Chapter 18
But the next moment, the woman tilted her head slightly and asked in a curious voice,
“What do you mean by ‘spread your legs’?”
At first glance, with the same innocence as eight-year-old Leopold who asked how babies are made. Johannes was speechless, feeling as if he had gone back to that time.
“Your words are still difficult for me.”
“…….”
He lost his fighting spirit for a moment. Johannes’s lips, which had been raised fiercely in a pretense of composure, drooped powerlessly.
Johannes let go of her wrist as if throwing it away and grabbed her shoulders, pushing her away from him. Even without using much force, the slender woman was easily pushed away.
Johannes looked down at the ground as if he had just finished a battle and ignored the woman’s bright, expectant gaze. It was then that the woman whispered.
“Johan. Don’t worry.”
“…Worry?”
“I won’t do that. Because you wouldn’t like it.”
Johannes hesitated. It was a shock. Not simply because the woman had deduced the meaning of the vulgar expression ‘spread your legs.’ Johannes looked back at the woman with narrowed eyes.
“…….”
The woman wasn’t lacking. She was pretending to be.
And….
“…If I want to.”
Johannes asked without realizing it. Then the woman smiled faintly. As if she would gladly do so if he wished. With such a smile, she moved her lips.
“But, Johan.”
“…….”
“You don’t want me.”
There was no doubt, no hidden intention in her confident tone and direct gaze. And Johannes felt like he was falling into a distant place. He couldn’t speak, perhaps because it wasn’t worth responding to.
Johannes was perplexed. In the end, he had been caught up in the woman’s game again. This wasn’t good. His instincts screamed. This was ominous.
“Don’t come near me.”
“…….”
The woman, whose specialty was incessant chattering, was silent only at times like this. Why had he only just now realized she pretended not to understand….
Johannes sighed deeply, glaring at the woman who was rummaging through the bushes as if nothing had happened. Then he leaned back against the tree and forced his eyes closed. And he decided to stop caring about the woman and not come to the forest anymore, starting today.
He admitted that his surveillance was an excuse to ignore his irrational choice. It was a lame excuse, but not entirely without merit. The woman was unpredictable, and he felt at ease only when he watched her with his own eyes. It was also true, not an exaggeration, that it would be troublesome if she fell into Henrik’s hands.
‘But I can’t be swayed any further.’
He had a feeling that if he took one more step, he would suffer a terrible loss. So this was the end of his relationship with the princess. Johannes opened his eyes and looked at the woman one last time.
And then he saw it. The woman, rummaging through the bushes, discovered something and skillfully pulled it out.
“…….”
He knew that sometimes, instead of looking for the dagger, the woman would dig something up and shove it carelessly inside her hood. Since he had consciously avoided looking at her, he didn’t know exactly what it was. He didn’t want to know, and he didn’t think he should know, so he didn’t pay any more attention to it.
And just now, he finally recognized what she was putting in her pocket.
At first, he thought he had seen wrong. He thought it was his mistake, he hoped it was a mistake.
But it was hard to mistake. The strangely shaped herb resembled a hook. Johannes recognized it at a glance.
The blood gushing from between her legs. The ear-piercing screams. The white blanket stained red with warm blood. The fishy smell of blood that numbed his nose. His mother growing cold.
The beginning of betrayal, the things he had lost because of it, and his first kill on the battlefield.
Thump-thump, his heart pounded. Johannes jumped to his feet. He couldn’t quite remember what he was thinking. When he suddenly came to his senses, the woman’s surprised, blinking face was close to him. As their eyes met, she said in a trembling voice,
“Ah, it hurts.”
Only then did Johannes realize that he was gripping her wrist painfully. Her body temperature, which seemed much lower than his, and her trembling lips overlapped with his mother’s at that moment.
Johannes abruptly released her hand. Rubbing her wrist where he had held it, she asked,
“Johan? What’s wrong?”
Johannes, frozen like a stone, looked at Daphne, only his eyes moving.
“Simply put, she is called half-wit because she is unable to marry.”
Recalling the reason why she was called half-wit, he finally understood why she came to the forest. And his heart pounded unpleasantly. He felt a sudden wave of nausea. The tips of his fingers, which he hurriedly covered his mouth with, trembled subtly, and physiological tears welled up in his dry eyes. It was difficult to stand upright. He slowly bent at the waist and knelt down.
“Are you sick?”
Daphne lowered herself to follow him, at a loss for what to do. Just like that, they sat down haphazardly in the bushes and spent some time facing each other.
A long time later, Johannes, having finally regained his composure, parted his lips a few times before speaking.
“Do you know what this is?”
His subdued voice cut through the silence, and her eyes, which had been watching him with concern, shook violently. Johannes could tell that Daphne’s collecting the herbs was no coincidence. His eyebrows furrowed uncontrollably.
“…If you use it for a long time, it will cause miscarriage, not death.”
Daphne was startled, almost pale. A glimpse of shame was also visible. He had seen her frightened face before, but this expression was new. That expression said it all. Johannes didn’t need to say anything more. She awkwardly turned her head away and said in a small voice,
“…I know.”
Then why. Johannes barely swallowed a rebuke that was close to a sigh.
“I know what I have to protect. I know exactly who my enemies are.”
He dismissed her words as nonsense from a crazy woman. But looking back, none of her words had been spoken carelessly. Maybe she knew. That’s why, perhaps, he instinctively didn’t want to think deeply about her, nor listen to her words.
It was foolish to swallow poison on her own. But would she not know that? She was only pretending to be a half-wit. Then did she have any other choice but to swallow poison? Well, Johannes didn’t know.
Chewing poison was the woman’s best option.
Various emotions welled up and lingered in his mouth, but there were no words he could utter. A rough breath escaped his throat.
It was then. Pale sunlight streamed in through the dense trees. The sun had risen above the horizon. Only then did he realize that it was long past time for her to return.
Johannes, biting his lip, staggered to his feet. He closed and opened his eyes once, feeling her anxious gaze following his movements. In the meantime, she had stood up to follow him. Her violet eyes, which wouldn’t leave his face, were complicated with anxiety, nervousness, and worry.
‘What will she do if she’s caught by the maids? She should hurry back….’
He opened his mouth, thinking such unnecessary thoughts. Was that why?
“Three days from now.”
Johannes blurted out impulsively. Ah, this was why he hadn’t wanted to know her. But he didn’t feel like taking back his words. He swore he hadn’t been watching her and coming to the forest for this.
However.
“Can you come out?”
Johannes found it hard to ignore the woman who swallowed poison to survive, the woman who said she wanted to live with a body temperature similar to his dying mother.
The woman nodded dumbly. She seemed not to understand properly. Johannes spoke once more.
“Three days from now, same time.”
As if delivering a code, Johannes finished his short speech and turned around. Daphne’s lips parted in a daze.
『Three days from now? What does that mean….』
But he was already far away.
