Chapter 003
Episode 3
As the days continued with the girl visiting to tend to his wounds, the boy came to hear quite a few stories from her.
While she applied medicine and wrapped bandages, she kept chattering away.
Much of it was nagging, but there were also many trivial tales of her daily life. She often spoke of her parents, siblings, her nursemaid, or her maids.
To be honest, the boy had no interest in the people around her. The parents and siblings he knew were those who despised him most, tormented him, and instigated servants to beat him. So when she spoke of her parents or siblings with a happy expression, he couldn’t understand it.
When she talked about her nursemaid or a close maid, he tried to recall how his siblings’ attendants treated them, but, well.
Yet her voice was like sweet music that lifted his spirits just by listening. So he let the content of her words slip away and simply savored the sound of her voice.
Unlike the shouts and curses he’d heard all his life, her voice was something he could listen to endlessly and still crave more.
But today, amid that sweet music, something jarring caught his ear.
“There’s a new boy who joined our household recently,” she said.
Her face lit up with a bright smile as she thought of him.
“He says when he grows up, he’ll become my knight and protect me.”
She spoke with a slight shyness. Even though her soft hands, which he had longed for, were applying medicine to his arm, he found himself unable to focus on her touch.
“It’s a bit embarrassing, but, well… it’s kind of exciting, isn’t it?”
Her cheeks flushed slightly.
He didn’t like it. For some reason, he really didn’t like it.
Unaware of his feelings, she continued to chatter on. She spoke of how hard this new knight-apprentice was training to become her protector, how talented he was—irritating stories like that.
Oh, yes, it was very irritating.
He could tolerate her stories about her parents or siblings, but hearing about another boy coming from her lips was deeply grating. When she even started using words like “cool,” it became hard to keep his face from twisting.
Trying not to sound too curt, he opened his mouth.
“Do you like that kind of thing?”
“Hm?”
“Knights and stuff like that.”
“Oh, um, well…”
She hesitated, her small lips moving slightly, then blushed faintly and continued.
“Yeah, knights, winning tournaments, offering crowns, pledging to a lady… it’s kind of cool, isn’t it? Maybe it’s because I’m frail. I can’t become strong like that, so maybe it’s admiration for something I can’t have? Something like that?”
Even after she fluttered away, her pale yellow skirt no longer in sight, he sat there for a long time.
Lost in thought with a hardened expression, a yellow butterfly flitted before him from somewhere.
Was it the same butterfly she had once chased?
The butterfly, carefree, danced around, landing on one flower then another, basking in the sunlight.
A sudden impulse struck him.
Is it that pretty?
Should I take it?
His sharp eyes followed the butterfly, but it seemed oblivious to his gaze, flying leisurely.
In an instant, his hand snatched the butterfly.
It was a fleeting moment. Catching a butterfly was child’s play for him. All he had to do was reach out and grab it.
The butterfly fluttered inside his hand, tickling his skin.
He loosened his grip slightly and opened his hand, and the butterfly quickly slipped through his fingers.
With a scoff at its futile struggle, he swiftly caught it again.
Maybe it’d be better to damage its wings just enough so it couldn’t escape again.
As he tightened his grip slightly, a crunching sound came from within his hand.
When he relaxed his fist and opened it, all that remained was the crushed corpse of the yellow butterfly.
***
As time passed and seasons changed, with their meetings growing more frequent, he became increasingly addicted to her.
The more he saw her, the more he wanted to see her. The more he touched her, the more he wanted to touch her.
He needed her.
He craved her.
Seeing her quenched his thirst, but when they parted, the thirst returned stronger, like a man who had drunk saltwater.
But he couldn’t see her often.
Though she knew he waited for her, injured, every day and tried to come to the forest despite her frail health, she couldn’t come every day. When her condition worsened, and she was confined to her estate, he suffered under a burning thirst.
The worst was when she went to her family’s territory and didn’t visit for long, endless seasons. It felt like surviving in a parched desert without a drop of water.
If only he could always see her, always touch her, always have her by his side.
If only she would look at him every day, smile at him, and stroke him with those warm hands.
Not just borrowing moments of her time now and then, but having all her time belong to him.
He didn’t want to share her with anyone else, not even for a moment.
The thought of her cheering on some commoner knight-apprentice with that bright smile during the times she wasn’t with him made his blood boil.
Some knight? He could become one far more easily. He was probably much stronger, too. If she thought knights were cool, then he’d become one.
He wanted to have her completely.
He would have her.
He would make her his.
It was the first time. He had never coveted anything before, never possessed anything. But this one thing—he wanted it with every fiber of his being.
With his resolve firm, she was already as good as his. He would have her someday. Not in his hands right now, but soon enough.
***
But he couldn’t have her. Not yet, at least.
The girl always treated him without reservation, but in truth, she was a precious jewel shining in a place far too high for him to reach.
The cherished daughter of a noble family. For someone like him, who didn’t even have a proper surname and endured daily abuse, she was in an impossibly lofty place.
So he decided to climb up.
To seize the light above, he had no choice but to ascend and take it.
***
He was knighted.
But he could only show her his knightly self once. He wanted to win a tournament and offer her a crown, as she had once spoken of, but he failed. Bitterly descending from the arena, his father swiftly sent him, still not fully grown, to the battlefield.
Perhaps he had expected it. His parents and siblings had always wished he’d die somewhere, somehow. His fearsome strength, already earning him a reputation as a monster, gave them a perfect excuse to send him to his death.
It wasn’t a bad decision for him. He might have even been waiting for it. The fastest way to climb was to earn merits in battle. His father sent him to the battlefield hoping he wouldn’t return, but he would return with glory.
The thought of not seeing her for a long time was excruciating, but believing it was necessary to keep her by his side forever gave him the strength to endure.
People expected him to die there. When he survived, they sent him to even harsher, more dangerous places. But he kept returning, alive, again and again.
He threw himself into ever more perilous, hopeless battles. The greater the risk, the greater the opportunities, and the faster he could rise.
Each time he returned, he held more in his hands, and more adorned his shoulders.
It was a quagmire of suffering for others, and those around him kept changing, but he didn’t care. Killing wasn’t a horrific act to him, nor was the sight of death around him something he shied away from.
Fear of death or injury didn’t exist for him. Numb to his own pain, he was indifferent to others’ suffering. Each life he took only brought him closer to her.
Returning to camp after creating countless corpses, he would take out the green ribbon he had carefully kept unstained by blood and breathe in its scent.
He knew it couldn’t carry her fragrance. If there was any scent, it was his own.
But holding it made him feel as if he were breathing in her essence, and that illusion alone satisfied him.
***
Time passed. People began to follow him. Those who followed him survived, won, and conquered.
Years later, the boy became a young man. Covered in scars, having achieved nearly impossible feats, and backed by the northern forces for his overwhelming prowess, he was knighted, granted a title, and returned triumphantly to the capital laden with treasures.
Now was the time to claim his lady.
He would place the large emerald necklace, resembling her eyes, which he had carefully carried through battle, around her slender, white neck. He would adorn each of her fingers with different rings, wrap gold chains around her ankles, and envelop her in soft silk, placing her in a room filled with riches.
And so, when he boldly arrived at her family’s estate,
She was no longer the innocent girl but a beautiful woman in full bloom,
Smiling happily with eyes full of affection.
“This Ascending action
“This is my bodyguard…” she said,
Looking at another man, not him.
A mere commoner knight…
How dare he…
How dare he,
How dare he!
