MHHC Chapter 79

Gaze

Adelheid clenched her fists until her nails carved crescents into her palms—anchoring herself to consciousness through pain alone. The words came quietly, carrying the weight of something long submerged finally breaking the surface.

"You knew, didn't you?"

How wretched she felt in this moment. That even now, amid everything, she could not bring herself to hate him completely. That somewhere in the deepest chambers of her heart, affection for him still burned like a flame in a sealed room, consuming what little air remained.

That her feelings for him might not be entirely her own choice at all.

'Don't cry.'

Adelheid swallowed the emotions surging up her throat, forcing them back down into the dark.

"You... you must have known."

Her voice trembled, but mercifully, no tears spilled over. Tears had no place in a conversation like this—they would only muddy waters that needed to run clear.

What she wanted from Valentin was an explanation, not his sympathy. Not his comfort.

"You knew what would happen to my feelings when you awakened my magic. You knew, and yet you... Why? Why did you do it?"

"..."

"Was it really just because I was avoiding you? Because things weren't going your way for a moment? I don't understand. You should have given me more time..."

"I don't see what difference it would have made."

Valentin's voice cut through Adelheid's scattered thoughts with an edge of impatience, sharp as winter air against exposed skin.

He raised one dry hand and dragged it slowly down his face—a gesture that seemed to wipe away the anxiety flickering in his eyes, leaving behind something smooth and unreadable as polished stone.

"To me, it looked like a matter of time anyway. You were going to love me eventually—so why shouldn't I make you love me now?"

"..."

"Why should I have to keep watching you turn away from me when there was a way to avoid it? When I knew exactly how to make it stop?"

"..."

"Humans are drawn to so many things. Beauty, power, wealth... For me, it just happened to be magic. Is using what I have really so shocking to you?"

She stared at him through eyes bright with unshed tears, her mouth working soundlessly around words that wouldn't come.

Never had she felt so acutely that he was not human—that the architecture of his thoughts was built on foundations utterly foreign to her own.

To him, all of this was simply a matter of efficiency. The gradual accumulation of feeling, the time he would have had to endure waiting—these were unnecessary steps in a process that could be streamlined. Obstacles to be eliminated.

And that strange certainty in his tone when he spoke of her inevitable love, as though the future were a book he'd already read... Did he somehow know what was to come? Did that future truly hold a version of her who loved him of her own free will?

'Even if it's true, it doesn't justify what he did.'

Adelheid bit down on her trembling lip hard enough to taste copper.

"Because those feelings weren't born from my will. From the very beginning, they weren't something I chose..."

"It makes me sad that you'd dismiss them as unnatural."

"..."

"You wanted power, and I gave it to you. I gave you every choice a human life could offer. Just one thing—one single thing—I kept for myself. The choice of who would stand beside you."

"..."

"In exchange for awakening your magic, I asked only that you keep me at your side. Is that really such an unreasonable demand?"

...The problem was that it didn't feel unreasonable.

The problem was that her willingness to accept it—her desire to give him what he asked—felt corrupted at its source. Tainted by his interference, twisted into a shape that might not be her own.

He had planted doubt at the very beginning of something that should have been pure. And the one who'd done that planting was Valentin himself—no one else.

He should suffer as much as she was suffering now. The thought rose in her like dark water, irrational and overwhelming. Adelheid forgot her usual caution, forgot to weigh her words. Her voice rose, sharp and desperate.

"Then is the magic you gave me my... my payment?"

The color drained from his face like water from cracked porcelain. For a long moment, Valentin stood frozen—and then a hollow laugh escaped him, bitter as ash.

"If you meant to hurt me, that was perfectly executed. As always."

"..."

"Payment. As though I'd ever done anything to you that would merit such a transaction."

His eyes went cold and distant as winter stars. Adelheid felt her anger cooling in her veins, replaced by something closer to dread.

The veneer of respect he'd always maintained—even when it was only surface-deep—had been stripped away entirely, revealing something beneath that felt less like indifference and more like aristocratic disdain.

"..."

Was this what it felt like to be a believer denied by their god? Adelheid was shocked by her own instinct to immediately take it back, to apologize and pretend none of this had happened.

She bit her tongue until it hurt, but the longer she held out, the more desperately she wanted to simply apologize and make everything go back to the way it was before.

Yes. She'd forgotten her place. She'd been presumptuous enough to demand answers from him.

What if he grew tired of her? What if he never looked at her again? The thought of him leaving forever—the horrible contradiction of loving him while resenting him, resenting him while loving him—flooded her mind like rising water, drowning everything else.

And in the end, that was what truly frightened her. Not his anger, but the possibility that he might leave.

"Adele."

"Ngh..."

"Breathe. Focus. Please."

I was wrong, I spoke wrongly—the words were forming on her tongue when Valentin pressed his thumb against her lips, silencing them before they could escape.

Adelheid raised her tear-bright eyes to his. Whatever he saw in her expression made his own face go pale as bone.

"Please. You don't need to apologize for anything."

"But..."

"Adelheid, I don't care about you because you're obedient and well-behaved. I treasure you with the understanding that you'll act selfishly, that you'll hurt me—and my feelings won't change."

Confusion flickered through the pale green of her eyes as she looked up at him. His words felt... wrong somehow. Backward.

That she didn't have to be good? That she could be selfish and it would be acceptable? No one had ever said such things to her before.

She'd gone without dinner for not being good enough. She'd been struck for not using gentle enough language.

Obedience and submission had been the only currencies accepted in her childhood home. At Reichenau, her position had been lower than even the meanest servant's.

'Sometimes it felt like they were trying to train an animal. Something that would obey commands and nothing more.'

Perhaps that was why his affection always felt so strange—like clothes cut for someone else's body, hanging awkwardly on her frame.

She held it carefully, as one might hold something precious but unfamiliar, never quite knowing what to do with it except set it down gently and pretend not to notice it there.

She was too small, too shabby, to accept such a thing naturally.

There was nothing about her worth loving, and yet—she was such a mess, and yet—

"Are you... disappointed in me?"

"I'm not disappointed."

His voice was firm, allowing no room for doubt.

"If this kind of argument could kill what I feel for you, I never would have made it this far in the first place. And separately from that, the fact that you're angry with me is almost... welcome. You're too rigid sometimes."

"..."

"Humans are always full of contradictions I can't understand."

Adelheid stared up at him, still dazed, and felt a strange sense of wrongness settle over her like a cloak that didn't quite fit.

'His tone...'

It had changed. Did that mean he wouldn't show her respect anymore?

"I think respect is better shown through actions anyway. If you tell me to kneel at your feet, I'll kneel. If you tell me to crawl, I'll crawl. The distance created by formal language just gives you room to keep running away."

"I... I..."

"So don't use formal speech with me anymore. Speak to me casually."

Adelheid's face went white as fresh snow.

Speak casually. It was an impossible demand. She had never in her entire life spoken informally to anyone.

Not even to the servants who attended her. Not even to the errand boys who were barely more than messengers.

"..."

When she couldn't bring herself to respond, he gently caught her chin and tilted her face up toward his.

His gaze was relentless, refusing to let her escape—demanding an answer with the patience of someone who had infinite time to wait.

Even in this dim half-light, his golden eyes blazed with their own illumination, filled with an affection so tender it was almost unbearable to witness.

"Adele, I..."

The god who had wrapped himself in human skin because he wanted to see the world through her eyes—through human eyes—whispered:

"I don't want to be the one who bends anymore. I want you to rise up to where my eyes can reach you."

"Your Gra—I, I..."

"Valentin. Say: Valentin, I."

Even with his gentle correction, Adelheid's expression remained twisted with discomfort. After several attempts, she finally managed to force out a single sentence.

"I... I am... a little tired right now. I want to... rest first and... think about it later..."

Adelheid sighed and buried her face in both hands.

"I... I can't do it..."

"Take your time getting used to it. I have more than enough time to spare."

"..."

"But it seems the situation 'outside' is different. Time there will start flowing again soon."

Valentin's gaze drifted to some distant point beyond the boundaries of this pocket reality, his eyes narrowing as though measuring something only he could see. As if he could perceive what was happening in the world they'd left behind, watch events unfolding in places far from here.

"I explained before that the 'holy power' used by priests and the 'magic' used by monsters come from the same fundamental source, didn't I? They're just called different things depending on whether they draw from Morig's power or mine. But there's one characteristic that distinguishes them clearly. Holy power cannot be used to cast healing magic."

When she hadn't known about healing magic, Adelheid had simply accepted that healers and priests were separate things. Holy power was specialized for driving away monsters, after all.

But why could magic accomplish what holy power could not?

'I always thought Morig was supposed to be the most sacred existence of all...'

Valentin continued in that same detached tone, as though he had no intention of truly answering her unspoken question.

"What passes for healing arts now is just Morig's imperfect imitation of true healing magic—something he cobbled together after much trial and error. Since it was flawed from the beginning, truly powerful healers appear only rarely."

Adelheid's hands trembled as the implications of his words settled over her like frost. Which meant...

"So the fact that you—who aren't even a healer—brought someone back from the brink of death, right in front of the Holy Knights, is essentially the same as confessing that you're a mage."