Chapter 15
“Pardon…? Why would I?”
Margaret looked at him with a completely baffled expression.
“I’ll be more careful from now on so I won’t get hurt. So don’t do anything dangerous like risking your life to gather medicinal herbs.”
Enoch gently took hold of her shoulders. Feeling the small, delicate shoulder bones beneath his hands, he hesitated for a moment before barely regaining his composure.
The prejudiced lens through which he’d been viewing her peeled away, layer by layer. Along with it, an emotion he couldn’t easily define stirred faintly inside him.
He didn’t yet know what this feeling toward her was. But at the very least, his wish for her not to be hurt was sincere.
“I was worried.”
Thank goodness she was safe.
Did she have any idea how many thoughts had crossed his mind while he searched for her all night long? Judging by the way she just blinked at him with a dazed look, she seemed utterly unaware.
Then Enoch noticed it—a large bruise blooming across her cheekbone.
With dirt smeared here and there on her face, and with his own mind not quite right until just moments ago, he hadn’t noticed it sooner. It almost looked as if someone had struck her squarely on the cheekbone.
In that instant, an unexpected surge of anger welled up inside Enoch.
After finally finding her while worrying sick over whether she was hurt, to see a wound that looked like she’d been hit by someone—
“What is… this?”
He didn’t know why such intense emotions were rising up, but he felt deeply unsettled.
“Margaret.”
Carefully, he brushed his fingers along her cheek. The soft, supple feel of her skin clung to his fingertips.
Perhaps it stung, because her brows knit together.
She was strangely beautiful.
And startled by his own thought, Enoch flinched.
Objectively speaking, Margaret had always been beautiful—but having been worn down by her in so many ways, he’d never had the leisure to notice something like her looks.
Yes. That had certainly been the case before, and it should still be so now…
So why was her beauty suddenly catching his eye?
Sure, she was the only person on the island, but still—had it really come to this, that he was finding Margaret pretty? He must truly be losing his mind.
Right. This was just a moment of madness. He hadn’t slept, so he clearly couldn’t think objectively.
“You’re hurt.”
“…Is it bruised?”
“It looks like a blood bruise.”
“Ah, yes. I just got hurt a little.”
Margaret stepped back, flustered, covering her cheek with her hand. She didn’t seem to realize that the gesture only made it more concerning.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“How can I not worry?”
At his reply, Margaret looked up at him with a face that clearly said she didn’t understand at all.
“How unexpected. Of all people, for Your Highness to say something like that… I guess your fever hasn’t completely gone down yet.”
She shot him a wary glance.
“Anyway, I’m sure it’ll heal, so don’t worry about it.”
Then she smiled and brushed his words off as if they were nothing.
‘It’s simply a gentleman’s duty to be considerate toward a young lady. So please don’t harbor any foolish expectations. That would only make things bothersome for both of us.’
Her response somehow reminded him of words he himself had once said in the past.
It was true that he’d overreacted and pressured Margaret excessively these past days.
He even found himself wanting to erase all the harsh words and rudeness he’d thrown at her.
I was definitely too much.
He’d been cruel to a woman who would risk her life like this just because she liked him.
But Margaret, regardless of his inner turmoil, spoke up with an air of complete indifference.
“By the way, I’m really so hungry I’m practically about to starve.”
She grimaced in genuine discomfort, clutching her stomach with one hand.
“Can we go hunting or something? Of course, after treating Your Highness’s wound.”
In the end, Enoch let out a sigh. If she was hungry, he had to feed her something first.
There were too many strange things to count.
The fact that Enoch had wandered through the forest all night looking for me was strange, and so was him telling me to call him Enoch.
But the strangest thing of all was that he had started calling me “Margaret” instead of “Lady Flone.”
What on earth happened while I was gone?
I opened the first-aid kit to properly treat Enoch’s wound.
Inside, I carefully examined the neatly packed medical supplies.
It was a fairly large kit, with a wide variety of items inside. There were many things I’d never seen before, but rough instructions and explanations were written on them, so using them shouldn’t be a problem.
I thought this even while reading the novel, but why does something like this exist here?
I still had no idea what the author’s intention was in creating such a pointless device as a “Korean survival kit.”
As Enoch followed my movements and looked over the supplies, he frowned.
“I can’t read a single word of what’s written here.”
Of course he couldn’t. Everything was written in Korean.
I didn’t respond to his comment. If I could avoid answering, it seemed best to do so.
While organizing the contents of the kit, I found disinfectant.
I first thoroughly cleaned Enoch’s wound with it, then cut a proper bandage and wrapped his arm.
Enoch watched silently as I skillfully searched through the kit and treated his injury. Then he picked up the items I’d used and frowned.
“How did you know this was disinfectant?”
His question put me in a bind again. How was I supposed to explain this?
I rummaged through Margaret’s past memories and came up with the least suspicious excuse I could manage.
“You know the Eastern Continent across the sea, right? It seems to be written in the language used there. I learned a bit of it a while ago.”
Enoch didn’t look convinced, but at least he didn’t press further.
“You don’t intend to explain the injury on your face?”
He asked again about the bruise.
“I fell.”
“That’s all?”
Was he asking because he already knew something?
Enoch continued to stare at me as if trying to see straight through me, and I hesitated for a moment.
Come to think of it, there was no real reason I couldn’t tell him that I’d met Kaiden.
At first, I’d tried to insist however I could that we were the only two people on this island. But now that my original plan had completely fallen apart, what was the point of clinging to such a lie?
After carefully wrapping my feet with bandages and fixing my flat shoes, I let out a sigh.
“I met a strange man.”
Kaiden had had a somewhat unhinged look in his eyes, so calling him strange wasn’t inaccurate.
Honestly, he seemed a bit crazy. Even in the novel he was described as insane, so maybe that wasn’t wrong either.
“A pendant fell from his robe, and unfortunately, I was pinned under him at the time—so it hit my cheekbone head-on.”
Crack.
The wooden rod in Enoch’s hand suddenly snapped in two. I stared at it in shock.
“…You still don’t know who that man was?”
Enoch’s face looked calm, but an ominous air already radiated from him.
“Ah, come to think of it…”
I rummaged through my dress pocket and pulled out the pendant I’d picked up back then. Taking it from me, Enoch examined it closely.
“The emblem of the Mage Tower.”
At that, I looked at the pendant again.
At the center of the sun-shaped pendant was a teardrop-shaped amethyst—just as Enoch said, it was the symbol of the Mage Tower.
“I guess so. It was his, so maybe he’s a mage.”
I replied casually, then smoothly changed the subject.
“Oh, right. There’s something I’m curious about.”
When I spoke with a meaningful tone, Enoch looked at me in puzzlement.
“Do you, by any chance, have some kind of trauma related to blood? Like losing control when you see it…?”
At my question, Enoch fell silent, looking uncharacteristically flustered.
Of course, I already knew that he went berserk at the sight of blood—but the real Margaret wouldn’t have known that.
“I know it’s a rude question, but this is something I need to know too.”
There was too much at stake for me to just pretend I didn’t notice. After all, I’d be staying with him from now on.
Enoch avoided my gaze. He looked as if he were hesitating, lips twitching, and only after a long moment did he answer with a sigh.
“It was a controllable seizure. In the Empire, I managed it fairly well….”
Trailing off, he let out a pained groan.
“There’s no excuse. I’m sorry.”
He bowed his head like a sinner, apologizing to me. Seeing him like this for the first time left me just as flustered.
“That’s not your fault, Enoch. It’s okay. What I want to know is how you control it.”
Once again, Enoch looked troubled. Watching him repeatedly check my expression, I asked cautiously, a bad feeling creeping in.
“Don’t tell me… you don’t even know how to control it?”
“I’m sorry to say this to you, but I don’t know. The symptoms started after I returned from the battlefield. I received drug treatment for a while, and there wasn’t much occasion to see blood in the imperial palace.”
Just when it seemed like he was about to end the conversation firmly, Enoch paused as if recalling something. After hesitating, he spoke carefully.
“Margaret… when you calm me down, it seemed to work.”
“…What?”
