MHHC Chapter 42

The First Malice

"Adelheid."

She barely opened her eyes at the sound of someone calling her name.

She'd thought she'd only sat in the chair and closed her eyes for a moment, but somehow she was now on the bed.

Waking in a different place from where she'd fallen asleep was nothing remarkable anymore, but today was different from usual.

Adelheid slowly registered that someone was looking down at her.

A dream? But it felt far too real for that...

"Wh-who..."

The darkness pooling in the room obscured the intruder's features.

When she grasped the hand resting gently against her throat, his body trembled faintly.

The man seemed to be crying and laughing at the same time. He slowly tilted his head and pressed his lips to Adelheid's ear.

"My wife."

In that instant, his languid breath spread across her tender skin. Adelheid knew the owner of this voice.

In truth, she'd vaguely suspected even before he opened his mouth.

Everything was him. His scent, his build, him...

Valentin.

He opened his eyes in the darkness. Strangely, it felt as though he was opening them for the first time in ages.

Darkness was light to him. There was no discomfort whatsoever in surveying his surroundings.

But before seeing with his eyes, he first recognized his surroundings by scent.

It was a dizzying fragrance, like flowers blooming extravagantly in their season. A scent he'd smelled somewhere before.

Ah. He knew that taste.

He moved quietly, like a beast that had discovered prey. The woman lay sleeping, defenseless.

Pitiably, she didn't even notice him casting his shadow over her. He reached out and grasped the slender woman's throat.

He knew the woman's name.

"Adelheid."

Let's just kill her. And end all this suffering.

The impulse was strange.

The thought he couldn't bring himself to think even when the woman had been closest to the form of a sinner—the original evil that had peered into his abyss now urged it.

Hadn't all that pretending at a harmless face, slowly tearing through the woman's defenses, been for this very moment?

To get closest when the woman let down her guard...

Kill her. That b*tch stabbed you first. Remember the blade lodged in your tattered heart.

Yet even facing this hateful face, somehow he couldn't move a single fingertip.

Perhaps it was because the woman's sleeping face looked far too peaceful. He slowly examined her.

Round forehead, dainty lips and cheeks, the fragile tranquility clinging to thin eyelids that might extinguish at any moment.

He stared at her, forgetting even to breathe.

"......"

In that moment, the woman's eyes flashed open.

Her slowly blinking eyes, as if unable to recognize reality, suddenly widened.

He could see fear she hadn't yet registered slowly rising on the woman's pale face.

As if she couldn't understand this situation at all, tears soon welled in her round, light-green eyes. Ah. He clicked his tongue.

Adelheid's tears, helplessly, sometimes excessively, seized his mind and held it fast.

"Valen... tin?"

Once. The memory of how she had bent to his grip, taken whatever he offered, remained vivid even now.

That ancient night. It seemed not even a single day had passed since then.

Especially when he looked down at the woman nestled in his arms like this...

Suddenly, his hunger intensified. He licked up the woman's cheek with his tongue as tears fell drip, drip.

The woman's tears left a taste on his tongue like something crumbling. Exquisite, but insufficient. He'd held back far too long.

"Adele."

Someday.

He would crush this frail breath trapped in his arms, chew every bit of soft flesh without remainder, fill his belly fully with tears flowing like a river.

Shackles on both legs, a curtain overhead that wouldn't let even light through.

So she could never again speak detestable lies, never again think of abandoning him.

So those lovely lips would curse only his name, forever and always.

"My wife."

So, Adele. You should rather pity me.

"Valen... tin?"

She gasped and grabbed Valentin's strong hand.

A seizure? Or was he lost in a terrible nightmare?

Valentin's golden eyes, fully exposed beneath the bright moonlight, were hazily unfocused and simultaneously looked agonizingly pained.

He seemed not to recognize even who was before him.

"Adelheid."

Even with her throat grasped, her effort to try understanding him was instantly plunged into the mire.

"Adele."

The voice repeatedly chanting her name was chilling.

Not like whispering a lover's name, but like addressing an enemy, or someone hateful.

The moment she realized that, vivid terror flooded in instantaneously. The hand clumsily gripping his lapel trembled violently.

"Ah, ugh..."

When she thought he'd done this because he didn't recognize her, it had been somewhat bearable.

That he couldn't help it, tormented by a terrible nightmare. That he'd done it because he wasn't in his right mind.

Thinking that way, she could overlook it even if he inflicted worse harm.

After all, he hadn't actually strangled her.

"......"

Even as they looked into each other's eyes, Valentin's large hand carefully held her throat.

Valentin's fingers merely rested there light as feathers, but Adelheid knew what he wanted.

What he intended to do.

The pulse throbbing in her throat struck his palm, felt like vibration.

In that moment, Adelheid pleaded without meaning to.

"I want to live..."

"......"

"Please let me live."

Even at her tearful plea, Valentin still gazed at her with quietly sunken eyes.

The target of his malice was this clear. The moment she realized that, tears welled up helplessly.

Why.

Why her? Why now, of all times?

If the monster had hoped for her to let down her guard, it had succeeded.

If it had hoped her heart would be torn to shreds, it was a thoroughly perfect victory.

Even with him gripping her throat, she was horrified at herself for preparing excuses for him—could there have been some mistake, had she imagined it wrong?

Something rising from within—betrayal or whatever it was—surged up. Her eyes burned as if they'd be crushed.

"Wh-why... Why..."

Adelheid stared into Valentin's vacant pupils.

Only then did she realize she knew nothing about Valentin.

Not the monster's true nature or abilities he might be hiding, not even a name other than "Dragon of Bitzleben" or "Shadow."

Had all her judgments about Valentin been wrong from the start?

That he couldn't possibly commit such cruelty, that perhaps there'd been a misunderstanding.

That though he was a monster, his heart wasn't monstrous. That he might even be pure, above all else...

This is punishment for my mistake.

The price for seeing with her own eyes what happened to Greta and still turning away had finally returned.

He who had been silently watching Adelheid suddenly lowered his head.

His dry lips traced Adelheid's soft cheek, soaked with tears.

At the touch of lips gently making contact, Adelheid felt both flutter and terror simultaneously. Her head felt like it would split.

"......"

It looked satisfied and simultaneously parched.

Cruel eyes that seemed to gauge whether more tears would spill if he twisted her neck.

She whispered with trembling lips.

"Do... as you wish..."

"......"

"If you're going to kill me anyway, at least... without pain..."

If he'd decided to kill someone, pleading wouldn't change anything.

"......"

Adelheid gave up all resistance, completely relaxing her hands and letting them hang limp.

She'd tried to handle it with composure, but tears kept spilling.

He was looking at her with utterly strange eyes. As if her reaction was extremely oversensitive considering he'd merely placed his fingers on her throat.

"Aha..."

He even let out an exclamation and tilted his head.

From such a lofty height looking down, her plea to live seemed so insignificant it was curious.

Suddenly the shadow's movement ceased.

"Ugh, ngh."

Soon he clutched his own head and swayed.

As if sudden pain had surged. With his brow deeply furrowed, his entire body went rigid.

He blinked very slowly.

Adelheid watched light gradually seep into his pupils.

The moment their eyes met—hers a mess of tears—Valentin seemed to realize immediately what he was doing.

"Ah..."

In an instant, his face turned deathly pale as he removed his hand from Adelheid's throat.

As if just from placing his hand on her throat, he'd grasped what situation had transpired.

"......"

And his reaction pierced Adelheid even deeper.

How shallow her firm belief that he wouldn't harm her had been, how little she'd known about his true nature...

Valentin drew his dry hand down his face. Beneath that hand, an extremely weary countenance was revealed.

"Adele."

When Adelheid flinched back from the hand reaching out anxiously, all expression vanished from Valentin's face.

It was eerie, as if he'd become an inanimate object incapable of feeling anything.

"I'm... sor... ry..."

"......"

"I... wasn't in my right mind. A very old... dream, no, because of the 'original evil'..."

"Was the woman's name in that dream also Adelheid?"

The voice that escaped her lips sounded far too cold even to her own ears.

He who'd been avoiding eye contact with lowered eyes now slowly lifted his gaze.

The rare confusion pooling in his golden eyes no longer pleased her.

"How did you..."

"What kind of dream, and why exactly you grabbed my throat."

"......"

"If I ask, will you answer honestly?"