From the Tip of the Tongue of the Lowliest Maid - Chapter 87

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

Arzeletta, held against the man’s bare chest, panted quietly as she listened to his words.

She couldn’t fully comprehend what her master—her lord—was saying.

But she could sense at least that his rage had subsided, so she curled herself up quietly like a dead thing, trying to steady her ragged breath.

“…Even I didn’t know… something like this…”

The final words were nearly a sigh.

This solid, unshakable, and great lord—one who seemed to have not a single vulnerability—was sighing, lamenting. It didn’t suit him at all.

This moment in time and space felt unreal. Not only to the lord, but even to Arzeletta.

Tonight, the one who had drawn her here through some strange force was not the master of her soul, Theogrim.

…What could that mean?

“…Ah.”

Her body, nestled in the man’s firm embrace, shifted. Arzeletta let out a low moan as she felt herself being laid down gently onto soft wildflowers.

Above her flickering gaze, the man’s face appeared. He, bathed in moonlight, was looking down at her.

Those icy violet eyes—colder than ice itself—had once cornered Arzeletta’s life.

“…….”

And now, those eyes showed strange fluctuations Arzeletta still could not comprehend.

Lying in his arms, she looked up at her lord. His dark, flickering gaze shook again—deeply.

He looked like someone in pain.

He was someone she was meant to kill. Though she bore no hatred or resentment toward him, it was a command engraved into Arzeletta.

Even Theogrim likely didn’t realize it was a command he had given, but to Arzeletta, it was an irrevocable absolute.

Yet now, in this moment, she could not look away from the deep, lacerating gaze of Ragnar.

“…….”

Why was he looking at her like that?

Arzeletta, too, was confused.

It wasn’t the same as those countless stares filled with lust and the intent to violate her.

The lake was calm and peaceful, as if it had forgotten all lurking dangers. Moonlight scattered in broken shards across the cold surface of the water.

The holy knight, revered as a divine figure, and the lowly maid stared at each other as though caught, unable to look away.

Arzeletta’s eyelids trembled.

Ragnar’s hand touched the maid’s lips. The holy knight’s large, firm thumb pressed and brushed across Arzeletta’s small, soft lips.

The white wildflowers that blanketed her like a carpet gently trembled in the faint breeze. Even the flowers seemed to be holding their breath.

Arzeletta stayed still, not knowing what she should do.

The man’s hand on her lips was warm, yet his gaze was cold. His stare, fixed on her lips as he pressed and brushed them, was as if looking at something unfamiliar.

As he touched her, Arzeletta blinked submissively.

Suddenly, the eyes of those beasts came to mind—those who had looked at her so tenderly, even as they drank her blood and died.

…Perhaps now, her own eyes looked similar to theirs.

“What in the world…”

“…….”

“Why did you come here?”

He muttered low. By now, his voice sounded almost like a growl spoken to himself.

Arzeletta’s unintentional, heated breath brushed against Ragnar’s fingers like flower petals. Her breath, fragrant like wild herbs, scattered in the cold air.

This lowly maid was awakening the frozen senses of Ragnar, hardened like glacial cliffs.

She hadn’t done anything. Ragnar knew that better than anyone.

Ragnar’s ascetic nature—his indifference to all stimuli and temptation—had always been his honor and pride. Ragnar had believed that such a temperament was a divine blessing granted by God. He was chosen in order to reach God. To serve as His vessel, God Himself had taken away all corrupting desires from him.

The self-awareness he had built over a lifetime was crumbling in an instant.

It wasn’t that he had transcended sensation—he had simply been ignorant. The belief that he had risen above all things was slowly but surely being replaced by the realization that he had known nothing at all.

And the one who brought him down from the heights of his divine path in an instant was none other than this maid from the slaughterhouse.

…The maid, simply by existing, had awakened every sensation Ragnar had forgotten.

“Why are you even… at this hour, in this place…”