MHHC Chapter 87

Just Once More

[I need the certainty that you'll return to me, Adelheid.]

He cut through her words with a whisper. The loneliness threaded through his voice possessed such vivid clarity that it felt almost tangible—as if she could reach out and grasp it in her palm.

"……."

At her silence, something like premonition darkened Valentin's eyes, sinking them into shadow.

Only now did Adelheid feel she truly witnessed his unmasked face. Eyes gone mad with devotion. The despair and sorrow pooled there trembled precariously at the brim, threatening to spill over at any moment.

Even amid this, as if still determined to honor her choice, the strength drained from the hand cradling her chin.

[If you truly must leave, then rather…….]

"I will without question return to this place again."

Adelheid caught Valentin's hand as it fell away. Doubt flickered in the eyes that looked down at her.

He seemed unable to believe her words—or perhaps thought he'd misheard them.

Adelheid tightened her grip on his hand.

"I am content here. The peaceful days satisfy me, and I treasure the flowers and fruit you bring me each morning, Valentin. The happiness I couldn't find outside—I've felt it when I'm with you."

Adelheid felt an irrepressible compassion for him.

He had claimed not to be lonely, but if anyone endured thousands of years in solitude and emerged intact, they would have to be a creature without a soul.

If Valentin were not a dragon, if he were not a being like unto a god wielding divine power, he would have shattered into madness long ago.

The moment she glimpsed even a fraction of his desolation, Adelheid declared—half on impulse:

"And I… perhaps…… I think I love you."

When she looked at him, her heart raced. Her chest swelled with fullness. This emotion she'd never felt for anyone else—if not love, what else could she dare call it?

Valentin stared at her, his eyes widening with shock.

His transparent golden gaze—clear enough to reflect her own image—trembled finely with something that might have been shock, or something else entirely.

[Love.]

He stood frozen like a man being strangled, then finally managed to transmit his intention as if forcing it through sheer will.

Simultaneously, Adelheid felt the emotion within her rise to fullness. Some feelings become more vivid the moment they're spoken aloud.

Hearts that were undefined gain strength once ordered into language.

[……You love me?]

By contrast, Valentin's face looked stricken with confusion.

Like someone discovering fire's warmth for the first time and mistrusting it.

His gaze swept once over Adelheid's lovingly flushed cheeks, her lips reddened from biting, the place where her heart beat fit to burst.

With senses more acute than any human's, he must have felt her excitement as if it were his own.

Yet still he asked with guarded eyes:

[How can I believe your words?]

"Do you not love me, Valentin?"

[I wish you would remain at my side for the rest of my life.]

An immediate answer. Despite the sweetness of his words, his eyes narrowed with wariness.

[Are you saying your feelings match this sentiment of mine?]

"……."

[I've heard enough to know that when humans become consumed by that emotion, they'll do anything. Perhaps, yes. Perhaps you're speaking of spending a lifetime at my side with a heart light enough to vanish in an instant. Without understanding its weight.]

"I……."

He cut her off again as if fearing what she might say next. He couldn't even meet her gaze.

His words condemned her feelings as changeable, yet he seemed desperate to delay the moment she might confirm it was all a misunderstanding.

[Your words might be true. But humans are foolish—they mistake their emotions. Like confusing worship offered to gods for love.]

"It's not a mistake."

[So if you wish to convince me…]

When Adelheid stepped boldly toward him, Valentin—despite his massive frame—flinched back with surprising agility.

Adelheid closed the distance he'd created. With small hands, she grabbed the front edge of his himation and pulled him down.

Her strength was so meager that he could easily have resisted, yet Valentin obediently lowered his transcendent form.

He aligned his gaze with hers—a mere insignificant creature.

"……."

The moment she realized this, Adelheid felt abundant affection surge within her for the first time in her life. And so she found courage.

"If I do this, will you believe me?"

[What—]

Adelheid cupped his face with both hands. And then she consumed his lips.

Valentin seemed to freeze in shock. His rounded eyes remained fixed, trembling finely.

Adelheid savored his shock, then closed her eyes.

With vision blocked, all sensation concentrated at the ends of her lips. She pushed past the hard, rough parts to seek out the softness that remained in him.

"……!"

Only now did the reality of the situation seem to strike him.

His powerful grip seized her clothing taut enough to tear it apart. Then Valentin lifted Adelheid bodily into the air.

Valentin pinned her with his massive frame and tilted his head deeper.

What had been careful, almost lapping movements transformed into rough plunder. He was relentless, as if determined not to lose a single moment of her breath.

He pressed the thoroughly disheveled Adelheid down onto the bed.

"Ah."

Finally their lips parted with a sigh. A transparent, slender thread connected between their lips, then broke with a soft snap.

Simultaneously, her reason clearly snapped as well. She wanted to touch him more.

Just a little more—desperately, intimately closer.

[You.]

His eyes burned as if ready to devour her. The gaze fixed on the disheveled Adelheid blazed fierce. A labored impulse rose and fell along the column of his throat.

[I don't know what to do.]

He pleaded. Without even understanding what desire he possessed.

His beautiful face twisted with suffering. Adelheid couldn't tear her gaze away from that innocent temptation.

She gripped Valentin's solid shoulder with delicate hands.

"I'll… teach you."

[Everything?]

"Yes…… everything."

"Now…… please let me… go…"

[What should I do? I don't want to let you go anymore.]

"You can't… do this…"

[Just once more. Just one more day—can't we turn it back?]

Please. Adelheid lifted her thoroughly dampened eyes toward the god who pleaded so innocently above her.

Meeting his earnest gaze, she wavered helplessly.

Even knowing from these past days that he was neither innocent nor naive—and that he was in fact quite overwhelming and hazardous to her.

[Hm?]

Heated breath escaped between Adelheid's swollen red lips.

She pretended to yield and wrapped both arms around Valentin's thick nape.

"……This time… truly…… is the last."

"Please board."

Adelheid climbed onto the carriage while enduring Joachim's cool scrutiny.

She looked mildly surprised when Joachim, after issuing several instructions to the driver, returned and sat across from her.

His attitude had changed considerably from the journey to the sanctuary, when he hadn't so much as glanced toward the carriage.

"Are you unwell somewhere?"

Her discomfort must have shown on her face. Adelheid shook her head.

"I'm fine."

Joachim's gaze touched on Adelheid's anxious fingertips clutching at the priest's robe collar, then fell away as if too troublesome to bother with.

Adelheid exhaled a small breath of relief and obediently lowered her hands to her lap.

She felt somehow anxious, as if committing a great sin. Though he had no way of knowing that beneath the white priest's robes—on flesh that should remain chaste—lay a multitude of marks from teeth.

"I trust there's been no change in your sentiments over these past ten days."

Adelheid's eyes rounded at Joachim's abrupt words. When no immediate answer came, his brow furrowed sharply.

"Why do you look at me that way? Surely you're not considering withdrawing your perpetual vows?"

"Of course not."

Had she seemed awkward? But she couldn't help her reaction.

It felt strange that no one had noticed more than a year's worth of identical days repeating.

To 'them,' only ten days had truly passed since she entered the sanctuary. Adelheid newly appreciated the scope of Valentin's power.

"Will you go directly to see the High Priest?"

"I intend to. But…"

Something caught Adelheid's gaze as she looked out the window. A dim alley mouth, slightly off the main thoroughfare.

At first she thought it a cat or dog. The figure was that small. Then as they drew closer—

"Wait."

Adelheid spoke urgently.

"What is it?"

"There's a small child there. Very small in stature. Perhaps five years old…… She looks dehydrated. Left like that, she'll die."

Joachim looked where Adelheid pointed with annoyed eyes.

A girl who seemed cast out even by her fellow beggars—profoundly sickly in appearance. Pallid complexion and chapped lips, hollow cheeks and bony arms.

The moment Adelheid met the child's black eyes brimming with loneliness, she cried out without thinking:

"Stop the carriage."

"Now you intend to collect every insignificant life that dies by the dozens daily?"

"But I've already seen her."

"Unless you plan to take in all who are as pitiable as that child, please stop with the cheap compassion."

Adelheid glared at him with forthright eyes.

Even if it was cheap compassion, she couldn't look away from a child dying before her eyes.

If it were beyond her power to help, perhaps—but she could become an immediate miracle for this child.

Perhaps all this courage came from Valentin. Just as she who'd thought herself unlovable had learned the joy of being loved…

She now understood the fullness of giving when one has something to give. Only now did she feel she stood as a proper human being, not livestock.

Adelheid quickly opened the carriage door. The entire procession stopped in unison.

"What are you doing?"

Joachim growled, grabbing Adelheid's wrist as she tried to descend.