The Guardian Knight of Affection-Starved Young Ladies

46 – Young Master (04)

047.

“It’s the same. No, is it different…”

A murmur from Blamia, who was examining Kallen’s back.

The pattern drawn on his back was similar to Sinat’s.

A proof of the contract with the spirit, called Kalryong.

It wasn’t exactly the same as the mark engraved on his wrist, but with blurry eyes, one couldn’t tell the difference.

The problem was that it was a unique pattern.

There was no reason for it to appear to Kallen, who was neither a contract attribute suitable person nor even had a contracted spirit.

There was only one cause.

When Sinat’s spirit climbed up Kallen’s back, it did something suspicious enough to make the mental image pop out.

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For now, thinking that way was the best.

If it had been exactly the same, it might have been understandable.

It was said that the pattern was engraved exactly the same as the trace left by the spirit contracted with Sinat.

However, the pattern, which was engraved similarly but differently, was hard to say it was completely the same.

It was done to listen in detail to the request to save Sinat, but only incomprehensible things kept piling up.

Thanks to that, the pain left on the back remained the same.

The feeling from the heart, could it have adapted a little by now?

It felt like even the pain that was almost getting used to was recurring.

“Can’t it be erased?”

“Yes. It’s like a contract pattern.”

The contract pattern refers to the pattern on Sinat’s wrist, which is possessed by contract attribute wizards.

The pattern engraved on the wrist according to mana cannot be erased.

It is a pattern that disappears only when the contract with the spirit is broken or one of them dies.

The reason it appeared on Kallen’s back, not even on the wrist, without a contracted spirit, was there.

From basic baths to magic that Blamia might have tried.

All kinds of methods were used, but the pattern engraved on the back did not erase a single stroke.

“Is it still the same?”

“Yes…”

Even if Sinat’s spirit is summoned, it’s the same.

No, it could be said to be worse than before.

Until now, it seemed to be trying to keep the hidden secret,

Now, it seemed to be shrinking as if it had nothing to say.

“Sigh…”

Is my body some kind of canvas?

Kallen reflected his messed-up body in the mirror.

Even those scars concentrated on the right side of the body could be said to be enough to be ugly,

With the blackened heart and straight lines, and the pattern on the back visible in the mirror.

More than someone who has rolled around on a battlefield for decades.

A clue barely grasped with a throbbing head.

When asked to inform about the danger that would befall Sinat, the spirit answered with this pattern.

At least it is not unrelated.

Otherwise, there would be no reason to be so downcast.

Kallen turned his gaze to a girl who was urging her spirit.

The boy knew how to look at his heart objectively.

After returning, the atmosphere of Sinat had changed so subtly that only he or Blamia could notice.

This frustration that started then, a fear stemming from the unknown.

The sight of the girl’s face stained with pain,

was something he would refuse even in death.

*

The commotion that had disturbed the mind for a while had subsided.

Since there was nothing that could be called progress, it means that enough time had passed to return to the original state.

The three could only neglect the uncomfortable thorn in their hearts.

With the active cooperation of Lakatus and Hiatt,

it was not long before Dranus would rise again.

Attempts to break through the third rank were only heating up.

In fact, one could say there was no need to rush this much.

The giant called Blamia did not want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Since the time he left the family with his granddaughter, the Dranus family remained in the form of regret.

It was not a wish.

However, Blamia accepted Lakatus’s proposal.

The reason for holding onto the regret called Dranus was entirely because of his granddaughter, Sinat.

If one had to say it was a wish,

it would be for the things that would return to Sinat rather than the family itself.

Even if the family revived, Sinat’s deceased parents and brother would not return.

To Sinat, Dranus was a home with family.

It was to repay the sin of the grandfather who had taken that home away at will.

The rush was in that dimension of meaning.

Since Sinat also wants to continue the family line, there is even less reason not to do so.

A reverse scale and lingering attachment.

The reason Dranus took such a strange form within Blamia was all because of that.

If it weren’t for Sinat, he wouldn’t have had the paradoxical idea of reviving a family filled with guilt and regret.

Even though he had lived well in the cabin until now, he couldn’t refuse when Lakatus proposed.

He had intended to debut in society someday, but the decision to take over the family head position was made then.

A future that should have been happy.

It was the grandfather’s atonement for taking that away from his granddaughter.

“Ha… Ha…”

Still mostly delicate lines.

The fact that he couldn’t properly stop his granddaughter, who was clearly overexerting herself, also had that meaning.

Pouring his greed onto his grandson and brother, Sitram.

Having taken away the happy future that was supposed to unfold for Sinat, he couldn’t now hypocritically tell her to take it slow.

Of course, Blamia knew well that Sinat would never say such a thing to him.

But if it were a nightmare that could be erased so easily,

He wouldn’t have dreamed it for so long that his rank would lower.

The effort to not repeat the past,

At the same time, the fact that it was repeating the past.

It came so painfully close.

Blamia turned his eyes to another nightmare.

Looking this way from a distance,

A kid whose head was surely filled with immense worries.

He must be deeply troubled about the danger foretold for Sinat.

In fact, such grace could be repaid roughly.

When he checked last time, he didn’t know how, but he had awakened third-rank combat attribute magic.

He could live well even if he left now.

But the kid kept trying to help by sacrificing himself.

Thanks to that, there was a time when his granddaughter’s life was saved,

But the more it happened, the more it seemed like the nightmare was repeating.

The more scars that appeared on the kid named Kallen’s body, the more it seemed like it was because he had picked him up.

Dranus resurrected.

If Sinat could grasp the happy future that was supposed to be hers, would this sick heart be healed as well?

“…Let’s start over.”

Blamia closed her eyes,

hoping that Sinat would return home safely.

*

“If anything happens, shout.”

“Yes, good night, Kal!”

“You too.”

Clunk-

The sound of the wooden door closing and latching.

The girl with a smile crumbled onto the bed.

“What do you mean, ‘you too’…”

For example, something like, have a good dream.

Aren’t there such pretty words?

At least, it would have been nice if he had just said good night back.

“…”

But as she lay there, she realized that it wasn’t that the boy didn’t usually say good night.

No, rather, this was better.

She didn’t know what danger her spirit, Kalyong, had mentioned.

But because of that, Kal was worrying about her more and more.

“Hee~.”

Her body felt as heavy as if hundreds of stones were piled on it.

And her head hurt as if it would burst at any moment.

But just that fact alone was enough to endure.

How about the boy’s embrace that she got by saying she was tired?

The expression of concern as he looked at her, as if it didn’t matter that she was drenched in sweat, was dizzying.

As if she would get addicted.

The girl, who had buried her head in the pillow and was blankly recalling the boy’s expression,

suddenly got up as if she had remembered something and rummaged through a small drawer.

A place so remote that you have to reach deep inside to touch it.

Soon, a fairly thick notebook appeared.

The girl, roughly lying on the bed, opened the edge of the notebook and began to scribble.

Was it because she was focused?

The girl erased the smile she had been holding, as if it were a lie.

Her short nails, which were almost bare, stung every time she wrote, but

to the girl, organizing something in the notebook was far more precious than such trivial pain.

When her arm started to go numb due to her posture,

the girl turned over and lifted the notebook.

“…”

Once in the air.

The girl, who had pulled her outstretched arm back, covered her mouth with the notebook.

“Hee.”

It was impossible to tell what expression the girl had, as it was hidden by the notebook.

On the first page of the thick-looking notebook,

it was written, [Kallen].

*

“I knew it.”

The first words Kallen uttered after borrowing a mirror from Sinat and staring at her back for a long time.

Her neck was quite stiff, but it was undoubtedly worth the time.

She realized that the pattern engraved on her back resembled the one she had seen at the entrance of the cave on Mount Hiatt.

It was slightly different from Sinat’s, but exactly the same as the one in the cave.

Given the urgency of the situation, it was unlikely she remembered it incorrectly.

There might be some differences if she nitpicked, but

Kallen shook her head.

How could she forget something she memorized to avoid forgetting on her way back?

The contract pattern engraved on her back was surely the same.

With that thought, she felt as if she could see a blocked path again.

The pattern at the cave entrance, the seal that lay dormant within.

At that time, she had considered the possibility of another lord spirit,

I wonder if this is also vaguely related.

‘Is it related to me killing that monster?’

A chilling feeling behind the neck.

Feeling that, the fatigue in my body flew away.

Except for the one premise that it was engraved by Sinat’s spirit, it fits quite well.

Fortunately, there hasn’t been anything that could be called ‘danger’ to Sinat so far.

Kallen immediately picked up the mirror and left the room.

The sting felt before heading to Hiatt.

At the time, I thought it was just my imagination, but now it seems it can’t be unrelated.

Kallen touched the back of his neck and went out to find Sinat.