Chapter 26: A Monster’s Embrace

The girl had barely shown her embarrassed side when Landon unexpectedly felt tired.

He wasn’t tired of the conversation. He had suddenly relaxed a lot, the weight in his heart gradually lifting, replaced by drowsiness.

‘Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to slack off a little by Liana’s side?’

The thought had just occurred to him.

“Not going to sleep?”

So he immediately sought agreement from the girl beside him.

“Hmm… I haven’t gone to bed this early in a long time.”

‘Early?’

Landon didn’t think it was early. He guessed it was already past three in the morning; dawn would break soon.

“Then I’ll put out the light. Let’s sleep together?”

Landon had no ulterior motives. The bed was too small for two, so he planned to sleep on the floor, leaning against the wall or the bed.

But when he raised his hand to reach the oil lamp on the table beside them, Liana pulled him back hard.

She pressed his arm down, then looked aside timidly.

“I’m afraid of the dark.”

“Hmm?”

“So I usually sleep with the light on, or I stay up until morning and then sleep for a little while.”

“That’s bad for your health.”

“You’re one to talk.”

She muttered and sat back on the bed, hugging the straw-stuffed pillow and kicking the blanket to one side.

If she could sleep during the day, it wouldn’t be so bad. The problem was she couldn’t fall asleep when the night was cool, and during the hot day she would sweat all over.

She didn’t dare mention that the monastic robe hanging behind the door had been soaked with sweat yesterday morning. It stank.

“Fine, fine. We’ll sleep with the light on.”

Landon still reached out and pinched the oil lamp out, then immediately summoned a flame from his fingertip to replace it.

The flame created by rune magic took the place of the lamp. It cast their outlines on the wall with a brighter glow.

At the same time, the flame brought an unprecedented warmth. Liana’s mouth fell open.

“So amazing!”

She threw herself forward without thinking, trying to see if the fire was real, if she could touch it.

Before the earthquake, she had often gone to the Western Ring City. Not for fun, but to deliver letters to Landon. The town postman came only once a month, and she couldn’t wait that long.

So every week she went herself, walking three hours to the nearest coach stop, then taking a carriage between the Western Ring City and the town.

When she was little, her parents took her. When she grew up, she went alone.

Most of the time she rode. The old horse at home walked slowly.

Sometimes as she rode, Liana would think of something new she wanted to write, so the letter would gain a few crooked lines.

What did she do after delivering the letters?

She would visit the young ladies of the Western Ring City, say a few nice things, and let them take her to the theater to watch magicians perform.

It might sound arrogant coming from Liana herself, but she was a girl who got along well with everyone. Many people pursued her, yet she never seemed fake, and few people envied her.

She had been interested in magic back then, but she had no mana and didn’t know how to learn.

In many people’s eyes, magic was an untouchable, higher existence.

But now things were a little different.

Liana felt an instinctive urge to get close to these runes.

It was like an inexplicable, magnet-like pull inside her body.

“Hey, don’t get too close. You’ll get burned!”

Landon reached out and grabbed her slender waist. He tried to pull Liana back from the table.

The table was right beside the bed, so Liana had been bracing her hands on it. The moment her waist was grabbed, she shuddered hard and let out a sharp, playful yelp.

“Ah!”

Landon was startled too, and then the accident happened.

The girl’s arm slipped off the table, and her forehead struck the tabletop with a dull thud.

Landon immediately stepped forward, lifted the girl into his arms, raised her up, and turned her around.

“Are you okay? Does it hurt? It’s all my fault…”

Landon didn’t know what expression he was making, but the stunned girl blinked. From the outside, she seemed fine.

She stared at the fussing Landon, watched him cup her cheeks and bring her close, watched him carefully examine her forehead.

She couldn’t help but smile.

She pressed her lips together, the corners of her mouth curving up, but Landon didn’t notice.

His broad palms held her small, soft face. His worried gaze was intense, his anxious words as dense as raindrops.

Liana looked at Landon with affection. Happiness filled her heart.

Something warmer than the flame behind her occupied her chest. A warm current spread from top to bottom through her whole body. She briefly thought her lower body had recovered.

“I’m fine.”

She answered softly, then closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against Landon’s palm.

Rough, broad. The calluses must have come from gripping a sword. It tickled a little, but they were marks of Landon’s hard work.

She didn’t dislike it.

“Phew… thank goodness…”

Landon let go of Liana’s cheeks, and his hands moved on their own to pull her into an embrace.

Her thin, delicate body was very soft, but when they pressed close, it inevitably stiffened. Landon didn’t let go.

“I…”

Liana was overjoyed. A hormone of happiness was taking over her body. It invaded her once-rational brain.

She wanted to say “like,” to say “love,” to respond to Landon’s feelings for her, to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh with him. But she suddenly thought of her broken body.

She felt nauseated by the ugly sight of this body writhing on the bedding.

‘That’s right. How could I forget?’

Her mind first conjured Helentine, then Landon, and finally herself.

The self in her mind was as ugly as a monster.

The ugly monster burrowed deeper into her childhood friend’s broad chest. It tried to use his body heat to forget the fact that she was a monster. But his Adam’s apple moved, and a careless sentence slipped out.

“If something happened to you, how would I explain it to your parents…? Phew, it’s fine… it’s fine…”

The girl’s body went still. The sweetness in her brain was immediately replaced by the parents she had failed to see one last time, and finally by the miserable image of herself alone in the sealed underground cavity.

On the surface, it was an utterly normal sentence. To the current Liana, it acted like a coolant. It rapidly cooled her brain, which had been occupied by love and desire, and made her a little more rational.

‘So he’s only being this good to me so he can answer to my parents…’

She couldn’t help thinking pessimistically.

‘If I weren’t Landon’s childhood friend, if my limbs were whole, if I hadn’t suffered such a tragedy, would Landon still hold me like this?’

‘If there had been no disaster, would Landon have come back?’

‘So many letters had sunk without a trace. Had Landon never thought of me?’

At the same time, she felt grateful for her broken, ugly self.

‘Even if my limbs were whole, I could never compare to Helentine and the beauties of the imperial capital. Landon might not even glance at me. So the suffering I’ve endured can become a reason for Landon to get close to me. That’s enough.’

‘Even if that reason is despicable, Landon is holding me right now, isn’t he?’

Complex, tangled, contradictory, repetitive. This was Liana now, an extremely unstable existence.

So this time, she couldn’t answer Landon. She kept the embrace, greedily slipping her arms around his broad shoulders, her hands clasped tight.

‘Let it be an ugly monster seeking comfort. Even so, it’s fine.’

The firelight flickered behind her. It etched the image of their tight embrace onto the wooden wall. The monster shrank into the arms of the one she loved, yet in the flickering light, it began to twist without anyone noticing.

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