For Sale: Male Lead, Obsession Included - Chapter 87
Just as the man speaking with Ariel disappeared from sight, Feyden decided it was crucial to ambush the scene before Ariel could deny anything. He pulled the dagger hidden at his waist and hurled it toward Ariel.
The dagger cut sharply through the air, aiming straight for Ariel’s neck.
And just as it was about to pierce Ariel’s skin—
Thunk!
The dagger merely sliced through Ariel’s silver hair and embedded itself into a tree trunk.
Ariel had sensed the danger at the last moment and jerked his body back just in time. His hair, severed from his neck and shoulders, fell limply to the ground.
“……”
Ariel stared silently at the dagger, which vibrated slightly as it stuck firmly in the tree. Then, he slowly turned his head.
“…Ugh.”
A long blade was now pressed coldly against Ariel’s pale neck. As sharp and gleaming as his silver hair, the blade began to bite into his skin, drawing a thin line of blood.
“Nice to see you, rat.”
Feyden’s lips curled into a smile, but his eyes were frigid, almost icy as they met Ariel’s.
Ariel didn’t respond. At this point, caught red-handed, there was no excuse he could give that wouldn’t sound like a weak justification.
He had known Feyden would eventually discover his actions. After all, no secret in this world was eternal or absolute, especially not with the angel Natasia watching.
Still, Ariel hadn’t expected to be caught at such an unfavorable moment. His thoughts raced in his mind, and Feyden sneered at the sight of his troubled expression.
“I can practically hear your brain rattling, you bastard. Don’t even think about trying to weasel your way out of this. Just confess.”
“……”
“Where have you been leaking information? To the temple?”
But even if Feyden had uncovered something unfavorable, Ariel saw no reason to divulge everything honestly.
He simply lifted his chin defiantly and met Feyden’s gaze with a cold, unyielding stare.
“Not talking, huh?”
“…I have no obligation to answer you.”
“You’ve been an arrogant bastard from the start.”
Feyden growled low and adjusted his grip on the sword, pressing it harder against Ariel’s neck. Ariel winced at the sharp pain but refused to look away from Feyden’s piercing eyes.
The tension between them was palpable.
“Guess I’ll just kill you. Then I’ll tell Estira that I personally took care of the traitorous priest who was leaking our information.”
At the mention of Estira’s name, Ariel’s eyelids twitched involuntarily. The composed priest who had stoically accepted Feyden’s hostility suddenly spoke without thinking.
“Estira would hate you for it.”
Feyden, who seemed ready to drive the blade deep into Ariel’s neck, hesitated slightly at those words.
The childish remark about Estira hating him caused his hand to falter.
“So this is how you beg for your life?”
Feyden scoffed, as if he’d heard the most absurd thing. It was the kind of thing a little sibling might say.
‘As if I’d be scared of her hating me.’
That’s what Feyden thought. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, he found himself unable to follow through with the strike.
Ridiculous.
“Estira would surely despise you.”
“Hey, priest. Are you threatening me?”
“…It’s not a threat.”
“Who do you think you are to try to threaten me with something like that?”
“……”
“And you—if I tell Estira you’ve been secretly leaking information about us, you think she won’t hate you too?”
Ariel’s lips, previously tightly sealed, now drooped into a melancholic curve. He hadn’t expected Feyden to twist his words back at him.
Between the one who punished a traitor and the one who was exposed as a traitor, who would earn more of Estira’s disdain?
Ariel, caught in a moment of life-or-death peril, didn’t realize the absurdity of his own thoughts: that Estira’s hatred frightened him more than death itself.
Like a gentle rain that seeps into your clothes without you noticing, Estira had deeply embedded herself in Ariel’s heart.
“To avoid making Estira feel betrayed, why don’t you just die cleanly here, you traitorous bastard?”
Hurting Estira’s feelings… Perhaps it really would be better to die now, as Feyden suggested.
‘Oh.’
Ariel snapped back to reality, realizing he had nearly abandoned his life as if it were an object to be bartered.
No matter how much he valued Estira, he couldn’t place her above the life bestowed upon him by the angel Natasia.
“You’re right. I don’t need Estira to hate me.”
“…What?”
“So go ahead and leave. I’ll spare your life. But if I so much as see a strand of your fish-like hair in front of Estira or me again, I won’t be so kind.”
“…Ha.”
Ariel ran a hand through his right side, where his hair had been sliced short by Feyden’s dagger. He chuckled as his hand brushed over the unfamiliar emptiness.
“If you could… pretend you didn’t see—”
“Don’t bother with that nonsense.”
Feyden twisted his wrist, pressing the blade deeper against Ariel’s neck.
Ariel’s gray priestly robes slowly turned a dark crimson as blood seeped through.
And at that moment.
“……!”
Both Feyden and Ariel simultaneously turned their gaze to a single spot. There, panting heavily with her cheeks flushed red, stood Estira.
