Chapter 170
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 170
I had Pudding warp Rico and me to the Imperial Castle. Since this was a different location from where I’d been imprisoned, I had to leave the task of finding Gabriel entirely to him. Fortunately, Lady Jeremia had visited the dungeon where Gabriel was being held, so Pudding was able to track her scent and pinpoint his location.
When we arrived, the dungeon guards were already collapsed on the floor.
“I put them to sleep beforehand,” Pudding said.
In his human form, he wagged an imaginary tail, so I patted his head. His cheerfulness lifted my gloomy mood, if only slightly. But the moment I descended into the basement and saw Gabriel, my heart plummeted.
The dungeon was dark. Rico followed behind with a candlestick, and the light slowly carved shapes out of the gloom.
At first, I couldn't even recognize Gabriel. I couldn’t make out his clothes, let alone his face. Taking a deep breath, I stepped closer.
One step, and his limp legs came into view. Two steps, and I saw his chained wrists. It was only after the third step that his black hair caught my eye.
“Sir, what in the world is this…”
A ragged sigh was all that escaped my lips.
There was red. Far, far too much red. It was a color that didn't suit him at all—not the man whose blue eyes resembled a clear sky by day and a deep, quiet lake by night.
I threw open the cell door and rushed inside.
While Pudding worked on the restraints, I removed Gabriel’s gag. He coughed, his breathing shallow as he leaned against me. His body was always so warm.
Even now, when everything was a mess, I could feel that warmth so vividly. That heat, and the pulse beating against my skin, were proof that he was alive.
Gabriel recognized me.
“…My Lady. Am I still dreaming?”
His voice was low and cracked. Yet it was so thick with emotion, so choked with unshed tears, that for a moment I thought he was crying.
Gabriel reached for me, an incredibly cautious gesture. He didn’t dare touch me, instead tracing my silhouette in the air before my face. His injuries were so severe he couldn’t even move his fingers properly.
With a hand like that, he seemed terrified to reach any further, as if a single touch might cause me to scatter like a cloud.
It was a stark contrast to my own unhesitating approach. Unlike me, Gabriel hesitated several times before finally letting his hand fall back.
“You’ve come to save me this time as well.”
This time as well? His words puzzled me, but I assumed he was just confusing his dreams with reality.
“It’s not a dream. Lady Jeremia told me she saw you, so I came to get you.”
Gabriel’s hand froze. He seemed to realize this was real, that I had truly come for him. And yet, instead of touching me, he withdrew. I couldn’t understand why he treated the real me as more of an illusion than the one in his dreams, whom he would have reached for without a second thought.
“Sir Gabriel, I brought holy water. Let’s get you treated.”
At my words, Gabriel shook his head.
“My Lady. Holy water doesn’t work on me.”
“What?”
“Holy water… it doesn’t work.”
I couldn’t understand why he was saying that, let alone with a faint, almost happy expression on his battered face.
“It seems Sir Raphaella and Lady Jeremia failed to mention that.”
There was nothing about it in Jeremia’s letter, either. Shouldn’t something so important have been stated upfront?
“Rico. Give me the holy water.”
Ignoring Gabriel’s words, I poured the vial over his wounds. He was right—nothing happened. The injuries were simply washed clean. In that moment, the holy water, once a panacea, was no different from ordinary water.
Gabriel didn’t try to stop my futile efforts; he simply remained still.
This had to be some kind of sick joke. The wounds weren’t healing because there wasn’t enough. I threw the first empty vial aside and grabbed the second. Then the third. And another…
Consumed by the need to heal him, I frantically poured vial after vial. But the gash across his ankle remained.
“Lady Rohanson! My Lady!”
“…”
Rico’s sharp cry finally broke through my panic. Empty vials rolled across the stone floor. Only after wasting six whole vials did the truth of Gabriel’s words finally sink in.
“But… Sir Gabriel, you’re a paladin, aren’t you?”
I remembered what Canna had told me about how paladins were chosen. During the baptismal rite, they would wound their own hand and heal it with holy water in front of the other paladins and priests to prove they had received the Goddess’s blessing.
Gabriel was the commander of the order. How could someone immune to holy water have become the commander?
“I had the help of my capable lieutenant,” Gabriel replied shamelessly, explaining that he had learned a trick from Raphaella. He had simply used fake blood and washed it away with what was essentially regular water.
“I was never a noble knight to begin with.” He laughed, a self-deprecating sound. He called it a scam he’d pulled on the Sun Goddess and her priests.
“Are you disappointed in me… for not being pure? Disappointed in someone like me?”
“…Of course not.”
I wasn’t disappointed. I, Evangeline, was also someone holy water didn’t work on. To me, the Sun Goddess, divine blessings, and holy water were all meaningless.
But right now, the fact that it didn’t work on Gabriel was agonizing. Without that magical, all-powerful water, how was I supposed to heal him?
The people of this world were like characters in a story. Their bodies healed with a single vial of holy water, just like game characters consuming a potion. It was a fundamental rule of this world that I, an outsider, could never fully grasp. After all, holy water had no effect on me, who had possessed this body.
The foundation of this world was a devotion to the Sun Goddess that I could neither empathize with nor understand. People treated her as absolute good and rejected everything else. Every time I saw the masses united under their goddess, I was acutely reminded that I didn't belong. In a world where people would scream ‘demon’ and spew hatred at anyone holy water didn’t work on, the only way for me to feel justified was to condemn them all. Therefore, those who were healed by holy water—those who lived under the absolute order of this world—were nothing more than characters in a novel to me.
In fact, even the revered Sun Goddess herself was just another one of those pre-programmed entities, no different from the rest.
So. Why did you, Gabriel, have to break that mold?
You’re a character, aren’t you? You’re supposed to recover, to be revived, to live on. You’re the male lead, aren’t you? Even if you go through hell to protect me, you’re supposed to emerge unscathed. What is this? You can’t even move your hands properly to hold me. You can’t even walk toward me. What in the world is this?
“To think you tried so hard to protect me with a body like this.”
Suddenly, I remembered the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet. Gabriel had taken a wine glass to the head for me, bleeding profusely. The wound must have been severe, but he never showed a flicker of pain. I had no way of knowing how long that injury, unhealed by holy water, had lingered.
“Because I wanted to be of use to you.”
Gabriel finished speaking, his expression serene.
“If you’re like this just from seeing me, you might burst into tears when you see Jelly, whom you cherish so much.”
For some reason, my stomach churned. I felt like I was going to burst into tears right now, without even needing to see Jelly.
“…I thought you were safe, Sir. Sir Raphaella said you would have returned with the Order of Pararos Knights. That you would be receiving treatment by now…”
I found myself babbling, trying to explain—or maybe I was just making excuses, trying to prove I hadn’t forgotten him, that I hadn’t just ignored his plight.
“Raphaella probably said that to spare you any worry, My Lady.”
Gabriel defended his lieutenant. He was right. Ultimately, the fault was mine for blindly trusting her words.
“…If I had known you were in this state, I would have come for you so much sooner.”
His once-flawless face was marred with wounds. I hesitated before reaching out to touch his cheek. What if it hurt? My touch was feather-light.
Instead of pulling away, Gabriel leaned into my hand, rubbing his cheek against my palm. His black hair brushed against the back of my hand, and a strange, ticklish feeling fluttered in my chest.
“Being injured isn’t so bad. Thanks to it, I protected what you cherish, My Lady, didn’t I?”
He was talking about the people of the Rohanson Mansion. I almost pinched his cheek for being so shameless. Who was he worried about when he himself was like a broken toy?
But I couldn’t blame him. His reasoning, his entire sense of self, was rooted in me. It was because I had pushed his hand away in the past… because I had dismissed his feelings. That was why he saw his own worth as nothing. It was my fault his value had been so utterly diminished.
“You’re wrong, Sir.”
“…Pardon?”
“…What I cherish got hurt.”
Gabriel stared at me as if I were speaking a foreign language before stammering a question.
“By what you cherish… do you mean me, My Lady?”
His gaze, which had always been so steady, wavered frantically. I gave a small nod. At my answer, the corners of his eyes crinkled. His damp eyelids trembled. He smiled, incredibly shy, like someone who had just received a love confession.
“That… makes me truly happy.”
Gabriel stared at me, as if trying to engrave my face into his memory. The intense emotion in his gaze stole my breath, making my heart skip a beat.
There was something strangely captivating about his smile that I couldn't look away from.
* * *
Now that I knew holy water was useless, getting Gabriel out of here was even more urgent. Tearing my eyes away from him, I met Pudding’s gaze. He was staring at me with a sullen expression.
Perhaps feeling left out, Pudding puffed out his cheeks like a cat whose owner had been caught petting another, then snapped his head away. A moment later, though, he peeked back at me.
His behavior was so cute that a soft chuckle escaped me. He really was a comfort. Seeing that Pudding’s mood had lifted, I turned to Rico.
“Rico, mimic Sir Gabriel’s appearance.”
“Yes, My Lady.”
Rico set the candlestick on the floor and began to shift her appearance. Before long, she had transformed into a perfect copy of Gabriel.
“This is…”
Gabriel’s eyes widened, a rare sight. Realizing I’d never properly introduced them, I explained.
“This is the one who was truly responsible for the fire at the Rohanson Mansion, acting as Evangeline Rohanson.”