Good Night

* * *

“What would you do if you had unintentionally broke your relationship with someone?”

[Are you talking about Orewinbridge?]

“I wasn’t specifically talking about who.”

Kyrie answered quietly and moved her pawn.

Villiers room, in front of the chessboard. These days, Kyrie and Nathaniel spent more time together. Nathaniel, the patentee, sat in a languid position and pushed his pawn forward with his fingertip.

[I usually ignore it.]

“I’ve been ignoring it so far, but I think the time has come for me to stop.”

[It’s Rubinia Cassner’s job]

“Please don’t say something like ‘All women’s enemies are women’.”

[Idiots who distinguish gender in a fight are the first to die.]

Kyrie smiled softly. She moved another pawn on her turn.

“Because of that, you’ve made quite a big deal at the engagement celebration.’

[Since she was equipped with a weapon called the Crown Prince, you should go out similarly.]

Kyrie laughed, shaking her shoulders after a long time. She was in a situation where the entity who can be called the strongest in the world treated himself as a self-defense weapon.

“Are we on the same side, then?”

[At the point where ‘we’ can be tied together, it’s already on the same side.]

“You are wise.”

[Listen often.]

Nathaniel smiled as he said so. He looked relaxed and drowsy, his boredom and desire for destruction, which had always been a shadow on one side of his face, were as faint as the traces of the first snow.

Looking at his smile, which was just beautiful, Kyrie felt overwhelmed for no reason.

“I hope people get along with you a little better.”

[Difficult.]

“Prejudice can be broken with time.”

[I have no intention of getting along with them. I have no intention of breaking prejudices.]

Emotions could not be felt in his calm confession, and Kyrie felt an unexpected sense of hopelessness.

“Aren’t you lonely?”

[It’s okay because you’re here.]

None of the terrifying words passed by without ignoring them. Kyrie, the more embarrassed and cold-hearted, said something without realizing it.

“I could be gone.”

Nathaniel’s finger stopped trying to move the knight. He rarely moved with his brows narrowed a little. Then, he laid the knight down in a strange place and leaned on his back.

[Kyrie Buchanan. Is that a threat?]

“What?”

Kyrie opened her eyes round. Nathaniel called out his cane and stroked it.

[If I can’t get along with people, you’ll die. That sounds like a threat.]

“You have great thinking scalability but it wasn’t at all, and why is it a suicide threat, not running away?”

(P/R: Nathaniel has a great imagination or is good at forming conclusions.)

[The only way to escape from me is suicide.]

“I really want to run away, so can you stop?”

[You stop too.]

“What?”

[An assumption on going away.]

Kyrie pouted her lips, she looked down at the chessboard.

A knight in a strange place.

‘Are you.... embarrassed?’

She tried to collect the scattered chess pieces as if nothing had happened.

It seemed like she wasn’t going to play chess anymore.

“But you don’t know about people? There could be a sudden natural disaster...”

[If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything more.]

“Well..”

Putting the chess pieces back in position, Kyrie couldn’t bear to see Nathaniel.

‘I think he is angry..’

Her fingers trembled. The air was cold, and there was no sound around, so she could hear her heart beating loudly.

Sneaking a peek, Nathaniel was looking at her with cold eyes without a smile.

The temperature difference between smiling and not smiling was surprisingly large, and he was like sub-zero ice flowing on the deep sea.

“....are you angry?”

[No.]

“Then?”

[I’m trying to figure out where to go.]

What? Kyrie was barely holding back what she wanted to ask. It would have been a bad thing to hear. Kyrie clenched her fist, took a deep breath and faced Nathaniel.

“....I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

Nathaniel looked at her vacantly. He had frighteningly transparent eyes.

It would be better if joys and sorrows were revealed like ordinary people. Kyrie realized that Nathaniel’s very small emotional movements were deliberately shown for herself.

So Nathaniel, who had no such consideration, was frighteningly bizarre and inhumane. Like when she first met him.

“I’m sorry.”

[.....]

“But don’t worry, I’m going to live a long life without illness. I’ve heard a lot of people saying that I don’t have a personality like I do now, but that I’m too quiet.”

Kyrie whispered, as sweet and quietly as possible, to not touch her.

Whether her efforts worked or he understood it by himself, Nathaniel tilted his head and swept his bangs.

[Kyrie.]

“Yes.”

[If you disappear from my sight....]

Unlike Kyrie, who was very nervous inside but didn’t look like it at all, Nathaniel stayed still for a very long time with his lips open.

However, he soon made a dignified and elegant smile and put his hands on his crossed legs.

[Good night.]

Kyrie couldn’t say anything, so she got up, went back to her room and laid down.

It was not until she came under the covers that her body trembled as if she had been standing in a winter field for a long time. She realized that. Kyrie, who could hardly sleep, blinked at the ceiling in a daze.

What words did he swallow?

[Continued to the next volume.]

******

T/N rant: OMG! OMG! I FINISHED THE BOOK 1 I AM AHEAD OF MANHWA! OMG OMG!

Guys I need a big shout out in the server for my lovely PRs and staff members who helped me in completing the book 1