Chapter 222 221. Too Dependent.

"....P-pa?" She soon arrived at the guild master's room and mumbled before even walking into the room.

"....M-ma?" She mumbled as she slowly arrived at the room's door. Glancing in, she saw her parents laying down on the ground with a peaceful expression on their faces, as if they were sleeping.

That was what the poison did; it would eat away everything on the inside, making them feel an excruciating amount of pain, but nothing would ever happen on the outside, as if it had some kind of preservative that didn't let the body rot.

"....." Katharine approached their bodies, and the first thing she did was check their breath. Even though she was informed that they had died, she had hoped that it would be a lie.

"Hah...." A hollow chuckle escaped her mouth as tears streamed down her face.

"..... hic...." A hiccup broke loose, and the cry she was trying her best to hold in burst out. She then held their bodies tightly and hugged them as if she was afraid that they would leave her behind.

She knew that she was destroying any potential evidence that remained on their bodies, but none of it mattered to her right now; she wanted to hold them back, so she would hold them back, doing whatever her mind told her.

She couldn't think straight, but there was one thing that got imprinted in her mind as soon as it appeared.

'I'll kill you.' She thought. Who? She didn't know. How? She didn't know, but there was one thing she knew, she would find the one responsible for this and kill them.

"...hic...huwaaa....haaa...hic....hwaaa...." She cried. She wanted to cry, but her hiccups wouldn't stop, and that began to irritate her, and then she raised her right hand, brought it close to her throat, and clenched it as if she wanted to rip it apart.

"Hic...haa, huh?" She then abruptly felt a strong grip on her right shoulder. She raised her head to face the source and found a handsome white-haired man who was staring down at her with a calm expression on his face. Though it seemed calm, she felt a strange, painful sensation when she gazed into his eyes.

"Calm down." Eshwar's voice sounded, she then scoffed and looked around, trying to see what there was to be calm about.

"H huh? Hahaha, hic, haha...." Katharine then started to chuckle when she realised that she was trying to choke herself, strong enough to actually leave marks on her neck; maybe she would have seriously killed herself if Eshwar didn't stop her.

"Say...hic.... should I, hic, just do it?" She gazed at Eshwar and asked with a pitiful smile on her face, with her hand still on her neck. She then began to tighten her grip.

"....if you want." Eshwar replied.

".... What's that, hic, supposed to mean?" She asked with a painful smile on her face.

"....it means, you can do whatever you want." Eshwar crouched down next to her and replied.

"Then, hic, should I really do it?" She didn't even know why she was asking his permission, but if he said yes, then she would really kill herself without a second thought.

"I don't know." However, Eshwar just shrugged.

"Hm? Hic...." Katharine looked at him in confusion, of course, because his words were just confusing her; she just wanted him to answer with a yes or a no.

"If you want to do something, do it. Why does my opinion even matter?" Eshwar asked before he stood up and walked towards the door.

"But don't die." Eshwar's mumbled words sounded as he walked out of the room and left her alone.

"...." Katharine's hiccups stopped as soon as she heard those words; she didn't know why, what, or how, but she felt like she had found hope.

Yes, she shouldn't die; she had yet to find the murderer and kill them herself; she didn't have time to be depressed like this; the more she loitered around, the further the murderer could escape. She couldn't let out the possibility that the killer was someone close, because to poison somebody, the closer they were, the better.

"Don't die, huh...." She had one strong ally with her whom she could trust with all her heart, so that was enough for now. She felt something warm around her heart, which was gradually turning more and more colder with all the psychotic thoughts cruising through her mind, to which her heart seemingly agreed to every one of them.

"....Thank you...." She mumbled and slumped on her back, tears still streaming down her cheeks.

She then suddenly furrowed her brows because she found it strange that she so abruptly calmed down from the painful pangs in her heart; she had thought of ending her life at the very moment she realised that her parents were no more, but her thoughts were cut off from then on. Why? The only reason she could find was Eshwar's presence; she then noticed her heartbeat quicken at his thoughts, and she frowned deeply.

"What am I doing in front of..." She didn't dare complete her words, and then again, her cold way of thinking, which was cruising through her head, returned, and now she was thinking a lot colder than before.

".....be cold hearted and cool headed." Her father's words popped up in her mind, and she wanted to be like that from now on. After determining everything she would do from now on, she got back up and noticed that it was already night. Only then did she understand that even though everything passed by so quickly to her, in reality everything had happened over time. Eshwar was there with her from morning till now and had only walked out of their after he was sure she had calmed down.

Guild members had taken care of everything so that nobody would bother her as she lay with her dead parents. She got up from there, walked out with hollow eyes, thanked the guild members, and walked towards Katline's home because she wanted to be with someone who could comfort her right now. Then she remembered that the buildings were in ruins, and she had to call Katline first if she wanted to know where she lived now.

She called and learned that Katline would send someone to pick her up, and she even learned that even small "houses" could be purchased in the player shop. Since she never had the need, she never learned anything other than what her parents made her learn, and until now, everything about her was taken care of by her parents, so she never bothered to learn anything else other than fighting. She found herself quite pathetic for being so dependent on her parents.

"Hahaha...." At that thought, she remembered her parents again and broke out in tears in the middle of the street.