Don’t Be Holy! - Chapter 52

Moreover, when one of them slightly turned toward the window, she was so startled. Already crouching, she lowered herself further and gripped the windowsill with both hands.

‘Me? The object of his love?’

Of course, she didn’t delude herself into thinking it was true. But she felt like she could die of happiness.

Because this meant he hadn’t publicly declared her a witch, and that she had more ways to escape from here.

Eir’s mind began racing quickly. If there was one thing she had learned in her three years of living in the mountains, it was that to escape, you needed to move inward rather than outward.

She looked around while maintaining a low posture, half-kneeling. Her heart was racing so much and her mind was spinning so wildly that she even considered pretending to be pregnant by stuffing a pillow under her clothes, but soon she discovered something even better.

Eir’s eyes sparkled when she saw the sword and armor Rubel had left behind.

After all, there was no one more difficult to deal with than someone blinded by love.

***

Meanwhile, Rubel, who was descending the mountain after wrapping up matters at Hecate’s grave, heard an utterly absurd story.

Two knights he had never seen before fidgeted nervously before suddenly asking him.

“Why are you alone?”

“What do you mean, why am I alone? Should I not be?”

“Ah…….”

Their faces turned half pale and half puzzled, clearly at a loss for what to do next. Rubel looked down at them and commanded.

“Speak.”

Though they had never directly dealt with Rubel before, they instinctively knew that beating around the bush at his command would spell trouble.

They immediately dropped to one knee, bowed their heads, and answered.

“Your benefactor said she was going to meet the Commander, so we escorted her up the mountain.”

Rubel pressed his temples again and reprimanded them in a low mutter.

“I told you to watch her. Was the task so simple that you didn’t even take it as an order?”

“That’s not it…… she was crying and said she had to meet you…….”

“Meet me?”

Rather than begging for her life with tears, she was looking for Rubel?

He frowned, unable to understand. The knights, taking his brief question as permission to explain, hastily described what had happened.

So, according to them, it was really an unavoidable situation.

“Suddenly we heard loud crying from inside. We had to check if something was wrong.”

To be precise, it was heartbreaking sobbing. The kind of crying that, like people who have suffered greatly, was sorrowful and unconsciously made others’ hearts sink.

They quickly knocked and entered.

There, in the afternoon sunlight, was a woman with disheveled golden hair, sitting on the floor hugging an old sword. The blanket draped over her shoulders had slipped to one side, creating an even more pitiful scene.

‘W-why, what’s the matter, benefactor?’

They found themselves bowing deeply as they asked. The woman who had been crying with her face in her hands raised her head at their voice, and tears sparkled as they wet her eyelashes and rolled down her cheeks.

She looked around the empty room, then looked at the sword she was holding and spoke as if confirming something.

‘He abandoned me, didn’t he?’

“What did she say?”

Rubel couldn’t help but interject at this point. They continued speaking, assuming the Commander was concerned because his lover had said such heartbreaking things.

“She seemed very distressed. She said that the sword and armor were gifts you bought for her personally. That even while struggling with debt, you saved up bit by bit, and that you treasured them……. So when she saw them left behind, she thought you had abandoned her.”

This woman, really.

Rubel lowered his head with an irritated sigh. Thinking of how she must have gleefully plotted to take advantage of him leaving his sword behind, he couldn’t help but feel angry.

And at the same time, he wondered how grown men with heads on their shoulders could fall for such foolish acting. Unless they had ulterior motives.

Come to think of it, wasn’t that woman quite pretty? Just the kind of face that would attract empty-headed perverts.