TRHK Chapter 7

The Red-Haired Knight of the original novel suffered from a madness that had run in his family for generations.

The main symptoms: headaches, a violent temper, the urge to destroy.

Every physician worth the name had been called in, every medicine tried, and, as with every forebear before him, none of it had done much good.

To hold the madness at bay, the Red-Haired Knight had trained with the sword until he became a Sword Master, and he hunted monsters, seeking them out and killing them. Seeing blood let him keep the madness down.

But as time went on, the pain and the impulses came faster, and even killing monsters, even seeing their blood, gave less and less relief.

Just when his eyes were about to be swallowed by the madness completely—

The protagonist, once soundly beaten by the Red-Haired Knight, returned as a Sword Master himself to challenge him again. And it was then that the protagonist's companion, the Wandering Healer, recognized the knight's madness and told him how to cure it.

Having finally found a way to cure his madness, the Red-Haired Knight was overcome with gratitude and made the healer his benefactor for life.

The "Red-Haired Knight" here was, of course, Kahron.

Just as the book described him: overwhelming skill with a sword, chronic headaches from his madness, a man who would be swallowed further and further by that madness as time went on.

Left alone, someday the protagonist's party would come and help him.

I intend to steal their credit.

I wasn't as knowledgeable about herbs as the original healer, but I knew them well enough—and, more importantly, I remembered exactly which herbs the healer had mixed to give to Kahron.

Minor…… problems. Two of them.

The first: getting those herbs meant traveling through the forest and other places, and this world's forest had monsters in it. The second: how the resulting medicine actually got administered.

The original novel had a specific detail about the cure for the Red-Haired Knight's madness. It required another person's bodily fluid to take effect.

The novel never went into how that had been managed. All I knew was that the original Kahron had taken the medicine properly and, in the end, his madness had been cured completely.

Mixed with blood, maybe……?

Ah, but fluids means spit counts too, so—don't tell me, like that time——?

Remembering what had happened in the forest not long ago, my face went hot at once.

"……Think about that later."

I hadn't even gathered the ingredients yet. No need to give myself a headache over the method of use before that.

More important right now was what I needed to do first.

"What are you doing here? Waiting for someone?"

I'd deliberately waited far from the training yard so I wouldn't get scolded by the Knight Commander again, but somehow, the knights who'd just finished training always ended up walking my way and talking to me on the way past. Some rudely. Some very courteously.

The man swaggering in front of me now belonged to the rude category. He'd pinned me against the storeroom wall without so much as a warning before he spoke.

Kahron, Landale, Seylon, Hwirozen—every knight I'd met so far had been tall and well-built, but this one was relatively small by comparison. He brought his nose close to my hair, which I still hadn't gotten used to being blond, and sniffed insistently.

"Hah, you smell good."

I, on the other hand, caught a whiff of something foul every time he spoke.

He seemed to have taken a romantic interest in me, and that particular kind of attention was strange to me, and I didn't know what to do with it. If someone ignored me, I could ignore them back. But but sniffing someone's hair back wasn't something I wanted to do. I had zero curiosity about what this man's hair smelled like.

"That face, and that body, too——"

He breathed hot air across my face, his eyes fixed downward, like he was trying to see straight through my maid's uniform to the bare skin underneath.

By this point, I'd begun genuinely weighing whether to kick him in the shin or drive a knee into his balls. Then, past his shoulder, off in the distance, I spotted Kahron just stepping out of the training yard.

"Huh? Hey!"

I shoved the man blocking my path aside and ran toward Kahron. He walked fast, so I'd need to move quickly to catch him. The lecherous knight called after me from behind, and I ignored him without a second thought.

"Kah——!"

I started to call his name and then remembered how he'd snapped at me once before for using it without permission, so I shut my mouth again.

Fortunately, he must have heard me coming—Kahron turned and looked at me with indifferent eyes. It was the kind of look that made me wonder all over again whether there was any way at all to become friends with this man.

But I knew how to cure his madness, and I'd also learned a thing or two from Eifel about how to get closer to people. I intended to make full use of both.

"What now?"

Kahron said, dragging a hand through his red hair. He'd taken herbs from me and everything, and his opening line still wasn't kind. Was that not going to be enough on its own?

Then again, the herbs I'd given him before only helped a little with the headaches and weren't the ones that actually treated the madness, and even that relief hadn't lasted long. Fine in an emergency, maybe.

"Is your head doing any better now?"

I used the gentlest tone of voice I could manage, the way Eifel had advised. And then, of course, my eyes kept drifting to his lips. To what had happened a few days ago, when I'd fed him medicine and he'd tormented me for it. That sensation, for whatever reason, had refused to leave my head since.

"And if it's not?"

Why did every single thing this man said come out sounding like a challenge? A little cowed, I held out the water bottle I'd brought along. He'd just finished training, so he had to be thirsty.

He didn't take the bottle right away, just looked down at it, unhurried.

"I thought you might be thirsty. I mixed in a little herb powder—for your mood. There's no bitterness at all."

It was the same kind of water I used to bring my mother, back when she was in a temper. Give her a cup, then read to her quietly, and even a brow that had stayed knotted for hours would slowly ease.

I'd brought some to the Dowager Countess this morning, too. And for the first time, I'd seen her smile. Thinking about the morning, a smile crept onto my own face without my meaning it to.

"……"

Kahron stared at my face with an unreadable look. I kept my eyes on his, waiting for an answer, until my gaze drifted to his lips again and I finally had to look down.

A good while passed before Kahron spoke again. You——

"Are you in heat?"

For a moment I thought I'd misheard him. I'd expected something like thanks or don't need it, but what actually came out belonged to an entirely different category of thing.

"What did you say?"

"That much into it? All these bastards crawling around?"

He still hadn't taken the water bottle, just kept saying things that had nothing to do with it. And the reason I was here, loitering around this place crawling with men, was exactly because of him.

The kind tone Eifel had drilled into me cracked, and a sulky retort escaped before I could stop it.

"I came here because of you, Kahron."

I'd been holding the water bottle out for so long that my arm just dropped, useless.

Kahron's brow drew tight. Belatedly, I realized I'd used his name freely again.

"Ah, I didn't mean to just say your name like that——"

"……"

"……Can't I just call you that?"

Since I'd already said it, I figured I might as well try to get permission out of it.

"Kahron, you can call me Maylin too. Okay?"

How was I supposed to get close to him if I couldn't even use his name? Eifel and Hwirozen weren't even satisfied with pet names between each other—they called each other babe. We weren't lovers. His name should be more than enough.

Kahron let out a short, disbelieving huff of a laugh and walked straight past me.

"Where are you going?"

I hadn't expected an answer, and I didn't get one.

"Aren't you thirsty?"

I scrambled after him, asking. A few knights nearby watched the two of us go by with blank expressions. Thankfully, Knight Commander Landale was nowhere in sight.

"Head Housekeeper, I'll be heading out now."

I said carefully as I put away the cleaning supplies and water pail, and the housekeeper checked me over with sharp eyes.

"You cleaned the Dowager Countess's room properly?"

"Yes."

"And she's sleeping?"

"Yes. She just fell asleep."

The Dowager Countess wasn't a difficult woman. Bring her meals, help her walk a little, bathe her, let her look out the window, and by the time I read to her after tucking her in, she'd drift off soundly.

Her room was also where I could relatively shed my nerves and worries and just be still. Ever since waking up in a different world, I'd been thrown together with people and muddling through, but part of me still felt like a stranger to all of it.

"Good. Off you go."

The moment the housekeeper gave permission, I bolted, and behind me the maids' jabs followed.

"Off to seduce more innocent knights, I bet."

"Who's she rushing off to see today, in such a hurry?"

Eifel, standing among them, looked deeply uncomfortable. I stopped mid-step and turned sharply back around. The maids—who'd been talking behind my back so loudly it was practically to my face—flinched.

"I'm going to see the Red-Haired Knight."

"……What?"

They'd clearly been curious who I was off to see, so I answered.

I didn't bother exchanging more words and headed toward Kahron. According to what Eifel had heard from her boyfriend, at this hour he'd be up on the hill again, slacking off. The same hill where I'd met him for the first time.

Sure enough, when I reached the oak tree on the hill, Kahron was lying beneath its shade.

He was the kind of handsome that never stopped catching you off guard, no matter how many times you saw it. Was it because he was a character out of a novel that he could look this beautiful? I sighed and said his name.

"Kahron."

I didn't want to hear that "rat" thing again, so I made sure to announce that I'd arrived, but his closed eyelids didn't so much as twitch.

I hesitated a moment, then stepped a little closer. I didn't want to disturb him while he was resting, but if he wasn't actually asleep, I had something to discuss. And if he was, I had no particular urge to wake him.

"……"

Creeping toward him like this, I realized, made me no different from an actual rat sneaking around. By the time the embarrassment hit me, I was already right beside him.

Was it because he was always napping in the shade like this? Kahron's skin was fairer than the other knights'. Or maybe it was just how he was made.

Without quite meaning to, I forgot the whole reason I'd come and slowly bent my knees, crouching down beside him.

Watching him sleep peacefully up close turned out to be a far more heart-pounding activity than I'd expected. My heart hammered harder than it had even when I'd found a rare herb in the forest, hard enough that I started to wonder if I was the one who needed medicine.

"Kahron."

Even called in a whisper, there was no response. He really was asleep. Only then could I relax and take my fill of watching him.

Just then, a single green leaf broke loose from a branch and settled onto Kahron's chest. I reached out to brush it away—and my eyes met his.

I startled.

My hand, halfway to the leaf, jerked in surprise, and my upper body tipped forward off-balance. I fell against him. By the time I came back to my senses, I was already sprawled across Kahron's chest, his firm torso pinned beneath me.

"……It's hot out today."

I quickly turned the hand still hanging in the air into a makeshift fan and started fanning him with it. He said, sounding utterly at a loss.

"Have you lost your mind?"