49. The Woman Who Made Me Suffer
The master was strong.
That’s why, even after returning from training, some days he wouldn’t have a speck of dust on him or even a single drop of sweat.
But today—what kind of training had he done? Had he taken on the entire knight order by himself?
Adelen was utterly horrified when she saw Rakalt return in tatters.
“Who on earth put you through this, Master?”
“…A woman.”
“…What?”
“The only ones who have ever put me through this kind of suffering are women.”
His tutor. The top martial artist knight. And then—her. Especially the last one. Adelen bore most of the blame.
If it weren’t for Adelen, he wouldn’t have had to worry about the crown prince’s treatment.
If it weren’t for Adelen, he wouldn’t have had to go to such lengths preparing for the king’s party.
If it weren’t for Adelen… He wouldn’t have gotten so lost in thought during training that he ended up like this, completely wrecked.
“Oh my… how terrible.”
Unaware that she was one of those women, Adelen simply felt pity for him.
With an inexplicably heavy heart, Rakalt made his way toward the dressing room. He figured taking a bath might help him shake off this mood.
The feeling of his sweat-drenched clothes sticking to his body was unpleasant, so he began stripping as he approached the dressing room.
He assumed it would be fine since Adelen was busy watching the baby and wouldn’t be looking his way.
“Gasp! Master, your side—!”
But Adelen had been keeping an eye on him out of concern. And when she caught sight of the massive bruise on his exposed side, she gasped in shock.
Rakalt quickly tugged his clothes back down, only to discover the enormous bruise himself. It must have been from when he was pinned down during the Sigelion family crisis.
“…Ah. I got it while training.”
“Are you alright? That looks really bad… Let me see.”
Adelen hurriedly approached, grabbing his clothes to inspect him closely.
She leaned in to check if there were any other injuries, her breath lightly brushing against his side.
“!”
Rakalt flinched as if struck by lightning and stepped back.
“Wh-why? Did I touch a wound?”
“No, it’s not that—”
There it was again. The ticklish sensation.
He had forgotten about it, but suddenly, it came back without warning. And this time, it felt even more intense.
“Sorry! I’ll be gentle. No, wait—I’ll get the medicine first.”
Once again, Adelen had no idea she was the cause. She was too focused on the pain to even consider anything else.
She grabbed Rakalt’s arm and dragged him to the sofa, examining him as she went.
Compared to the knight who had turned Rakalt into this mess, her strength was barely that of an ant pulling something along.
Yet, somehow, Rakalt allowed himself to be led without resistance. He even had the absurd thought that, at this rate, she might slap his back soon, too.
“My goodness… What kind of training leaves bruises this bad?”
Without hesitation, Adelen lifted his shirt, frowning at the sight.
“Is it that bad?”
“Of course it is! What did you do to end up like this?”
“Chokeholds.”
“That’s… a part of training?”
“A crucial one.”
“…Oh, for heaven’s sake…”
She couldn’t argue with him, since he called it important training, but she could at least let out a sigh. Then, she scooped up a generous amount of ointment and began applying it all over his bruises.
“Going to war is exhausting enough. How do you manage to injure yourself like this even when you’re not on the battlefield? I thought you just rested after coming back.”
On top of everything, he was constantly fending off surprise attacks. But now she learned that, even on days without ambushes, he was putting himself through this kind of intense training.
“If I just rested and then went back to war, I’d die immediately. I can’t let my body go soft.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to get hurt like this.”
For Rakalt, this wasn’t even an injury—it was just an ordinary part of life. In his mind, being ‘injured’ meant being impaired to the point that it restricted his movements.
However, Adelen’s firm demeanor left no room for argument, even though he wasn’t actually hurt.
“You shouldn’t ignore even small bruises or cuts. The young master of the household I used to work at once fell down the stairs and got a bruise in the exact same spot as you. That night, he started feeling unwell, and a few days later, he passed away before he could even receive treatment.”
“That happens sometimes.”
On the battlefield, it wasn’t uncommon for minor wounds to turn into fatal infections. But Rakalt had never once considered that it could happen to him.
Neither did anyone around him.
In hindsight, it was an incredibly reckless way of thinking. Yet, given that he had never truly fallen ill before, it was only natural that he thought that way.
“That’s why you need to be careful too, Master.”
At the orphanage, they were always short on money, so minor cuts and scrapes weren’t treated.
If they were lucky, they healed without issue; if they weren’t, those wounds could lead to death. But unlike back then, they weren’t lacking money or people to take care of injuries so why was her master acting like this?
Grumbling, Adelen applied the ointment.
“But… why do you have so many scars, Master?”
She furrowed her brows as she leaned in to inspect his wounds. The last time she treated him, she had focused only on the specific injuries from battle, but this time, because of the large bruises, she noticed more of his body at once.
Rakalt’s body was covered in scars, big and small. Some were deep and looked like they must have been severe, while others were barely noticeable.
“Did you get all of these from fighting?”
For Adelen, war was something that happened far away, unrelated to her daily life.
While it was a serious matter for the king and nobility, commoners didn’t feel its impact unless their own lives were directly affected.
The war with Morn had begun long before she was even born. Most battles took place in the barren borderlands, where few people lived.
Only knights and professional soldiers went to war, and by now, not even victory parades were held when they returned. Because of that, she never really thought about people getting hurt or dying in battle.
“Most of them, yes.”
Rakalt glanced down at his own scars. He usually didn’t pay attention to them, but even to his own eyes, there were quite a lot.
“How did you get this one?”
Adelen carefully touched a long scar near his navel with the tip of her finger.
Rakalt sharply inhaled.
“Oh, sorry! Did that hurt?”
“It’s not pain… It’s just ticklish.”
“Ah…”
Old wounds wouldn’t hurt anymore. But she was startled when his abdominal muscles tensed suddenly.
When he said it was ticklish, her stiff expression relaxed slightly, and she let out a light chuckle.
The warm breath that escaped her lips brushed over the old wound making it tickle again.
“That one… I got as a child when my father hit me. I fell and slammed into the railing.”
“…!? He hit you?”
Growing up in an orphanage, getting hit was a common experience. But to think her master had been beaten too…
Adelen’s eyes widened.
“Many times. The future of the Sigelion family rested on me. They couldn’t afford to raise me carelessly.”
“?”
Her confusion only deepened.
“What does that have to do with beating you?”
“Whenever I made mistakes, they disciplined me to make sure I learned properly.”
“…”
“It wasn’t abuse. If I had done things correctly, I wouldn’t have been punished. I was just lacking in many ways as a child.”
Seeing Adelen’s baffled expression, Rakalt instinctively started justifying it. It was something he had always taken for granted.
His family was stricter than most, but the Sigelions came from a line of knights. They were bound by duty to serve the king and fight in wars.
To ensure survival, strict training was necessary. That’s what he believed when he was a child, and he still believed it now.
“If someone understands words, why would you need to hit them? It’s not like you were some kind of beast. I don’t know much about raising kids, but that kind of education sounds pretty terrible.”
Adelen scowled as she grumbled, applying ointment even over scars that had long since set and wouldn’t fade.
It was the first time Rakalt had ever heard such an argument.
Was that true? If words were enough, there would be no need to hit…?
Scars he had never paid attention to before suddenly seemed to ache.
As he quietly watched Adelen’s hands tending to him, he realized something.
Just as he had overlooked his own scars all this time—there was something else he had been neglecting too.
