TVWD 27

Chapter – 27

Lexian pulled me tightly into his broad embrace and whispered,

“I love you, Roa.”

“Lex!”

I tried to push him away, but he stood firm like a cliff, blocking me as he smiled painfully.

Once again, the sky darkened.

As if to keep me from being swallowed by the shadows, Lexian’s arm gently pressed against the back of my head. Strangely out of place for the situation, the scent of sunlight clung to him.

“I wanted to protect you… so you wouldn’t get hurt…”

Before his low whisper could even finish, a series of dull, brutal thuds rang out—thud, thud—yet Lexian didn’t let go of me.

I couldn’t see what was happening around us, but at the untimely sound of rain, my entire body began to tremble.

“Lex. Lex…”

I called the name of the man I loved, but there was no answer.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Only the violent pounding of my own heart told me that something had gone terribly wrong.

“Lex…?”

Moments later, a sudden burst of bright light made me squint, but my gaze was instinctively drawn to something tilting to the side.

Ah—
That proud, powerful man was collapsing helplessly to the ground.

“Lex…”

Lexian couldn’t respond to my call. Tears that hadn’t fallen even when I’d been branded a villain blurred my vision.

“Lex… Lex. Lex!”

I clutched his closed-eyed face and called his name, but there was no way an answer would come back.

“Lex, please open your eyes. Please—please!”

Unable to accept his cold, lifeless body, I pulled out the arrows that had tormented him one by one, believing that if I removed them all, Lexian would open his eyes.

But I had to stop when a shadow fell over me.

It was the Crown Prince.

“Damn it. You’re troublesome until the very end.”

He carelessly nudged Lexian’s body with his foot.

“If only you’d died sooner.”

How dare you—
How dare you touch him with those filthy feet.

The rage I thought I’d lost began to surge up from the depths of my being.

Fine. If this world is destined to kill me, so be it.
But not him.
Lexian Lisianthias must not die!

As I lifted my head, seething with fury, the Crown Prince looked down at me with a vile grin.

“With this, all my rivals are gone.”

When I slowly stood up, he curled one corner of his mouth, clearly enjoying himself.

“Now it’s your turn, witch.”

Before he could finish speaking, I pulled the dagger hidden in my clothes and lunged at him.

“Ghk!”

The Crown Prince’s eyes widened, but I didn’t stop.

“Die. Die! Just die already!”

Soldiers who had finally grasped the situation rushed over and restrained me.

“You crazy bitch!”

Even as I was roughly bound, I never stopped glaring at the Crown Prince.

“What is His Highness’s condition?!”

The soldier who checked on him shook his head, and the expressions of the surrounding soldiers and generals darkened.

The Crown Prince—the man who caused Lexian’s death—had died with his eyes open.

“Haha… hahahahaha!”

I’d taken revenge on the Crown Prince who had killed me again and again, but all that returned was emptiness. Killing him didn’t bring back the man I loved.

Charged with treason and the murder of the Crown Prince, I was executed in the plaza before the palace.

In the next cycle, Lexian died protecting me again.
And the one after that.
And the one after that, too.
It kept happening.

For many cycles afterward, I searched for a way to keep him alive—but as long as Lexian loved me, there was no way for him to survive.

There was only one method left:

Make Lexian stop loving me.

You’re supposed to love Merina and hate me.
So just stay true to that role.

Even if those reliable hands never hold me again,
Even if those sapphire eyes never look at me with warmth,
As long as you can live—

Then I’ll gladly carve out my heart, still filled with love for you.

But Lexian didn’t act the way I expected.

From the cycle where he truly began to see me, no matter how harsh my words were or how many traps I set, he fell in love with me anyway.

Worse still, the more cycles passed, the faster he realized his feelings and came to me on his own.

So before Lexian could recognize his emotions, I tried to make him mistake them for something else—like familial affection.

I did everything I could to delay his realization, and even if he did realize it, to prevent him from expressing it.

Don’t protect me.
Stay away from me.
Don’t die in front of me ever again!

“Rosia.”

Even through my hazy consciousness, Lexian’s voice calling my name was unmistakably clear.

“Please don’t involve yourself in my affairs, Duke Lisianthias.”

“I refuse.”

Lexian steadied my unsteady body.

“I cannot stand by and watch someone die before my eyes. That is my conviction as a knight.”

The scent of sunlight close to him slowly brought me back to my senses.

What’s the point if you die trying to protect me?

Suppressing the tears threatening to spill, I forced a smile.

“I’m sorry for saying something cruel after you saved me. You probably helped because you see me as a younger sister, Lexian…”

At the word sister, Lexian’s eyebrow twitched. Perhaps he instinctively sensed something was off.

But I pretended not to notice and drove the nail in deeper.

“From now on, I’ll rely more on you—my brother—Lexian.”

Lexian frowned, then sighed, lifting a water flask to my lips.

“Your voice is a mess. Drink.”

As I drank, my mind cleared even further.

While I emptied the flask and leaned against a tree, knights wearing armor emblazoned with the duke’s crest approached.

“Duke, there are no suspicious individuals nearby.”

The man in robes lying on the ground had been cleanly severed—his body and head separated.

Should I stop the duke from seeing the mark on that robe?

“What in the world happened? Who is he?”

Thinking back on what the man had said earlier—

The one he served was the Master of the Mage Tower, but the Master hadn’t ordered my death. This was his own doing. In that case, I hadn’t done anything wrong.

The Mage Tower Master had said he wouldn’t try to kill me as long as I didn’t interfere. So even if this was discovered, he wouldn’t move against me for now.

That is, assuming he doesn’t change his mind.

But what about Lexian…?

He’s one of the strongest characters in the novel, so even fighting the Mage Tower Master wouldn’t kill him easily.

But once he’s entangled with me, he dies.

“Rosia?”

“Ah… my head hurts a little…”

Given how I looked like I might lose consciousness at any moment, Lexian readily accepted the excuse.

Someday, Lexian will run into Blue Bird. They run illegal gambling houses in the capital, and Lexian is the one who wipes them out.

Even though he doesn’t know they’re Blue Bird.

Since they meet in the original story anyway, it wouldn’t matter if he learned about them—
As long as I leave out the fact that they’re Blue Bird, and that I know them.

“I… don’t really know. I was just following a silver fox, and then that man suddenly attacked me…”

I trembled and turned my head away as if frightened by the corpse.

The duke frowned and didn’t press further.

“For now, take the body away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“More importantly, Rosia, you need to go to headquarters immediately. Your throat—”

The duke muttered a curse under his breath.

As soon as I finished organizing what to do with the Blue Bird member, a crucial fact came to mind and I hurriedly tried to stand.

Or rather, I tried to—but my body ached too badly to support itself, so I pulled a vial of medicine from my arms.

When I swallowed the pills without water, the duke looked startled.

“Rosia, what is that medi—”

“The silver fox is dead.”