family residence, a magnificent palace that had now transformed into a prison layered with gold and velvet, where she would live under house arrest—an imprisoned disgrace within her own walls, far from the outside world and any fragment of freedom she had once tasted, no matter how small.
'The pressure from the Bathee family is indeed painful. But there is something else that makes me even more curious.'
Fiiiih!
'How close are they, really? Are they merely colleagues? Or… is there a deeper bond?'
Yes, during the several days she had been trapped in the clutches of the Bathee family, Erietta had felt extraordinary pressure.
Verbal abuse that degraded her dignity and non-verbal violence that left marks upon her body and soul had become an unavoidable daily routine.
Yet strangely, it was not the suffering itself that disturbed her thoughts the most.
She had already accepted that oppression as part of her unfortunate fate in this place.
There was something else, a detail that emerged amid the routine torment, that stirred a deeper and more ticklish curiosity within her mind.
What intrigued her more than the pressure itself was a pair of young individuals among the many subordinates of the Bathee family who roamed the grand house.
They were no ordinary subordinates.
Erietta knew them well.
The man was a cold and authoritative leader, while the woman was a vice leader equally firm and piercing with her words.
The two of them were the commanders of the forced security operation that had brought her from the Star Academy dormitory to this Bathee family estate.
Erietta had even exchanged direct words with the vice leader during that journey, though at the time she could only remain weak and silent, swallowing every sharp and sarcastic remark the woman threw at her without being able to respond.
Now, what truly puzzled Erietta was quite simple.
She observed them between their duties or while they stood guard at certain posts.
The question was, how close were the leader and vice leader sent by the Bathee family?
Was their relationship purely professional, based on hierarchy and assignment?
Or was there something more?
'There is a devotion that is almost… religious.'
Erietta did not question their closeness without reason.
Her confusion stemmed from an unusual nightly routine that repeated itself day after day.
Feeling stifled from being confined inside the house all day, Erietta often decided to walk along the corridors at night.
And in her small wanderings, she repeatedly encountered—or rather glimpsed—the same sight.
She found the vice leader always, without fail, asleep in the leader's bed.
Not in a separate bed, not on a sofa, but in the same bed.
Furthermore, the sleeping position she consistently witnessed was far from ordinary.
The vice leader always slept while lying atop the leader's body.
Her position was directly over his chest, as though turning him into a living pillow.
Both of her hands clung tightly around him, a possessive embrace that simultaneously seemed to seek protection.
Meanwhile, the leader always appeared to be sleeping on his back, as though accepting and allowing that weight and embrace as something natural.
This intimate sight clearly exceeded the boundaries of a typical professional relationship between superior and subordinate.
No less perplexing were the sounds that emerged.
From behind the slightly open door, Erietta often heard not ordinary snoring, but something far stranger.
The snoring that came from the vice leader's mouth, while she clung so tightly to the leader, contained praises and melodies.
It sounded like hymns offered to angels, yet every word and note seemed directed specifically toward the leader she was hugging so tightly while lying atop him.
It was a worshipful lullaby born from the subconscious, a confession of profound admiration—or dependency.
And it did not stop there.
Erietta's observations also captured moments during the day.
On certain occasions, even between shifts, the vice leader—usually expressionless—would suddenly behave in a spoiled manner.
She would approach the leader, who was on duty guarding the garden area.
Without preamble, she would swiftly embrace him from the front, and the embrace would last for a long time.
Even more astonishing, the leader did not reject or stiffen.
Instead, his hand would gently stroke the vice leader's hair, a comforting gesture full of tenderness.
All these signs—from the intimate sleeping ritual to the affectionate daytime embraces—formed a clear picture in Erietta's mind.
The relationship between the leader and his vice was far deeper, more personal, and more emotional than mere coworkers or superior and subordinate.
'This sense of isolation, betrayal, and confinement is not the end—it is the seed of someone who will one day rise for them to face.'
Meanwhile, as Erietta walked and sank into her contemplation, in another corner of the grand house, a depraved samurai who had now perfectly disguised himself as the leader continued his work.
His gloved hands moved deftly, inscribing note after note upon the pages of his beloved yellowed book.
Ink flowed into sentence after sentence without any sign of stopping.
Every movement of Erietta, every faint expression, every behavioral pattern he observed from behind the mask of authority was carefully recorded.
He was none other than Theo Vkytor, the mysterious teacher and guardian who had infiltrated deep into the heart of the enemy.
After previously instructing Aldraya, who was disguised as the vice leader, to further observe the movements of every member of the Bathee family, Theo now focused his personal attention on one primary target—Erietta.
His decision to monitor every detail of the girl's behavior since her arrival at her family's estate was beginning to bear fruit.
His sharp and analytical observations had gathered a great deal of data, not only about actions, but also about hidden emotions and pressures.
From all that data, Theo had obtained what he called a sample.
This sample was not a physical object, but a deep understanding of Erietta's psychological condition.
To be continued…