Chapter 29
But the next day, Lichesia couldn’t escape.
It was because a fever was raging through her body.
Completely bedridden, Lichesia had no choice but to accept the boy’s care without moving a muscle.
The boy stayed by her side, tending to her needs.
He wiped away her sweat and fed her bitter medicine and soup.
After suffering through the entire day, her fever finally broke.
“……”
It was night again.
Lichesia opened her eyes and stared at the mottled wooden ceiling, then slowly turned her head to the side.
The boy had pulled a chair up to the window and was sitting there.
Bathed fully in the bright moonlight pouring through the window, he was polishing his sword.
It was a somewhat surreal sight.
The boy, who had been wiping the sword with a dry cloth, sensed her gaze and stopped his hand.
He looked at Lichesia.
His blue eyes were calm.
Lichesia met his gaze steadily and asked,
“Why did you save me?”
“Does there need to be a reason?”
Since the boy aspired to be a holy knight, perhaps this was just natural for him.
Lichesia couldn’t understand it.
Kindness without expectation of reward felt foreign to her.
He might lull her into a sense of security like this, only to suddenly demand something later.
Still gazing at Lichesia, who was full of wariness, the boy slowly opened his mouth.
“Hailon.”
“…?”
“My name. Since I saved you, I’d like you to at least know that much.”
Lichesia was momentarily stunned, then quickly nodded.
“Ah, um.”
Whether she believed him or not aside.
Thanks to the boy, she had survived without dying.
At the very least, it was right to offer thanks.
“Thank you.”
A faint smile flickered across Hailon’s previously expressionless lips.
The subtle, fleeting curve somehow drew her eye for reasons she couldn’t explain.
Lichesia quietly bit her lip.
She had been debating whether to tell him her own name.
Hailon stood up from the chair, sword in hand.
Without opening the window, he looked down outside.
“……”
Seeing his sharpened eyes, Lichesia held her breath.
The hunters must have tracked her down.
Tension twisted her insides.
‘In this condition, even if I try to run, I’ll be caught right away.’
She had barely survived, yet here she was back at square one.
It was while she was trembling slightly in fear.
A low voice cut through Lichesia’s thoughts.
“Are the ones coming now the ones who did this to you?”
The boy waited calmly for an answer, his sword dangling from one hand.
Lichesia looked at Hailon with bewildered eyes.
He couldn’t possibly mean to fight the hunters now, could he?
That would be absurd.
“They’re slave hunters.”
They were the type who would capture and sell anything that could turn a profit.
They committed acts worse than beasts without hesitation.
The first thing the hunters did upon hearing rumors of a fairy appearing was set fire to the orphanage.
Lichesia had watched the director and her friends die right before her eyes.
The laughter of those who had cruelly slaughtered innocent people still echoed in her ears like hallucinations.
Hailon would end up the same way.
He wasn’t even a formally titled knight—just a young apprentice—so the hunters would have no qualms about it.
“If you abandon me now and run—”
Before she could say it would be fine, Hailon cut her off mid-sentence.
“Why would I?”
Lichesia was dumbfounded and retorted,
“Don’t you know what slave hunters are? It’s not just one or two—there are dozens of them.”
“Not anymore.”
“What?”
“I killed about half of them yesterday.”
The rest are a bit persistent, he added, frowning slightly as if annoyed.
His words didn’t immediately sink in.
“You killed the slave hunters…?”
She knew that young boys, especially aspiring knights who had just started learning swordsmanship, often put on childish bravado.
It was natural to feel puffed up when first wielding a sword.
But Hailon didn’t seem the type.
There was no trace of the exaggeration typical of boastful boys in his voice.
It was simply indifferent and monotonous, like reporting to a superior.
Could it really be true?
Yet it was hard to believe.
Even Lichesia, with her fairy powers, couldn’t handle the slave hunters.
How could a mere apprentice knight…
As Lichesia just stared silently, the boy averted his gaze slightly.
His straight, well-defined fingers caressed the sword hilt.
“…It’s not a lie.”
At his added words, Lichesia found herself smiling a little without realizing it.
It was close to a wry chuckle, but it was undeniably a smile.
Hailon, who had been gazing idly into the empty air, turned to stare openly at her smiling face.
Without even blinking, piercingly.
His eyes were like those of a boy seeing a flower for the first time in his life.
Lichesia slowly let her smile fade.
She rolled her lips inward, then brushed her cheek with the back of her hand.
She had received fervent stares more than once or twice.
Yet for some reason, her cheeks kept flushing hot.
The atmosphere had grown a bit strange, so she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Are you really helping me without expecting anything in return?”
“No.”
The boy answered flatly, then looked straight at Lichesia and said,
“I gained something too.”
What on earth could he have gained?
So far, it seemed like he had only lost things.
And now, he might even lose his life.
But the boy offered no explanation.
“I’ll be back.”
He simply picked up his sword quietly and vanished.
Lichesia sat still on the bed for a while.
Then she slowly got up from her spot.
She didn’t know if Hailon could really handle the hunters.
But at least he seemed skilled enough to hold them off for a bit, so she could escape in the meantime.
‘He’s going to become a holy knight anyway.’
Getting more deeply involved wouldn’t do her any good.
It was right to leave now, before her fairy identity was discovered and she was killed.
But strangely, her feet wouldn’t move easily.
She needed to run right away, yet Lichesia found herself gazing up at the moon from the window where Hailon had stood.
She spent some meaningless time staring at the silvery moon.
Only then did she steel her resolve and leap out the window.
In the spot where Lichesia had left, only the scent of flowers remained.
After surviving thanks to Hailon’s help.
Chesha had come to fully control her fairy powers.
Once she awakened the method to use illusions, the slave hunters became nothing more than laughable toys.
The illusions, with their grotesque atmosphere befitting the daughter of a mad fairy, became Chesha’s signature.
The fairy, beautiful as a flower but cruel, became increasingly notorious, eventually earning the moniker of the witch.
Even as she swung her axe freely and lived as she pleased, she sometimes wondered.
Whether that boy from that night had survived.
Whether he had been formally ordained as a holy knight.
Whether he had learned that she was a fairy.
If he had, whether he regretted saving her.
Whether he felt betrayed by her for abandoning him and running away alone.
Whether he wanted to kill her now.
The curiosity lingered for quite a long time.
To the point where she thought she’d like to see the boy just once before she died.
Even knowing that reuniting would bring nothing good.
‘As expected, it wasn’t a pleasant sight.’
Recalling the moment of their reunion, Chesha smiled bitterly.
The sharp fragments of the past stung just a little.
Chesha quickly erased the wry smile.
No trace of youth remained.
Now gazing at Hailon, who had grown into a complete man, she replied nonchalantly.
“Yeah. It’s a full moon.”
Hailon still hadn’t taken his eyes off Chesha’s face.
He stared at her for a long while.
From her golden eyelashes, to her small, plump lips, to the pleasing pink flush on her cheeks.
Only after examining every detail did he speak again.
“Why did you disappear, witch?”
Still immersed in the echoes of the past, for a moment she thought he was asking about back then.
About abandoning the young boy and running away alone.
But Chesha quickly corrected her misconception.
Hailon was asking about the present, not the past.
‘But why ask something like this?’
She had assumed that kidnapping Hata meant he was finally going for the kill this time.
It was baffling that the first thing he asked was why she hadn’t shown herself all this time.
In a twisted mood, she briefly considered saying she’d been busy giving birth to a child.
“…!”
Chesha felt a very ominous sensation.
A tickling feeling, like she was about to sneeze…
It was the same sensation she felt when her body changed after taking the potion.
‘No way, it can’t be,’ she thought, but the precursor symptoms were all too clear.
Chesha looked at Hata with panicked eyes.
The moment their eyes met.
Hata, realizing Chesha’s state, let out a silent scream.
‘Right now… I think I’m going to turn into a baby?!’
