Super-powerful Repulsive Avoidance Instinct
Super-powerful Repulsive Avoidance Instinct
The exhibition hall was still filled with brilliant laughter and praise, but Vivien's gaze kept returning to one place.
Iden.
No, Edom.
She had vowed several times not to be conscious of him, but her eyes moved of their own accord.
Even while chatting with nobles in front of paintings, or responding with a smile when someone greeted her, she would suddenly find him in the corner of her vision when she came to her senses.
The things she couldn't ask.
The apology in the hospital room.
"I was sorry back then."
That short, firm sentence.
Her emotions that had crumbled at those words.
The unseemly tears for which she couldn't explain the reason.
It was clear that he had changed.
However, she still didn't know the answer to how, why, and what had changed him so much.
She should have asked after wiping away her unseemly tears, but she had left the hospital room as if running away because his attendant appeared.
The gloomy pervert Gongja who never broke under the professor's reprimands, the family's pressure, or the world's ridicule, only growing his obsession.
Could he really change this much in a single moment?
She was curious.
Like an alchemist standing before an unknown phenomenon, her thoughts wouldn't stop in the face of this incomprehensible change.
Just then, a woman stopped in front of him.
A red dress brushed through her vision, and Vivien's eyes naturally turned that way.
The woman, whose hair color resembled Iden's, also had similar eye colors.
The atmosphere was somewhat similar, and a feeling of having seen her somewhere flickered by, but it soon vanished.
The woman smiled skillfully and spoke to Iden, but her voice didn't reach Vivien.
After a moment, the two of them headed toward a private room on one side of the exhibition hall.
Vivien turned her head.
Pretending not to be interested, she continued her appreciation standing in front of a painting.
She examined the brushstrokes in the work that Archduchess Emelyne had poured her heart into and appreciated the stability of the composition.
But at some point, she was already moving her feet.
When she came to her senses, she was heading toward the private room and eventually stood in the hallway where the door was visible.
'.......'
Hesitating for a moment, she scanned the surroundings. Servants and nobles passed by occasionally, but the area in front of the private room was deserted.
It's just curiosity.
She persuaded herself that way.
Perhaps that woman was the catalyst that led his sudden change?
Could she be the medium that brought about his enlightenment overnight through some event, some shock, or some relationship?
Thinking it was merely an alchemist's inquisitiveness, Vivien cautiously approached the door.
And then.
"...I think I've fallen in love at first sight."
At the voice brushing against her ears, her heart sank with a start.
A confession.
It was an explicit confession.
Vivien stood there holding her breath, then hurriedly turned around.
Like someone who had overheard something they shouldn't have, her footsteps moved quickly.
While returning to the exhibition hall, her mind was tangled in a mess.
She organized the entanglements and unraveled the complicatedly twisted thread.
At the end of it, she derived the result that the woman was not the catalyst.
At least for now, it seemed that way.
Because the confession, which was far too polite to be a catalyst, sounded like they were meeting for the first time.
Reaching that conclusion, she walked among the paintings again.
A moment later.
The sound of the private room door opening was heard from afar.
Iden came out first.
His expression was calm, and there was no particular sign of excitement.
The woman came out behind him.
Though it was very subtle, Vivien sensed through the traces left on her expression.
That the situation hadn't flowed according to her wishes.
She decided not to think about what that sense of relief meant.
It was then.
The hem of a red dress and blue hair suddenly blocked her view.
"Excuse me, Vivien-yeong-ae? By any chance... do you remember me?"
A low, smooth voice.
Vivien lifted her head.
And her eyes met from up close.
Fragments of memory that had been shattered somewhere far beyond the edge of her mind began to connect rapidly.
One day, a few days after the obsessively persistent Edom Rivan had received a warning.
And a certain Yeong-ae who had personally visited because of that incident.
An atmosphere completely different from Edom.
A girl who was skillful, sophisticated, and whose gaze looking down on people was natural.
A name that was called the flower of social circles.
"......Huh? E-Erica Riban-yeong-ae, is that you?"
Vivien's eyes widened.
The thread she had unraveled suddenly tangled like crazy, and a shock like an explosion in a flask from a failed mixture hit the back of her head.
《I fell in love at first sight.》
Right here in the middle of this exhibition hall.
The past and the present were strangely intersecting.
**
The smile spreading across Erica's lips was flawlessly elegant and natural.
"It's been a long time, Vivien-yeong-ae. It's the first time since the Academy, isn't it?"
Vivien, having calmed her startled heart, barely managed to nod.
"Yes, yes... it is. You are the same as ever, Erica-yeong-ae."
"I think I heard you were here. I heard your alchemy research has recently achieved great results."
Even though the Rivan Count family was rotting from the inside, the information power that allowed her to reign as the flower of social circles was still being flaunted.
Regrettably, she was missing the most important core.
"...Thank you."
Vivien replied with a nod, and a few formal greetings were exchanged.
Harmless topics like today's weather, the atmosphere of the North, and the splendor of the exhibition.
On the surface, it was just a scene of two Yeong-ae of the social circle conversing politely.
But Vivien's mind was not peaceful at all.
'I think I've fallen in love at first sight.'
That confession that had leaked from beyond the private room kept brushing against her ears.
A confession between family members.
No, to be precise, a confession a biological older sister made to her biological younger brother.
Of course, it was only possible because she didn't recognize her brother, but even so, she couldn't easily manage the confusion.
Emotions and reason pulled in different directions.
Vivien caught her breath and organized her thoughts.
Erica Riban currently does not know the fact that Iden is Edom Rivan.
Iden did not reveal his identity for some reason.
This must be proof that he abandoned his family, not that his family abandoned him.
She also had no intention of revealing it.
These four facts alone were enough.
Anything beyond that was speculation.
Her head cleared a little.
Then Erica said, looking up at the large canvas hanging on the wall.
"That painting... isn't it truly impressive?"
In the painting, Iden was unfolding a Summoning Circle on the Saloon Central Plains battlefield.
His blue-gray hair fluttered in the wind, and blue patterns carved through the air, emitting light.
"To roam the battlefield with such a calm expression and gallant posture, I would believe it even if someone said he was a messenger sent by the God of War."
Vivien couldn't answer.
She felt dizzy as memories of the past and his current appearance overlapped.
"......It's a painting that suits the exhibition theme well."
In the end, she filtered and filtered her thoughts to spit out a mundane answer.
She had no intention of telling Iden's identity.
No matter how they got entangled like this, that matter was something she had to ask the person involved first.
Erica's eyes narrowed thinly.
"I heard that Vivien-yeong-ae personally received help from him? That you almost suffered something terrible from a high-ranking official of Endermit."
Vivien's shoulders stiffened minutely.
"Yes. I just happened to receive help by chance."
"And after that? Was there any interaction?"
It was direct.
Vivien hesitated for a moment before shaking her head.
"No. There wasn't anything that could be called an interaction in particular."
It was an answer mixed with half truth and half lie.
Because the conversation in the hospital room was too ambiguous to be called an 'interaction.'
Erica observed her for a moment.
"Hmm, is that so. I guess you don't know much about Count Iden-baekjak-nim? I heard you've been in the North for quite a while."
She knew him too well.
The Gongja who was crazily obsessed with a woman, and the man who had become a Baekjak with dignity after completely washing away his past gloominess.
Only, she didn't know the single link connecting those two.
Vivien nodded her head.
"He is such a busy person..."
A hint of trying to dig for more information flickered in Erica's eyes before disappearing.
No more meaningful information would come out.
Judging so, Erica smiled softly and said.
"It's nothing else, but actually... I gave a flower to Iden-baekjak-nim."
"...."
[Handed a flower]
At those words, Vivien had to swallow her breath and maintain her composure once again.
A secret slang among the Yeong-ae of the social circle.
It was a metaphorical slang meaning that one had conveyed their feelings to a man they liked.
Vivien's pupils shook minutely.
She wondered if this was right.
"We decided to... get to know each other gradually. So I asked because I thought there might be something Vivien-yeong-ae could help me with. I'm not sure if you know, but my social activities have been a bit sparse lately."
While wearing an elegant smile on the outside, the content drew a clear boundary line.
Words like a warning not to touch what was hers.
An ultimatum that she had pre-empted an item she liked.
Vivien didn't know what kind of expression to make for a moment.
A biological sister was proudly talking about seeing her biological brother as a man.
How should she accept this situation?
Should she smile like a Yeong-ae of the social circle, pretending to know nothing?
Her lips moved barely, with difficulty, stiffly.
"......I see."
And she thought.
That this board was tangled more complexly than she thought.
Vivien's gaze turned toward Iden.
**
Iden, who had returned to the exhibition hall, held up his glass as if nothing had happened, but Erwin's gaze was already digging into his face.
"What did you do?"
When Iden turned his head, Erwin was narrowing her eyes with her arms crossed.
"Huh? What?"
"With that blue-haired Yeong-ae."
Iden tilted his glass, pretending to choose his words for a moment.
To be honest, it was clear that the moment he confessed he 'received a confession,' this place would not pass quietly.
It would only become unnecessarily troublesome.
"It's nothing much. She said she came from the Central Territory. Something like a greeting on a family level... a proposal similar to scouting?"
"Scouting?"
"Things like suggesting we cooperate or connect lineages. You know, those kinds of stories."
Erwin's eyes grew sharper.
"Is that all?"
"Yeah. All of it."
The suspicion didn't vanish, but her expression said she would let it slide for now.
Erwin let out a small breath as if clicking her tongue.
Then, glancing quickly at Erica who was lingering nearby, she whispered.
"Be careful. She's a somewhat creepy Yeong-ae."
"...Don't worry."
How did she know?
Iden, feeling a bit guilty for no reason, thought that Erwin was indeed a capable Special Task Force member and cast his gaze toward the exhibition hall.
Just then, the blue presence that had been lingering nearby approached once again.
Erica Riban, she was showing a much bolder air than just a moment ago.
She emptied the wine glass in her hand without hesitation, then lightly wiped the red trace spread on her lips with her fingertip.
"Ah..."
She muttered lowly as if talking to herself.
"My head hurts..."
Holding her temple, she staggered one step, then two.
The swaying gesture as if she had lost her balance drew a perfectly calculated angle.
The hem of her dress moved as if sliding down, drawing attention.
Erica leaned toward Iden just like that.
The moment her center of gravity completely shifted, she entrusted her body as if collapsing into his arms like a doll that had lost its strength.
It was the next strategy of a failed honey trap: triggering the protective instinct.
Because humans were naturally inclined to catch a falling object.
By leaning on his shoulder and making skin contact like that, she would implicitly stimulate the protective instinct possessed by a male.
Since protecting a fragile female was a natural instinct for a male and a long-standing tradition in the animal kingdom, Erica entrusted her body to that male.
At that moment, Iden's body reacted first.
The sense of dodging charges and traps that poured down countless times on the battlefield,
The instinct that calculated danger before catching a falling object was triggered reflexively.
And.
The super-powerful repulsive avoidance instinct against physical contact with a 'blood relative' that surpassed all of that was triggered.
His body naturally slid backward as if it were only natural.
Kung.
Erica's body, which should have leaned on Iden's shoulder, fell straight to the floor.
Immediately after the sound of silk and jewels colliding, a moment of silence followed.
Iden, who had unintentionally performed a 'Just Evade,' looked down at Erica.
It was a bewildered look.
Because he didn't know she would fall so grandly.
It was a reaction as if his whole body rejected it, and due to the instinctive movement that was impossible to resist, she had ended up collapsing on the cold marble floor.
'....'
Erica, who had fallen on that marble floor, had to pretend to have lost consciousness while desperately enduring the pain.
She wanted to vomit out her embarrassment and frustration like a scream.
The calculation was perfect, but she hadn't considered the variable.
That the instinct to 'avoid' would be triggered more strongly than the instinct to 'catch' the target.
That he would avoid the fall of a fragile female so indifferently and so perfectly.
Just what kind of man was Iden Summonfield, who defied the ethics of the animal kingdom, the long-standing tradition, and the laws of the wild?
"...."
Erica lying on the floor.
Iden looking down at such an Erica.
Both of them had the same thought.
What the hell.