#29
Griselda did not say or show anything. She merely planted her suspicious gaze like a splinter into the inside of my chest. After that, it was eerily quiet as if nothing had happened.
The fortress forgot its wailing. As if there had never been such an incident, Johannes no longer had seizures. Though Griselda’s gaze occasionally came to mind, making my chest sting, I was able to feel much more at ease. I naively thought to myself.
The devil seems to have completely disappeared.
Also, the curse I had heard from Winfrid seemed to be nothing more than a malicious rumor. Yes, I easily forgot everything. Forgetfulness was like my nature.
Occasionally, Johannes sought me out. When I was confined to my bedroom due to prolonged illness, he came to see me every day under the pretext of visiting the sick. Though we could only exchange greetings with an invisible wall between us, I had to endure it as best I could despite the disappointment.
The clear scent of flowers lingered in my lonely bedroom in Johannes’ stead. Whenever the flowers wilted, Johannes would always bring fresh angelica from an unknown source. The petals I received like a promise somewhat obscured Johannes’ retreating figure.
However, even the days that weren’t particularly satisfying were not long.
As my condition improved earlier than expected, Johannes’ visits gradually became less frequent. There was no longer any excuse for him to come see me.
Of course, I never took the initiative to seek him out either. I was anxious that someone might find it strange if siblings who rarely even spoke to each other suddenly started spending too much time together. Especially Griselda’s dark gaze would often stand in my way.
Whenever my conversations with Johannes dragged on even a little, she would always wear a haggard, uncomfortable expression on her face, as if she were an unwelcome guest. Though it didn’t seem like she was deliberately showing it off, I had known her long enough to easily read her expression.
At such times, I would cut off the conversation and send Johannes away. Sensing my unease, Johannes refrained from visiting my chambers carelessly. It’s unbearable. Johannes once said in passing. We went for quite a long time without meeting.
Finally, Johannes’ handwritten letters began to arrive. They were love letters. It was then that I first learned the surprising fact that he knew how to read and write.
Do you know?
This is now the Age of Mortals. The era after the omnipotent being reaped immortality like a harvest in one hand. It is a militant age where violence is law, force is power, and the logic of death and strength rules over humans. If it weren’t against faith, there would still be an abundance of lords who use devils. Fortunately, devils have long been abandoned, but war remains the same.
There are teachers who recite writings and scribes who transcribe them, but lords busy killing others on the battlefield would hardly find time to learn letters.
Therefore, though I had no close connections, I knew as common sense that few among the nobility were literate. Given the situation, Johannes’ neatly written letters were astonishing, strange, and sweet beyond measure.
The verses recited by the priest summoned to my chambers were all heroic poetry I had heard somewhere before. And sometimes, hidden within the long verses were romantic tales of knights and noble ladies. Like tender shrubs secretly hidden in a dense forest.
‘Due to a love made even more intense by obstruction, a day without being able to see you is no different from a hundred years of misfortune for me.’
And such.
Johannes merely added in a postscript that he was transcribing verses worth listening to, as I seemed quite bored lately. However, I could fully sense the hidden confession that could not be outwardly expressed, that desperation. Listening to such passages made my heart race and my hips fidget restlessly, unable to sit still in my chair. Griselda subtly admonished me.
“Perhaps we should move on to the next verse. Since the young lord is a man, he must be less sensitive than us women, so he probably didn’t mind much while transcribing… But for the young lady to hear, such verses are too irreverent and stimulating…”
I wonder if she realized she had only added to the tenderness unintentionally. Unable to say I wanted to hear more, I could only blush. Thus, at the end of that seemingly endless hot summer.
I felt stifled.
I felt like I was dying. My feet were sinking in the mud of longing. As if suffering from homesickness while staying in my hometown, I desperately yearned for Johannes who was so near. If only the process of change weren’t so painful, sometimes I would even be glad if Johannes came to me as a devil. I missed him so much that I even had such wicked thoughts.
Of course, it wasn’t a complacent belief that the devil was no longer horrible or frightening. I just had the confidence that Johannes would always return at my call. The passing years were all like shards of glass.
Some pieces were shattered beyond recognition. But some pieces remained large and sharp, vividly reflecting only Johannes. Therefore, only the moments spent with Johannes were times when I truly lived and breathed. A terrible hunger where we couldn’t even touch fingertips when we happened to meet. Days passed as I struggled with this persistent starvation of being unable to easily see or touch.
I met a man.
A man whose thick face I can hardly remember now. Only the wild impression of his mountain-like bulk and the dark red hair covering even the back of his hands remains vividly in my mind.
Unlike Johannes’ other followers who had been with him since his teens, this knight had not even been in Gustavus for a full year. Since I rarely had occasion to meet men in the first place, I had never encountered this man before, so he was essentially a stranger to me despite being family.
The man crossed the line. Even looking back now with broader experience, it was clearly not proper behavior.
That day, I was walking around inside the fortress for a stroll. Hoping to catch a glimpse of Johannes’ face, I insisted on “walking inside since it’s too sunny outside” and loitered near the assembly hall. As I passed by the entrance, I peered inside. Dozens of young knights were gathered in the center of the rectangular hall, and Johannes’ hair was briefly visible among them.
A clamor of everyone talking at once. Between the densely crowded cloaks and armor of the knights, Johannes appeared and disappeared repeatedly as if playing hide-and-seek. Listening to the words that reached the entrance, it seemed they were discussing the schedule for the end of the truce in autumn.
It’s beginning. Johannes will leave again. I grew a bit anxious. The hall that could accommodate hundreds at once was too vast, and Johannes was far, far from the entrance. Such a great commotion with a crowd of people led by him. And yet…
Johannes spotted me precisely.
As if there were a thread tightly connecting us both, our gazes met in an instant. Johannes’ face froze in surprise as he looked at me. Then, as the corners of his mouth slowly relaxed into a faint smile, I felt my heart melting. A distance I could reach if I just ran for a moment.
At some point, the noise that had been resonating to the ceiling began to subside. Perhaps Johannes’ silence had gone on too long. Like a pack of wolves, the men’s attention shifted along Johannes’ gaze, centered on their leader.
And it all focused on me. A wave of people moved from the outermost to the innermost.
Princess. Your Highness. Everyone bowed respectfully. I was flustered, and Griselda, equally startled, urged me to move from where I had stopped. Just as I was about to reluctantly leave, that man shouted.
“If it isn’t Princess Giovinetta!”
The man approached abruptly without warning. The cloak billowing behind his shoulders was just like a great tidal wave. I caught a glimpse of Johannes standing up suddenly from his seat. The man grabbed my forearm as I stepped back and began to rattle off an unsolicited self-introduction in one breath.
“Ah, I’ve been waiting for this day, having only seen you from afar.”
“Ah…”
“I’ve been itching all over to greet you properly. Knight Barteon pays his respects to Gustavus’ hidden pearl. The rumors were not exaggerated. You are a great beauty indeed.”
I was at a loss for words. It was the first time a man had approached so rudely, so I was too shocked. And his voice was so loud for such a house-sized man. With each word, it felt like not just my ears but my whole head was ringing.
Having never experienced anything like this before, I failed to respond properly, and the situation escalated to the point where the man grabbed my wrist. My ears burned. At that moment, I felt not just embarrassed but ashamed.
The guards seemed to try to stop the man.
“What law forbids even this level of courtesy?”
As the man avoided the guards, my upper body tilted greatly as my forearm was pulled along in his rough grasp.
“N-no… no…”
My voice came out broken. Oh, how my wrist hurt. It felt like the cartilage, suddenly bent, would be crushed by the force. My whole body stiffened. A chill like insects crawling down my wrist spread to my heels.
The oppressive force. The helplessly pulled body. That eerie feeling that chilled my very core and numbed my whole body. I, the situation I had already experienced several times was repeating, and a waterfall of molten iron was pouring over my throat. My body trembled and curled up on the floor.
At the time, I didn’t know exactly what that sensation was. Only in the pitch-black darkness without beginning or end, the dark man pressing down on me and the dozens of eyes surrounding us burst like ink. And the pain of the devil’s claws piercing my cheek as they covered my mouth struck down like a torrent. No… No!
“Sir Knight!”
Even as Griselda, unable to stand by, tried to stop him, the man remained unmoved. He forcefully pulled me in front of him, stepped back with one foot, and bent his waist as thick as an old tree trunk. He rubbed his lips against the back of my hand. I don’t know how long I was held like that.
After pressing his disgusting flesh firmly for a while, he finally removed his face just as the guards’ spears rushed in.
What can you lot do to me? The man didn’t seem to care at all. Without any thought of letting me go, he began to gesture at the guards with his free hand. It was utter chaos.
But my terrified eyes could not properly take in the surrounding confusion. I simply could not come to my senses. It was the shock of being hit square in the face with a block of ice at a completely unexpected moment. It was nauseating, like watching a piece of filth with legs approaching.
Let go. Let go of me. My lips could not part. Ah, why did I come down to a place like this.
Suddenly.
The man whirled around. No, he didn’t turn on his own, but was twisted from his gesticulating shoulder down to his lower body as if being crushed.
Male lead says he’s pregnant — and it’s female lead’s child
Something seems a bit off about this world.
Wang Zhao thought as she watched a pregnant man walking towards her…
Intro
Female lead finds herself in a world where the men who possess the ability to bear children.
As she navigates this unfamiliar reality, she is caught off guard by the sudden appearance of her boyfriend, who reveals that he is pregnant.
Is this truly her boyfriend?
Why can’t she recall any details about their time together?
She begins to doubt whether the child her boyfriend is carrying is even hers.
Is there a hidden reason behind her amnesia, or could it be a side effect of her sudden arrival in this strange new world?
Just when it seems the protagonist’s life couldn’t become any more entangled, her ex-boyfriend makes an unexpected appearance, raising questions about the protagonist’s past.
__________
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