Ch 57
Swanhaden threw his worn, exhausted body onto the bed. When Swan collapsed onto the bed, the sheets turned dark red.
Shuraina worried, thinking about how they needed to stop the bleeding. She asked him.
“Where are the bandages?”
“Don’t cross the line.”
Shuraina didn’t even pretend not to hear Swanhaden’s words. She was just about to rip off a piece of her shirt before remembering she carried extra bandages in her dimensional pocket. She put her hand in her pocket and took out the bandages, and also found some sanitizing medicine.
Shuraina held the bandages and the sanitizing medicine in each hand and approached Swanhaden.
“I told you not to!”
Swanhaden began to throw anything that he could grasp with his hands. From sharp pointy items to heavy bulky items, things just kept flying at Shuraina. She avoided a few of them, but she just received the blows as they came and frowned. There was a little blood, but she didn’t stop treatment. Shuraina internally cheered and clapped for herself as she swallowed down the curses that almost left her mouth.
“…….I’m definitely not close to you, but let’s get you treated, friendship aside. I don’t want to treat you either, but you can’t even move your hands properly, can you?”
She held onto her bloody head, hurt after being hit by an ornament, and began to speak. Shuraina’s eyes were focused on Swanhaden’s hand. Because of how serious the damage was, it was just barely shaped like a hand. And he was using that hand to throw things.
“These stupid things will be gone by morning. The blood of the Blanche family has healing abilities.”
Swan covered his injuries with his blanket and lowly muttered.
It really did look like Swanhaden’s injuries had improved from previously. But even though the injuries were fading at a rapid pace, the injuries that Swan had were too deep to be treated in an instant.
Shuraina sighed.
“Then let’s just wrap up your injuries. You don’t like your injuries either, right?”
“…..”
Swanhaden stayed still, as if she had hit the mark. Shuraina carefully approached him while he was quiet. Swanhaden, who had been quietly chasing Shuraina with a cold glare, sat up.
Shuraina began to treat the rest of Swanhaden’s injuries. There were so many that her medicine ran out. Shuraina was shocked at how powerful his natural healing abilities were as she watches his bones place themselves back in position, but tried her best not to show it and wound the bandages across Swan’s arms and legs.
He was wounded from head to toe, so she had to wrap him from head to toe. She didn’t have enough bandages though, so she had to focus on the parts with exposed skin. Seeing how there wasn’t any blood on the new bandages, it seemed that new skin was already growing back.
Swan just stared at Shuraina as she treated him. A small, orange head looked back and forth to his injuries and moved accordingly. When it seemed that she was almost done with treatment, he shoved Shuraina away and wrapped up the rest of the bandages that Shuraina didn’t finish.
“Go home.”
Swanhaden threw a magic stone that he had just created at Shuraina. A magic stone was a stone that a magic user created by solidifying their own magic. The stronger the creator, the thicker the consistency of the magic imbued within it.
The white magic stone that Swan gave to Shuraina was thick in magic. Shuraina had never in her life seen such a strong magic stone. She was shocked. With this, she would not only be able to go back home, but go back and forth two or three more times.
Swanhaden found the trace of the magic circle that Shuraina used and restored it. He stretched his hand and, after taking out most of the magic out of the stone, activated the magic circle. Shuraina’s body was swallowed by white tendrils of light before starting to disappear.
“If you come here again, I’m going to rip you apart for real.”
Swanhaden spoke harshly as he watched Shuraina disappear.
Once Shuraina returned home, she packed her bags on the night of the day after her return.
She took her protective sword, took a necklace that was enchanted to protect her from flying attacks, then took snacks like fruits and cookies. And she also took some medicine and bandages.
Shuraina frowned for a moment before checking to see if she missed anything. Oh, right. She had almost forgotten. Shuraina took an item that she had created as soon as she arrived back home. This item had a spell that erased any stains related to blood.
She had also spoken to Hestia about this. She had told a crying, worried Hestia that she had only fell into an unknown space, but that she had a fun time and that she had been safe.
Shuraina was attempting to use the magic circle to go to Swanhaden. But when she was about to leave, she remembered what he had told her.
“If you come here again, I’m going to rip you apart for real.”
“Try and kill me then.”
On Shuraina’s wrists, neck, and ankles were accessories all related to protective magic. Swanhaden was incredibly strong, so she needed to be at least this prepared to face him in his weak state. Shuraina was brave, but was also kind of a scaredy-cat.
Shuraina used magic to check how many people were in Swanhaden’s room and planned the time for her arrival.
From morning to afternoon, lots of people came and went with Swan, then from a specific time after, nobody entered his room. Swanhaden was always locked in his room at around the evening. Shuraina planned to go to his room at this time.
There was only one reason why Shuraina was trying to visit Swanhaden even at his vehement refusals. It was because of her younger siblings from her previous life. Shuraina was weak against hurt children, and couldn’t just walk away. She was scared of the aggressive Swanhaden, but she hated how she pretended not to see anything more. Shuraina thought of the injured Swanhaden staying by himself in that cold room.
“Haa. I’m such a busybody. So annoying. No, no, you’ll be blessed Shushu. You’ll be blessed.”
Shuraina held onto her wavering heart and, once again, headed to Swanhaden’s room.
Meanwhile, Swanhaden felt Shuraina coming into his room with the magic circle and grabbed his sword. He wasn’t lying when he told her that he would kill her. As soon as Swanhaden saw Shuraina arrive, he dashed towards her to stab a dagger through her neck, but thanks to Shuraina’s preparedness, the attack failed. Shuraina, who had avoided the attack, just briefly touched the small scratch on her face and began to tie Swanhaden up with magic.
Swanhaden could’ve resisted more, but he calmly allowed himself to be captured by Shuraina and glared at her.
Shuraina stared at Swanhaden’s furious eyes and scratched the back of her head.
“Mm, hi.”
“……..”
“Aren’t you hungry? I brought snacks.”
“…….”
Shuraina put her hand in her bag and rummaged through it for a moment.
“First let’s change those bandages, then let’s play together.”
Swanhaden threw a fist at her once again, but he fell flat on his face after aggravating his injuries.
Even after that, Shuraina always visited Swanhaden when he was alone to change his bandages and give him healthy snacks to share. Swan first rejected all the food that Shuraina gave, but once he became comfortable enough, began to take Shuraina’s snacks to eat.
Shuraina and Swanhaden fought almost every single day. But Swanhaden’s body was always such a mess that he couldn’t fight Shuraina fair and square. So he always pretended to fight against her before letting her win.
“You tedious jerk. God I hope you die.”
Swanhaden said, looking at Shuraina who had once again come and was currently fixing his bandages. Thanks to the item that Shuraina brought that cleaned any blood stains, Swanhaden was no longer a bleeding mess.
“Give it. I’m going to do it. Don’t bother me.”
Once Swanhaden had recovered slightly, he had snatched the bandages that Shuraina brought and applied them himself. Also, when he had broken the magic item that removed blood stains that Shuraina gave, he had begun to clean the blood on his own.
Swanhaden slowly began to lower his guard against Shuraina, who had visited him almost every day. He was still aggressive towards Shuraina, but didn’t try to kill her like before. It might have been because Shuraina came every day to take care of his injuries and fed him good food, but Swan’s natural healing skills were improving by leaps and bounds. He always had severe injuries, but this was leagues better than how he was before Shuraina had come along.
For him, Shuraina had changed from a hated figure to a normal, annoying orange-haired child. Swanhaden still despised all humans. Even if they had no relation to him, Swan hated anybody that was human. But when Shuraina came day after day to stay with him, Shuraina became the lone exception to this rule.
One day, Swanhaden became curious and asked Shuraina.
“Why are you always coming back? Are you trying to pretend to be nice or something?”
When Swanhaden asked this question tauntingly, Shuraina just watched Swan treat himself before taking out a chessboard and snacks. She set up the snacks and warm tea and arranged the horses on the board, then began to speak with an expression burning for victory.
“I promise I’m going to beat you in chess. I was the best player before I met you.”
Swanhaden knew that Shuraina was just saying empty, kind words. He also knew that what she had said after seeing his injuries and thrown up was also a lie.
He didn’t understand why Shuraina didn’t want to hurt him. He was an existence born to be hurt. He was meant to bear not just his own hurts, but the ones of others’ as well. All everyone wanted was to give him pain.
Swanhaden frowned.
“Be honest. Why are you coming?”
Shuraina wanted to avoid Swanhaden’s question as much as possible. The reason why she came every day was because he was young and pitiful. Well, she came at first because he was pitiful, but now she was here to learn a few more chess moves from Swan.
Shuraina wondered how she should answer the question before looking at Swanhaden.
On a night when the moon was exceptionally bright, jewel-like, multicolored eyes faced Shuraina head on. Swanhaden was an honest child. He was a child that hated anything that was trying to hide its true self. He was honest, yet incredibly defensive towards others. A child that seemed easy to understand, but wasn’t. Shuraina sighed, then decided to be honest.
“…….I don’t know why you keep getting hurt like this. I didn’t like you so I didn’t look too deeply into it either. But I know enough that other than the time you’re at my estate with the duke, you’re locked here all by yourself.”
Once Shuraina finished speaking, she felt like she was kind of a stalker. She had researched Swanhaden for a while. And she’d seen who’d entered Swan’s room.
Shuraina felt that instead of trying to go around and around trying to lie, he might be hurt and that it was best to just be honest.
“You probably already feel bad that you’re in pain, but it’d be too sad if you’re lonely on top of that. I don’t know about you, but that’s how I’d feel.”
Shuraina shoved a chip into her mouth and continued speaking.
“Honestly, the biggest reason is that I’m weak against hurt children.”
Swanhaden frowned after quietly listening to Shuraina’s explanation.
“Stop acting like a granny. You’re a child too.”
Swanhaden glared at Shuraina after she had called him a hurt child. He pondered over all of her words before coming to a conclusion.
“So no matter how much you try to explain it, you basically just pity me.”
“Yes. I was trying to avoid that word, but you’re sharp. You should just let that go, shouldn’t you? And now it’s not pity, I’m just here to win at chess.”
“But you still lose every day.”
“……..”
Swanhaden lightly smiled at Shuraina’s straightforward, brave words. Even though it was more of a mocking laugh than anything else, it was tons better than an angry look of hatred. Shuraina felt proud as she looked at Swan who had shown an emotion other than hatred.
Swanhaden looked at Shuraina. A child with short orange hair, and cold-looking but warm orange eyes. He was annoyed by the child who came every single day, but it was also fun to be together.
He wanted to be left alone, but based on Swanhaden’s guess, she was probably going to keep coming. And Swanhaden didn’t hate her either. This was a significant improvement for Swanhaden, who had always put up a wall against humans with his hatred.
“If you’re going to keep coming, come at this time. You can’t ever come earlier.”
And now, he slowly began to warm up to Shuraina and even gave her warnings. Shuraina nodded at his words. She could guess why he was telling her not to come early. Whenever she came to see Swanhaden, he had new injuries. Seeing how warm blood flowed down his injuries, it was sure that he was being abused until right before she arrived.
Swanhaden wanted to separate that hell-like experience from the time he spent with Shuraina. He didn’t want Shuraina to see him be hurt. Even though her memories would be erased by the duke if she did see, it wasn’t a very fun scene to watch so he hoped Shuraina wouldn’t seem.
They ate some simple snacks and played chess.
When Shuraina first brought the game here, Swanhaden didn’t know anything about the game. But Swanhaden was extremely intelligent: once she had given him a simple explanation of the rules, he came up with his own tactics and beat Shuraina. Card games, five-in-a-row, if he knew how to play it, he won.
Shuraina was angry. She couldn’t win against him in swordsmanship, but she wanted to win against him in chess at least. And to make matters even worse, Swanhaden began to place bets on the games. She had no idea how he knew about ‘bets’ when he was stuck in the room all day. It seemed that Swan was incredibly quick to understand how to infuriate people. Shuraina always felt into his traps and had to receive the penalties.
Last time, she had to dance in front of Swan without any music. Shuraina could still clearly see Swan mocking her.
But Shuraina had lost this turn as well. After dozens of victories, Shuraina had to accept defeat. This had to be one of the main character buffs. She couldn’t beat that. She had to tell herself that to calm down. Shuraina bitterly smiled as she drank the punishment drink.
Swanhaden had made sure to pretend to lose on his first turn so that she would want to keep playing, then allowed her to grow her dreams of revenge as they played. Shuraina fell for his sneaky words and actions time and again before receiving the punishment.
Shuraina mixed the snacks, muffin, and grape juice in water and drank it all at once.
Once the night became late, Shuraina began to organize her belongings. She cleaned the game board and the trash and stuffed it in her bag.
Shuraina held onto the powerful stone that Swanhaden gave her and waved her arms.
“Then, friend, I’ll see you later.”
At his words, Swanhaden paused mid-wave and frowned.
“…..friend? Why am I your friend?”
“If we play every day and know each others’ secrets, then we’re friends. What else would you call it?”
Swanhaden narrowed his eyes at Shuraina’s words.
“I don’t know your secret. You’re the only one who knows my secret.”
Shuraina nodded her head at Swanhaden’s words as if he had a point.
“A secret……… Okay. I’ll tell you one. I’m actually a girl.”
“……?”
“It’s not really a secret, but you seemed to think that I’m a boy, so.”
Shuraina told Swanhaden a fact that he hadn’t known and just disappeared.
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