Why Would a Holy Knight Be Afflicted with Such a Curse? - Chapter 36

Celesto and Roarna both turned their heads at the same time. Then, from beyond the lab door, the same tap, tap sound echoed again.

Celesto froze mid-movement.

Still not fully separated from Roarna’s lips, he gasped sharply, as if someone had doused him in ice water. His body went rigid, cold and unyielding.

Through her slightly parted lips, Roarna murmured,

“What kind of guy is that?”

As if in response, the visitor called out to her from outside the door,

“Roarna, it’s Gubim. You’re in there, right?”

Celesto spun to look at Roarna. The man outside was speaking to her in an unnervingly familiar tone.

But Roarna only tilted her head in confusion.

“How would I know you if you don’t even tell me your name?”

The indifferent reaction—neither familiar nor friendly, not even knowing who the person was—made Celesto exhale in relief.

Yet almost immediately, realizing he had felt relief in the first place filled him with self-disgust.

And he became aware, to his shame, that his hand had unconsciously slipped into the fold of Roarna’s clothing.

Celesto quickly pulled his hands back.
‘Damn… what have I done…’

A rush of shame—or whatever that feeling was—flooded over him.

He had clearly thought there was no way he could do that here, yet one hand had been on his pants, the other on Roarna’s skin.

Only now did he realize he had completely lost control of his reason. Celesto sprang upright from the sofa.

He took a step back from Roarna.

“I—I’m going.”

Celesto said it, his face drained of color.

Roarna stared at him, her clear, translucent eyes sweeping over him as if he had been struck by lightning, frozen rigid.

“Why?”

“Why? Because a guest came.”

Roarna’s calm, unbothered tone made his chest drop.

“Just because someone I didn’t invite showed up, you’re sending my guest away? And you don’t even know who it is.”

‘What…?’

Celesto’s eyes darted, unsure where to look. It was a feeling he had never experienced before.

While Celesto stood there, unsure what to do, Roarna tidied her disheveled hair.

Watching her, Celesto’s pupils wavered even more.

He could somehow cool his flushed face, but that wasn’t the real problem.

Roarna’s lips were plumper than usual. Repeatedly pressed and bitten from his persistent kisses, it was only natural.

And… somehow, they looked exceptionally beautiful. Roarna.

Even to Celesto, who had spent his life looking at her face, she looked beautiful—so how much more beautiful must she appear to another man?

So Celesto neither fully left nor brazenly stayed; he simply watched Roarna.

He couldn’t let anyone see him in Roarna’s laboratory, but at the same time, he didn’t feel able to leave.

Meanwhile, Roarna handed him the hoodie that had fallen to the floor.

“Go sit over there for now.”

She gestured with her chin to a corner of the lab, a space surrounded by tall bookshelves.

“To hide?”

“If you want to make your presence obvious, then don’t.”

“But….”

“You think too much. If someone were important, I’d remember who they are.”

But your standard for who’s important and who isn’t is usually different from everyone else’s. If someone’s talking about something you don’t care about, you don’t even look at your own family.

A flood of thoughts rose to Celesto’s throat. Instead of voicing them, he took the hoodie.

He sensed instinctively that the man persistently knocking at the door was exactly the kind of visitor Leocel had mentioned—the type who came to the lab hoping to get Roarna’s attention.

Celesto hid behind the bookshelves along the back of the lab.

After seeing that he was settled, Roarna opened the lab door, which had been double locked.

Celesto let out a low sigh. The fact that the door had been wide open when he visited but layered with locks for others gave him a strange thrill.

‘Why am I getting excited over something like this?’

He frowned again.

Since coming to the academy’s research building, he didn’t understand why he felt so strange—upset over little things, yet cheered by the smallest details.

The common factor was one thing: Roarna Balsaren, welcoming the visitor from behind the bookshelves.

Celesto lifted his head and looked past the shelves. Roarna was climbing up the ladder to reach the bookshelf.