Bellota looked at him with eyes that wanted to cry. At Seiden’s distant confession, her frozen heart began to pound painfully. Even though she knew she shouldn’t, it was difficult to abandon the desire to stay forever in those eyes that looked only at her.

Just as Bellota was about to answer that confession. Her throat closed up and no sound would come out. As Bellota touched her thin neck while letting out a frightened moan, Seiden, watching her, moved his lips again with a serious face.

“I will go to the Forbidden Land and bring back the rockdragon’s heart.”

At those words, Bellota’s heart sank. Bellota shook her head hurriedly. The Forbidden Land meant certain death. Seiden would not return alive from there. That had nothing to do with how great a knight Seiden was or that he was one of only three Swordmasters on the continent. Seiden must not go there. Bellota knew this.

“Then I will seek permission from God, and formally propose to you, Saintess.”

However, Seiden only looked at Bellota with determined eyes, as if he had already made up his mind. Bellota shook her head even more desperately. No, she tried to say, but her still-locked voice wouldn’t leak out at all. Seiden was truly turning to head toward the Forbidden Land. As if telling her to trust him. As if saying he would definitely bring it back.

Bellota shook her head frantically and tried to grab Seiden’s clothes, but her body wouldn’t move as if someone was firmly holding both her feet. Seiden’s back grew distantly farther from her.

No. Don’t go.

Fearful, sorrowful tears welled up in Bellota’s eyes.

Please, come back.

Finally, Seiden’s figure completely disappeared from her sight. Bellota’s vision was dyed in distant darkness. Only then were her throat and feet freed. Bellota urgently stepped into the darkness trying to find Seiden.

Seiden…… Seiden……!

However, when Seiden was nowhere to be seen, her heart sank to the floor. At that moment. A dazzling light swept across her face and her closed eyes flew open.

“Seiden……!”

Huff…… Bellota finally realized that everything she had just seen was a dream. Bellota took shallow, panting breaths.

It was a dream. At the same time, Bellota realized she was held in someone’s arms. When she slowly raised her head, she saw the face of a man sleeping with his eyes gently closed. It was Seiden.

As soon as she saw Seiden’s face, deep relief and sorrow washed over her. Could this be a dream too? In her piercing fear, Bellota urgently tried to caress his face. However, before she could move her hand, she stopped breathing as she realized that she and Seiden were lying together without a single thread of clothing.

The events from just before she lost consciousness flooded her dizzy mind. The reconnaissance team’s ship was attacked by dark mages, and an intense battle followed. And Geril……

Geril, who had followed them to the north, used reknil’s poison to cast an invisibility spell on himself, and tried to use it to approach and harm Seiden. When she recalled that heart-stopping moment, Bellota’s throat painfully dried up.

However, at that moment she remembered how to disarm the invisibility spell, and when Seiden heard it, he swung his sword at Geril. Geril’s identity was finally exposed when he couldn’t dodge Seiden’s attack. She vividly remembered the scene of him throwing something at her when he was cornered. It must have been an orb containing the demon race’s fire that was said to burn eternally. When those hot flames were about to consume her, Seiden ran over, embraced her, and jumped into the river.

The feeling of sinking into the cold water terribly replayed itself. The feeling of the river water frighteningly grabbing her ankles and being helplessly pulled under. The moment she looked at Seiden’s face while submerged in the water, Bellota lost consciousness. But how were she and Seiden alive?

Bellota rolled her eyes around to examine where she and Seiden were lying. The place where the two were lying seemed to be a cabin made of stone and wood. Feeling a faint warmth, it seemed the fireplace was lit. Through the frost-covered window gaps, a single ray of dazzling sunlight leaked in. It seemed the two had greeted the morning here.

However, Bellota felt puzzled. Seeing how everything outside the window was brilliantly white, they were clearly still in the snowy mountains, but in such a proper cabin? She wondered if this too might be dark magic, but soon shook her head briefly. She felt no such energy at all. No, rather, this was……

“……”

Feeling the cozy, gentle air, Bellota suddenly thought of God. She had felt this warm energy before. It was when she received the oracle choosing her as saintess. Perhaps, this was a miracle given by God. Because someone like Seiden couldn’t be allowed to die in a place like this.

Bellota carefully moved her body to gauge Seiden’s temperature. His skin touching her flesh was warm. Fortunately, this place didn’t seem to be the underworld said to follow after death. Though she didn’t know what method was used, Seiden had saved her once again.

Bellota rolled her eyes again to look at the man sleeping quietly with closed eyes before her. The Seiden from her dream just now overlapped with his handsome face. The one who said he would go to the Forbidden Land.

Recalling that made Bellota’s heart ache sharply, even knowing it was a dream. Bellota could no longer deny it. That she too loved Seiden. Yet, her inability to accept him wasn’t because she was the saintess or because they couldn’t seek God’s permission.

Bellota feared that Seiden would truly leave for the Forbidden Land to earn the right to love her. Because she knew that Seiden Blackwood was more than capable of doing just that.

“……”

Bellota’s gaze, looking at Seiden with sad eyes, fell heavily. Crackle, crackle. Only the sound of the nearly depleted burning firewood filled the quiet cabin. Bellota raised her heavy body and picked up the clothes fallen at her feet. After putting on the clothes that had somehow dried completely, she tried to cover Seiden’s body with the fallen blanket.

At that moment, countless scars entered her view. Bellota stopped her hand and examined them with upset eyes. Though she had overlapped bare bodies with Seiden many times, she never had the capacity to examine his body due to the curse’s energy. She hadn’t been given the leisure to look at Seiden’s body with a clear mind like this.

Large and small scars were engraved all over his body. It was natural. Even for someone like Seiden, it was impossible not to take any hits while facing so many monsters.

At that moment. Bellota’s pupils, slowly trailing down Seiden’s arms, shoulders, chest, and stomach, froze and trembled. Where her blue gaze stopped was on a scar drawn across Seiden’s side. Bellota’s gaze remained fixed on that scar, unmoving.

Her heart began pounding at a speed incomparable to when she wandered through the distant nightmare. The long scar on Seiden’s side was deeper and larger than any other. A scar of this degree must have come from at least a high-level monster. For a moment, an impossible suspicion crossed Bellota’s mind.

No way……

Bellota raised her trembling hand to cover her mouth as a moan tried to escape.

It might not be. The scar could coincidentally be in the same location. Because Seiden was a knight. Because he was a man who had faced countless monsters. Having such a scar wasn’t strange at all.

But……

“How did you know…… that kurkroll’s weak point was his left eye?”

Her voice that had held some hope,

“I found out by chance. I encountered it during a subjugation.”

And Seiden’s voice, calm to the point of emptiness, brushed past her ears. Had Seiden really discovered that fact by chance? An unstoppable suspicion bloomed inside Bellota and her whole body began to tremble.

Bellota anxiously watched Seiden, still sleeping like the dead, then slowly reached out her hand, having made a decision. Finally, when her trembling fingertips settled on the scar that must have become a deep mark long ago, his quiet breathing stopped.

Past her ears, a question she had once asked him brushed by.

“Have you ever seen…… someone named Rick there? He’s a swordsman with a mercenary background. He was skilled, so he probably would have stood out.”

Recalling those red eyes that had stared at her intently, Bellota’s halted breath constricted finely. But Bellota remembered the answer that had shattered her foolish hope.

“No. I’ve never seen such a person.”

Seiden had definitely answered that way. Definitely……

“……”

Bellota bit her lip. As expected, Seiden’s scar was from an injury by a kurkroll. And she knew one more person who had been injured by a kurkroll in exactly this area. Evidence that she could no longer deny or pretend not to know flooded over her heart.

“Rick……”

As Bellota finally let slip the buried name along with an overwhelming breath, Seiden slowly opened his eyes.

“……”

Soon realizing that Bellota’s hand was touching his scar, Seiden’s eyes sank darkly. Into Seiden’s red pupils entered Bellota, crying with a face as beautiful as it had been nine years ago.

Seiden knew that face. From very long ago.