Revenge Costs Interest [EN]: Chapter 112

Retribution Bears Interest 112. Just a Shell (112/200)

November 20, 2023

With the gun aimed, Leah took a step toward Sarah.

“You said the poison was a charm. That no matter how hard it got, you’d do everything you could to hold on.”

“Wh-Who are you?”

Sarah asked, stepping back in fear.

“Still don’t recognize me? Then I’ll tell you one more thing. Every summer, we went down to the villa. There was plenty of fine clay there, so we’d steal cookie cutters from the kitchen and play house.”

“Oh, my God!”

Sarah collapsed on the spot.

She had heard that countless strange things happen in the world that cannot be scientifically proven.

But even hearing it with her own ears and seeing it with her own eyes, she couldn’t believe it.

She tried to find even one thing that was wrong in her words, but everything Grace said was true.

“I believed in you, Sarah, even when the world turned its back on our family. But the person who took the lead in killing me and my father was you, the one I trusted and relied on the most.”

Tears streamed down Leah’s face as she spoke with a calm expression. Her misery and tears moved separately, as if they were unrelated.

“H-How could this happen? Are you really Miss Leah?”

Sarah asked, lowering the hand that had been covering her mouth.

“Yes, I’m Leah Hamilton. I fell off a cliff and died, and my body is buried there.”

Leah pointed to the grave.

“I don’t know how my soul entered Grace’s body. When I opened my eyes, I was no longer Leah Hamilton, but Grace Vizak.”

Unlike the sorrowful Leah, Sarah’s eyes were filled with fear.

“I-I regret it. I’ve regretted it from the moment I fell in love with Allen. But I was swept away as if by a rapid current, and somehow I ended up here. When I came to my senses, I had destroyed you and your father with my own hands.”

“I don’t need your pathetic excuses. What good are your regrets and remorse to me? What I want is your atonement.”

Leah’s eyes turned red. Then Sarah raised her hand and pushed Leah’s gun away.

“Miss, don’t dirty your hands. I’ll atone.”

She prostrated herself at Leah’s feet and wept. She poured out her sins in tears, begging for forgiveness.

She said that she never never intended to take Allen away from Leah in the first place.

She had simply fallen in love with the man her idol loved.

She mistook Leah’s life for her own, and when she came to her senses, she was trapped in a situation from which she could not escape.

“I was wrong! Please forgive me!”

Sarah rubbed her hands together, begging Leah for forgiveness.

If only it were something that could be easily forgiven.

“I’ll forgive you, if you die in front of me.”

Sarah put her trembling hand into her bosom. But she didn’t know why she felt so relieved and happy.

Rather, she was grateful that Leah was there to witness her end.

She knew it was shameless, but she was happy to be able to say she was sorry before she died.

Leah kept her eyes on Sarah, who was trembling as she took out the poison.

‘This is what I wanted. To punish the traitor, Sarah.’

But why is she asking for forgiveness and crying?

She should have been brazen and said, ‘I did nothing wrong. Is love a sin?’ until the end.

Sarah took out the vial, held it in both hands, and looked at Leah with a determined expression.

She seemed to have something to say to her before the end.

“Miss, do you remember? When we were making cookies out of clay at the villa, we pressed the master’s key necklace into the clay.”

“Key necklace?”

Leah recalled her childhood memories. She went back to the time when she was making cookies out of clay with Sarah.

She remembered running to her father, who was watching her and Sarah’s mud play with a smile, and asking him to lend her the necklace he was wearing for a moment.

She giggled, saying she would make a key cookie by pressing it into the clay.

“It’s still there. That’s how I made the key and found the master’s memoirs.”

“Where?”

“The memoirs were hidden in an empty oak barrel in the wine cellar.”

“So you gave it to Allen?”

“No. Why would I give it to the man who was trying to kill me?”

Sarah shook her head, crying.

“Then where is it?”

At Leah’s question, Sarah’s gaze moved toward the grave.

She had thought it was strange that flower seedlings had been planted, but she had buried the memoirs in the grave.

She had covered it with flowers to disguise it.

“It will be crucial evidence when you punish Allen.”

Leah panicked. She couldn’t believe that Sarah had made a key in such a way to find the memoirs.

Then Sarah kissed Leah’s feet and opened the lid of the vial and brought it to her mouth before she could be stopped.

Clang!

Leah’s hand knocked the poison out of Sarah’s hand.

She had wanted her to die more than anyone else, but her hand moved reflexively, regardless of her desire for revenge.

“Don’t die! Not yet!”

“Huh?”

“You have to take responsibility even if you die. You caused my father to be imprisoned on Riff Island. You have to get him out. I’ll take back the Hamilton Trading Company from Allen.”

“Does that mean…?”

“Do everything you have to do and then die.”

Leah decided to be honest with herself. She didn’t want Sarah to die in the first place.

In the end, her resentment and pity for Sarah, who was neither evil nor cruel, stopped her death.

“But I won’t forgive a second betrayal. If you still have feelings for Allen, go back now.”

“N-No! Absolutely not! If I had any lingering feelings for Allen, I would have chosen to die at his hands. I didn’t want that. I’m just living pathetically because I’m resentful, angry, and regret all the atrocities I’ve committed.”

“Then, from now on, take my hand. I’ll protect you from Allen.”

Leah reached out her hand to Sarah.

* * *

Terrun was later than expected, so he went to the opposite side of the church cemetery to find her.

Trees with lush leaves lined both sides, allowing him to get close without being noticed.

He had to make sure she was safe, even if it was just like this, to feel at ease.

When Terrun arrived near Leah’s grave, Grace and Sarah were glaring at each other and arguing.

Terrun hid in the bushes right behind them and watched.

He couldn’t let his guard down in case Sarah changed her mind or a third person appeared and harmed Grace.

But against his will, he ended up hearing a huge secret.

‘Grace isn’t Grace?’

He felt goosebumps all over his body as he listened to the two women’s conversation.

At first, he didn’t understand the words that the soul of Leah Hamilton, who had fallen off a cliff and died, was in Grace’s body.

[Yes, I’m Leah Hamilton. I fell off a cliff and died, and my body is buried there.]

Leah pointed to the grave.

[I don’t know how my soul entered Grace’s body. When I opened my eyes, I was no longer Leah Hamilton, but Grace Vizak.]

Terrun stopped breathing for a moment. He went back to the time when Grace had changed.

He had gone hunting and saw the scene of Leah Hamilton’s accident and recovered her body.

A few days later, on a rainy day, Grace ran out into the garden and cried.

She repeated the same complaints endlessly, asking why he didn’t love her and when they would get married.

Then, Grace fell ill and collapsed, and after she woke up, she became a completely different person.

[Aiden, did Grace study foreign languages separately because she was always interested in them?]

[What are you talking about? She’s a kid who doesn’t even like to read books.]

Even though Aiden said that, he didn’t doubt it anymore because he told him to cherish Grace as she was.

Fluent foreign languages, vast commercial knowledge, and an independent and autonomous attitude that Grace had never shown before. Everything was strange.

‘How could this happen?’

Come to think of it, Grace’s way of speaking had also changed. She used to refer to herself in the third person.

He had advised her to correct it several times because he didn’t like the way she spoke, but she was a woman who didn’t listen to him at all.

But at some point, her appearance, clothes, attitude, and even her mind had completely changed.

‘The body is Grace, but the soul is Leah Hamilton. Then where is Grace’s soul?’

Where else would it be? It’s gone. He couldn’t believe that such an unscientific phenomenon could happen.

‘Until now, Leah Hamilton has been living pretending to be Grace.’

That’s why she not only scrapped Allen’s articles, but also actively jumped into the operation of the Hamilton General Store.

Terrun roughly swept back his hair and spun around busily.

‘The real Grace is dead. Now there’s Leah Hamilton in an empty shell.’

He was afraid of the mysterious phenomenon that had happened to him.

‘Who is the person I love? Grace? Or Leah Hamilton?’

Terrun hurried back to where he had been.

He couldn’t listen to the two women’s conversation anymore. If everything they said was true, it was truly terrible.

* * *

Terrun tried to maintain a calm attitude as much as possible. A little later, Grace, or rather Leah, returned to the carriage with Sarah.

“Terrun, Sarah has decided to work with me from now on.”

“Huh? How did that happen?”

Leah calmly explained Sarah’s situation to Terrun.

She had been abandoned by Allen and was even being threatened with her life.

So the conclusion was that there was no safer place for Sarah than the Duke’s residence.

“You’ll allow it, right?”

“Y-Yes, I have to repay you for saving Grace.”

Terrun didn’t have the courage to look Leah in the eye.

‘That woman isn’t Grace. She’s Leah Hamilton.’

Now that he knew the truth, the alienation he felt for Grace, whom he had loved, came crashing down like a tidal wave.

It was the first time he had felt fear in reality, not in a nightmare, since the war.

‘Ha! What should I do now? Tell me! Grace, or rather Leah.’