MHHC Chapter 96

Paradise Corrupted

Valentin silently observed her, his back to the moonlight.

While his shoulders held considerable tension, his gaze was somewhat vacant. He seemed unable to believe what he had just heard.

Or perhaps, he dared not believe it.

The silence did not last long. His eyes, which had been examining Adelheid as though probing her true intentions, soon curved smoothly.

[You look exhausted. Let's have you eat first...]

"I want to be held by you."

[Adelheid.]

"Right now."

Valentin regarded his one and only companion with a somewhat absurd feeling.

A faint smile hung at the corners of Adelheid's lips, but her complexion had grown so pale it was nearly blue.

Her empty gaze was vacant enough that she could be mistaken for a doll.

"Should I undress?"

When he remained silent, at a loss for words, Adelheid proceeded to unfasten her shoulder straps.

As the loosened front opened, pale skin was revealed. As though entranced, he leaned forward and grasped both her arms, pressing her down onto the bed.

Adelheid continued gazing up at him with that same indifferent expression.

"..."

Absurdly, heat rose within him at that very emotionless face. Because he knew the moments when those verdant eyes had brimmed with vitality.

How her lovely lips parted when she cried, what expression she wore in the most difficult moments, how she pleaded with transparent tears pooling in her eyes...

He knew every moment of Adelheid.

If he could not recognize how far she had been driven, even while looking at that miserably frozen face, he would be a fool.

As though a single step backward would send her over a cliff, helpless, cornered, not knowing what she had grasped...

At the sight of a woman simply begging to be saved, his blood rushed hotly through him.

This made him no different from a beast. Of course, that was not disagreeable.

[You'll regret this.]

He gave her a savage smile as she lay trapped beneath him.

"I want it this way."

Her pale, slender jaw and delicate neck, the gracefully flowing body beneath—all seized his attention.

Faintly, the scent of Morig clung to her skin. The fragrance of deception, falsehood, and betrayal.

Yet she was Adelheid. How could he dare refuse?

He slowly lowered his head, his lips tracing her soft skin.

Moisture began to seep into Adelheid's voice at last. The woman blooming rosily beneath his lips and hands was beautiful.

"Valentin..."

Her coaxing voice was sweet.

"You don't need... to restrain yourself."

His eyes burned crimson with boiling desire.

Apparently Adelheid had not taken his warning seriously. Even the nape of his neck felt stiff.

Then she would have to feel it directly with her body. Even that encouragement not to restrain himself—she would come to regret it all.

He was confident he could make her do so. When the force pressing down on her wrists grew somewhat excessive, Adelheid's eyes contorted slightly.

Before her lips could part to beg him to ease his grip just a little, he swallowed them whole.

A dizzying paradise lay there.

The hour was closer to dawn. Adelheid opened her eyes in the pale twilight.

Just before the sun rose, the air touching her skin was impossibly cold. Before she could even think of being cold, warm blankets covered her shoulders.

[You're awake?]

The moment his will reached her, Adelheid was seized by excessive relief.

Time had been granted to them a little longer still.

As she tried to turn to see his face, Valentin exhaled a sigh and tightened his arm around her waist.

[Let's stay like this a little longer. I've been waiting for you to wake up.]

The heat from the previous night that had not yet faded clung to his will.

That language made her recall the memories of last night as well. It had been a night when the heat seemed capable of melting her mind away.

A night when all the world disappeared and only the two of them remained.

It felt as though the burning sensations of clinging to him with all her strength still filled her body completely.

"...Don't go."

Adelheid barely parted her chapped lips. Her hoarse, cracked voice did not sound like her own at all.

"Today, don't go anywhere. Please stay by my side."

This would not serve as any kind of solution. She had already finished calculating that problem last night.

Yet if Valentin would truly say he would not go, if he would flee the sanctuary with her right now to somewhere no one could find—it felt as though everything would become all right.

"..."

He grasped Adelheid's desperately clinging hand and kissed each finger individually.

That action made the memories of last night surface even more vividly. Along with his language.

From now on, I will live worshipping you with my divinity.

Even if I lose my reason and fall into corruption, I will not let you go. I will cherish you with overwhelming devotion for the rest of my life. Even if it becomes a world where everyone has vanished, as long as you are not taken from me, I can endure anything.

Even if I am consumed by guilt and repeat endless descents...

Her paradise had been devastatingly beautiful even in wretched moments. Adelheid quietly lowered her trembling eyelids. Her breath came shallow.

[Rest a little more. I'll return shortly.]

He finally released her waist gently. At the sound of him rising, Adelheid also sat up.

"Are you happy right now, Valentin?"

Adelheid asked toward Valentin's back as he slowly dressed.

"I am profoundly unhappy right now."

Profoundly unhappy. At those words, Valentin's movements stopped completely. The large hand that had been fastening his shirt dropped limply downward.

"If such things happen in the future, I will have to live always waiting only for you, knowing nothing. I mustn't even ask for reasons. After all, you don't answer anyway."

The more Adelheid's face reddened with fury and sorrow, the more the blood drained from his face.

"I don't understand what kind of existence I am to you. I have nothing I can do for you, and even when you're injured and suffering like this, you hide it from me... Do you truly even care for me...?"

The voice that had begun calmly crumbled into chaos. Her entire body trembled with emotions she could not identify as rage or fear. Transparent tears pooling in her grass-green eyes fell onto the sheets.

[Adelheid, slowly. Please, just breathe first.]

"Don't go."

At the words repeating like a broken clockwork mechanism, expression slowly drained from Valentin's face.

Sensing the changed atmosphere, Adelheid stepped down from the bed onto the floor. She barely approached him and grasped the hem of his clothes.

"Must you go today? If we just run away like this..."

As she rambled incoherently, he suddenly laughed.

[The day is cold, Adelheid.]

"Even if I don't want you to?"

[It would be better for you to dress more warmly.]

The conversation had become completely misaligned. Each was merely saying what they wished to say.

Realizing this and falling into helpless silence, Valentin bent at the waist and picked up the garments she had removed last night.

Adelheid entrusted herself to him with a sense of unreality even while he slowly helped her dress.

[When we run away, even when we run away.]

Ah. She barely swallowed her lament. He undoubtedly knew everything already.

Adelheid roughly pushed away Valentin's hands as they meticulously fastened her dress.

He glanced once at the rejected hand, then regarded the trembling Adelheid with an expressionless face.

"How much do you know?"

[I've known since the beginning that you met with humans yesterday.]

"...I thought from the start that I couldn't hide it. Did you read my thoughts?"

[I felt the barrier break. I promised not to read your thoughts.]

"Yet you speak as though you know everything."

He observed Adelheid silently with eyes whose intentions she could not even dare to guess. Adelheid met his gaze without yielding.

"Do you love me?"

[More than anyone.]

"Then what about our child in my womb?"

'Our child.'

At those words, Valentin's neat lips twisted for an instant. Adelheid did not miss that fleeting revulsion.

[Divinity is not something humans can conceive. I warned you that your body would be torn apart.]

"I want it to remain this way. No matter what happens to me, I wish for our child to be protected. Will you respect my will?"

[Adelheid.]

"Can our child even be born?"

[I don't understand why you're being stubborn about something impossible.]

There was a vast difference between having suspected something and hearing the confirmation from his own lips. The world grew distant for a moment.

As she failed to steady her swaying body and grasped the desk, she felt a pain as though her belly would tear apart. Truly as though it would be 'ripped out.'

She embraced her belly with both hands.

She could not see what he was saying, what he was doing. She could not maintain the composure to judge calmly. The child was being hurt.

"Ahhh!"

Even in her fading consciousness, she saw clearly that Valentin was reaching his hand toward her.

Surely Valentin intended to tear her child away.

Don't, don't do that. Please, don't do this to me...

She trembled violently while pleading toward some target she could not identify. Something warm trickled down below her calves. Was it blood?

She moaned like a wounded beast. Please. She could not let it go like this.

In her vision pitifully distorted by tears, she saw a black blade. The object she had left carelessly lying about last night, almost defiantly.

"...Ah."

Absurdly, it felt exactly like divine revelation. The solution was clear. Adelheid wept and laughed.

She shook off Valentin's arm holding her and grasped the sword with composure that surprised even herself. What came next was easy enough to make her sigh.

Every moment appeared in slow motion. Valentin's face contorting with alarm, his hand reaching to grasp her again, and his defenseless, open embrace.

As she leapt into it, she was utterly lucid.