TVIOWHFW 43

The downpour soaked the Monster Forest to the brim.

In the dark forest, the sky darkened with blackened clouds, rain pouring down, and crawlins slowly drawing nearer, grumbling lowly.

Estelle, holding his hand, gave a faint smile.

“John. I’m alright.”

Estelle felt as if she might be crushed by those colossal things at any moment.

Not entirely incorrect. If John abandoned her and left, Estelle would surely die.

The Crawlins had not rushed in immediately because they were wary of John.

“…scary, isn’t it.”

The hand that had reached out to grab her trembled. As soon as she noticed, she feigned composure, but John did not miss the expression on her face.

At first, he thought she was trying to cling to him in this way. But Estelle’s intent was genuine.

“Why the hell are you doing this?”

Estelle pressed John for answers.

“Come on, we’re going to run out of time if we stay.”

“Shut up.”

“But…”

“I won’t abandon you.”

One Crawlin, eyeing John, leaped at him.

Swish — John pierced the Crawlin with his sword and killed it.

If only it hadn’t been the Forest of Beasts.

The forest’s aura blocked dark magic, forcing him to rely on swordplay to defeat the enemies.

Several Crawlins charged in at once.

John clenched his jaw and fought as efficiently as possible.

“Always killing them all is hard.”

If that’s the case, then he should at least inflict injuries that would make attacking Estelle difficult right away.

He cut the leg of one crawlin that charged with his sword, and crushed another with his foot.

Another crawlin that aimed from behind he knocked to the ground and stabbed through with his sword.

No matter how efficiently he fought, the situation remained unresolved.

“We weren’t going to go together.”

He realized his mistake with a pang.

The reason John and Estelle had come to the Forest of Beasts alone was simple.

“From here, we planned to get out quickly and move by magic.”

Given crawlin behavior, that wasn’t a bad assessment. Crawlins didn’t travel in crowds in the first place.

“The crawlins’ target was Estelle.”

He realized this too late.

They couldn’t even bring the scattered knights back.

The remaining crawlin were ten.

A looming monster behind them could be sensed, but it was the ten that mattered right now.

“Ma’am. Take shelter under the trees.”

“Understood.”

Estelle followed the instruction to make it easier for John to protect her.

Estelle picked up stones around her. She seemed to intend to throw them, but they weren’t a serious threat.

“The crawlins will target Estelle soon.”

Before that, they had to deal with them.

This time John lunged at a crawlin to stab its neck.

Kwang—

The crawlin opened a strange mouth and bit John’s sword, resisting.

“Kwaaaak!”

Another crawlin charged toward John.

John put down his sword, held off the crawlin that had hesitated, and then pierced another crawlin under its jaw with his hand.

Even then, their breath did not cease, and many more stabs were needed.

A tedious process.

“Only two left.”

Two crawlins exchanged glances and crouched for a simultaneous rush.

One arm, nearly torn, had its sleeve ragged, and blood ran from the injured arm. His grip trembled from overexertion.

But he wasn’t exhausted; his head grew hot with anger he could barely contain.

“Estelle, go alone.”

Estelle’s words were not wrong.

“Alone you could escape, right?”

It would be most rational for John to abandon Estelle and run.

But why would he?

He drew his bloodstained blade, and sneered.

“Come on.”

Two crawlins charged at once.

They were quite annoying to deal with, but not insurmountable.

When facing the last one, he had to push himself beyond reason.

“Still not finished.”

He felt the crawlin approaching from behind.

“This is your chance to escape the forest of beasts.”

John frowned, gripping his chest, a painful throb shooting through him.

It seemed his injuries were aggravated by his forced exertion.

He paused to catch his breath, waiting for Estelle, who would be crouched behind a tree.

“Ma’am. Again—”

“Finished?”

Then a crawlin floated in midair and charged.

“Was there one more?”

Estelle’s head was right above him.

He had no time to think.

“Please—”

John kicked off the ground and ran.

He let out a surge of dark magic. Unchecked dark energies ran wild.

It didn’t matter.

John swung blindly at the crawlin.

Kwang… a shriek of pain!

The crawlin pierced by John’s sword crashed into a tree.

Earth tremors sounded as crawlin blood and tree debris splashed.

“John. Your wound—”

Estelle turned to him, looking up in astonishment with her pale blue eyes widened.

Hot crawlin blood flowed from the swollen arm and fell onto John’s face.

“Are you going to abandon me?”

John kneeled and met Estelle’s gaze.

“Yeah, perhaps you’re right.”

“If I abandon you, everything would be easier.”

If he’d been a little luckier, Estelle would have been ripped to pieces by crawlins by now. The thought alone drove him to madness.

He wiped Estelle’s cheek with his bloodstained thumb.

Crawlin blood smeared her, turning white skin dark.

“You want to let me die, since that’s what you wanted all along?”

Estelle’s blue eyes trembled faintly. But she spoke in a fragile voice.

“Thank you.”

“…for what?”

“Because you’ve been trying to protect me all this time.”

It was odd, but her words felt sincere.

“You want me not to abandon you.”

No matter how perfectly Estelle acted, he couldn’t help being moved by a moment’s emotion.

“Why would you ask me to abandon you when you know I won’t?”

The crawlin swarms approached again. It would be harder to handle them now.

A cold rational voice whispered.

“Weren’t you always planning to use me and toss me aside anyway?”

Even in the dark, his platinum blonde hair seemed to glow, his long white eyelashes and gentle eyes like a sugar-doll.

“Estelle Libertan.”

A surge of hatred for Libertan flickered in his mind.

Libertan hadn’t merely killed John’s family. They killed John himself and his family then too.

From that moment, there was only revenge left for John.

He had to erase all of the past Blanchet princes—remnants of the past—and become a cold, brutal avenger.

Thus he denied and burned himself out.

John slowly cupped the girl’s cheek with his hand.

“Ma’am, today you’re saying things I don’t want to hear. Be as pretty as you usually are.”

“Like usual?”

“Yes, you know what I want to hear.”

The hatred for Libertan had not vanished.

Estelle’s resentment wasn’t gone either. Yet at the same time John found Estelle unbearably adorable.

He wanted to keep her by his side no matter what.

He didn’t want to lose the smile she gave him right there.

“How could I let you die?”

Estelle’s smile trembled.

“That would still be a stupid thing to do. You could die because of me.”

“Just ask me to spare you.”

Estelle pleaded as if her life meant nothing to her.

John’s anger flared again because of Estelle.

“Why! Why do you keep saying you’ll die?”

John grabbed Estelle’s shoulders and growled.

“You’re not that stupid a person!”

Family faces overlapped over Estelle’s teary-eyed expression, efforts to smile amid hardship.

“Please, live!”

“…”

“Don’t talk about other people’s lives like that—live, you want to live!”

In that moment Estelle’s faint smile broke completely.

“You want me to live?”

Her transparent tears glittered as she glared at him.

“Then what would be different?”

~·~·*· . ·*· . ·*· . ·*·~·~

In that moment, the angry John paused.

“Did I give up my own life so lightly, like I value someone else’s life?”

“…”

“Did I not want to live?”

He roughly brushed aside John’s hand on his shoulder, sneering.

“Then why do you keep trying to die so easily?”

“Did you think it would be easy?”

Her crying grew louder.

“Why would you think it would be easy? How could it possibly be easy?”

“Then—”

“Not easy.”

The rain intensified. Thunder and the ground shook from beyond the forest.

A red gaze with meaningless, emotionless eyes met him.

In that moment something inside him surged.

“Does John know anything about me?”

Anger, annoyance, hurt, sadness, fear, anxiety, and despair—unexplainable waves of emotion.

“I don’t even know what feelings I have that led me to give up.”

“Do you know why I did that?”

“…”

“You have no idea why I did it.”

Emotions overwhelmed him.

“Then, living, you want me to tell you to live?”

Fury overtook John’s red eyes.

“Would you rather I give up easily?”

If he showed her that he’d give up easily, perhaps she’d lose all hope.

“Who thinks dying is what I want to do?”

John kept showing me how much he cared, how precious I was to him.

“You know nothing.”

Again he made it impossible for me to guard my heart.

“I am, I also—”

I grabbed John’s forearm and shouted.

“I don’t want to die either! I want to live too!”

“Then say you want to live.”

Rain and my tears mixed and fell.

John gripped my hand tightly and spoke.

“Please ask me that, to want to live and not die.”

“Then will you truly save me?”

I squeezed John’s hand and shouted.

“If I cry and beg you to save me, would you?”

“Yes, beg.”

John’s red eyes glowed sadly but strongly.

“Say you want to live. That you want to stay alive somehow.”

“Why do you want to save me so much?”

“Why?”

He brushed my soaked hair back and pressed his lips to my forehead.

“Because I want you by my side.”

“…”

“I told you, even your death should be mine.”

John pulled me into a tight, hot hug. Even in the cold rain, his warmth remained vivid.

“Don’t die at my command. If you can’t live, then kill me or have me kill you instead.”

The man who hates me the most was now trying to save me.

“Estelle, you won’t die yet.”

Utterly desperate.

The trees of the forest cracked, revealing the Crawlin crowds the knights had feared.

“That’s why…”

Even when I saw one Crawlin, it was terrifying; now that many Crawlins roared in a swarm, the pressure intensified.

There would be little help from the trees.

I asked John with a pale face.

“Then what are you going to do? The only way for both of us to live is…”

“There are endless ways to get out without abandoning you.”

In that moment, ring-shaped glowing bands appeared above John’s red eyes.

“I’ve accomplished things I once said were impossible.”

John’s eyes’ rings began to rotate.

“There is no impossibility for me.”

Soon the rings collided and shattered like stars, leaving debris.

“These rings are…”

John’s constraints and protective magic.

“If I do this, then…”

I felt my throat tighten without realizing it.

“Even giving up my own life.”

Using black magic for long taints the soul. The corrupt energy from black magic pollutes.

So these protective rings protected the sorcerer’s soul. If they broke, John would struggle to control black magic.

Finally, all the magical rings vanished.

Fragments twisted, and dark magic that had not been sealed within John’s body gushed out pitifully.

In the original, there was a scene where one of John’s rings broke.

“The ending of the original.”

When Liandro fiercely rebelled to save Estelle.

At that moment Liandro forcibly broke one of the protective magics, and John almost died because of the unrestrained dark magic.

“If you worried about me, that was a misjudgment. I’m not that weak.”

John whispered softly.

“So, watch carefully.”

The swirling black energies shook even Estelle’s hair and passed.

“See how great your husband is. And how your misjudgment collapses.”

The black magic rose and sank into the forest floor. Rocks and trees split, and the Crawlin swarm perished.

Incredible and brutal catastrophe.

Now I understood why people saw him as a devil who could not be confronted. Could this be called human power?

I stared blankly at John’s face.

“Do you feel like praying now?”

John gave a languid, sly smile.

“If you pray, I’ll grant you everything.”

As usual, with his perfectly beautiful face.

“Estelle.”

~·~·*· . ·**##^^##**· . ·*·~·~

Hey there, It’s Green Rose 😉

Since I human I might have make some mistakes while translating so please if you find them let me know here in the comments or in the Discord group so I can correct them and be careful in the future so they do not repeat.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

~~~Next Chapter~~~

Next chapter will be released Tomorrow.

See you then!!