CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A Way to Break the Curse

So that was, truly, a very long time ago. It was when Seiden was only sixteen years old.

Around that time, Seiden had grown so much that no one would believe he was sixteen, and he was so exceptional that no one would believe he was sixteen. Everything about him was like that. And the sixteen-year-old boy felt a slight aversion to life, enough to realize that his given life was rather a curse.

Around that time, the boy’s peculiar father had planned his son’s life in advance. His strongest goal was to send his son, whose swordsmanship already far surpassed adult knights, to the battlefield for a few months of pretense before bringing him back to enter the Imperial Knights.

Of course, his father had no intention of being satisfied with something like the Imperial Knights. He had been planning for quite some time to somehow connect his son with the emperor’s beloved only daughter and make him the emperor’s son-in-law. The night when he overheard his father’s voice revealing this grand plan to his wife was the very day sixteen-year-old Seiden Blackwood decided to run away.

Being thrown onto the battlefield wasn’t frightening at all. However, Seiden was sick of having his life predetermined from beginning to end. He was also so tired of facing nobles who pretended to be dignified while making a fuss as if wealth and honor were the only supreme things that he could die from it.

And now marriage to the imperial family? They would push him into that unbearably tedious life that he was already sick of without even seeing it? Though it was unfortunate for his father who had such grand dreams, Seiden had not the slightest intention of participating in that dream.

So Seiden took the sword he received from his mother for his sixteenth birthday and left home forever. No, that’s what he tried to do. Until he met a blind girl in some rural village.

“Something seems wrong with your voice, Rick. A voice doesn’t stay locked up that long.”

Seiden, who had been aggressively eating his meal in a corner of the tavern, glanced at the man with a face full of acne who spoke.

Rick. That was Seiden’s new name. Seiden had been living with this new name for a year already. A few days ago he turned seventeen, but not a single person around him knew this fact. Seiden liked that.

Seiden and Rick had many differences. First was the nameless name without even a proper surname, and also the fact that he had been wandering aimlessly across the continent for several months.

Also, while many people knew the exact age of Seiden, son of Marquis Blackwood, no one knew Rick’s exact age. They only guessed that with his mature appearance, he must be around twenty or older. And the biggest difference was……

“The captain says he’ll stay in this village for a while. They confirmed there are many useful monsters stationed nearby. So you should do something about that voice in the village. Otherwise, you’ll have to live with your mouth shut forever.”

The man who warned him in a serious voice while throwing a small money pouch next to Seiden’s plate was his colleague Levi. Finally finishing his meal, Seiden picked up the pouch while chewing and swallowing a piece of meat with his molars.

This was the biggest difference between Seiden and Rick. That the elegant and noble only son of an aristocratic family was living in a way his father could never imagine.

Seiden, or rather Rick, had been living as a nameless mercenary for a year. A low-ranking mercenary and monster hunter who would rush anywhere on the continent to eliminate troublesome monsters if paid.

The money Seiden had just received came from selling the monsters he’d caught over the past few days. He stumbled upon this profitable and fitting profession by chance, after meeting a mercenary group at a tavern he’d entered to escape the rain, following his impulsive decision to leave home on his birthday. Since then, Seiden had been wandering the continent with them, hunting monsters to his heart’s content.

“There’s an amazing healer at the village temple. Try going there. The captain says that amazing ability of yours to not make a single sound will become completely useless the moment you open your mouth. Even the monster bastards will run away cringing at that stuffy voice or something.”

As Levi snickered, Seiden frowned in displeasure but didn’t voice any objection.

The mercenary life unexpectedly suited him. However, the captain’s disgust at his voice, which had just started changing and sounded like scraping metal, was starting to get on his nerves.

Though he had endured until now like practicing silence meditation since he rarely needed to talk with the captain, if he continued to act up, who knew when Seiden might end up shoving his fist down the man’s throat.

Seiden really liked his current life, so he hoped such an unfortunate incident wouldn’t occur. Therefore, he had no choice left. He had to head to the temple where this amazing healer was said to be.

* * *

And that became the event that completely changed his already quite twisted life.

Seiden vividly remembered the moment he first met Bellota. As soon as he entered the small garden of the temple where this amazing healer was said to be, he encountered a girl who seemed to glow from behind.

“……”

Seiden remembered the Bellota of that day. The girl wearing an old but clean and neat blue dress who rushed at him, and how she finally fell on top of him when he stood there blankly, unable to avoid her……

“Ah!”

Though he didn’t realize it then, thinking back now, he must have been enchanted by Bellota from the very beginning. Otherwise, how could he have helplessly fallen without avoiding or blocking a mere fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl running at him.

Anyway, Bellota fell on top of Seiden, and thanks to that, even the basket she was holding completely overturned and both of them tumbled down covered in all the herb leaves she had picked. Seiden remembered even the dazzling sunlight breaking behind Bellota who was on top of him.

“Ah, I’m sorry, I couldn’t sense any presence……”

Even the first words Bellota spoke to him as she stammered with a reddened face in embarrassment.

“Bellota, a guest has arrived! They say they sprained their ankle! Please come quickly and treat them!”

When a middle-aged woman burst out of the temple shouting, Seiden realized the girl before him was that amazingly skilled healer. That was quite unexpected. Usually, healers were either priests or those with holy power as high as priests, but the girl before him looked too young to be a priest. Moreover……

“……”

She seemed unable to see. Seiden watched as Bellota groped the air trying to get off him.

To confess now, the reason Seiden helplessly fell for Bellota was quite trivial. If Bellota had gotten up by touching the ground and passed by him after finding her balance, perhaps this long and desperate curse would never have begun.

But Bellota hesitated without getting up and turned to look at Seiden. Seiden watched her actions while lying flat on the ground. Was she looking for the scattered herb leaves? Should he help pick them up? While having such idle thoughts. After hesitating, pondering for a moment, Bellota slowly reached out and carefully grabbed his arm while feeling around.

Seiden terribly hated anyone touching his body and never allowed it. However, to this small girl’s touch, he could only offer his arm like a fool who had never learned how to reject.

Bellota’s hand slowly traveled down Seiden’s arm until it reached his scraped hand where the raw flesh showed red. It was a wound from catching some monsters before coming to the temple.

It was truly an amazing skill. To find the wounded area despite not being able to see. Was she using her sense of smell? While inwardly marveling at this, a concerned voice flowed into Seiden’s ears.

“You seem to be hurt.”

Bellota, who looked apologetic as if it were somehow her fault, placed her white and delicate hand over Seiden’s scraped hand and moved her light pink lips again.

“You must be the mercenary they say is staying in the village.”

At those words, Seiden realized the mercenary group’s rumors had already spread to the temple. But to recognize him as a mercenary just from that… She must have guessed from the thick smell of blood emanating from all over his body.

Instead of covering her nose, Bellota opened her small mouth as if impressed, and ridiculously, Seiden felt proud. The fact that he had caught monsters indiscriminately had nothing to do with the small, rustic village, and it melted away without a trace, cleverly hidden. Instead, an amusing pride swelled up as if he had become a hero who saved the girl before him.

“There are many troublesome monsters in the village. Thank you for catching them.”

After giving this quiet thanks, Bellota gently closed her eyes. Seiden watched the girl’s actions while still lying on the ground. Though he had no idea what she was trying to do, it just felt like he should.

In truth, such wounds were nothing to Seiden. Even when he lived as Seiden rather than Rick, he had never received treatment for such wounds. His father, who had the grand ambition of raising his son to be the strongest knight on the continent, did not tolerate him showing pain from such trivial wounds. If Seiden showed any sign of pain, his father would become greatly angry, and Seiden had to continue his grueling training until dawn.