Chapter 117: Hunting Boars

On the day of the hunting event, I rode with Garett in his carriage to the venue.

Garett seemed a more dashing than usual. He had stopped wearing his fake glasses since the day of our engagement party and began dressing to impress lately. For today, he decided to wear a fitted all white uniform with a dark brown vest like mine with knee high leather boots. Since it was sportswear, I could notice where the clothes hugged his figure and could not stop staring at how fit he was.

"Nervous?" Garett asked after a long silence of me just staring at him.

Did he notice me ogling him?

"A-A little," I admitted.

"You will do great at the hunting competition. You have been practicing for such a long time," Garett said as he pat my head with his hands.

It was not about me ogling him...

When he pats my head like this, I feel a little smaller than usual. It makes my confidence waver.

After he removed his hand, I found that a large ribbon had been left in its place. When I looked at the ends, I saw that he had tied a green ribbon the same color of his eyes to my ponytail.

"This is..."

"It is a perfect gift for your hair today," Garett said with a smile.

"Thank you, Garett," I said happily.

When the carriage stopped, Garett came down first and helped me down. He then wrapped a waist-length evergreen cape around my shoulders and tied it tightly around my neck.

"You do look nice, but I worry about the gazes of other men looking at your tightly fitted clothes," Garett said.

The cape was made of a not so heavy material and allowed easy movement, so I did not have much to complain about.

"I am just wondering why you did not put it on me earlier," I said.

Garett's face quickly became red.

"It should be fine if your fiancé gets to ogle at you for a bit, right?" Garett said.

I blushed when I realized that he was looking closely at me too.

"...Garett, you are the closet pervert type," I said as I wrapped my arms around my chest defensively.

"...You are definitely picking a fight," Garett said.

Garett and I soon went to check-in and separated at our assigned locations. The location I had chosen was the same area with Nevel Pillar.

"Oh, a female participant?" Nevel Pillar said as he came up beside me. "You seem familiar...Oh! You were the girl I met at the party that day, so you are now here as a huntress. That is pretty exciting."

"...You should focus more on yourself. The competition is going to start soon," I said coldly.

He soon scoffed.

"You are so serious. This is just a simple hunting competition if they allow dainty women like you to participate in a man's sport. Women can't hunt after all," Nevel Pillar said snidely.

When the horn had sounded, it meant that it was time for the hunt to begin.

I let Nevel Pillar get a head start before I followed after him on horse. He decided to tie his horse outside of the woodland. I followed in pursuit and readied my bow and arrow at Nevel Pillar's back from a distance. As I pulled the string back, I remembered back to my last memories with Nevel Pillar in my past life and the last moment of where I beheaded him.

I took one final deep breath and readied myself to shoot the arrow.

"Arielle, stop!" Garett screamed as he got in the way of my shot.

I accidentally let go of the arrow after being startled by Garett's surprise appearance.

I wonder how many times I wished for the shot to miss in my mind.

When Garett fell over after being hit by the arrow, I fell to my knees in crushing despair and began cursing myself over and over again. After being blinded by my desire for revenge, I had shot Garett down.

"Why...Why...?"

"Arielle, I am fine," Garett said as he knelt in front of me while clutching onto his profusely bleeding arm. "Your arrow definitely grazed me, but that was hardly enough to kill me."

"...Why are you here?" I asked as I removed the ribbon from my hair and tied it around his arm to stop the bleeding.

"I knew everything about what you were trying to do...You wanted to kill him because of me, right?" Garett asked.

I grit my teeth as I picked up my bow and extra arrows.

"Stay out of my way," I said as I stood up.

"Stop! Just stop, Arielle...You are not that kind of person," Garett said as he stood in my path once again.

"It is all his fault! I cannot just forgive him after everything and let him live his life without a care, so stop getting in my way," I said angrily.

"...If killing him is the only way that you will get peace, I will do it for you," Garett said as he grabbed my hunting knife from the sheathe of my belt holster.

...Garett is taking my place again?

"Stop!" I yelled as I grabbed Garett's shirt. "Please, just stop..."

I do not want him to sully his hands over this trash...

"...See? I knew that you were not that kind of person. That is why you never really tried to kill him even if you wanted to," Garett said.

"...How do you know that?" I asked as I released my grip over Garett's clothes.

"I would have been dead if you really tried aiming for his life," Garett said.

"I hate that person so much...so why can I not kill him a second time! He instigated everything from my kidnapping to torturing you to death! What I hate most about him is that he got a kick out of seeing you in pain. He laughed at your misery after your death! If I don't kill him now, all of my anger and frustration will never go away! Where else should I direct all of these feelings?" I screamed.

"No matter what happened to you in your past life, you never tried to harm anyone else. You know more than anyone about the pain of death," Garett said.

"I killed more people than you think. I am not the saint like you all think," I said as I broke down in tears.

"Even when you killed first killed him, did your heart ever find relief at all?" Garett asked.

"...No, I never felt relief. I never felt relief even long after that and just kept on getting rid of people who continued to threaten the happiness around me. All I was doing was piling up the number of graves in my name. Why is it that you, Erik, Charlotte, Grace and everyone else in my life believe that I am a good person? I do not deserve the respect, love, or care that everyone gives me. All I am is just a hideous abomination that brings pain an suffering to everyone around me," I said as I dug my nails into my hands.

"You are kinder than anyone else because you have experienced pain more than anyone else, but the person you are always cruel to is yourself," Garett said as he grabbed my hands. "These hands of yours are not meant for hurting people. They are meant for saving people. That person told me about you in your past life. You would create funding programs, talk to the people directly about their needs and concerns, and even take it upon yourself to volunteer at high risk hospitals...That part of you has not changed at all. Even now, you continue to reach out to those whom are suffering. If it were not for the you who I have came to love, I don't think that I could ever truly smile from the bottom of my heart. Every bit of happiness that I have is all given to me by you, so it hurts me just as much as it hurts you to see you suffering like this. If you need someone to tell you what to do, then I will order you to release all of your resentment and just live your own life from now on!"

"In my past life, you were always giving up your little bits of happiness for me. My hopes, my worries, and everything that makes me anxious seems to always be found out by you. That annoying worrywart part of you has not changed either," I said.

"Annoying?"

"I...I love you so much...I want to protect you because I love you. I want to hold your hand because I love you. I want to stroke your hair and touch you because I love you. I want to kiss your lips over a thousand times because I love you. I want to have your children because I love you. I want to be by your side forever until the end of time because I love you. I am so desperate because I am hopelessly in love you...I cannot imagine being in a world without you again," I confessed.

"You can hold my hand as much as you like, stroke my hair, and even touch me whenever you like. If you want my kisses, I will give you enough to make you breathless. If you want children, I will give you as many as you like. I am willing to do everything and anything for you because I am hopelessly in love with you too," Garett said.

He then stroked my cheeks and gave me a kiss that took my breath and melted all of my thoughts away.