coobybook Chapter 377 Locket
Chapter 377 Locket
"Eyton." After the hammer fell, Freya called out the other party's name.
After hearing Freya's voice, the tool in the hand of the man named Elton Gunther fell off. He hesitated, turned around with an expression of disbelief, and looked in the direction of Freya.
Only then did Howard see the man's face clearly. Although his face was also dry, thin and wrinkled, judging from his facial features, he was not too old.
And when Elton confirmed that it was Freya standing in front of him, a few tears seeped out of his dry eyes, and this was perhaps all the extra water this body could produce.
"Ma'am! Ma'am!"
Elton crawled to Freya using his hands and feet. He stretched out his hand to touch Freya, but when he saw his dry and rough hands and the cracks all over them, he retracted his hand. He rubbed his hands uncomfortably. In front of Freya, he was like a helpless child.
"Madam! Madam! For more than forty years... For more than forty years, I have been carving for you. Please look! Please look around, all of this, I made it for you, but I failed... These works are not perfect, they are not worthy of you, so I smashed them and carved your posture again! I kept carving and carving and carving..."
When repeating these words, Elton's pronunciation would become more and more stressed each time, and in the end, he was even close to gritting his teeth: "I keep carving these damn stones! But they are always disobedient! I can never carve your face..."
At this point, Elton covered his face and cried again, but not because of sadness, but because of joy.
"But...but...Madam! Madam! Today, when my life is about to end, you finally appear... I beg you to have mercy on me, I beg you to fulfill my wish and let me complete my work for you!"
However, Freya was surprisingly indifferent to this human's request. She said without emotion, "Eldon, this is not in the contract. I am here for only one purpose, and that is to retrieve your family locket according to the contract."
Freya's cold words were like a heavy blow, and Elton's crying of joy stopped immediately. He slowly withdrew his hands from covering his face, and the light in his pupils had disappeared.
"M-Ma'am...what are you talking about?"
Obviously Elton is still unwilling to accept this reality.
"I don't intend to fulfill your wish." Freya reiterated this cruel fact, and at the same time, she extended her hand to Elton and said, "According to the agreement, you need to hand over your locket."
"No!"
Elton roared angrily. He opened Freya's hand and collapsed, roaring, "My lady! Forty years! It has been forty years since you brought me here! What did I do wrong? Why won't you have mercy on me? Why won't you fulfill my last wish?!"
"I have already fulfilled enough of your wishes." Freya replied slowly:
"You said you wanted to develop your skills in stone, and I fulfilled your wish. I created a whole vein of marble for you, as well as countless malachite, lapis lazuli, carnelian, and countless other colored gemstones for you to use. You worried that your life would be wasted by trivial matters, so I gave you a body that needed neither food nor sleep. You worried that your tools would not work properly, so I made you hammers and chisels that would never wear out and would obey your will. But what have you brought me in return?"
"There's no such thing as a perfect work of art in the world, but the pursuit of perfection is equally pleasurable. However, you're not pursuing perfection..." Freya's eyes swept over the intact statues. "You're flattering me, trying to please me, hoping to gain more blessings from me."
Freya: "Look around you. You haven't refined your skills or developed new artistic methods. You've completed thousands of sculptures, but they've only refined your existing techniques. In recent years, you've even been able to complete an imperfect work in a matter of days, then destroy it, and repeat the process. The last statue you're working on right now is essentially the same as the first one you made when you arrived here."
After hearing Freya's words, Elton was stunned. Freya's words were like a sharp knife, cutting open his chest and exposing his most humble heart, which was hidden deep in his subconscious and which he himself was not even aware of, to the world.
Elton lowered his head. Freya didn't continue to attack this human. Instead, she said calmly, "If you don't want to hand over the locket, that's fine. You can keep it. I will retrieve it from your body."
After saying that, Freya left, leaving Elton alone.
Elton looked at Freya's departing back and fell into a huge trance.
His ears began to ring and his vision became blurred. He could hear his own rough and muffled breathing. Every time his lungs expanded and inhaled, it took a huge effort.
He knew he was going to die.
But his heart refused to calm down and continued to beat unwillingly, becoming more and more violent, as if it was about to burst out of his chest.
Forty years of service! Madam! Forty years!
I have dedicated all my life to you!
Even if I have taken the wrong path, you have seen everything clearly from the beginning. Why are you unwilling to guide me and instead let me go on the wrong path?
Why! Why won't you pay me more attention?
The unwillingness to be ignored by Freya and the courage brought to him by the near death finally prompted him to stretch out his trembling hand and once again clench the chisel he used to carve the stone.
If I cannot leave your face, madam, I will leave the wounds I have made on your body.
He was carrying a heavy chisel. This tool, which used to be handy, was now so heavy for him that he could only drag it along the ground.
He supported his dying body and tremblingly caught up with Freya who was going away. Freya looked back with a puzzled look, but Elton didn't say another word. He used all his strength to swing the chisel and hit Freya's face.
This is the face he has always wanted.
The stone chisel pierced Freya's face, and the woman's blood splattered into Elton's eyes, staining and obscuring his vision.
But this alone wasn't enough to soothe the grievance and unwillingness in Elton's heart. He pulled out the chisel and chiseled Freya's face again and again. He wanted to smash it to pieces! Destroy it! Just like he had done countless nights destroying works he thought were imperfect.
After who knows how many times he struck, the bloody weapon slipped out of his hand, so he began to tear it with his hands and bite the face whose facial features could no longer be distinguished with his teeth. Finally, he strangled Freya's neck.
"My lady! My lady! Why do you treat me like this! Why!" Elton yelled at Freya, but his expression looked aggrieved like a child abandoned by his mother.
His heart also reached its limit at this moment. When the intensity of the beating exceeded the peak, all that was left was dead silence.
In the last moment before death, he saw this face seemed to finally smile at him.
But Howard, as a bystander, saw a completely different situation.
He saw the man named Elton walking towards him and Freya with a chisel, and in front of Freya, he stabbed himself in the face with the chisel.
Over and over again, until the facial features are broken into pieces and glued together.
Then he dropped the chisel and grabbed his own throat.
His fingers dug deep into the flesh of his neck, leaving large bruises on the edges. In the end, he even defied the laws of physics by lifting himself up and hanging in mid-air.
His legs kicked and thrashed like those of a man about to be hanged, but he refused to let go of the hand that was gripping his throat.
Finally, his legs gave up the struggle, and he finally fell to the ground, free from the pain.
"Ayrton... do you know that the value of your forty years of service to me combined is not as great as that moment just now?"
Freya walked to Elton's body with a little regret. She tore open the collar of the body and took out a blood-stained locket from his neck.
After witnessing everything, Howard couldn't help but ask, "What did he do wrong? Even if he was trying to please you, he shouldn't have ended up like this, right?"
"He did nothing wrong. It's just that his ancestors signed a contract with me."
Freya handed the locket to Howard. When Howard opened it, he saw a faded and mottled photo inside. The photo barely showed an ordinary but energetic girl, but her face was covered by a drop of blood.
The angle at which this photo was taken is extremely unprofessional, and the focus is not on the person at all.
Howard looked at it for a long time but was not sure of his guess, so he asked hesitantly, "Is the person above... you?"
Freya: "Of course not."
Howard: "Then why did you give this to me?"
Freya: "I want you to do something for me."
Seeing Howard's hesitation, Freya said, "This is my personal matter. I won't force you. If you don't want to get involved, I will give this task to someone else."