Chapter 48

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 48

Chapter Title: I'll Kill You As You Wished

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"I'll kill you as you wished."

Agatha barely managed to straighten her throbbing body and sit up, gazing upward.

She saw the intruder raising his sword high, but no urge to resist stirred within her.

The moment she let the hand gripping her dagger drop limply and closed her eyes...

Schwaak—

A ripping sound echoed, followed by something hot sprinkling across her face.

When Agatha opened her eyes, the once-dark bedroom had long been bathed in bright moonlight streaming through the torn curtains and the wide-open terrace doors.

Behind the intruder's crumbling body loomed a figure a handspan taller and bulkier than him.

His short blue hair was badly disheveled, and his gray eyes gleamed with cold resolve.

Enoch stood there, teeth gritted, clutching a longsword stained with blood.

He stomped down on the fallen man's neck and gently wiped the blood from her cheek. The man's breaths came in harsh gasps.

"Ki... kill me!"

Enoch whirled around. The man who had decisively beheaded six intruders in single, overwhelming strokes turned back and crushed the fallen one's neck underfoot once more.

"Why did you do that?"

Kwaduk...!

At the sound of bones shattering, Agatha finally flinched back to her senses.

Gazing up at him blankly, she saw an expression she'd never witnessed before.

"Why provoke him like that? You know full well it's better to make measured demands and wait for reinforcements."

"...What does it matter to you? Stay out of my affairs."

The moment she forced the words out, his breathing grew ragged once again.

"I was planning to wait until your anger subsided. It was my fault, after all—I intended to endure it somehow and bide my time..."

"..."

"But this is too much. Did you think I'd stand by and watch you die?"

His gritted voice cracked like it had been raked by claws.

Agatha couldn't tear her eyes from Enoch's painfully contorted face.

Why now, of all times?

"...Save that talk for your lover. I don't need it."

"Lover? I told you I'm not like your ex-husbands."

"Or is it because you still need me? Because I'm a 'Noblesse'?"

His clear gray eyes pierced into her like they would bore straight through.

Agatha found herself staring at him, entranced despite herself. Up close after so long, the man looked haggard beneath his sturdy frame.

His jaw had sharpened to a knife's edge from weight loss, and his cheeks were gaunt.

As she clenched her dagger hand to fend off the throbbing pain in her chest, he clamped his mouth shut, then opened it again.

"I love you."

"...!"

"You're the only woman who's ever captured my heart."

Stunned, Agatha stared up at him vacantly.

"What did you just...?"

"..."

The man gazed down at her silently, then touched his dry eyes.

"...I'm not sure I have the right to say this now, but I'll use this chance to deal with your relatives. So..."

Clang. He tossed his sword aside carelessly and extended a hand to Agatha.

"Drop the dagger and come here, Agatha."

Don't drive me insane.

Those final words, rough and uncharacteristic, whispered past her ear like the wind.

Agatha stared up at him dazedly, then staggered to her feet.

What had he just said?

Her eyes trembled, a tumult of hope, expectation, doubt, and confusion.

She let the dagger slip from her hand. Cling. It skittered away across the sticky red floor, and he simply waited, hand outstretched, until she came to him of her own accord.

As she drew near, Enoch wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her close. The hand that had mercilessly slain the intruders trembled faintly.

"Did I hurt you that badly? Enough to make you want to die?"

"...I just didn't want to humor the intruder. Keep going with what you were saying."

Agatha lowered her gaze. The military uniform jacket before her eyes was frayed, the fabric torn where her hand touched it.

Bloodstains aside, how had the clothes of a man who'd effortlessly crushed the intruders become so ragged?

It was then that Agatha's eyes drifted to the open terrace.

"Esther was a woman my relatives sent to secure my succession."

"...!"

"They must have thought it wouldn't do, with me stubbornly clinging to life for three years."

It was a common enough scheme. Even Agatha had no shortage of kidnappers aiming for heirs.

She reflexively looked at Enoch. He had buried his face in her shoulder and showed no sign of lifting it.

"...Enoch."

"She was an orphan from a fallen noble house with nowhere to go. They picked someone expendable..."

"Enoch."

"When she desperately begged to stay by my side, to be loved, I thought—what sin could she have committed?—and allowed her to join me on the battlefield. I didn't love her, but I planned to take responsibility."

Adding one more life when death loomed so near—perhaps it didn't seem to matter.

It had been a massive siege war dragging on for a full decade.

Imagining his plight made Agatha's head spin, but the man didn't stir.

"Enoch!"

"So now you call my name properly?"

It had been days since she'd last spoken his name fully.

Thud. He exhaled a pent-up breath and let out a self-deprecating laugh.

"I'm sorry for superimposing her on you. When you confessed your feelings, all I could think of first was that woman's betrayal back then."

"...Did she harm you?"

"When defeat loomed for the army, she poisoned me and fled. The rewards from my relatives must have seemed better than sticking with a successor who looked about to die."

He turned his head slowly and murmured lowly.

And now she'd shown up before him again.

A surge of fury made Agatha's head reel.

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I meant to. But after reuniting with Esther, I realized what a fool I'd been."

He chuckled lowly, whispering that strangely, he hadn't been able to bring himself to talk about the past before. Agatha clenched her fists tight.

"What did she say?"

"Curious?"

"Of course I—!"

As Agatha snapped her head up, Enoch pulled her tightly into his embrace and pressed his lips to her hair.

"I've mostly wrapped things up for now. I've dealt with the relatives behind the events seven years ago and today. That woman will soon pay for her crimes."

"Eut."

"So don't be angry."

It seemed the Aratus Knights' movements a few days prior had been for this reason.

Could she have noticed if she'd paid closer attention?

But back then, there was no time...

Even as the thought crossed her mind, her throat tightened oddly.

Agatha wanted to lend a hand now, at least.

She couldn't let those who had schemed so brazenly seven years ago—and still now—along with the rest of the relatives, get away unscathed.

"I'll clean house in the family this time."

"As the lady of the Aratus house, no one can say a word against whatever you do."

It was then, as Agatha quietly nestled deeper into Enoch's arms.

Bang!

The door to the inner chamber far across the room burst open violently. Startled, Agatha clung tightly to Enoch.

"My lady! Are you alright?!"

The ones pouring in were First Vice-Captain Leon Takran and the Aratus knights.

"Sir Leon."

Leon, relieved to see Agatha unharmed, soon wore a peculiar expression.

Agatha suddenly realized what she must look like. She tried to pull away from Enoch's embrace, but he wouldn't budge.

"Report."

Leon hesitated, then pretended not to notice and focused on his duty.

How could he.

Agatha felt a twinge of betrayal.

"Of the 150 intruders, half are dead and half captured. We've also caught the one directing from outside, but..."

Leon's gaze swept the wrecked bedroom. None of those who had breached the inner room had survived.

"The prisoners."

"We've locked them in the underground cells for now."

"Are they in a state to be interrogated?"

The usually mild vice-captain grinned in a way she'd never seen.

"They could probably cross the empire if we let them go."

"Good. Well done, Leon."

Extracting confessions on the masterminds would require lengthy interrogations.

Fresh prisoners were the most valuable assets in this situation.

As Agatha squirmed in his arms, Leon issued orders to secure the perimeter and asked,

"If I may ask, my lord—where is Huber? I thought he scaled the wall like you, but I haven't seen him."

"Pardon?"

Agatha looked up at Enoch in shock.

The newlywed mansion had been repaired around the fourth floor with no balconies or terraces—and not even footholds on the walls—to defend against potential intruders.

"You climbed the wall?"

Dangerously?

"Er..."

As he looked troubled and averted his eyes...

A figure crept in from the wide-open terrace.

It was Huber Carwen, Second Vice-Captain of the Aratus Knights, and his men.

"I-I'm here, Leon."