TRHK Chapter 8

Insane. As if. Did I really look that strange right now. I lowered the hand I'd been fanning him with, a little sheepish.

"A leaf actually fell on you, and I was trying to brush it off——"

It was meant as an explanation, but somehow it came out sounding like an excuse. Kahron seemed to feel the same way—his sour expression didn't change. I glanced at him and carefully pushed myself up. My chest, which had been pressing down against him, lifted away with a small shift.

"I brought some bread—want some?"

The bread quietly sold to servants out of the kitchen was, since it was originally meant for the nobility, very soft and delicious. Seylon hadn't managed a single bite of it before he'd had to be handed a paper bag for his hyperventilating, but Kahron wouldn't be needing a paper bag.

"This is the water from before. Try it."

Kahron kept his brow furrowed and just watched what I offered without taking any of it. Was he worried something bad had been mixed in?

"If you're worried, I'll drink first."

I lifted the bottle and drank in front of him to show him. This herb water was supposed to lift your mood. I wanted to take some of the edge off Kahron's temper.

I swallowed, and since my throat had been dry, I ended up drinking a few more mouthfuls than I meant to. A drop of water ran down my chin, and I wiped it away carelessly with the back of my hand.

"See? No poison."

He wasn't going to ask me to taste the bread too, was he? Eating wasn't hard, but offering him bread I'd already bitten into felt too embarrassing to bear.

"Hah."

Kahron laughed. I laughed back on reflex, but this was a man who could deliver a bright smile and hostile words in the same breath.

"If you're actually a rat, you don't really deserve payment……"

He raised a hand to my face. I flinched. His callused palm stroked my cheek with surprising gentleness.

"So what exactly are you?"

His dark red eyes, gone quieter now, seemed to be weighing something. I didn't understand what he meant. I just knew I didn't like all this rat, rat business.

"I told you, it's Maylin."

Wouldn't it be so much better if we just used each other's names. And.

"Your condition……. I know how to cure it."

I'd meant to give him the herb water first to calm him down before saying it, but he showed no sign of drinking it, so I'd ended up leading with the real subject instead.

Kahron's eyes went cold in an instant.

His hand shot out.

"Ah!"

The hand that had been stroking my cheek turned into a claw, seizing my throat and slamming me down to the ground.

"Hhk, ah!"

Pinning me down with his grip on my throat, he asked.

"Madness? What madness."

The calm in his voice, so at odds with what his hand was doing, was even more chilling. I wanted to answer, but with my throat closed off, I couldn't. He wasn't visibly straining, and yet the pressure was more than enough.

Kahron bent his head down. Shadow fell across the face I'd always thought looked like an angel's. Angel my ass. If anything, a devil.

"Who are you?"

"Hhk, let—let me——"

"You were sent by the family, weren't you."

His dark red eyes looked almost the color of blood. He really did seem to be the "Red-Haired Knight being swallowed by madness."

My thrashing gradually went still. Some instinct told me I wasn't getting free of his grip no matter what I did. My body gave up first, and my mind followed after. My hands, which had been clawing and pulling at his, dropped to the ground.

"Ahhk!"

Kahron let go. Air tore back into my lungs at the same moment, like a cough. I doubled over, tears and spit running freely down my face.

"I—hh, I, recognized, your condition—because——"

"……"

"I saw, hh, the madness, in your eyes."

It was what the Wandering Healer, the protagonist's companion in The Sword God's Adventure, had said to the Red-Haired Knight.

"My grandfather, once treated, someone else's madness, before…… so I'd heard about it."

If I told him it was because I'd been reincarnated into a novel, that I'd already read this part in the book and knew how to cure his illness—that seemed like a fast way back to being choked. And this time, maybe without being let go.

"You expect me to believe——"

"Help me instead."

I let a little more sincerity into my voice. Kahron seemed to sense something different this time too; he stopped his sneering and studied me instead.

However hard I tried, I couldn't think of another way. A righteous novel protagonist would have offered help without conditions, no questions asked, but by the time he became a Sword Master and came back with his companions to find the Red-Haired Knight, that was a story that lay quite far in the future.

I wanted to break the servitude contract and get away before Joel Coutner came back from the academy.

Breaking a magical servitude contract required advanced magic or aura, and Kahron, being a Sword Master, seemed like the one who could solve that problem for me.

Of course, I couldn't let on that I knew he was a Sword Master, so I left that part out. I was already under enough suspicion for having recognized the madness.

"A magical servitude contract?"

"Yes. Can you break it?"

I lit up and pushed myself upright. Considering he'd just choked me a moment ago, I clearly had no shame. That thought crossed my mind, but sadly, he was still my only solution.

"……"

Kahron went quiet for a while, as if he were thinking it over. I bit back the urge to ask what was on his mind. Eventually, he spoke.

"A bargain."

"……"

"Fine."

Fine? I perked up my ears and waited for what came next.

"You cure my condition, and I'll break the contract."

……So he really could do it. That was the moment hope became certainty. Even without a mirror, I could tell my face had lit up.

"Then——!"

"But if you can't cure it, you die."

Kahron said the vicious thing with that bright smile of his again. My face, still lit up with hope, froze on the spot.

"You're not lacking confidence, are you?"

I'd seen hope in Kahron, but he still hadn't seen any hope in me. This felt less like trusting me and striking a bargain and more like him growing even more sarcastic and hostile than before.

His condition was clearly a sore spot for him, so I couldn't say I didn't understand it. I bit my lower lip and steeled myself.

"I'm confident."

And then.

"But I have a few conditions too."

He sat with his arms crossed, as if to say go ahead and spit it out. I swallowed hard, nerves getting the better of me, and made my proposal. The first condition was—

"Use my name."

Meaning: stop calling me rat bastard.

Despite hearing something as grim as cure it or die—or more precisely, cure it or I'll kill you—I felt a small sense of relief, as though I'd cleared one of the major hurdles. If I could just get the herbs, there was no reason I couldn't cure him.

Kahron had scoffed at the idea of using my name, but he'd nodded along to the condition about going into the forest together to gather the herbs. Surprised by this—the closest thing to a docile response I'd seen out of him yet—I stared at him blankly, which earned me another unkind look.

"Maylin. How's it going with that knight?"

Eifel came up and asked quietly while I was cleaning the hall. Even though she'd kept her voice low, this was the first time she'd spoken to me in front of the other maids, so it caught me off guard.

Sure enough, I felt the sharp stares of a few maids who disliked me. I straightened up a little and answered.

"It's going well, I think."

Even with the grisly threat I'd heard, since we'd laid out our intentions and struck a bargain, it really was going well. Eifel's eyes went round with surprise.

"My boyfriend says that knight's temper is, hm, kind of like that……"

It was kind of like that. Actually, more than kind of. When I didn't deny it, Eifel's expression turned uneasy.

"Does it have to be him? I can find you a better man."

If that better man happened to be a Sword Master, maybe, but otherwise I had no use for him.

Eifel seemed genuinely worried about me getting close to someone with such a rotten personality. My chest warmed a little, even though I knew better than to expect it. I knew what I was supposed to say in moments like this.

"I'm fine. But…… thank you."

"Ugh. If anything happens, come find me or my boyfriend."

Eifel and Hwirozen really did seem like a well-matched, good-natured pair. I nodded, my heart beating a little faster.

"You two! Enough chattering!"

The housekeeper's sharp bark sent us scattering to opposite sides.

My cleaning picked up a lighter pace than before—right up until the steward came to fetch me.

"Maylin. Your father is asking for you."

If he hadn't said my name first, I'd have assumed he meant someone else. In front of me, stunned blank at the word father, the cold, middle-aged steward clicked his tongue.

"Go to the main gate. It's only because you've been tending the Dowager Countess well that this is being permitted—see that it doesn't happen again."

Special permission—how kind of them. If I hadn't been so thrown by this sudden father, I'd have been more grateful for it.

"What is it?"

Eifel asked, curiosity written all over her face.

"They said my father's come looking for me……"

"Really? Then what are you doing standing there?"

I was practically shoved out the door, setting down my cleaning tools and walking toward the main gate. But even as I walked, I kept hesitating, faltering mid-step.

A father. My father had died when I was very young, back in my own life.

Unless my father from my previous life had somehow come back and been reincarnated into a novel just like I had, the person waiting for me now had to be the original Maylin's father.

No one in the castle had been particularly close to the original Maylin, so the swap hadn't drawn much suspicion. But family was different, wasn't it. If Maylin's father saw through what this body actually was underneath, I had no idea what I'd do.

But—I suppose I should count myself lucky.

The man waiting for me at the gate, Maylin's father, hadn't noticed a thing.

"How dare you disrespect me?"

He was furious over something entirely unexpected instead.