Unrequited Love, Lost for the Better - Chapter 0 - Prologue

Volume 1 of UL,LFTB is available uncensored on ko-fi!

※ This work contains depictions of coercive relationships, explicit language, and other graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.

Collette rolled her large emerald-green eyes.

“So… what you’re saying is that this is all my fault?”

“Yes.”

A low voice resonated by her ear. Collette furrowed her brow. Whenever this man drew as close as he did now, her body would tense up.

It wasn’t simply because he possessed a massive physique nearing 190 centimeters. Even with someone of similar build, she had never felt this way in front of another person.

No matter how calmly she tried to respond, standing before this man made it nearly impossible to relax. As if it were engraved into her body. Collette found that vexing.

Why?

Collette lifted her gaze to look up at the man. The crimson eyes that met hers were shimmering with heat.

Valerian de Wintergreen.

The 1st Team Leader of the Labyrinth Exploration Squad at the Magic Tower, he was a handsome man with jet-black hair like ebony and scarlet eyes that glowed as red as red mistletoe berries.

Widely admired by many, he bore numerous epithets:

Labyrinth Destroyer. A magician who wielded a sword—a strange breed. The youngest candidate for the next Tower Master. A beautiful poison apple. A beauty whose single touch or glance one longed to receive…

Despite these dazzling titles, Collette felt no curiosity whatsoever about what kind of relationship she had once shared with this man in her forgotten past, nor how she had treated him. To the present Collette, it held no value.

Whether he knew of her feelings or not, the man who had trapped her between his body and the wall murmured in a heavy voice:

“Ever since I started wearing this artifact you gave me, this is what’s happened.”

He pointed to the choker encircling his neck and drew even closer. Collette bit her lower lip. When on earth did she ever give him that? She had simply wanted to conduct a clinical trial.

Her seniors had said that, aside from the Tower Master, this man possessed the most powerful mana in the Magic Tower. And someone like that was reduced to such a state by a mere artifact made by a lowly researcher like herself?

Collette glanced down at Valerian’s lower half. His dark blue clothing, resistant to contamination, clearly revealed the bulging outline beneath. The glossy area was quite prominent. Without realizing it, she fixed her gaze there.

“Collette.”

A gaze piercing enough to sting settled on her face. As she lifted her eyelids, she met burning crimson eyes that blazed fiercely.

Who on earth had given this man an embarrassing epithet like “Rose of the Bitter Cold”? Far from being cold, he was scorching hot enough to burn…

“You have to take responsibility, Collette.”

“……”

“Hm?”

Each time their gazes clashed, her pounding heart displeased her. Collette deliberately fixed her eyes on the man’s choker.

The choker, made of thin black leather, had a dark red mineral embedded at its center. A mineral that should have shimmered with an opalescent iridescence was instead pulsating a dark red. That meant the man’s mana was that unstable.

“You should choose your words carefully. I didn’t give it to you as a gift—you, Team Leader, volunteered to be the clinical trial subject.”

“You said it yourself that you started the whole research project because of my mana rampancy.”

“No, not because of you, Team Leader, but for those who are inexperienced in handling mana—”

“Either way, isn’t it no different from something you made to give me? And besides.”

He pressed his body flush against hers. His bulging lower half made contact with Collette’s abdomen.

“Hngh……”

“You’re the only one who makes me react like this.”

The pressure pressed slowly against her through her white coat—not a phallus, but a clenched fist, gently pushing around her navel.

“Only with you—only you make me react this way.”

He called it a side effect. A side effect of the artifact that stabilized his rampaging mana. Therefore, she, as its creator, bore the duty of resolving it.

Anyone else would have called it an absurd stretch, but with this man, she couldn’t simply do that.

Was the problem, after all, that I opened his clogged mana circuits?

Before verifying the artifact’s effects, Collette had discovered that his mana circuits were tightly knotted, and she had cleared them first. As a researcher of the Magic Tower, she had confidence in her ability to handle mana with precision.

But it seemed that had been a misjudgment. Once she tampered with his mana circuits and fastened the choker, Valerian had been acting as if his reins had been cut loose. Biting her lip, Collette pushed him away.

“Team Leader Wintergreen.”

“……”

“No.”

Without moving his massive body an inch, he crouched down and whined by her ear.

“I told you not to call me that……”

He looked like a great black horse trying to be affectionate. The gentle pressure lingering around her navel felt all the more pronounced.

Her heart, which used to pound at the mere touch of his fingertips, now grew so loud that only the thumping in her ears could be heard. At the same time, Collette felt something trickle down between her legs.

“……!”

No. Collette tensed her thighs. She was certain that if he discovered the state she was in down there, something unbearable would happen.

She tried to shift her hips backward to put distance between them. But because she was already pressed against the wall, she ended up not moving away at all—rather, she ended up directly rubbing her abdomen against the e******n that had been touching it.

“Haah…… Collette.”

A hot breath touched her neck. As Collette flinched and hunched her shoulders, a strangely moist voice tickled her ear.

“Hurry up and call me Valen…… okay?”

“……”

“No matter what others say, you used to call me that……”

Collette squeezed her eyes shut. Even if they had once used pet names in the past, it was something she no longer remembered.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she pushed against Valerian’s chest. Unlike moments before when he hadn’t budged, this time he yielded and stepped back.

“How could a mere researcher like me dare call the 1st Team Leader by anything other than his title, let alone a pet name?”

“If a pet name is too hard, at least call me by my name.”

“Team Leader.”

“Hm? It’s not that difficult.”

Collette lifted her gaze. She could see the black velvet of his eyelashes trembling as he looked down at her. Without meaning to, she pursed her lips. It was unfair that a man’s eyelashes could be so lush.

“I truly don’t understand why someone like you, Team Leader, is doing this to me. I’ve told you already—I don’t remember any of the things you speak of from the past.”

“Collette.”

“I appreciate that you volunteered as a test subject. But honestly, this—this makes me uncomfortable.”

“……Collette.”

“That artifact—I only developed it for people who experience difficulties in mana manipulation, like you, Team Leader, who suffers from mana rampancy. So what I’m saying is—we are nothing more and nothing less than researcher and test subject.”

“……”

“Am I wrong?”

At her unequivocal words that drew a clear line, Valerian’s face rippled with emotion. He tensed his jaw as if forcefully holding something back, then dropped his head low. A hot breath, like a sigh, touched Collette’s neck. As she hunched her shoulders and curled her small body further, Valerian spoke in a hollow voice, almost pleading.

“Why do you think I volunteered as a test subject?”

Because it was you. Because it was your work—that’s why he volunteered.

“You’re my precious younger sister… no, you’re my precious person. You even saved my life. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even be here right now. So isn’t it only right that I do whatever I can to help you?”

“Right now, it would be more helpful if you stepped back a little. And if side effects are occurring from wearing the artifact, you should remove it first.”

“I can’t do that.”

Valerian jerked his head up and grabbed Collette’s shoulder with the hand that had been bracing against the wall. When she narrowed her brows, the grip of his hand weakened, but he still didn’t let her go.

“If I take it off, we can’t continue the experiment anymore.”

“It’s protocol to halt the experiment if side effects occur.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“……”

“Why can’t you?”

His eyes, like red mistletoe berries, trembled uneasily. After his lips twitched, Valerian finally spoke with difficulty.

“If I quit, you’ll go to someone else.”

“Huh? Well…”

If he gave up his role as a test subject, of course she would have no choice but to find a new subject. As Collette stared in disbelief, Valerian said in a resolute tone.

“So I won’t.”

The artifact research, the experiments, all the side effects that came with them—

“Only with me. Only with me, exclusively.”

His vividly glowing crimson eyes burned with persistence. His lower half, which had barely pulled away, pressed firmly against her once more. The heavy pressure weighing down her entire body only deepened Collette’s confusion.

Why on earth…?

Who on earth had called this man a monk devoid of all desire? He was someone so hot, so hard, so overt in his longing.

She could no longer tell whose pounding heartbeat she felt through their pressed-together bodies. Her emerald-green eyes, as unyielding as a winter pine, trembled ceaselessly.

“So, Collette.”

Valerian recalled the day—after the two of them had escaped the Labyrinth—when Collette, who had remained unconscious all that while, had finally opened her eyes.

“Remember this well. The only one who can resolve my side effects is you.”

The unfamiliar face of Collette, who no longer remembered him. The sight of her green eyes, which had sparkled so brightly toward him just two months earlier, now frozen as cold as a winter pine. The moment he saw that—the misery he had felt… and the gratitude.

Valerian’s crimson eyes, reflecting Collette’s flustered face, grew tenderly moist.