At that moment, black smoke burst out. Thanks to the black smoke that was surrounding me dispersing into the air, I fell down with a thud and hurt my butt.
“Ouch!”
She glared at him as She rubbed her ass. He was staring at her, pale and wide-eyed with surprise.
“How dare you get in my head…….”
She said, “One-minute time limit?”
She continued to send telepathy instead of voice as he stood there in shock.
“This is so amazing.”
“Get out of my head right now!”
“Who are you to tie up and accuse the wrong person?”
“You’re the one who came after me first.”
“Uh…… so?”
It was a coincidence at first, but she was following him on a system mission, right……?
” I was looking for someone, but not you!”
In this case, she was just going to play along!
“You were following me?”
……Not working.
While she was trying to figure out what else to say to him, his body slumped. He looks like he’s going to fall forward, and she rushes over and grabs him.
“Are you okay?”
His eyes fluttered open violently as she spoke out loud, not telepathically. she instinctively put her hand on his forehead.
“Ugh.”
He was strangely cool, even though he was dripping with sweat and should have been boiling with heat.
Ding!
That’s when he roughly slapped the hand that rested on his forehead.
“You dare to touch my body?”
“Ah. Are you also a noble?”
“What?”
“It’s okay, I’m actually a noble myself. I heard it’s okay for nobles to touch each other this much, don’t you?”
He didn’t immediately deny it, so she guessed he was a noble after all. She studied his complexion, which had hardened into a puzzled expression.
Up close, he looked even worse than before. He looked like he could collapse at any moment, sweating profusely and barely supporting his collapsing upper body with one arm. Even with that, his golden eyes burned brightly as they stared back at her.
“Do you…… really not know me?”
“I told you, I don’t know! Why don’t you ever trust people?”
She answered confidently and looked him in the eye.
‘I’ve been given a mission, and he’s supposed to be one of the male candidates, so why can’t I trust him?’
The system hadn’t yet alerted her to who this guy was.
She stared at him and made a grunting noise. She figured that since he didn’t know who She was, She might as well not expect him to like her.
‘Eh, I’ve got a long way to go.’
She frowned and sighed heavily as she dusted herself off and got up.
“Cough!”
He coughed a couple of times and coughed up blood. As soon as she saw the bright red blood splattered on the floor, She gasped and grabbed his strong shoulders.
“Hey, are you okay?!”
If only Kai was around at this point……!
“I’ll get someone, I tried to get someone earlier, but you were using weird powers!”
She said, glaring at him. He coughed up blood in rapid succession as if he didn’t even hear her complaint.
“Kuluk, kuluk!”
“Ugh! Oh, no!”
His body tilted further and further as he clutched his chest in agony. Leaving him face-down in a puddle of his own spit-up, she poked her head around to make sure no one was walking by.
“Don’t call… Bur…….”
“What?”
He said, his voice sounding like blood boiling in his vocal cords.
“That you saw me, that I coughed up blood……yuck. The moment I tell you, I won’t let you go…… ugh.”
“In this body!”
‘Who the hell is this guy and why does he keep saying this?!’
It was then.
Tsk!
[Enoch Douglust: 0% likability]
[Quirk: Matador]
“E……knock?”
Her heart sank. In a flash, Isabella’s words, the power of the Matriarch, and the conversation between the knights flashed through her mind.
Lord Matapju? Immortal body……. This man?
As soon as She realized who he was, a fog of dread settled over her.
‘Then that black smoke from earlier was……!’
Grunt!
At that moment, he collapsed onto her shoulder. As she grabbed his unconscious body, the system reappeared in front of her.
[Do you want to use the ‘blank potion’].
“Blank potion?”
She don’t know what it’s for, but it’s definitely for when the system rewards her.
“Yes.”
In response to her simple answer, a vial of white light floated into the air.
She cautiously reached for it, and as if waiting, the glow subsided. she grabbed the blank potion and quickly laid him down on her thigh.
His head was barely supported. His black hair spilled to the side, revealing his dark eyebrows and the high bridge of his nose.
“He’s a candidate, right.”
Evan, Louise, and even Kai had different images of him, but they were all jaw-droppingly handsome. In other words, the man lying before her was no ordinary man.
‘This Matriarch has lived for a hundred years, and this is his face?’
A sigh escaped her lips as she looked at his sharp features, which were so clear that they seemed to be embedded in her mind. She felt ashamed of herself for having admired Roella’s beauty in the mirror when she first came to this world.
Her body slowly shuddered from the icy touch of his body against her skin. She quickly tilted his chin up and poured the blank potion into his slightly open mouth.
Luckily, his thick uvula moved without resistance. When She heard him swallow hard, She smiled softly in relief.
His face, which had been crumpled, relaxed a little. The drug must have taken effect. She looked down at him and giggled.
“For a man with an immortal body, you’re a weakling.”
If She had Kai, She might have saved herself the expense of a blank potion……!
“Hmph!”
─Meet you at the city gates in an hour!
She jumped up, remembering her promise to Kai. She set him down carefully so his head wouldn’t hit the floor and scrambled to her feet.
“Oh my God!”
It feels like it’s been over an hour!
She was torn, not sure if she should just leave him lying there. She felt awful about abandoning him while he was still unconscious, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Kai, who was probably freaking out about her.
“I fed him the reward items the system gave him, so he should be fine!”
She shouted at him as he closed his eyes.
“I’ve taken care of it, so as soon as you wake up, go home and rest! Bye!”
With those words, she quickly ran out of the alley.
* * *
“E……nock?”
Enoch heard a voice call out to him in his dazed state. He could barely open his eyes from the exhaustion, but he could hear his name clearly enough.
It had been decades, decades since he had heard his name called. No one dared to call his name, and Enoch, who no longer trusted people, would never make friends, let alone love.
─Why, why don’t I grow old?
─It’s…….
He couldn’t even remember the face of the only lover he had ever confided in. He couldn’t even remember how she often looked or what she did when they were together, except that she had long, faded yellow hair. All he remembered was the scars.
His small hands lifted the heaviness of her body. His head was spinning, and he groaned in pain as his chest tightened as if it were being crushed, but then something slipped into his mouth.
He tried to resist, hoping it was German, but his body refused to cooperate with his mind. Eventually, he drank everything that someone put in his mouth.
‘So it’s the one who followed me. Who is it? Is there a traitor in the temple, the emperor, or the tower?’
His thirst may have been satisfied temporarily, but soon he’ll be unable to move and tomorrow he’ll be discovered here, heart still pumping. That’s what the Matriarch desired, and there were many of them in the Empire.
He’s spent decades trying to avoid the poison, and it’s all for nothing.
But then Enoch’s belief was completely destroyed: the muscles in his body that he thought were stiffly relaxed, and the energy in his heart started flowing freely throughout his body like it was melting. Even his body was going back to normal like the energy that always made him feel cloudy had been rejuvenated.
“This can’t be…….”
He snapped his fingers, and they twitched faintly of their own volition. Normally, he would have been unable to move for days from the moment the seizure began.
Enoch was acutely aware of the dulling pain of his heart.
‘Why is it that the pain, which usually lasts for days, is suddenly…….?’
Enoch barely opened his eyes. The robed woman’s tiny feet paced, then stopped as if she had made up her mind.
“I’ve made arrangements, so as soon as you wake up, go home and rest! Bye!”
The arrangements?
Enoch stared wordlessly at the woman’s black back as she walked away with a cheerful greeting. The moment her figure completely disappeared in the darkness, his blazing golden eyes flashed.
* * *
Kai, who spotted her as soon as she returned to the city gates, yelled at her.
“Where the hell have you been, and now you’re back!”
“Sorry, I got lost and wandered around for a while!”
She decided not to mention Enoch to Kai. She didn’t want to give Kai another thing to worry about. Of course, there was also the fact that he didn’t want Enoch to find out who he was.
“You’re serious, why are you alone……!”
He had been waiting for another hour by the time he reached the city gate and checked the time. If only she had told him to meet her in two hours from the start! But now, she had dashed off without Kai, who was running late for his meeting and had a lot on his plate. She closed her eyes tightly and clasped her hands together.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
“……ha. I don’t do that next time.”
Kai cleared his throat, expecting her to be more angry, and said in a hard voice. she stopped swatting at her like a fly and looked at him with pleading eyes.
“Do you forgive me?”
“If you say you won’t in the future.”
“I promise it won’t happen!”
If She had a mission…… She wouldn’t be able to help it.
She swallowed the back of her tongue and smirked at him. When Kai saw her, he frowned and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“You made me worried, Ella.”
He let out a sigh of relief.
“You’re still a patient, don’t you remember you collapsed not too long ago, a girl with no physical strength, falling alone in a crowd, and if anything happens…….”
“I’m sorry, I’ll never worry you again!”
She quickly interrupted him and said sorry, worried that he was going to start another long, boring rant. She glanced up at him with genuine sincerity in her eyes.
“Huh.”
To her relief, his expression softened. Just when She thought She’d gotten out of the situation unscathed, Kai stepped closer to her.
“What, what’s wrong?”
He pressed his nose to the nape of her neck and sniffed. When he realized what he smelled, he frowned.
“What’s that smell? Where have you been?”
Translator Note: