The Monster Lady and the Holy Knight - Chapter 62

As the woman hurried along, her black hair rippled like waves. The blackness, ebbing and flowing, had a dangerous allure, like the night sea that pulls one in.

“The princess’s eyes and ears are often in the hallway. And I have no intention of becoming a spectacle.”

She spoke while slightly turning her head, her side profile etched into his eyes. There seemed to be a change in her mood; her face was calmer than usual, perhaps resigned.

Of course, she was beautiful, and it had nothing to do with the way she was dressed like the queen of some country or the jewelry she wore. In truth, she had always been beautiful. From the moment she lay collapsed in that pile of ashes, she had drawn people in, unable to look away. He should have walked past her then. He should never have touched something beyond his reach.

“I have something I need to ask.”

She led him to a room and was about to close the door when she hesitated. Her neatly shaped brows arched in suspicion.

“…Are you even listening to me?”

He needed to leave. His rational mind ordered it, but his heavy body did not obey. He had lingered too long, long enough to lose control. He rubbed his eyes roughly and tried to step back, only to feel the door press against his back. He had reached his limit.

“Don’t touch me.”

He growled low at the woman reaching out to him, his breath labored, brow furrowed. His blurred vision couldn’t make out her expression, but he wished she wouldn’t be hurt any further.

After a brief silence, her incredulous voice broke it.

“Do you even know what you look like right now? Your eyes are red, and you’re not even focused. Anyone can see you’re not okay—how can you pretend otherwise?”

She approached him, and he was genuinely afraid. If you touch me now, I…

“What happened to you?”

His thoughts snapped off. It wasn’t the scent of the woman brushing past his nose but the vision behind her that startled him.

The comrades he had lost in Tiran were standing there.

They always appeared whenever his spirit weakened or his body ached. But today, perhaps because the drug had clouded his judgment, they didn’t seem like mere illusions. The room was filled with them, swords drawn, glaring at the woman. Ah, damn it.

“What the hell…”

All he could think about was protecting the woman from harm. He pulled her frail frame into his arms, crushing her in his embrace. He heard a startled scream. Sorry. Just stay like this for a moment. Sliding down, he leaned against the door and collapsed to the floor.

“Not yet. When the time comes, I’ll end it myself. Just leave me alone.”

He muttered as if talking to himself, looking at his comrades as they stared down at him. His arms tensed around her, rigid with anxiety. A curse slipped through his clenched teeth. The horrors of the front line clung to him relentlessly. He had taken to drinking only after Tiran, and he thought the symptoms were getting better, but they had worsened since Blasen.

No, if he were honest, it had started after hearing of Mecklenburg’s death. He couldn’t sleep, tormented by hallucinations. Now, he wasn’t even sure if what he saw was real. It felt like they had been following him all along, simply out of sight.

“What do you mean by ‘end it’?”

She mumbled, still held in his arms. When he didn’t answer, she squirmed, freeing her hand, and pressed it first to his forehead and then to his cheek. Her calm demeanor was astonishing.

“You have a fever. You’re not well. Just let go. I’ll give up on talking today.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“……”

“If you don’t answer, I swear I’ll start screaming.”

“If I tell you, you’ll think I’m mad.”

Leon let out a short laugh and gripped her departing hand. Resting his face against her small palm, he felt warmth spread. Her flinch amused him, so he slowly moved her hand across his face. He wanted her to touch him. Both hands moved together, caressing from his eyebrows to the scar, down his nose to his lips.

Her soothing whisper settled over him. “I won’t say you’re mad. Just tell me.”

It was strange. He had always thought of her as a child, but today, she seemed nothing like one. He was the child. He finally understood why people leaned on one another. If it felt this comforting, if it felt like coming home to a place he had never known, then it was okay to act spoiled, even just once.

In his blurred vision, only her red eyes shone clearly. They were like jewels—no, something even more precious that he had come to know over time. Perhaps their fate had been sealed the moment he shared his untold past with her.

On impulse, Leon spoke, “I see my comrades from Tiran.”

“……”

“The knights who want to kill you are filling this room right now. Even at this very moment. Some have half-severed necks, others have no arms.”

“……”

“That’s why I can’t let you go.”

The woman gasped, her eyes widening. He could feel her hand pull away from his cheek. Leon let out a strained laugh and leaned in closer.

“Say I’m not mad.”

Please, tell me that I’m not mad for you. That I’ve not abandoned my mission just to dream of being with you.

“You’re not mad.”

She whispered those words softly then. Before he realized what was happening, the tension in his rigid arms released. She stood up from where she had been sitting and cradled his head to her chest. Leon froze.

“It’s alright. There’s nothing there.”

The firmness of her voice was matched by the softness and warmth of her embrace. Had he ever been held like this before? He had no memory of his distant childhood, and once he grew larger, there had been no one who could hold him.

Quiet moments passed.

Leon instinctively wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his head deeper. The steady beat of her heart brought a strange sense of calm. He had tried so hard to avoid this, and yet, here he was.

“We’re such a mess,” he muttered, a laugh escaping his lips.

Her heartbeat quickened. He buried his face in her neck, trying to avoid spouting nonsense. Rubbing his nose against her white neck, he heard her let out a small breath. The scent of her skin, the sound of her breath—everything was maddeningly alluring.

“Scoundrel. You just came out of that room.”

She seemed to misunderstand, thinking he had done something with Johanna. Leon made no effort to clarify—he wasn’t in the right state to explain. His head felt like it was melting, yet his heart pounded, pumping blood downward. The desire he felt was almost painful. It wasn’t until he heard her moan that he realized he had bitten her neck.

Ah, ah.

Her soft moan was more intoxicating than the wet sound of his lips. He sucked at her neck until a red mark appeared, then looked up, his eyes losing focus. He saw her lips, bitten and trembling, and grabbed her chin, biting down. The taste of blood, bitter and salty, filled his mouth, and like a starving beast, he lost all reason.

He wanted to reach the end.

It was different from the possessiveness he had felt as a child. He didn’t want to own her—he wanted to know her. He wanted to know her name, her favorite foods, her favorite season, the month she was born.

A sense of sinful curiosity burned in his heart. He was a sinner for wanting her more than he wanted God.

His sinful thoughts knew no bounds, and Leon found himself grateful that Bahamut had come to this land. Grateful that Bayern had burned and that she had been assimilated. Otherwise, he might never have met her. They might have passed each other by, never to meet.

He couldn’t remember if she had tried to push him away. There was just a sense of wrongness, like sinking into a swamp. He pulled down her dress, pressing his head to her collarbone and sucking at the tender skin. The rounded swell of her breast tasted as sweet as forbidden fruit.

Try to save me again. As if you were my only savior.

Like a blackout, his consciousness faded in and out. Every time he came back, her flushed face was beneath him, panting. She had started sitting, but now she lay on the carpet, her back against it.

The red dress blended into the crimson carpet, making it look like she was drowning in a pool of blood.

Leon found it amusing how he checked his trousers each time, as if needing proof that he hadn’t betrayed God. Even with only a few pieces of fabric separating them, moving against her like an animal, he had gone too far.

“Why did you save me?”

Her voice broke through the chaos at its height. He wondered what time she meant. It didn’t matter—the answer was always the same.

“Because it wasn’t your time to die yet.”

So, at least until then.

He held her small body close, his fingers tangled in her disheveled black hair. It was an act of protection. His dying comrades watched, bleeding, demanding a price. They whispered that he could not retreat.

“I see.”

She turned her head to the side, her lips slightly parted, her eyes unfocused, gazing off into the distance like a dying woman.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about why I liked you when I was alone.”

Her voice resonated within him. Leon closed his eyes.

“I guess it’s because I had no one left. If even you, whom I met in Bayren, were to disappear, there would be nothing left of my past. That’s what I meant by the snowy landscape I spoke of.”

He understood. The landscape she was trying to describe was a storm that had once swept over him. When he lost everyone in Tiran. When everything he had built his life around collapsed.

He had stood alone in that desert.

“Do you remember when I tried to start a fire in the wilderness?” she asked suddenly.

Of course, he remembered. She had said it looked easy when he did it and insisted on trying it herself.

“No matter how much I struck the flint against the dagger, it wouldn’t light. Then you said something—told me to believe that my light was the only one in the pitch darkness.”

It was an uncharacteristically romantic piece of advice from him. But afterward, she really did manage to light the fire. What had been necessary back then?

“I wanted to be the flame on your dark path. Like you were for me.”

She spoke as if that wasn’t the case anymore. His heart ached, tightening painfully. Like sand slipping through his fingers, he felt anxious but couldn’t grasp anything. He had come much too far—he was no longer worthy of such affection.

“I don’t like you anymore.”

The ground beneath him corroded and crumbled.

“I hate you.”

Hell appeared below, the place they had planned to go together.