Why Would a Holy Knight Be Afflicted with Such a Curse? - Chapter 39

Celesto stared blankly at her fingers as she tapped the pot. He couldn’t understand why she was so carefully treasuring a gift left by a man she’d been cursing out murderously just moments ago.

A man who had even mentioned her estranged family, no less.

‘…No.’

Celesto let out a dry laugh.

‘How could I not understand? She’s always been like this.’

That was it. Thinking about it, it wasn’t strange at all.

Roarna had always been scrupulously clear about separating business from personal matters. Hadn’t she gotten along perfectly well with Leocel after all?

A woman who had done such things with someone she’d known for so long yet still maintained a relationship as friends and fellow scholars—of course she wouldn’t let personal insults cloud her judgment of utility.

‘She probably didn’t even notice that man was making advances in the first place.’

His head throbbed.

Meaning, his assumption that Roarna would throw away the flower pot was closer to wishful thinking than a prediction.

He had hoped she would immediately discard even something useful if it came from a man who mentioned the family that cast her out when she insisted on entering the academy to major in taboo studies.

He had hoped she would never speak again to that man who had been subtly crossing the line with Roarna.

Judging by the man’s reaction, this probably wasn’t the first time he had made advances toward Roarna. He likely acted the same way when he asked her to look over that thesis or whatever.

But probably… no, definitely, that man’s research had been useful to Roarna. Or at least, it had been a source of amusement.

Was that the only man who had received Roarna’s advice? Was this the first time Roarna had been alone in her lab with a man who had ulterior motives toward her?

‘…Am I going crazy because of this curse?’

Things he had never cared about in his entire life now bothered him one by one, driving him insane.

What made him even crazier was that he knew the answers to all these questions.

Because he knew Roarna Balseren all too well.

Celesto clenched his fist until it hurt.

Roarna opened her lab door to a man whose name she probably didn’t even remember.

Even if it was a gift from someone who had insulted her with the words she least wanted to hear, if she found it interesting, she would carefully place it in the spot with the best sunlight.

Thinking that, one contextless question kept surfacing in his mind.

‘Then what about me?’

Uncontrollable doubts clawed through his head.

The curse afflicting Celesto was one even Roarna had never heard of. Placed in a space accessible only to clerics, no less—the ‘Lust Curse.’

For Roarna, a scholar of forbidden arts, this was a rare and powerful research subject, the kind one might encounter only once in a lifetime.

So, if this curse were to disappear…?

“…”

Celesto’s brow crumpled.

Come to think of it, he had never once considered what would come after this curse.

Roarna would probably be unaffected. Just as with her relationship with Leocel, what had happened between them would become a complete secret.

But what about himself? Could he bury everything that had happened with Roarna and return to how things were before?

Celesto found himself laughing without meaning to.

‘If that were possible, I would have stayed close with Roarna even after Leocel died.’

Celesto began to move.

His gaze fixed on Roarna, leaning against the window.

In the meantime, Roarna had taken out a notebook and was scribbling something. Judging by the way her gaze flitted between the flower pot and the notebook, she was probably making some kind of observational record.

Slowly.

He braced his arms against the window frame. Only when she was trapped between him and the window did Roarna turn to look at him.

“What?”

“You stopped in the middle earlier.”

“I know that. If you go sit on the sofa, I’ll— Mmph!”

Perhaps thanks to the ‘lessons’ she had given him, Celesto was able to capture her lips in an instant.

Holding the window frame, he pressed Roarna harder against the wall. Her soft body, wrapped in shirt and pants, was thoroughly crushed against his lower body.

His tongue relentlessly stroked Roarna’s mucous membrane. Everything—from her reddened lips to the inside of her mouth, even the trembling tongue within.