#11
“…Enough now. I don’t want to hear it…. I won’t listen. Seeing your reaction, it’s fine if I don’t hear. I… I’m like a fool….”
I don’t know what expression Johannes had as he looked at me then. Standing frozen a short distance in front of me, he was just quietly silent. I didn’t want to be with him anymore anyway.
I was completely exhausted.
A body as soggy as a water-soaked cotton, as wet as my face. Even my steps faltering, as if about to break off. Turning my head to the side as much as possible, I barely straightened my bent body and stumbled towards the exit. My shoulder, unable to support itself, brushed against the wall with a rustle. And then, thud.
My view was blocked.
“…Sorry.”
Johannes had suddenly come and blocked my path by pressing his hand against the wall. Right in front of my eyes as I was about to leave, Johannes’s arm stretched across, filling my vision.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Isonette.”
Johannes stood close beside me. His tense breathing and whispers mixed together and fell on my temple. They flowed down along my shoulder line.
“Don’t just leave like this. You’re right. You’re completely right. As you said, I… I was narrow-minded and petty, so I failed to look after you properly. Give me a chance to make amends. What’s wrong? Tell me. What did I do? Did I startle you a lot?”
Just like the night before, Johannes anxiously trapped me between his body and the wall. I shuddered.
“Get away.”
“Isonette.”
“Move… your arm.”
My voice trembled. I was afraid. From Johannes’s body scent or the back of his hand against the wall, the heated breath and prominent joints of the devil’s hand came to mind…. No. I wasn’t afraid of Johannes. I was afraid of my sin that I unconsciously recalled. And I was so terribly afraid of the remaining life I had to drag on alone with this again. Feeling utterly wronged, I couldn’t see straight.
“Isonette, look at me.”
At that moment, Johannes raised his hand as if to turn my shoulder and.
“Don’t touch!”
“…”
“Me….”
Having reflexively struck Johannes’s arm, I once again glanced at him out of habit, overwhelmed by guilt. Johannes’s hand, pushed away and frozen in mid-air, showed no sign of coming down.
Johannes’s face, standing too close, was not immediately visible. My gaze traveled up from his collar. His exposed neck. Johannes’s chin. Lips. Up to his cheek.
He was pale.
His already fair face looked even whiter than usual. For a man who travels to various places year-round and rides warhorses on battlefields, Johannes always had that snow-field-like complexion. The dark skin I had seen the night before overlapped with Johannes’s, blurring my vision.
“…Horrible.”
I left the library, leaving Johannes behind. Johannes just stood stiffly like a tree withered by the north wind. Thud, the door closed, and rather it was Griselda and the guards who hurriedly chased after me. I walked aimlessly. My back was cold. My back.
So cold it stung.
***
After leaving Johannes, I spent three days of terror.
Johannes had seizures every single day without fail. The fortress wailed every night. During those three days of silent screams, we did not seek each other out, and fortunately, there was no news of any other incidents besides Johannes’s seizures. Only the strength of the knights who bodily blocked his seizures was depleted.
I couldn’t sleep for even a day. The days passed like three flashes of lightning with suddenly opened eyes. The nights were longer than the unending nightmares. As if Johannes’s seizures were shouting at me that it wasn’t over yet, that he would see me again.
Occasionally, when the noise from downstairs would pound on the floor of my bedroom, I would blame Johannes deep in my pale blue heart. I couldn’t bear how infuriatingly oblivious and hurtful his ignorance was. I only wished for Johannes’s seizures to stop.
And on the fourth night, as I was growing weary from extreme tension. That day too, Griselda, who had received my earnest request, stood guard by my side like a shabby amulet.
“You must sleep today.”
Griselda said, sitting in a chair right by my bedside. The dark circles under her eyes were pitiful. The already thin woman looked so sunken by then that it seemed her eyeballs would pop out if you hit the back of her head. It was because she had stayed up with me for several days and nights since I absolutely could not fall asleep.
“You must be very tired? …I’m sorry.”
Still unable to bring myself to send her away, I only made an empty apology. Griselda looked down at me lying on the bundle of firewood. It was a gaze full of deep sympathy, steeped in fatigue. This made me feel even more sorry. Silence passed for as long as she let out a short sigh.
“The young lord….”
Just as the uncomfortable feeling was about to suffocate me, Griselda’s lips moved. My ears perked up. Though not as much as her, I was no less exhausted in body and mind than anyone else, and I propped myself up on my pillow as if about to get up immediately.
Griselda hesitated for a long time after only bringing up the subject, as if something was very awkward. I felt uneasy. I urged her with my gaze. Only then did Griselda finally continue with difficulty.
“If the young lord is still the same today… they plan to perform an exorcism.”
“An exorcism?”
“I know it sounds impious, but… they think he might be possessed by a demon…. Fortunately, the young lord has also given permission.”
I immediately understood Griselda’s hesitant attitude. A demon-possessed ruler. Normally, I too would have been shocked by such an unsettling idea. Nevertheless, ah, it was welcome news to my ears. I never expected such a solution to suddenly pop up from somewhere.
The dark clouds that had filled the surroundings were clearing in an instant. It seemed like a way out was visible. Though I couldn’t know how effective it would actually be, I sat up abruptly, feeling like a living person for the first time in a long while.
“Who suggested it?”
“…”
“Who was it.”
“…Sir Winfrid proposed it. He said it’s hard to see it as just seizures when it’s been continuing for days like this…. The followers who heard were vehemently opposed. Saying what era is this to do exorcisms. I know that’s not entirely wrong and I can understand how their pride must have been hurt, but still, they made such a fuss.”
“…”
“The sound of their outrage echoed even outside, so even the kitchen maids all found out what was going on. The cook was so terrified he couldn’t come out at all, so the poor gatekeeper had to do all the work. He had to carry all the ingredients to the kitchen in this heat….”
As if too embarrassed to say it out loud, Griselda added such unnecessary details. I asked, panting slightly:
“When did he arrive?”
“The day you received the marriage proposal, miss. He came at the crack of dawn.”
“What’s his excuse this time?”
“From what I heard, he… was drinking.”
“Ha. Why does he keep doing this after voluntarily going to the monastery? He’s not even supposed to touch alcohol. It’s strictly forbidden by the rules, so did he suddenly feel tempted now…? Anyway, I’ll never give that weird temper to anyone else.”
Laughter seeped through despite the harsh words. How could I not?
In truth, Winfrid and I had never gotten along since childhood. Leaving aside his usual behavior, Winfrid clearly had some eccentric tendencies.
I still remember how his eyes strangely lit up when he came back after hearing about mother’s sarcophagus from somewhere. It was curiosity that was not only unbefitting of our status and rank, but even irreverent before God.
Since mother’s shame felt like our shame, I didn’t listen to Winfrid’s stories at all back then. I only resolved that I must burn it someday.
It’s just my thought, but the reason Winfrid became so stubborn is because he spent a long time bedridden. A child who grew up only watching the back of his capable elder brother with a weak body. Being born that way, there were many things he couldn’t have from the start and even more things he wouldn’t be able to have in the future. There were days when I secretly pitied Winfrid, but I could never understand his hobbies.
Winfrid’s temper was no less difficult, so he would often ignore me in everything.
“Stupid.”
That was his habit of addressing his elder sister.
But ah, Winfrid. Winfrid! I recalled the face of the thin and plain boy who looked somewhat like a scholar. That face that was irritating every minute when we met, I was glad to see it for the first time. You whom I almost forgot about, saving me like this. I felt relieved to an unbelievable degree. At that time, I was so pleased that I even asked about his well-being.
“So how is Winfrid doing? He’s not feeling intimidated or anything, is he?”
“That person….”
Griselda seemed to be choosing her words. The room lit by a single small lamp was quietly burning in a dark yellow light, and Griselda’s face as she paused briefly sank strangely in that light.
“He’s someone who… doesn’t listen to others, as you know.”
“That’s right….”
The answer was as expected. Winfrid will be Winfrid till the day he dies. That nasty boy, I could clearly picture him picking his ears going “Dogs will bark” whether the angry knights made a fuss or not, then chatting with his brother and locking himself in his room.
“…They’re making a ruckus….”
“Pardon?”
Griselda looked surprised. Seeing her even flinch uncharacteristically, I smiled a little.
“No…. I was just thinking Winfrid would have said that outright. That’s why Johannes’s men would have gotten even more upset and flipped out…. But when the cat’s away, the mice will play. With the elders absent, they’re getting quite bold. But Gustavus’s house is still strong with father in good health…. Hey, Griselda. I’m a bit worried.”
I fell silent for a moment. As I was criticizing Johannes’s followers, those still young and impudent ones, I naturally thought of the elder knights. And then suddenly the indifferent face of father, who would be inspecting near the border line with all of them in tow.
A dog takes after its master’s nature. The elders had eyes just like father’s. Those eyes. As if they had cut off and shared the Grand Duke’s limbs, those emotionless eyes rusted over long years, making metallic sounds even in a light breeze.
Needless to say about my father, but all the knights under him also seemed inhuman, as if they were one body.
After the Valdemar-Milo War broke out, Johannes’s followers who had achieved quite remarkable merits grew bolder day by day, and eventually reached the point of causing friction with the family elders.
The elders trampled them like killing dogs. Though Johannes seemed to have comforted his knights, they gnashed their teeth every time. Only the common calamity of the wartime situation was the rope that reluctantly bound the two misaligned groups together.
I felt Griselda’s puzzled gaze.
“Things are already unstable inside and out, but Johannes’s followers are too aggressive….”
Just as baseless worry was about to take the place of momentarily subsided fear.
Griselda and I looked at each other like animals.
There was a sound coming from downstairs. The sound of something breaking and knights calling out for their lord. The sound that still shook the fortress even though it had died down a little over the past few days. The sound approaching like twilight. My heart, which had been calm, started pounding again. It felt like a knife had entered my spine. All the cheerfulness from just before was gone, and I who had already broken once crumbled so easily again.
“Gri… Grisel…”
“The priests should already be on standby.”
“O-okay…”
“It’ll be alright. Don’t worry too much, miss.”
“…Okay.”
I burrowed into the blankets. An anxious heat covered my body.
Male lead first thought she played hard to get, only to realize she
really disliked him
Short intro:
What she can’t stand the most is the streets full of effeminate men, especially that so-called top beauty whom she avoids at all costs.
Shen Yaoxing looks at Jiang Mingyue, who keeps approaching her with coy shyness.
Shen Yaoxing: Bro, don’t be like this, I’m really about to throw up!
She fears nothing in heaven or earth, except for him getting close to her.
*
At first he thought she was just using the trick of feigning indifference to attract his attention. Later, he learned that she truly despised him.
This dealt a heavy blow to Jiang Mingyue, and he vowed to make her, like everyone else, fall at his feet in worship!
***
Synopsis:
Before transmigrating, Shen Yaoxing only wanted to find a reliable man to spend her life with. Who knew that after transmigrating, she would become a reliable woman herself…
A forced misandrist, highly skilled, and reliable female lead
vs.
An initially aloof and arrogant, later morbid, obsessed male lead
_____
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