Red Riding Hood - Chapter 17
When he first met her, he was far from himself. It was inevitable.
The forest he stumbled into while on the brink of death was vast, like an ocean. He clung to his horse’s back in a half-unconscious state for two full days.
When he finally came to, he found himself collapsed near a rural house.
His horse was nowhere to be seen. It seemed his clever steed, sometimes wiser than he, had found the house and left him there.
He knocked on the door and called for help. The one who opened it was an old woman with a face like a wicked hag.
The old woman looked him over from head to toe and permitted him to use the well.
Ylfus drained two buckets of water from the well. After quenching his thirst, the old woman brought him inside and served him a cup of tea.
The old woman spoke casually,
“Sir Knight, the child who went on an errand will return soon to prepare food, but for now, please drink this.”
The old woman had no way of knowing.
The man before her was a famed knight who had endured countless assassination attempts and was acutely sensitive to malice and murderous intent.
Ylfus immediately seized the old woman by the nape and poured the tea down her wide-open mouth. The old woman screeched like a goose as her face turned purple in an instant.
After tossing the choking old woman to the floor, he collapsed onto the bed.
What woke him was a voice as soft as a gentle breeze and as beautiful as a dream.
“…I’m back.”
The wounded beast rose feverishly, staggering like a ghost searching for a new victim to drag into its grave. Quietly, he stumbled toward the source of the voice.
There she was.
In front of the faintly glowing fireplace, a beautiful young girl knelt, prodding the ashes with a poker. She shone brighter than the pale crimson glow of the firelight.
Her golden hair gleamed like the morning light spilling over soft clouds, and her delicate profile looked as fresh as summer fruit.
Her plump cheeks still held a youthful glow, making her appear barely twenty. Yet beneath them, her body, draped in a simple linen dress, was so mature it felt suffocating.
With casual grace, she extended her slender arm, fanning the dying embers from the ash, and with a fragrant, full chest, she exhaled a sweet breath that breathed life into the flames… and into him.
But soon, the girl placed the poker down and stood up.
Her clear blue eyes were like a transparent mirror, reflecting only the image of a fugitive barely alive from a battlefield where death was a daily companion—a beast, wounded and made even more savage.
“I’m sorry.”
The beast extended his bloodstained hand and wrapped it around her slender neck.
Yet.
A searing warmth spread through his hand, like holding a fledgling bird that had lost its mother.
Soft, fragile skin. A startled, fluttering heartbeat.
The sensation of life.
She awakened within him the last vestige of his humanity.
He sighed deeply.
Even if she hadn’t spoken with her gentle, birdlike voice to explain her plight, he wouldn’t have harmed her.
Truly, he was at his limit.
This was the end of the savage beast.
***
What followed was a peaceful repentance.
The girl gently embraced him with her slender arms, laid him down on the bed, and tended to him with utmost care.
The shameless beast reveled in being an unworthy recipient of such devoted care.
He greedily observed the jewel-like sweat beading on her round forehead as if licking it clean, and he felt a wretched joy at her touch soothing his wounds.
And when she collapsed in exhaustion beside him…
Honestly, by then, Ylfus had regained some of his strength.
He could have easily lifted a girl as light as a bouquet of wildflowers and moved her to a safe spot.
That’s what a former paladin should have done.
But he didn’t.
Ylfus cradled her, laying her comfortably, then curled up beside her like a beast lurking in the shadows.
He gazed for a long time at her serene, pearl-like eyelids and slightly parted lips, softly breathing sweet breaths.
In that moment, an incredible sense of peace washed over him.
It felt like the relief that spreads deep into your soul after a long journey, lying in a warm haven and reflecting on the arduous path.
Tomorrow would bring a new beginning, but at that moment, he felt utterly complete in the fullness of today.
As a former paladin, he hesitated briefly, but he thought to himself,
‘I took off the paladin armor long ago, didn’t I?’
The man who had shamelessly drifted between being a paladin and a beast now whispered while gazing at her sleeping face,
“Yes, little one. The paladin who ventured into a godless battlefield and the girl trapped by a crone-like brothel keeper have both returned to where they truly belong. We’re not yet complete, but we’ve found the most important piece. This coincidence cannot be explained as anything but divine providence.”
As he spoke those words, a gentle, unfamiliar shiver washed over him like a warm wave.
The feelings he had secretly etched deep in his heart, long buried under layers of blood, suddenly surfaced.
Love.
Love.
And in the next moment, as he wrapped his arms around her slender waist and rested his head on her fragrant, soft chest, it wasn’t out of ungrateful audacity.
It was simply because he had found the missing piece he had been searching for all along.
And as a wounded, fragile man, how else could he fit into that piece? Though it sounded like an excuse.
