Please Leave The Sickly Villainess Alone

“No, Luka. First, listen to what I have to say…”

Just as I was about to block Luka, who was smiling with a somewhat murderous intent while looking at the president, and try to explain the situation…

‘Wait, why am I breaking out in a cold sweat?’

Suddenly, I remembered that we weren’t anything to each other yet.

In fact, until recently, hadn’t Luka been treating me as usual, as if nothing had happened in the carriage?

Which is his real self?

Right now, Luka had eyes filled with jealousy as if he were my fiancé, no matter who looked at him.

He seemed ready to duel if he could.

If this was his true feelings, I thought he had done well to hold back all this time.

At the same time, a mischievous smile appeared on my lips.

“It’s not what you think.”

I said that while pulling the president, who was hiding behind my back, forward.

“Please save me, Miss…!”

The president, still unaware of what Luka’s trigger point was, bowed his head and whispered in my ear.

It was close enough for his golden hair-like locks to tickle my cheek.

Luka’s crimson red eyes moved accordingly, and his eyebrows furrowed slightly.

The president’s attempt to save himself was actually digging his grave deeper.

Thinking of teasing Luka more, I whispered to the president as if having a secret conversation with just him.

Even a small whisper would be clearly audible to Luka.

“Don’t think you’ll get away with this. The price for daring to leave my side is… Eek?”

I was whispering with a sly smile as the situation turned interesting, but I let out a short scream at the sudden touch.

In an instant, my body was pulled into Luka’s embrace by a delicate yet strong force.

As his unique good scent brushed my nose, I finally grasped the situation.

“You…”

Luka trapped me in his arms and let out a low laugh.

“Can you handle it? I clearly said I wouldn’t let it go if you brought in another dog…”

Luka raised his head and smiled at the president with a brilliant yet cruel smile.

“You seem to cherish him quite a bit. If you provoke me more, you might never see him again…”

“W-Wait!”

I decided to stop the joke for the president’s sake as well.

With each word flowing from Luka’s pretty lips, the president was trembling like a dog with its tail down, having lost me as a shield.

Jen was nowhere to be seen, perhaps having fled silently to the Magic Tower long ago to avoid getting involved in this mess.

The president’s mere existence was stimulating Luka now.

I pushed the president’s back and sent him out of the room first.

Until his golden hair completely disappeared from sight, Luka didn’t take his eyes off him.

The door closed, and finally only Luka and I were left in the room. Just as I turned around to slowly explain the situation…

‘Oh my goodness…’

Luka approached close behind me in one step.

I tried to step back at the suddenly narrowed distance, but there was a wall behind me so I couldn’t.

His excessively handsome face looked good from afar, but especially up close.

On his face, which looked as if carved delicately by a master craftsman, was concern that didn’t match the situation.

I soon understood why.

Luka caressed my cheek with a careful touch.

When I flinched at the slight stinging sensation, Luka quickly withdrew his hand and said to me:

“Are you okay? You haven’t even applied medicine yet…!”

It had clearly been a scolding atmosphere until just now, but thanks to Luka belatedly noticing the wound on my cheek, the situation changed.

‘The factory owner had his uses too.’

Luka briefly kissed the scratch that had formed while dodging the sickle swung by the factory owner.

As I felt the sensation of soft lips for a moment, Luka spoke in my ear.

Just like the distance between the president and me earlier, it was close enough for his breath to touch.

“Don’t get hurt.”

I felt my cheeks instantly turn bright red.

Luka kissed my forehead once more.

This time it was a kiss with a strange complaint, as if whining.

“Don’t give your heart to a stranger either. If you’re confident you can fully handle the emotions I’m barely holding back, then go ahead.”

Luka’s embrace was warm, and though familiar, it was sometimes like an inescapable, solid prison like this.

And every time I felt that way, a deep part of my heart tickled.

“…?”

I held back my words while hugging Luka’s waist tightly like a koala.

I almost said I could handle it, so go ahead and try.

Luka looked down at me hugging him and smiled as if his mood had completely lifted.

I felt his hand stroking my hair as if handling something precious, though it was silver, not even real silver.

Calming Luka down was truly not a difficult task for me.

Luka enjoyed it most when I fell for him and unknowingly revealed my true colors.

“Don’t laugh.”

“Haha, I can’t help it because you’re too cute.”

I looked up at Luka with a blank expression, and he looked down at me without hiding his smile.

Feelings that have steadily built up sometimes overflow like this, unable to be hidden.

When I realize that, I become melancholy thinking of the approaching farewell.

At such times, I hug him tightly as if his embrace were a soap bubble that might float away.

And I feel relieved confirming that Luka is still by my side.

Do you feel the same?

I didn’t know before, but now I’m certain.

That we don’t have different feelings.

That we have feelings so similar they would overlap if folded.

* * *

I told Luka, who was treating my wound with delicate touches, everything that had happened today.

“Now you understand? You misunderstood everything.”

I slightly frowned as the stinging ointment touched my face.

Luka treated my wound skillfully, just as he had at Troy Orphanage.

“Yes, but please be satisfied with just me.”

Luka smiled, showing his wrist after finishing the treatment.

It was where the knight’s vow that would never disappear until death was engraved.

Luka continued speaking:

“More importantly, this time Kablos went after Rayes’ mage…”

“If you say ‘this time’, does that mean there have been similar incidents before?”

Luka said, putting on the outer garment he had draped over the sofa:

“Recently, experts related to the business fields Kablos is pursuing have been disappearing. Some might have gone voluntarily, and some might have been taken like that mage.”

“What on earth are they plotting…”

I muttered, searching my memories.

‘Was there a part where Kablos kidnapped talents to expand their business and make money…?’

Since Senia was always detached from Kablos’s crimes, even if such incidents occurred in the original work, they wouldn’t have been described in detail.

As it was a family that committed crimes as often as eating meals, I could only think ‘Kablos did what Kablos does’.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I was bothered by what the Tower Master grandfather had said.

His words that Kablos seemed to be preparing for rebellion. If what they’re doing now is the preparation process for that…?

‘I can’t conclusively say it’s groundless.’

It was premature to be relieved that Kablos’s rebellion didn’t appear in the original work.

A considerable amount of content had already changed, and there was a chance they might have had a change of heart after the conclusion.

“Then I’ll go send the imperial knight order to the location you told me about.”

“Okay. I caused quite a big commotion. Please take care of the aftermath.”

I told Luka the location of the Diara factory at the lower reaches of the Senz River.

The factory owner’s mansion was still there, and the factory owner Jen and I first discovered wasn’t alone.

Since we also had to catch the accomplice who ran the illegal factory together, we decided to have the imperial family handle the rest.

Luka was about to leave the room, but then turned back, walked to me, and kissed my cheek once more.

Perhaps because of the crisis awareness due to the president, his expressions had become bolder than before.

“I’ll be going now.”

Luka left the room like that.

His figure with reddened ears suddenly looked cute, so I smiled and waved my hand.

As soon as Luka returned to the imperial palace, I searched for the paper where I had recorded the original work in the drawer.

It was something I had been forgetting about all this time.

I was going to check the paper to see if there was an answer about Kablos’s suspicious signs, but…

“What the…”

The writing I had densely recorded was blurred to the point of being unrecognizable, as if a storm had swept through.

Could paper decay to this extent in less than a year?

This drawer was always locked with a key, so there was no possibility of someone else tampering with it.

I had even written it in Korean in case someone might see it.

“I’ve almost completely forgotten the contents…”

The content of the original work became blurrier as time passed.

I only remembered a few major events, and the rest I couldn’t recall.

The original work, which had disappeared not only from the record but also from memory, was as good as non-existent now.

‘Perhaps the changes caused by me affected the record as well.’

The paper that had lost its value was soon crumpled in my hand.

I walked to the burning fireplace and threw it in without hesitation.

Watching it start to turn to ashes, I realized how much I had been relying on the original work.

However, I had to accept the fact that I now had no choice but to let it go.

Perhaps I wanted that too.

At the edge of the paper that had almost lost its shape, I caught sight of faint writing barely visible:

[Laveria dies lonely around the age of twenty-one.]

That sentence was soon engulfed in flames and disappeared.

Crackle, crackle-

For a while, only the sound of the fireplace burning filled the silence.