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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
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People grow through pain. Though Ludwig’s death had been incredibly stressful, it also provided valuable experience in overcoming the loss of someone important.
‘I can’t keep grieving forever…’
A week had passed since Ludwig’s death.
Today too, I didn’t skip training.
I hadn’t missed a single day since his death.
“Hah…”
I headed back to the cabin breathing in the crisp morning air. At the entrance stood Master, catching the morning dew as she waited.
She had been standing there blankly, but upon spotting me approaching, she quickly shook off her daze and ran over.
“Johan! Good work!”
“No… Master, you really don’t need to do this every morning.”
“It’s fine! I’m doing this because I want to!”
After Ludwig’s death, and after learning I had killed him myself─ Master had begun caring for me with strange intensity.
Not content with just taking over all my chores, she even waited from early dawn for my return from training.
And when I returned from training? I immediately went to bathe and wash off my sweat while Master prepared breakfast.
It was like we were a married couple. Me hunting outside while Evangeline took care of the home…
‘This… isn’t right…’
I shouldn’t accept Master’s kindness like this. I was her disciple, someone who should be serving her.
If Master felt I wasn’t very useful─ that is, if she realized I wasn’t truly helping her… I couldn’t stay here just because I could love her.
‘A man needs to act like a man… can’t just loaf around doing nothing.’
This was human instinct and nature.
Protecting one’s woman and working hard.
Without fulfilling duties, nothing could be gained.
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“Yaaaawn… well, I’m off to bed, wake me around lunch time…”
“Yes, sleep well.”
Master Evangeline was fond of sleeping in. Since she had woken early for someone like me, she was the type who needed to make up for that lost sleep.
In other words, this moment meant time free from Master’s supervision. I wanted to be useful to her.
Therefore, I had to make use of this time. This time free from Master’s interference.
‘Let’s go.’
I left the cabin carrying various weapons bought from the city. When Marguerite asked where I was going, I vaguely answered I was going for a walk before heading deep into the forest.
When I felt I’d gone far enough─ I whistled. Soon after, the bushes rustled and a massive wolf leaped out.
“Woof-!”
“Harty.”
Fenrir’s daughter, Harty, had appeared. Befitting the daughter of house-sized Fenrir, Harty too continued growing larger.
Looking at Harty who had grown as large as a small car, I briefly imagined her future when she would become house-sized.
I wondered if by then she would speak human language like her father Fenrir.
“Let’s go.”
“Woof!”
I mounted Harty’s back, gripped her mane, and watched as she ran through the forest.
Just as knights rode horses, I rode Harty when hunting monsters. Using her nose to track monsters, Harty soon found one and charged straight for it.
“Graaar-!”
─Hissss!?
The tongue-flicking anaconda was startled by Harty’s sudden charge. However, being a beast used to ambush and assassination, it quickly reacted by twisting its body.
The anaconda nimbly dodged and launched itself to ensnare Harty, but that plan failed.
I was on Harty’s back. Like a mere beast, it hadn’t expected cooperation between human and wolf, failing to notice me mounted on Harty.
“Die!”
Using the secret technique learned from Ludwig─ the movement that accelerated instantly from 0 to 100─ I swung my sword. Unable to react, the anaconda’s body was cleanly split in half.
I continued swinging my sword at the severed body.
Though no animal should survive being split into upper and lower halves, that wasn’t always true. Confirming the kill was essential.
“…Harty, eat.”
“Grrr-”
After cutting the corpse into bite-sized pieces, I patted Harty’s head signaling she could eat.
Looking at the finely chopped meat before her, Harty happily began devouring the anaconda’s corpse.
Though this monster’s hide and meat could fetch high prices─ I had no way to sell them.
‘This was a monster adventurers couldn’t even dream of hunting, requiring an army to barely take down, right?’
Its tough scales easily deflected arrows and blades, and it was far too large and agile to beat down with something like a sledgehammer.
It required many people binding its movements with chains and shadows, then pounding away for a very long time to finally defeat. Even then, the meat and hide would be pulverized, making intact specimens extremely valuable.
‘If I brought something like that to the adventurers’ guild, I’d draw suspicion.’
This was a world where witches existed. Witches whose mere worship was a crime. If an ordinary adventurer somehow caught a monster that should be impossible to catch alone, rather than hailing a historic adventurer, they would obviously suspect a witch follower.
And even I didn’t want to be branded as a witch follower. If the church put out a warrant, my face would be on wanted posters throughout the country.
“Done eating?”
“Woof!”
“Then let’s go. Need to clean up quickly.”
I thought of Master, likely napping at the cabin now. What I could do for her who worked so hard for me was handle her tasks.
And─ there weren’t many things I could do in place of her daily magical research. At most, I could help control the monster population in the forest.
Fortunately, this much I was confident in. Hadn’t I been doing this even before Ludwig’s training? Now after his professional instruction, no monster frightened me.
─Rustle-.
“…Harty.”
And then what appeared to be the anaconda’s mother, an enormous monster, revealed itself. If Fenrir was house-sized, this monster was train-sized.
At a glance it looked even larger than Fenrir, with an overwhelming presence that made one feel it could never be defeated.
I gripped Harty’s nape and shouted:
“Run─!”
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“Mmm… Johaaaan…”
Evangeline opened her eyes murmuring her disciple’s name. Though she seemed to have been dreaming something, she couldn’t quite remember what.
What was certain was that it had been a dream about Johan. Recalling her cute disciple’s face, Evangeline smiled brightly and stretched.
Though her sleep schedule had been disrupted trying to care for that disciple, she didn’t resent him for it. After all, she was doing it because she wanted to…
‘Now then, what might our Johan be doing…’
Rising from bed, Evangeline immediately activated her crystal ball to check on her disciple. Her disciple was sitting in the living room scribbling something.
Zooming in to see what he was doing, Evangeline realized Johan was injured, and someone invisible was treating his wounds.
[Ow ow…! Could you be a bit more gentle there?]
[What? If you want that, why not ask Master?]
[…Well, with Master, it’s a bit… please keep this secret.]
Learning her precious disciple was hurt was infuriating enough, but the fact that he was trying to hide his injury from her was equally maddening.
Feeling inexplicable dizziness, Evangeline staggered and sat on her bed, recalling what she had just witnessed.
‘Johan, why is Johan trying to hide his injuries from me?’
When something goes wrong, people try to find the reason and solution in past memories. Witches were no different.
She recalled how she had applied medicine whenever Johan was hurt, how she had even used saliva on minor scratches.
She remembered the villainess characters from recent romance novels who avoided contact with their fiancés. Those villainesses extremely disliked touching someone they didn’t truly love.
‘Could it be… has he come to hate me?’
Evangeline felt despair as she roughly clawed at her face. She felt like going mad. Just the thought that Johan might hate her made her want to tear at her face.
After her nails had dug into her face drawing blood for a while, Evangeline burst from her room with blood dripping down her face.
The moment her door flew open, Johan turned around startled─ and upon seeing her face, became even more shocked than his initial surprise.
“M-Master!? Are you alright!?”
“Johan.”
“No, your face is injured…”
“Are you hurt?”
“Master, you’re the one who’s hurt!”
“No, not me.”
Thump- Evangeline pointed at the bandages wrapped around Johan’s arms and torso. Seeing this, Johan hesitated before carefully nodding.
Seeing him nod, Evangeline felt her insides burning as she asked:
“Why, why did you hide it from me?”
“…Hide what?”
“Until now you always asked me to bandage you. Why did you ask Marguerite today? Have you grown to hate me? Because you hate being touched by someone like me…”
“That’s impossible! Because Master was sleeping─”
“You asked Marguerite for such a trivial reason?”
Evangeline’s eyes grew increasingly dark. She spread her magic around searching for Marguerite. Upon finding her, she began pressing down with her magic.
Hearing Marguerite choking, Johan immediately grabbed Evangeline’s shoulders, sensing what she had done.
Then without a word, he licked her face.
“──!?!?”
Her disciple’s soft tongue licked her face. While she worried about dirtying his tongue since she hadn’t washed after waking─ Johan carefully pulled back and looked at her, blood smeared across his mouth.
“How can that matter? Master’s injury is more important… look! What if your beautiful face scars…”
“…Johan, you- you don’t hate me?”
“What? Master. I told you to stop reading those strange books. Why would I hate Master? Could someone who hates you do this?”
“…Mmm, that’s true.”
“Never mind that, quickly get some medicine─”
“No, not medicine-!”
Evangeline grabbed Johan as he tried to head to storage for medicine. Then after roughly wiping the blood from her wounds with her clothes, she pointed to where the wound marks were clearly visible.
“S-saliva should heal it… like before-!”
As if her tongue was paralyzed, proper pronunciation wouldn’t come.
Evangeline looked up at Johan desperately while cursing her paralyzed tongue at such an important moment.
Johan smiled slightly and did as she asked. His tongue licked her cheek again. Though it probably wouldn’t heal or even properly disinfect, it was more than enough.
“Ehe, eheheheh…”
While Evangeline laughed stupidly like this, Marguerite was dying.
‘Let me go quickly you crazy bitch─!!’
The pressure Evangeline had placed on her continued crushing Marguerite.
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Poor Marguerite
Bro is too yandere lol