From the Tip of the Tongue of the Lowliest Maid - Chapter 160

This work contains scenes of sadistic coercion and hardcore depictions of BDSM. Reader discretion is advised.

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t feel great.”

“I think the amount of blood you coughed up would fill a bucket. A normal person would have died on the spot. I suppose it’s natural that you don’t feel great.”

“To show such a sight in the middle of a street.”

Ragnar said in a low voice.

“The people of the domain must be agitated.”

“I suppose so.”

“What are the priests saying?”

“They say it seems a curse has been placed upon you, My Lord.”

Ragnar, who had been wetting his lips with a glass of water, frowned again and looked at Carmen.

Carmen, whose mind could never be read, was unhesitating even as he uttered impious words in front of Ragnar.

It was impossible to tell whether he trusted the priests’ words that a curse had been placed upon Ragnar, or if his faith in Ragnar was so strong that he was certain it could not be a curse. Carmen’s snake-like eyes did not show any emotion.

“A curse, huh.”

Ragnar calmly repeated those words to himself. Ragnar’s naked body, revealed under the moonlight that came through the window, twitched more firmly.

He did not look like a person who would collapse at any moment, no matter where you looked.

Ragnar leaned his back against the headboard and looked down at his bed. It was a wide bed for one person. And he strangely recalled the fact that he had never once thought that before.

Being alone in this hour, in this bed, and in this darkness, felt like it had been a very long time ago.

Even though it was something he had taken for granted his entire life.

He looked down at his own body, which had no external injuries. As if to confirm the heart that was still beating stubbornly beneath the firm muscles.

A curse.

A curse, huh.

‘Perhaps it is.’

He thought. Perhaps he had been waiting for it.

“Have you and I committed a sin, My Lord? Is this… a sin?”

After the first question that had changed him, Ragnar had not claimed his own integrity. He had never forgotten for a single moment that he was committing a sin, that he was breaking the vow he had made.

He had intended to pay the price for all of it. By confessing his sins to God himself and making a fitting atonement…

He had tried to take the woman he had dared to defile with his lust as his companion, even at the cost of all of that.

He had vowed to live a dignified life with Arzeletta after that.

“……”

He never got the chance, after all.

Ragnar closed his eyes. Whether his eyes were closed or open, the image of Arzeletta did not fade.

That last image of her, looking at him with a face as if she was so sad she couldn’t bear it, was circling him like a phantom.

“I cannot love you, My Lord.”

Those words sounded so strange.

Not ‘I do not love you,’ but ‘I cannot love you.’

…He could not believe his own foolishness at this moment, for clinging to and dwelling on a single trivial word like this, and trying to hold on to hope.

“There is someone I love.”

These words alone had definitely broken him. The moment Arzeletta whispered these words, Ragnar felt his inner self collapse. This feeling of helplessness, of uncertainty, was the first he had ever felt in his life.

Arzeletta was a young lady who had just blossomed, and was peerlessly beautiful. She must have wanted to love someone. She must have had a chance to love.

But the fact that he had never for a moment expected such a thing while holding Arzeletta in his arms was not entirely his fault.

It was because the look in Arzeletta’s eyes as she looked at him while being held in his arms was so sincere.

Ragnar could not imagine it. That a person who loved someone else could so desperately desire someone else. Perhaps he was the one who was stubborn and narrow-minded.

“……”

Ragnar’s violet eyes darkened.

He had a premonition that he was cursed.

He had committed a sin.

It was the sin of daring to harbor feelings that he, as a Holy Knight, should not have had for even a single moment.

And that was not the sin of the moment he lusted after and loved the maid.

“I love another person.”

The moment he heard those words. He had tried to break Arzeletta with force.

It was an impulse as if a fire was raining down on his whole body. At that moment, he felt like he was being devoured by a demon.

It was a violence and malice that he had never even imagined could exist within him.

With only the greed of not wanting to lose this woman, he wanted to spread Arzeletta’s gentle body open and thrust himself deeply into places he had not invaded before.

It was an impulse that was only about domination and possession.

He wanted to achieve his will even by wielding his authority over Arzeletta, a powerless maid.

A fierce malice, like fire, had consumed him, the malice of wanting to finally find the person Arzeletta had said she loved and horribly destroy him in front of her eyes.