Detention
Detention
The hallway leading to the infirmary was quiet, unlike the noise of the exhibition hall.
Only the sound of shoes hitting the marble floor echoed at regular intervals.
Erika's body resting on Aiden's arms wasn't light, but he moved his steps without changing his expression.
It was then.
"...Put."
A very small, but distinct laughter leaked out.
Aiden's footsteps stopped.
In the middle of the hallway, silence descended.
Because there was no one and nothing in the hallway to the infirmary, that small laughter wasn't buried.
The light seeping through the windows cast long shadows.
Erika's shoulders, resting on his arms, tensed subtly.
A brief pause.
Erika's mind raced.
It was a mistake.
The laughter leaking out was purely a mistake stemming from an absurdly bizarre thought.
It was a nervous reaction that burst out while she was trying to persuade herself and suppress the nonsensical imagination following the confusion of seeing the scar.
A situation that couldn't be overlooked like this.
She immediately made her eyelids tremble, caught her breath, and then opened her eyes very slowly.
She looked around, shaking her gaze like someone who had just regained consciousness.
"...Where am I..."
Her wandering gaze soon stopped as if recognizing her position.
Aiden's embrace, a posture like carrying a princess.
Her eyes soon widened.
"Huh...? Oh, oh my—!"
She twisted her body, flinching her arms as if startled.
"P-Please put me down! Why... why am I..."
Her acting—the flustered expression, flushed cheeks, and shyly bowing head—was top-tier.
Aiden said nothing.
After looking down at her for a moment, he leaned down and quietly set her down without any particular change in expression.
Erika's shoe heels touched the floor.
She pressed her temple with one hand.
"I think it's because I... suddenly drank alcohol. I've never been like this before..."
She added in a small voice, casting her gaze downward.
"I've become indebted to you. To show such a side to the Baekjak-nim... Haha, it's truly embarrassing."
Aiden merely gave a short nod.
Since he had fulfilled the minimum responsibility, it was time to return to the Special Task Force's mission.
"I am glad you have recovered."
That was all.
"Then, I shall take my leave."
He turned around without saying more.
His concise attitude and emotionless voice signaled the end.
Just as his steps were moving away, one, two.
"Um... wait a moment."
Erika's voice came from behind him.
Aiden stopped his steps without a word.
Regarding the blood relative who kept clinging to him, he felt that perhaps he needed to handle the situation decisively.
He turned around and faced Erika again.
"...."
She was looking straight at him.
The fragile expression from moments ago had vanished, replaced by a subtle tension.
"That... by any chance... we aren't acquaintances, are we?"
To the eldest daughter of the Countdom who had lived getting what she wanted and resolving what she wanted to resolve, a particularly 'creepy' doubt was a homework assignment that had to be solved immediately.
A question that felt like it couldn't be asked if not now flowed out as if it were light, but it contained a subtle pressure.
As if hoping they weren't acquaintances.
As if telling him to answer that they weren't.
Aiden's pupils shook very minutely.
But he soon regained his composure.
"No."
He was firm.
He tried to turn around again.
"Ah, no. Wait a second."
This time, it was a slightly more impatient voice.
She had heard what she wanted to hear, but the encroaching tension was not resolved.
She had to make it clear. Only by resolving any doubts without leaving anything behind could she execute the next step.
Erika took a step closer.
"You're really not, right? You seem... somewhat similar to someone I know."
Her gaze went down to his neck.
"That scar below your ear. When did you get it?"
A clinging followed that might, in a way, be felt as a trick to somehow keep the conversation going.
And at that moment.
A blurry scene flashed through Aiden's mind.
A warm spring day, a hallway, a stain on a dress, sharp fingertips flying in succession, the pain of fingernails cutting through flesh, and even the blood flowing down the neck.
Aiden caressed the scar on his neck with his hand.
Since he had started a wild life immediately after possession, when a mercenary once asked, 'What's that scar?', he had brushed it off lightly, saying it seemed to have been scratched during battle.
He had thought it was truly like that.
Because the fairly long scar looked like it had been cut by a sharp sword or something.
However, it was different now.
Was it because the person responsible for creating the scar was standing in front of him? An afterimage engraved in this body had surfaced.
For a moment, silence followed.
Erika's eyes followed him persistently.
It was an anxious gaze, hoping that it was absolutely, resolutely, unconditionally not him.
Aiden slowly tilted his head.
"It seems you are mistaken. It is merely a wound sustained during battle."
He sent an answer that drew a line and left no room for emotion, but Erika's gaze did not change.
For some reason, doubts that felt like they couldn't be resolved if not now followed one after another, and the anxiety, once started, added fuel to the fire and grew the suspicion.
But Aiden tried to move his steps coldly. He had no time to keep dancing to her tune.
But Erika took another step closer and blocked his path.
The hem of her red dress blocked the way.
"You're really not...? Truly?"
Her hand unconsciously grabbed Aiden's sleeve.
Aiden looked down at that hand.
And.
His gaze gradually began to cool chillingly.
Even for the mission given to the Special Task Force, there should be no more waste of time.
"I told you I have work to do. I am acting on the orders of the Grand Duke-jeonha, so if you cross the line any further, I will have no choice."
Deep within the Danjeon.
Magical power slowly began to boil.
**
The moment she stepped down from Aiden's embrace, Erika stumbled for a moment.
Her breath was a bit ragged.
She raised her head. In that brief moment looking up at Aiden, they overlapped.
Over the bluish-gray hair, the neatly groomed appearance, and the dignity of a Count who had gone through the battlefields of the North, for a very brief moment, truly in the blink of an eye, the face of a boy who was nothing but skin and bones, smiling gloomily, overlapped.
Edom Rivan.
Fortunately, it vanished quickly, but that short afterimage scraped something away.
What was scraped away changed the flow of her consciousness. An ominous feeling began to tighten around her.
'...What is this.'
Her stomach churned.
A sudden feeling of nausea passed through her. It was an inexplicable sensation.
Clearly, the man in front of her was sophisticated, cool, and even attractive, but behind that, something twisted seemed to be crawling up slowly.
It can't be.
There's no way.
She tried to deny it, but the scent of a blood relative, once caught, gradually grew thicker.
A very faint, familiar presence lingered.
Blood and soil, and the air of an old mansion. That subtle unpleasantness she felt when they encountered each other in the hallway during childhood.
She scolded herself, saying it wasn't so.
But why, why did that disgusting bastard's appearance keep catching her eye and his scent linger at the tip of her nose?
"By any chance... we aren't acquaintances, are we?"
Her voice lowered without her even knowing. It was a voice tinged with anxiety.
Fortunately, Aiden said no.
Firmly, but that firmness instead pounded Erika's heart harder.
'Liar.'
Somewhere in her head, it whispered like that.
"You're really not, right?"
Unconsciously, she took another step closer. She stared intently at his face, at that scar.
Erika's breathing became ragged.
'No.'
Even though no answer came, her head denied it.
But, the bastard's face that overlapped and vanished again made her denial deny itself once more.
Aiden tried to turn away.
"It seems you are mistaken. The scar was merely created during battle."
Even though what should have been heard and what she wanted to hear was heard, Erika's hand moved like an instinct.
Eventually, she grabbed his sleeve.
"You're really not...?"
Her voice cracked.
Aiden quietly tried to pull his hand away.
"I have work to do. Do not cross the line. If you continue like this, I will have no choice."
It was a warning. An official tone.
However, Erika's head was already racing toward a different conclusion.
Hair of a mysterious color mixed with blue and gray, and deep blue pupils.
The blue Summoning Circle her blood relative used to use.
The déjà vu and inexplicable familiarity she felt from the beginning kept surfacing and being associated with him.
Even if the appearance had changed, that darkness that briefly flashed deep within those pupils kept growing thicker.
Strength entered her grip.
In her vision, Aiden's appearance and Edom's afterimage overlapped alternately.
A gloomy color was layered over the bluish-gray hair and then vanished, and the skeletal frame of a scrawny boy brushed over the solid shoulders.
It's ominous.
By any chance.
What if it's really true?
If the youngest, whom she had trampled, mocked, and struck, had changed through some incident and become this Count of the North?
Then.
Then she would have wagged her tail at that disgusting and creepy bastard herself, seduced him with her body, exuded submissive sex appeal, and even confessed as a female.
Not only that, she would have been held in his arms and even touched skin-to-skin.
Instantly, her whole body was covered in goosebumps.
A sensation as if something was crawling under her skin. Her spine chilled.
Her hand clung even harder.
"Is it really true that you're seeing me for the first time? You're not lying, are you?"
The same question repeating several times. A voice gradually becoming persistent and intense.
A clinging that made it almost a foregone conclusion that unnecessary scandals would stick if not ended properly.
Aiden's gaze grew beyond chilly to freezing cold.
It was the stern gaze of the Special Task Force leader. Without a shred of mercy.
"I clearly warned you."
At that moment.
A blue pattern flashed beneath the marble floor.
Beneath Erika's feet, she belatedly dropped her gaze.
A circular Summoning Circle was drawn, and the overlapping patterns rotated rapidly, emitting light.
"Wha—"
Before she could finish.
Dark blue tentacles surged from the floor.
A texture that was firm, smooth, and somewhere between living creature and metal wrapped around Erika's waist and tightened around her legs.
Both arms were bent back and tied. In an instant, even her mouth was wrapped, blocking any sound.
"Eup—!"
The tentacles tightened precisely around all her joints. They bound her ankles, wrists, waist, shoulders, and even her lips without any gaps.
Erika's eyes widened.
Aiden looked at her coldly.
His voice, echoing in the space at the end of the exhibition hall hallway out of people's sight, was still calm.
"On charges of obstructing the mission of the Special Task Force and compromising the safety of the exhibition hall."
He took a short breath.
"By the order of the Grand Duke-jeonha, and by the authority of the Special Task Force leader, I hereby sentence you to detention until the investigation of the charges is complete."
The blue pattern pulsed once more.
In Erika's pupils, something crumbling along with fear slowly spread.