Those Who Alone Possess the Courage to Forgive Every Sin and Spare Your Life If You Prostrate Yourself in Tears of True Repentance
Karin’s guest room sat in the farthest corner of the third-floor corridor.
The moment the door shut, a suffocating awkwardness and a strange tension settled between the two women alone inside.
“Haa…”
Helena stood in the middle of the room, letting out an irritated sigh as she scanned every corner.
Compared to the luxurious fifth-floor suite she had occupied only moments ago, this chamber—meant for a commoner hired knight—felt endlessly shabby and cramped.
Even though she was now sharing a room with the very nobles who had been gossiping about her.
“Honestly, how can bedsheets be this stiff? And the curtains are so drab. Even the maids’ quarters in our capital mansion were warmer and cozier than this.”
Helena snorted and picked apart every detail of the room, pouring out complaints.
It was all bluster—an attempt to hide and defend against the humiliation she had just suffered in the hallway and the wretched feeling of being demoted from the fifth floor.
She kept insisting she was far too noble for such a wretched place, desperately seeking some forced comfort.
Karin, however, let Helena’s petty grumbling go in one ear and out the other.
“You’re full of complaints. You’re free to leave. I won’t stop you.”
“…”
Helena bit her lip hard and fell silent.
There was no way she had the courage to walk back out alone into that corridor thick with hostility.
“I should wash up.”
Confirming Helena’s silence, Karin reached for the buttons of her shirt with an indifferent expression.
Pop. Thud.
“……?!”
Without the slightest hesitation.
Right there in the middle of the room, under Helena’s wide-eyed stare, Karin casually stripped off the everyday shirt she had been wearing and tossed it aside.
“Kyaaah! W-what are you doing?!”
Helena yelped in shock and clapped both hands over her eyes in a theatrical gesture.
“Even if we’re both women, stripping right in front of someone like that without warning?! Honestly, you really are an uncultured commoner knight—so crude and vulgar!”
Helena squawked about capital etiquette, but Karin did not so much as twitch an eyebrow.
“We’re both women. What’s there to hide that you’re making such a fuss? Washing before bed is only natural.”
Karin stripped off the rest of her clothes without a second thought.
In an instant, her completely bare body was revealed under the flickering candlelight.
“O-oh my…”
A foolish little gasp slipped from Helena’s lips as she peeked through her fingers.
She had expected a knight’s body to be rough and coarse—had told herself it should be.
Instead, the clean line of Karin‘s neck and shoulders flowed smoothly without a single excess.
The firm muscles of her back and abdomen, honed by long training, formed attractive curves that never looked excessive.
The full breasts, the narrow waist, the smooth sweep into her hips—together they created a sculpted beauty so overwhelming that even another woman found it hard to breathe.
The large and small scars scattered across her white skin only gleamed like medals, lending her an alluring, almost decadent air.
“…”
Karin clearly felt Helena’s gaze fixed and trembling on her body.
And a deeply captivating, leisurely smile curved her lips.
So this… is my body.
The Karin of the past could never have imagined this.
As a knight forced to survive in a world of men, she had spent her whole life resenting that she had been born a woman.
She had always bound her chest tightly with bandages to hide every feminine curve, and she had been so ashamed of her scarred body that she kept it locked away under thick armor.
But in just a few days, everything had changed.
“Don’t say such strange things. Even those scars… to my eyes, they’re maddeningly beautiful.”
That feverish night.
Held in Bale’s burning arms, every inch of her body loved by his rough yet tender hands.
He had not found her scars repulsive; he had pressed his lips to them and whispered endlessly of the charms her body held.
He had embraced her as a woman and lost himself in her.
That night of passion had breathed life back into Karin’s long-withered self-worth.
Bale… told me I was beautiful. He whispered that he wanted to hold me so badly he could go mad.
The loathing she had felt for her own body had been replaced by affection and confidence.
And the power of that confidence had been proven beyond doubt at tonight’s welcome banquet.
All she had done was smile a little more softly, meet their eyes, and answer kindly.
Noble ladies and young misses had flocked to her side as if enchanted, cheeks flushed, cheering for her.
This charm of mine… works not only on men, but on women as well.
The confidence Bale had planted in her.
Karin was now using that overflowing certainty as a weapon, willingly displaying her naked body to shake Helena.
“I’ll wash first. You should strip and get ready to come in too.”
Karin cast Helena a seductive, smiling glance, then strolled leisurely into the bathroom and shut the door.
Click.
As the sound of rushing water began, Helena—left alone in the room—sank to the floor where she stood.
“Haa…”
What flooded Helena’s chest was not admiration for sexual allure, but inferiority and misery.
The body she had just seen.
Those firm muscles and scars proved how fiercely Karin had clawed her way up from the very bottom to claim the solid place she now held.
A foundation built on skill no one could casually dismiss.
Even though they shared the same commoner origins, Karin stood tall as the Grand Duchess’s trusted confidante and the young lady’s instructor—her presence crushed Helena.
While she herself…
I… I was just lucky.
Helena wrapped her trembling hands around her lower belly.
The single reason she had been able to set foot on the fifth floor of this Grand Ducal residence, play at being the mistress, and act so arrogantly.
The fabricated possibility that she might be carrying the Grand Duke’s child.
But Helena knew.
How precarious and insane this plan truly was.
Lord Gawain… knows far too little about a woman’s body.
As a man, Gawain had simply believed that taking her—his maid—once beside his unconscious brother would be enough to get her pregnant.
But a woman’s body was never that simple.
The timing of her monthly cycle.
Only when the fertile window of ovulation aligned perfectly could a child take root.
What if… what if my period starts this month?
Anxiety began to choke her.
The moment it became clear she had not conceived at once, she would be cast out of this mansion onto the streets—never mind becoming the Grand Duke’s concubine.
Realizing that, the demotion from the fifth floor to a third-floor guest room no longer felt like mere humiliation. It felt like a threat to her survival.
The farther I am from the fifth floor… the more likely I’ll never catch the Grand Duke’s eye again, never get another chance to share his bed. Then I’ll vanish without a trace for ruining Lord Gawain’s plan…
She could not stay long.
With every passing day the chance of the truth coming out rose exponentially.
Should I just… confess everything?
For a moment a dangerous impulse flashed through her mind.
That it had all been at Lord Gawain’s instigation.
If she knelt before the Grand Duchess and confessed every truth…
Would they pity her and hide her safely from Gawain?
But—
“No…”
Helena shook her head hard.
She had already inflicted wounds on Lady Rebecca and Lady Veronica that could never be washed away.
She had shamelessly played the mistress and deceived them.
There was no way they would look kindly on her now simply because she told the truth.
If anything, once they knew everything they might cut her throat on the spot.
Only if I disappear do I have any value to those people. I’m far too precarious…
She felt as if she stood alone on thin ice, never knowing when her head might roll.
Just as fear and loneliness made her eyes sting red—
“Helena.”
Karin’s soft voice cut through the sound of water from the bathroom.
“Since we’re spending the night together as women in the same room, why not wash together?”
“……What?”
“I can’t quite reach my back. If you come in and we scrub each other’s backs, we’ll finish quickly and be able to sleep. Hurry up, strip, and come in.”
At Karin’s provocative invitation, Helena’s pride flared sharply once more.
“Ha! You’re telling me to scrub your back? Do you still think I’m some maid who waits on people at Lord Gawain’s mansion?!”
Helena shouted toward the bathroom door.
“Don’t get the wrong idea! A commoner knight like you and I—who carries the Grand Duke’s child—are on completely different levels!”
She snapped even more venomously to hide her own anxiety.
Yet her hand clenched the doorknob, and she bit her lip.
If I hesitate here… I’ll be completely overwhelmed by that woman. I have to show her I’m superior!
This was the body that had served Lord Gawain and even been dragged into the Grand Duke’s bed.
The figure that had captivated noble men could not possibly lose to some rough, scarred female knight—stubborn pride flared.
“Fine! If you’ll scrub my back too, I’ll gladly come in!”
Helena huffed and stripped off her clothes in irritable, flinging motions.
Then, chest thrust out in full naked confidence, she yanked open the bathroom door and strode inside.
Shhhh—
Steam filled the bathroom.
Standing under the warm cascade, Karin watched Helena enter and lifted the corners of her mouth in a captivating smile.
“Good. Now turn around and sit.”
Karin pointed to a small bathing stool and seated Helena.
Then she took a soft sponge rich with foam and reached toward Helena’s white back.
Slick—
“……Hnn.”
The moment Karin’s touch met her skin, Helena flinched and let out a soft moan before she could stop herself.
She had expected a knight’s hands to be rough and coarse.
But the touch that landed on her back was unbelievably soft and lingering.
Bale… used to touch me like this.
The man who had first fully explored and caressed her as a woman.
Karin was recreating exactly the way he had stroked her back and waist with such affection, pouring that same touch over Helena’s skin.
Slide, stroke.
A hand that traveled down the length of her spine and gently cupped the curve of her waist.
The tender yet persistent friction, as if handling a lover, sent a tingling shiver racing up Helena’s spine.
“Ahh… nngh, w-what are you doing…!”
Helena flushed and twisted her body.
The touch was far too sensual to be mere bathing; that delicate, almost caressing contact made her heart pound abnormally hard.
“Stay still. Why are you squirming when I’m just scrubbing your back?”
Karin pressed her lips close to Helena’s ear and whispered low, feigning innocence.
Her languid voice, heavy with steam, tickled Helena’s eardrum.
“Why… why are you doing this?! What kind of scheme are you trying to pull on me?!”
Helena tried to turn around in panic, but Karin gently caught her chin with a wet hand and kept her facing forward.
“What are you imagining, Helena?”
Karin’s hand stroked up the damp nape of Helena’s neck.
“I simply… wanted to ease those stiff shoulders of yours, and that anxious heart a little.”
“Anxious…? Why would I be—”
“I knew you were afraid from the moment you walked into the room.”
Karin’s voice grew deeper, more intimate.
“……!”
“Your situation, dragged all the way to this unfamiliar North. The terror of not even knowing whether you carry the Grand Duke’s child, of being cast aside at any moment.”
Karin’s foamy hand gently massaged Helena’s collarbone.
“You know it too, don’t you? The only path left for you… is to throw yourself on the mercy of someone who can truly forgive and embrace you.”
“……What do you know to spout such nonsense?!”
Helena thrashed and tried to struggle free, but Karin’s soft hands held her completely immobile.
“Lady Rebecca and Lady Veronica… are different from you.”
Karin rested her cheek lightly against Helena’s shoulder and spoke with every ounce of sincerity pressed into her words.
“They are endlessly warm and generous people. Even if you have done terrible things until now, if you prostrate yourself with a true heart and repent in tears… they are the only ones who possess the courage to forgive every sin and spare your life.”
Helena’s eyes wavered.
The thing she feared most.
The terror of death that would meet her if she confessed the truth.
Yet Karin was whispering that the Grand Duchess was, in fact, the only person who could save her.
“……Are you telling me… that because I hurt them, I should come crawling now and beg for punishment? Beg them to spare me?!”
Helena snapped, tears welling.
“I never said any such thing.”
Karin poured warm water over Helena’s back, rinsing her clean.
“I am simply… telling you so that you know.”
With those words she helped Helena to her feet and wrapped her body tenderly in a large towel.
“There. All done. Dry off and go out to sleep.”
Karin’s attitude was so cool and kind, as if nothing at all had happened, that Helena could only stand there blankly, dazed.
The provocative, dense caresses.
And the message of salvation that had followed.
Before the psychological warfare and charm Karin had wielded, Helena’s hostility and arrogance crumbled helplessly away.