Shame washed over Nadan Laphelia like a wave.
‘All that effort to look dignified… wasted!’
Just as she was about to make excuses, Valentin’s brightly smiling face caught her eye.
His pale, milky skin was now vibrant. The corners of his mouth, turned up in a pleasant curve, were full of playfulness.
Nadan closed her mouth.
‘Well… a good thing’s a good thing.’
His smile, which made any who look upon him happy, made her smile along with him.
She briefly buried her worries that her sharp fangs might make her look hideous. There was no room for such calculations.
She was so happy to be able to smile at someone that no other thoughts could enter her mind.
‘If it’s Valentin…’
Yes, if it was this man like sunshine, he wouldn’t despise her even if he found out about the curse. He wouldn’t mock her for a beast daring to seek true love.
“Valentin.”
The voice that came out of her mouth sounded stiff. It wasn’t just her voice. Her whole body was rigid with tension.
Perhaps sensing her sudden change, Valentin’s expression also turned serious.
“Please, tell me.”
Even his honey-sweet voice couldn’t calm her down at this moment.
“The truth is… I have a secret.”
Valentin blinked slowly and turned his body completely towards her, as if telling her to continue.
“I’m under a black mage’s curse. A very, very evil curse.”
She wouldn’t tell him everything. Not the fact that she came from another world, nor that she would die if she couldn’t break the curse.
She didn’t want to burden him with more than necessary, as he didn’t know her well yet.
Because Valentin was a kind person who would worry about other people’s problems as if they were his own.
“I used to be human. I didn’t always look like this beast… I was cursed and became a beast.”
“…”
Silence fell.
The words that a kiss with true love was needed to break the curse didn’t come out, like a thorn stuck in her throat.
That was, that was too…
‘Embarrassing!’
It felt like she was asking Valentin to be her lover.
Of course, she wanted to, but she felt shameless.
So she kept her mouth shut and carefully watched his reaction.
Surprised by the unexpected story, Valentin’s face was somber. But when he met her eyes, he relaxed his expression as if nothing had happened and comforted her.
“You must have suffered a lot.”
Unlike what she had feared, he didn’t look at her strangely. He didn’t seem to feel any revulsion at the fact that the magical beast was a person.
‘That’s a relief. I’m glad I told Valentin.’
She nodded her head vigorously, filled with the joy of being understood.
“Is there no way to break the curse?”
Instantly, her head, which had been moving vigorously, stopped at once.
Valentin didn’t say, as he had before, that she didn’t have to answer if it was difficult.
He just stared at her with persistent eyes.
‘Persistent? No way. It’s a worried look.’
He must be upset as if it were his own problem, worried that she might have to live as a magical beast forever.
How could Valentin be so kind?
Encouraged by his warmth, she told him all the details of the conditions for breaking the curse.
“I need to receive true love’s kiss.”
“…A kiss, you say?”
“Yes, a kiss filled with a man’s love…”
An even greater silence fell than before. She couldn’t bring herself to lift her face, so she just stared at Valentin’s feet.
‘Lift your head! It was a mountain you had to climb anyway.’
Quite a bit of time passed while she calmed her mind, but the silence remained.
Unable to bear the silence any longer, she finally raised her head slightly and saw Valentin with an odd expression on his face.
At that moment, a thunderbolt of realization struck her.
‘…He clearly didn’t know I was a woman.’
Who would think of her as a woman? This physique! This bulk! Her androgynous and husky voice and the men’s vest!
Everywhere you looked, she was masculinity itself.
From Valentin’s point of view, it would seem as if she had isolated him in Laphelia Castle to feast on his lips.
‘That’s not it…! Well, it is, but!’
Flustered, she hurriedly opened her mouth, but Valentin was faster.
“Are you trying to seduce me right now?”
“Ack.”
A strange sound popped out of her mouth, but Valentin’s eyes didn’t waver.
Far from showing any feelings of disgust or contempt, he actually came closer to her.
‘Why, why is he coming closer?’
She backed away until her back hit a hard portrait.
There was nowhere else to retreat.
Valentin looked up at the portrait of Nadan Laphelia hanging behind her and asked.
“Is that woman behind you, you?”
“…That’s right.”
Though it wasn’t really.
“Hmm.”
She thought he would like it because she was a beauty, but Valentin’s reaction was very subtle.
Could it be that he didn’t think she was pretty?
‘Is he blind?!’
She had been suspicious since he had been so nice to her. He might need to get his eyes checked again.
As she was inappropriately worrying about his eyesight, she heard a curt voice.
“You don’t look alike at all.”
Of course not! She was so dumbfounded that her head heated up.
She glared at him with fierce eyes.
“Are you mocking me? It’s only natural that that appearance and I don’t look alike now.”
Except for the fact that she had black hair and golden eyes, she and that woman had nothing in common.
Not a single thing.
She glared at him, telling him to apologize quickly, but Valentin didn’t look sorry at all.
Rather, he slightly distorted his beautiful mouth, as if drawn with a brush, like a villain.
“I’m not talking about your… oh well, never mind.”
Valentin neatly finished his words and took a couple of steps away from her, lowering his gaze. Shadows fell under his long eyelashes, which were lowered in contemplation.
She waved her hands strongly in anxiety.
“No, I’m not saying I’m going to force you. It has to be a kiss with true feelings, so how can I force it? I’m just saying that if we spend a little more time together, our hearts will naturally open up and…”
The more she spoke, the more she went off track. She never knew she had such a talent for mountaineering…
‘I want to cry.’
She teared up at the shameless words of a woman trying to seduce a man.
Fortunately, Valentin didn’t even pretend to listen to her. He just stood there with his arms crossed like a statue.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Urged by her frustration, Valentin finally met her eyes.
She was about to explain to clear up the misunderstanding as soon as possible, but she closed her mouth.
Because Valentin was smiling brightly.
Valentin, smiling with his eyes crinkling into crescents, looked like an angel descended from heaven.
“So you’re not a magical beast, nor a demonic beast… Just a magical beast under a curse.”
She was still unable to escape from the shock of seeing his real smile and could only nod slowly.
She didn’t have time to realize that there was something wrong with Valentin’s words.
“And you need true love’s kiss to become human.”
He paused for a moment before continuing cheerfully.
“That’s great. I really needed a well-behaved puppy.”
I see, that’s great. Huh…?
Something was off. Very off.
His green eyes, which had been warm, shone like glossy glass beads. Even though his voice was clearly gentle, a chill ran down her spine.
‘Run away.’
Her steps, which had been moving as her instincts told her to, were blocked by Valentin’s body.
She couldn’t take another step forward in front of his slender yet sturdy physique. Not just Valentin’s body, but the energy emanating from him overwhelmed her.
When my desperate glance toward the exit returned to him, Valentin parted his lips. What came out wasn’t pretty.
“Want to bark for me?”
“…What?”
The tone she had been trying to maintain to show dignity disappeared in an instant. Without realizing it, she was clasping her hands together and taking a polite posture.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye.
“Or how about, lie down.”
“What is that supposed to…”
Her heart was pounding and her words trembled unsightly.
As she stared at his feet with a sense of unease, Valentin grabbed the chest of the vest she was wearing.
“This puppy doesn’t know how to do anything.”
A sweet voice that didn’t fit the situation fell into her ear.
When she came to her senses, she was lying on the floor, and he had pinned her.
“This is ‘lie down‘.”
Got it?
The hair on her body stood on end at his whisper. At the same time, a flash of realization struck her.
A familiar name she had heard somewhere, a gaze that she seemed to have encountered several times while Valentin was staying at the castle for the first time.
The identity of the discomfort she had been ignoring until now was revealed starkly.
Blonde hair and green eyes, a sunny and holy appearance with a personality that wasn’t, a twisted smile and a black magical beast, and Valentin Genoa Berenice.
This is the romance fantasy novel <A Flower Blooming on a Cliff>.
* * *
Valentin Genoa Berenice, the first prince of the Reinhard Empire and the Duke of the North.
Bloodline, Looks, Ability, Wealth.
His every move, in which nothing was lacking, was the subject of interest and gossip in all of high society.
When Valentin, who had spent most of his life on the battlefield, showed his face in the capital, a romance novel was created in a snap.
The prince handed a handkerchief to a young lady who was crying because she was going through trials.
He carefully recognized the changed hairstyle and praised her. (Even though that young lady was meeting Valentin for the first time that day.)
Even when he declared that he would return to the battlefield for a long time and would yield the right to inherit the throne to the second prince without competition, and when he received the title of duke and moved his base to the barren Berenice in the north, this fervor did not subside.
In fact, it was far from subsiding, women were even more enthusiastic about the strong masculine side of him, which contrasted with his sunny face.
Ah, such a beautiful Duke of the North!
So in the Reinhard Empire, the fervor for Valentin did not end, merely burned more fiercely.
And the same Valentin, who had set fire to the hearts of the empire’s young ladies in this way, was now…
Swish-
The sword, which had suddenly shot out to the side, was deeply embedded in the assassin’s body.
‘Oh dear.’
Valentin frowned at the neat blood that had splattered on his sleeve.
Without hesitation, he kicked the assassin’s chest with his long legs.
With the sound of bones breaking, the assassin, who had fallen to the ground, was surrounded by various kinds of demonic beasts that had also met their end at Valentin’s hands.
Leaving aside the demonic beasts, it was so obvious who had sent the assassin that he couldn’t even laugh.
“I keep saying I’m not interested in being emperor, but they keep doing this.”
Unlike his mouth, which seemed to be smiling, his green eyes were shining brightly. When he lowered his head at the stinging pain, blood was flowing from his abdomen, where he had been stabbed by a dagger.
After thinking for a moment, he gritted his teeth in preparation for the pain that would come and pulled out the dagger. It wasn’t a major injury, but it was clear that it was coated with poison.
Valentin was resistant to most poisons, but he had to stop scouting around this point and return in preparation for any possible situation.
“Troublesome.”
Even with quite a bit of blood loss, Valentin wasn’t too worried. He was strong and lucky enough to have survived the fierce war for a long time.
He was just annoyed that the horse he had ridden had died and he had to walk a long way.
But there was something Valentin didn’t expect, and that was the splendid castle that appeared in the middle of the forest.
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