Chapter 420 - 419: You are also a descendant of the Khaenri’ah Kingdom, aren’t you?

"Hmm? A bit strange, this Hilichurl."

The next day, Miss Delezie left Mondstadt City alone, preparing to check on her flower field. When she arrived, she saw a rather peculiar Hilichurl.

He wasn’t flailing and making strange noises like other Hilichurls, but sat quietly under a tree, gazing at the beautiful blooming flowers around him, as if immersed in this beautiful illusion.

Hilichurls usually appear in groups; logically, there should be other companions nearby, but in Miss Delezie’s perception, only this one Hilichurl existed in the vicinity.

This was a bit interesting. Miss Delezie walked directly in front of this Hilichurl. Noticing Miss Delezie’s approach, the Hilichurl merely looked up at her once and then paid no further attention.

Even knowing Miss Delezie would kill him, he showed no resistance, as if he wished Miss Delezie would do so.

"...Truly a special existence. Could it be because he’s at the end of his rope that he’s so fearless?"

Miss Delezie had eliminated many Hilichurls, but only those who had provoked her. If Hilichurls didn’t provoke her, she wouldn’t mind letting them live near her flower field.

"Let me see... just how special you are, Hilichurl."

Saying this, Miss Delezie reached out and touched the Hilichurl’s mask, injecting a slight force into his body. A Hilichurl’s structure is basically similar to a human’s, so without any other operations, Miss Delezie could see the Hilichurl’s memories.

She had expected to only see memories of this Hilichurl living in a tribe, but what she didn’t expect was to see that the deepest memory buried within this Hilichurl was of a human city, a rather prosperous metropolis.

He wasn’t born a Hilichurl; in his memories, he was a human, probably only a few years old.

"Human? A Hilichurl’s original form... is human?"

Miss Delezie blinked. She recalled the words the Heavenly Principles had told her when he came to find her earlier.

Could this Hilichurl be one of the people from that destroyed nation—Khaenri’ah? He actually lived for hundreds of years. How did he do it?

With this doubt, Miss Delezie delved deeper into the Hilichurl’s memories and learned about the curse suffered by the surviving people of Khaenri’ah, which caused them to become their current appearance.

The reason they wore masks was because they were afraid to see their current selves, afraid to see their non-human appearance.

"So that’s how it is... a curse, and a conceptual-level curse. I wonder if I can absorb such a curse."

Thinking this, Miss Delezie stopped accepting memories and tried to absorb the curse within the Hilichurl’s body. But the moment Miss Delezie linked with the curse inside the Hilichurl, she felt an unreasonable shock attack towards her, wanting to corrosion her soul, her everything.

It was indeed a fierce offensive. Such a formula startled Miss Delezie, who had been at ease for so many years, for a brief moment, but she quickly suppressed the impact brought by the curse.

This was her first time facing a conceptual-level curse. It was already firmly bound to the Hilichurl’s body, and it would take a long time to strip it from the Hilichurl’s body.

She experienced the curse on the Hilichurl. Although it was conceptual, its impact on her was not significant; she could easily digest it.

But for the Hilichurl, this was indeed extremely painful, the kind that even a lord couldn’t bear. It was hard to imagine how ordinary people endured such pain.

Miss Delezie absorbed some of this curse, and when she was about a third of the way through, Miss Delezie stopped.

Why? Because she discovered that the process of drawing the curse from him was quite painful, not for Miss Delezie, but for this Hilichurl.

Although he was already near the end of his rope, Miss Delezie did not want his life to end with pain in its final moments.

Perhaps it was sympathy, or perhaps respect for life. Although she had eliminated countless Hilichurls, Miss Delezie’s respect for life would not change.

"Please..."

Just as Miss Delezie gave up on drawing out the curse, the Hilichurl suddenly spoke.

It wasn’t the Hilichurl’s language, but normal... human speech. Although his voice was extremely hoarse, clumsy, and weak, he still spoke.

"Please... please help me draw out all... all of the curse. I beg you... I beg you, esteemed one."

Miss Delezie looked at him silently, not acting immediately, and asked, "Your body might not be able to last until the curse is stripped away. Perhaps when the curse is eliminated, your life will also end. If you don’t draw it out, you can still live for a while."

"Live? Haha, can I... still be said to be alive now? Even if I am alive, I am in great pain."

The Hilichurls born later had no such concept, but the surviving people of Khaenri’ah who had lived with the curse until now were different.

He clearly knew that he was once human, and precisely because of this, every time he thought about how he had become this inhuman, ghostly appearance, only pain remained in his heart.

For him, every moment of living was a torment, a pain. If that was the case, why not choose liberation?

"I... I hope to die as a human, so... I beg you, esteemed one. Help me, help me."

To die as a human... well, that was truly a humble wish. He knew he couldn’t offer Miss Delezie any Reward, and understood that Miss Delezie’s previous actions were merely a whim.

But he grasped this faint hope. No matter what, he hoped to face the conclusion of his life as a human.

So, no matter how humble his actions were, he had to continue this way.

Miss Delezie did not answer. He placed his hand on the Hilichurl’s mask again, and this time, he increased the speed of drawing out the curse.

The Hilichurl let out a painful wail because of this action. For some reason, although it was a painful wail, Miss Delezie heard a sense of relief mixed within it.

Soon, the curse extraction was complete, and the original Hilichurl body transformed into the appearance of a normal person as the curse was drawn out.

Miss Delezie reached out and removed the mask from his face. Behind the mask was a boy’s face. Although hundreds of years had passed, his appearance remained as it was at the moment the disaster struck.

A very ordinary boy, the kind that wouldn’t be noticed if he were among others.

Yet, such a boy had lived for hundreds of years. It was unknown what exactly supported him to live until now.

Even though he didn’t have much time left, and his body was in immense pain, he still showed a brilliant smile.

"Thank you, esteemed one. I feel very good now, truly very good."

"Can you... lift my hand and let me see myself now? Am I... human again? Am I... still a monster?"

Miss Delezie shook her head, took a mirror from her storage space, and placed it in front of the boy. Looking at his familiar reflection in the mirror, the boy smiled even more brightly.

Tears streamed down his eyes. No one understood what he was feeling at that moment; perhaps he was happy, or perhaps sad.

"Thank you, esteemed one. Thank you for letting me become human again in the last moments of my life. I... have no regrets left."

Saying this, the boy closed his eyes with a smile, lying quietly under the tree, as if he had fallen asleep, blending into the beautiful flowerbed.

Miss Delezie looked at the boy silently, and just as she was about to pick him up, the boy’s body suddenly transformed into a faint light, gradually disappearing into the air.

The specks of light into which the boy’s body transformed drifted in the air, like fireflies visible at night. Even though it was daytime, Miss Delezie could see these slightly brighter lights slowly drifting into the distance.

"Khaenri’ah... because of their excessive desire for exploration, they opened a Pandora’s Box that sealed away demons. The Heavenly Principles, in order to protect this world, destroyed this brilliant civilization. Which side was right, and which was wrong?"

Miss Delezie couldn’t give an answer for now, but if she had to choose, she would probably say the Heavenly Principles were correct.

Because she had personally witnessed the disasters brought by the Honkai. The reason this world could exist until now was also because the martyrs of the past sacrificed themselves to deceive the world.

The Heavenly Principles, in order not to betray the sacrifices of these martyrs and to allow this world to continue to exist, had no choice but to take such action.

Miss Delezie suddenly remembered something she had read in a book: "Knowledge is a curse." She hadn’t understood it before, but now she somewhat grasped the meaning of that sentence.

"How long are you going to keep watching from there? Stepping into my flower field without my permission, do you think just because you’re from Mondstadt, I won’t lay a hand on you?"

Miss Delezie, who had been deep in thought, suddenly spoke, her tone icy, colder than standing on Dragonspine in thin clothes.

That person had appeared a long time ago. She hadn’t paid him any mind at first, but when he saw her turn the Hilichurl back into a human, his emotions fluctuated intensely, which Miss Delezie could no longer ignore.

Under Miss Delezie’s threat, the person hiding in the shadows also emerged. The one secretly following her was the Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonius, the guy Miss Delezie disliked.

"I’m very sorry, Miss Delezie. I didn’t mean to follow you, I just..."

"Why did your emotions change just now? Why were you so agitated?"

Before Kaeya could finish his deceptive words, Miss Delezie interrupted him and asked directly.

"I..."

"You... you wouldn’t happen to be a survivor of the Kingdom of Khaenri’ah, would you, Kaeya Alberich?"

This time, Kaeya couldn’t maintain his usual smile, and his expression changed drastically.

------------------------