The Ring of Bondage - Chapter 1.13

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It had already been two months since Yuria fled the ducal residence. Thanks to the fact that her heat cycle hadn’t come even once during that time, she was living a relatively comfortable life. Perhaps it was because she had left the mansion, which had been deeply permeated with Luke’s pheromones.

The reason she had fled the mansion, the process of fleeing, all of it had been painful, but to Yuria, that one point was certainly a relief. If she could go on living like this without ever being caught, she would have nothing more to wish for.

She was currently living in a single room she had rented on the second floor of a small bookstore. When she first arrived here, the future had seemed bleak because she worried about how she would make a living, but it seemed people somehow managed to live when they wanted to.

If one knew letters, arithmetic, and etiquette, one could enter a noble family as a maid, so the commoner parents nearby asked Yuria to educate their children. Yuria opened a small classroom in her room, received food or small change as payment for education, however modestly, and in that way, she could worry less about starving. The reason she had been able to rent the room was also because one of her students was the bookstore owner’s daughter.

Yuria almost never left her room, and she also asked her students and their parents not to speak of her as much as possible. Some people were puzzled by the suspicious request, but as time passed, they withdrew their doubts as well.

“Teacher Rigbye, how do you calculate this?”

At the ringing voice, Yuria turned her head. A girl with her hair braided into two pigtails was holding a pen, frowning as hard as she could. Even from that expression alone, Yuria could see the girl’s enthusiasm, and she smiled inwardly for a moment.

By the time she finished explaining, another voice called Yuria.

“Teacher, I don’t know the difference between these two.”

Teaching three children together wasn’t as easy as she had expected. Gathering a dozen or so children in a classroom and conducting a lesson would be even more difficult. The children would call for her from here and there, each of them would understand the lesson to a different degree, and there would be that much more to pay attention to.

But teaching several children was as fun as it was difficult. It was a pleasure of a completely different kind from teaching a single, brilliant student like Luke.

Luke. As soon as Yuria thought of him, her expression hardened. Once, the name Luke Cunningham had made Yuria think of freshness and sparkling light. Now, Yuria thought of something entirely different from his name. Bodies tangled naked and drenched in sweat, panting breaths, and scream-like obscene cries that burst out regardless of her will. Lewd scenes she felt guilty even remembering.

Yuria shook her head and tried to shake off the thoughts that rushed in. No matter what form the memories took, she had no right to think of Luke. She had no right to remain in his memories either.

But even knowing that she must not, Yuria often wondered. What sort of image of her remained in Luke Cunningham’s memories? It probably wouldn’t be the image of a strict teacher. He surely remembered Yuria as an ugly, obscene woman panting with instinct, or as a fraud who had shamelessly deceived everyone in the ducal family.

But just a little, even if only very faintly, she hoped he would remember her kindly. Yuria sometimes had such shameless thoughts. Of course, she knew very well that even harboring such feelings was terribly brazen for a sinner like her.

Guilt and lingering attachment tangled and mixed every time, confusing Yuria. If only she could simply forget everything and focus only on her current life. But even that was probably not a life a sinner should wish for.

“Shall we stop here for today? Don’t forget to review what you learned, and be sure to do your homework,” Yuria said as she looked at the children.

She shouldn’t forget her guilt, but she must do her best for her current students. That was the new principle Yuria had established for her life.

The children whined that there was too much homework, then left Yuria’s room after quite some time. She looked around the room, which had suddenly grown quiet, then sat on the edge of the bed.

Wiping her glasses out of habit, Yuria thought of Luke again. That was Yuria’s routine. Teaching children on the second floor of the bookstore, then adding guilt to the memories of Luke that surfaced from time to time.