🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter : 72
When It Turns Red
“You’re hurt.”
Charlov covered Benjamin’s mouth with his hand.
“Me?”
“Don’t use your injured arm.”
His upper arm was wrapped in a compression bandage, and he was supporting his body with only the uninjured arm.
“Didn’t they put anesthetic herbs into the bandage?”
“It’s a bit stiff, but…”
Benjamin brushed his hand over his arm as if the bandage bothered him.
“The healer overtreated me.”
If the healer heard that, they would be devastated.
“They exaggerate too much.”
Benjamin buried his face in Charle’s shoulder.
“I won’t let you get hurt.”
“You’re the one who’s hurt.”
“You were hurt too. You tore your palms to shreds.”
The healer had already treated Charle’s hands as well.
“Am I the only one who worries?”
He examined Charle’s body.
“Clinging to you, who says it’s fine to be broken.”
He hated the thought that being broken together might be acceptable. He hated the idea of you being hurt.
“I’m going to check if you’re injured anywhere.”
“…Again?”
Benjamin pressed his lips to Charle’s forehead.
“Someone who fearlessly walks the suppression front always comes back hurt somewhere.”
“What if the stitches in your arm open up?”
“If I move any more, they will.”
So you stay still too.
“How insidious.”
“Your pulse is too slow.”
Benjamin leaned down.
Thump, thump.
He traced that slow pulse.
It was slow because it resembled you—slow, yet faintly asserting its existence. A pulse that was just like you.
“…Ah.”
The hand moving across the lower abdomen reached the navel.
Warm body heat gathered at his fingertips.
“I won’t do anything.”
Benjamin explored his lower abdomen. It wasn’t to harm you.
Meeting your eyes meant not to be afraid, and that he was engraving you into his memory.
Like soft dough.
When he tightened his grip, Charle’s skin reddened.
His mark seeped in.
“You’ll bruise easily too.”
A hand closed around his side.
Deficiency, affection, longing—
He desired.
Deficiency was the will to fill what was lacking.
Soft skin was different from a man’s—tender, pliant, weak like white dough.
He kissed the navel.
“Haa…”
Charlov let out a small sigh.
The breath he released like an ache was hot.
“Do not demean yourself, you who are an empress.”
No one has the right to do that to you.
“Don’t use the word ‘break’ so lightly.”
When he kissed the lower abdomen, the body trembled. He traced the arched waist, brushed the spine, and a shuddering ache transmitted to his fingertips.
Benjamin lifted his upper body and peppered small kisses along Charle’s chin.
Their breaths intertwined.
His traces piled up across the body.
When Charle swallowed, Benjamin’s scent scratched down his throat, burning as if lubricant were sliding down.
Gulp.
The Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Mmm…”
The body twisted on its own.
As Charle lifted his waist, pressure came down from above.
“Your Majesty. This is Roskella.”
The strategist cleared his throat.
“You ordered that no one be allowed near, but I apologize for making my presence known.”
Movement could be heard outside. He clearly hadn’t come of his own accord. Roskella knocked on the door and pleaded.
“The healer says Your Majesty’s treatment wasn’t finished…”
“Excessive worry.”
“They said the suturing was stopped halfway because of an urgent meeting, didn’t they?”
A faint smell of blood spread at that moment.
“Were the stitches incomplete?”
The sutured wound on his arm burst open.
The long gash soaked the bandage, blood seeping through.
“Didn’t the healer say it was done—!”
“I told you not to move. The sutures open when you do.”
Charlov stared blankly.
“If they come in, won’t they just make a racket anyway?”
The healer’s hands trembled. The temporary stitches had burst.
Did he think joints were doll seams? That you could just sew them back together with a machine?
That was what the healer had been thinking in horror just moments ago.
“Even so, the temporary suturing has healed quite a bit.”
It really had rejoined.
The stitches burst because the muscle expanded, but it was almost healed.
“Is it finished?”
“Yes—yes, for now.”
The healer took out fresh bandages.
“Please don’t worry. Thanks to your recovery, it will heal without leaving a major scar.”
The healer lowered their eyes. They didn’t know who the woman beside him was. The woman in the shawl radiated quiet authority. It was obvious she was someone of high rank not to be addressed lightly.
“I’ll rewrap the bandage.”
After that, the healer fled as if escaping.
“If you need anything, please call.”
Charlov whispered as if in pain.
“…I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“It was stitched, so I didn’t think it would burst so suddenly.”
A gentle gaze fell on the bandaged arm.
“Clear the room, Roskella.”
Roskella led the staff out. As shocked as the healer had been, the command staff was as well. That recovery rate was astonishing. Remaining on the suppression front had only accelerated it, and the intensity of battles against monsters kept increasing.
“Please be careful when moving.”
“You worry too much.”
The door closed.
“I’m the one who’s hurt, but somehow you look like the one wounded.”
Benjamin extended the bandaged arm.
“What if you become depressed?”
Charlov stepped back, avoiding his arm.
“You’re not a monster.”
“If it’s me, then I am.”
She slowly shook her head.
“Come here, Charle.”
Charlov felt his breath tighten uncomfortably, nausea rising with the unease.
“You’re already exhausted, so don’t think unnecessarily.”
“Why didn’t you finish your treatment…”
“Stopped halfway?”
Benjamin answered while gripping Charle’s wrist.
“You weren’t fully recovered.”
He had finished with temporary sutures just to stay by your side.
“I was the one who put you on the suppression front.”
If you had awakened late from unconsciousness, that responsibility would have been his as well.
Benjamin spoke sharply.
“I didn’t realize how badly you were hurt because you seemed so calm.”
“My recovery is fast. Most wounds were fine.”
Charlov stroked his shoulder.
“How does the bandage feel?”
“Honestly, it’s suffocating. I heal quickly, so I don’t know why I have to wear this.”
Even the staff called his recovery absurd.
“Don’t take it off.”
“Don’t look at me with guilt.”
“It was a deep stab, wasn’t it?”
“Probably.”
“Why…”
“Are you asking if I’m indifferent?”
Benjamin asked and answered himself.
“If I went to the suppression front without being prepared for wounds like that, I’d be the one who died.”
Lonely, and sad.
“I don’t know anymore.”
Many people had died. They left his side, and the dead were forgotten that way.
“Loneliness is a terribly wearisome sadness.”
The emperor was different from ordinary mercenaries.
Even when he fought on the suppression front, his movements and medical records were treated as classified.
“Everyone says your recovery is fast, but…”
Charlov lightly clenched the hand resting on the bandage. His nails scraped the inside of his palm with a harsh sound.
“Then why do I feel sad?”
“Did I hurt your feelings?”
Being injured on the suppression front gradually became routine. Trusting his recovery, he charged into even harsher battlefields. Those traces remained etched on his body. Even if scars faded, every battlefield he endured was recorded across him.
“Because of that recovery, you become indifferent to being hurt.”
Benjamin wrapped an arm around Charle’s waist.
“Your hand is hurt.”
Charlov loosened his grip.
“Don’t scratch with your nails.”
His nails had gouged into the flesh as if digging it out.
Those who never cherished their own bodies tended to watch over others’.
“The healer told you to be careful.”
The healer’s horrified expression was still vivid.
“How badly were you hurt?”
Judging by that reaction, the wound must have been deeper at first.
“Don’t die somewhere I’m not. Don’t make me hear that you died alone.”
Charlov bit his lip tightly.
“Don’t leave a will by yourself and never pass it on to me.”
Then, silently, she fastened his cufflinks.
“And if I still hear news that you died lonely and alone, I’ll let myself go too.”
Not letting go of you—but of myself.
“The empress of the empire lets herself go so easily.”
“I won’t let myself go, so you don’t let yourself go either.”
She knew from seeing the unwrapped wound.
A scar running from his upper arm to his collarbone.
He threw himself into the suppression front, and in doing so became numb to himself as well.
“So this is what it means to grow numb.”
When the suppression front turned horrific, the emperor would surge ahead of the troops.
Because he wished no one would die, he stood at the fiercest battlefield.
“I think I taught you something terrible.”
Charlov swallowed.
I know where you stand.
And yet—
I wish you would not be in pain.
The Brontë Count’s estate.
A grand mansion in the imperial capital.
The closed doors felt stiflingly oppressive. The servants moved in silence.
The lady of the house, who had suffered from a chronic illness, had ended her thirty-year life. Her frail body had endured the illness for years, and she died without ever bearing a child.
“Is the funeral ending today?”
“One more day remains, but they say the body is to be buried today.”
The servants held their breath.
“By the master’s order?”
“Yes. He gave the order quietly.”
The head of the house was taciturn as well. The Brontë family had been a martial house roaming the suppression fronts, not one known for cherishing family.
“She suffered a long illness. She died without bearing a child after marriage, and the dowager was furious. Only the deceased lady is to be pitied.”
If only death brought peace.
“There’s no one to cry for her.”
If she died like this, wasn’t she the only one wronged? To whom could she complain? She endured illness in silence even after marriage, and so she passed away.
A white cloth was laid over the paulownia coffin.
The dead departed that way.
The gentle, kind lady had looked after each servant. They said she endured her illness for a long time… yet she left so vainly.
‘When I die, cremate my body and bury the ashes.’
Even at death, that was her request.
It was time to let go. Time to end it.
Thump.
The coffin shook.
Thump, thump, thump—
The frantic pounding was urgent.
“Is the coffin shaking?”
“S-someone open it.”
“N-no, isn’t that the deceased lady’s coffin?”
A servant dropped the tray holding nails and a hammer. The lid opened, and the lady awakened inside the coffin.
“T-the corpse has awakened!”
“How can a corpse with no pulse awaken? L-lady—are you truly the lady?”
The servants fell backward, retreating in terror.
Wasn’t she the lady meant to be buried? With a detached expression, she gripped the coffin’s support. Long white hair spilled down—she had suffered much in her youth, her hair turning white early. Her pale skin was so white veins showed through.
“Haa…”
The Countess of Brontë exhaled and pressed her forehead.
“…I’m so dizzy.”
An uproar spread through the estate.
“My goodness—s-send word to the master!”
“Lady, Lady—are you conscious?”
The Countess groaned softly.
“I—I’ll summon the physician.”
The servants rushed about in panic.
