The Sage that the Sword Saint is Obsessed With

28 – 9. Curse of the Witch (1)

1.

A week had passed since the giant fell.

What if they hadn’t been able to stop the giant at the gate? The villagers, haunted by horrifying thoughts, as if a giant-like monster might emerge at any moment, now lived peaceful days, pretending they had never entertained such fears.

Everything remained as it was a week ago, part of the routine.

On the contrary, Leuen’s condition had worsened since then.

Like a girl afflicted with a mysterious illness, Leuen, with a faint face, seemed as if her soul had departed after felling the giant.

Expressionless, it was impossible to guess what thoughts occupied her mind.

Her half-closed eyes stared into the distance, lost in some unknown place.

While some claimed she had returned to her usual self, those who had been with Leuen for a long time could sense that she was grappling with emotions on her own again.

Leuen was never expressive of her emotions.

Joy, occasionally revealed through a slight lift of the corners of her mouth and a subtle laugh, contrasted sharply with her consistently impassive negative emotions.

Sadness.

Anger.

Rather than expressing such intense feelings outwardly, she had always suppressed them deep within her heart.

If one were to count the emotions she had kept in her heart until now, they would likely number in the hundreds, if not thousands. Some had decayed away as time passed, while others remained intact, occupying space within her.

“…”

For the first time, when she led a large-scale battle, sending forty members away, Leuen, like now, sat in silence for days with closed lips.

It was the same as back then.

This time, though the nature of the emotion eluded understanding, she was zoning out to suppress negative feelings.

Worry.

At this rate, she would inevitably fall ill one day.

Emotions exist to be expressed.

Yet, if one chooses only to suppress and hold them in, it will undoubtedly become a problem.

“Commander.”

The deputy commander, Karen, spoke to Leuen, who was once again seated in the meeting room, chin resting on her hand, dusting the table.

“Do you have any concerns?”

Leuen sighed deeply before slowly raising her gaze to look at Karen.

“No, no concerns at all.”

Although she thought she had learned to lean on others, this time too, Leuen chose the path of enduring it alone.

“Please don’t hide it. They say sharing joy doubles it, and sharing sorrow halves it.”

Leuen said with a twinkle in his eyes.

“Seriously. It’s just tough because of the aftermath of the last battle.”

“…Is that so?”

“If you were worried because of me, I’m sorry.”

Karen lowered her head slightly and extended her hand in apology to Leuen.

“No, you don’t have to apologize for that!”

Leuen lied.

His eyes were smiling, but his lips weren’t.

That eerie expression seemed to articulate Leuen’s true feelings.

The atmosphere quietened again.

To continue the conversation, Karen nodded her head.

“Oh, right!”

She remembered something.

“The cookies. Did you deliver them to the magician?”

Leuen flinched.

His half-closed eyes snapped open.

Oh no…

Karen realized she had asked the worst question she could’ve.

Come to think of it, the only thing in the past week that could have plunged Leuen into melancholy was related to the cookies. He had gathered the courage to give them to Evan, but she hadn’t heard about it afterward.

“Yeah. I gave them.”

Leuen filled his face with a bright smile.

“He praised their taste.”

It was a lie.

Definitely a lie.

Though he appeared to smile, there was tension in his forehead, and his forced-up lips looked stiff.

…I didn’t give them.

Well, it wasn’t a situation where I could have given them in the first place.

We were in the middle of a battle.

After the battle, the cookies would have been a mess.

“Thanks. It’s all thanks to you that I could give this.”

But he didn’t seem sad about not giving the cookies.

There seems to be another reason.

I don’t know what that is.

“I said I’d buy you a drink, right? When we go to the city, I’ll get you an expensive one.”

Leven forced a smile, suppressing sadness.

He couldn’t bring himself to tell Karen the truth, the one who had given him courage.

Not only could he not deliver the cookies in person, but also how could he say that the cookies were thrown away like trash, criticized by others.

2.

The morning sunlight coming through the curtains stings the eyes.

Evan’s eyelids tremble as he sleeps.

“Hmm….”

Exhaling the air that filled his lungs during sleep, Evan slowly opened his eyes. He blinked as he stared at the ceiling.

How long did he sleep?

Since he didn’t know when he fell asleep, the concept of time disappeared.

He couldn’t grasp how many hours he slept, and he didn’t even know what day it was today.

Still, the fact that no one woke him up while he was sleeping is probably a good thing.

Evan got up.

He had slept deeply, his head felt light, but his body was heavy.

Turning his neck in different directions, stretching, and looking around while stretching his shoulders, he surveyed the messy room.

A chaotic room.

Paper scattered on the floor, and above it, a bottle of liquor rolling around.

Since returning from the battle, Evan had been locked in the inn room, reviewing the magic circle engraved on the giant’s body like a tattoo.

He didn’t have plans to analyze it in detail.

Because he could destroy the magic circle, the research was as good as finished with that alone.

But he wanted to empty his mind, so he drew the complex magic circle, remembering each line, and analyzed how it was constructed.

There’s nothing better than magic research to get rid of distractions.

That was the case until now.

This time it wasn’t enough.

It was lacking, so he even found and drank alcohol.

The cookie kept bothering me.

I had decided to brush it off, but my emotions were tangled.

Feeling guilty for treating something someone else had worked hard to create as trash and discarding it in front of them.

But it wasn’t just that; other emotions were mixed in.

It was difficult to precisely define what emotion it was.

Each time I recalled that the cookie was personally made by Leuen, an emotion welled up.

It’s not awe.

It’s too uncomfortable to call it awe.

It’s not regret either.

Regret is already being felt through guilt.

What is it then? What on earth is it?

Feeling unpleasant yet irritated, irritated yet with a tightness in my chest as if it were congested.

I can’t understand why I acted that way that day.

Did I really need to go back and search for it just because I knew it was a cookie made by Leuen for me?

Looking back, there was no need.

Just because that woman made it didn’t mean I had to accept it.

I could have ignored it.

But Evan didn’t.

…Why?

Even as he drew magic circles.

Even as he drank alcohol.

He had asked himself that question several times.

He never found a clear answer.

He concluded that he just wanted to.

“By the way, why cookies all of a sudden?”

Leuen’s actions are also incomprehensible.

I had told her to forget everything, that whether she lived in remorse or not was up to her, but I never expected her to suddenly bake cookies as a gift.

“…Come to think of it, I’ve baked cookies for her too.”

Suddenly, an old memory surfaced.

I had rented the inn kitchen to bake cookies for Leuen, who enjoyed food.

To begin with the result, it was a remarkable failure.

On the surface, it seemed perfectly fine.

But Evan committed a rookie mistake, confusing sugar and salt.

Leowen realized this mistake when she was halfway through eating the cookies.

Belatedly tasting it, she was shocked to realize that what she had made wasn’t cookies but warm lumps of salt, prompting her to toss all the cookies into the trash.

“Why throw them away?”

Leowen picked up each cookie from the trash, dusted off the dirt, and started eating them one by one.

Despite being advised not to eat them.

“Evan made them for me, after all.”

With these words, she eventually finished eating them all.

“…Tsk.”

A forgotten memory surfaced, and Evan clicked his tongue.

While he hadn’t forgiven Leowen, and though he had received an apology, resolving the long-held question didn’t bring any satisfaction.

The disgust had dulled a bit, but a lingering discomfort of an unknown origin persisted.

Evan left the room.

He needed a moment to clear his mind.

Roaming the village, he filled his thoughts with different information.

He closely observed people’s actions.

Watching children playing tag, he assessed the chances of the tagger winning.

Yeah, not all thoughts were utterly useless.

While observing the villagers during his stroll, he witnessed two individuals embracing each other as if replacing morning greetings.

“Stay strong today.”

“You too.”

What’s this nonsense from early in the morning?

Clicking his tongue and shaking his head, his gaze wandered.

Then, he recalled Leowen being held in someone’s arms on a wagon.

The sudden accident that occurred as the wagon, caught on a stone, jerked unpredictably.

It was genuinely small.

Petite stature.

Slender shoulders.

The hot body temperature pressing against the chest and the warm sweat scent lightly tickling the tip of the nose.

There was no time to feel unpleasantness due to the sudden occurrence.

But instinctively, there is a desire to smell that sweet sweat once again.

It was a thought that suddenly came to mind.

Leading the knights with a small body for years in the battlefield, and that too in the frontline. Even though it wasn’t an order from the empire. Apart from the mixed emotions, it is worthy of respect on a human level.

…Don’t be deceived.

Lewyn is a witch.

To others, she may be a revered hero, but to Evan, Lewyn is a witch cursed with a terrible curse. Just when he thought the curse was finally broken, something like smoke filled his mind, making him feel frustrated.

While Evan was mentally hunting Lewyn, he came across the witch on his way back from the morning training.