If You Take the Enemy Prince as Your Knight Chapter 165

“So, you’ll definitely be alright. Sasha will be fine.”

 

Regen interlaced his fingers with hers and kissed the prominent triangular bone at her wrist. Contrary to someone trying to reassure her, his hands and lips trembled unsteadily.

 

As time passed uselessly, a faint sigh could be heard. Hamel was standing beside him.

 

“Sir Regen.”

 

The quiet call carried the meaning of asking him to step aside for a moment. However, Regen could not move after seeing what Hamel had brought. What Hamel was holding was a ribbon made of soft material, meant to be tied around the waist.

 

She lowered her eyes deeply and said, “When she wakes up, she won’t be able to endure the pain.”

 

“…”

 

It meant she intended to tie Sasha’s hand to prevent her from hurting herself.

 

Hamel looked so utterly grief-stricken, which made Regen feel devastated instead of angry. In truth, his own hand, which had earlier pressed down on the wrist of the convulsing princess and subdued her by force, was no different from that silk ribbon in its violence.

 

“Uh…”

 

At that moment, Sasha showed signs of opening her eyes again. Hamel hurriedly stepped forward with the ribbon, but Regen stopped her. “I’ll do it.” He looked down at Sasha as she slowly opened her eyelids. “Sasha.”

 

“Regen…?”

 

The face that had been drowsy changed. As her unfocused eyes found their focus, anguish began to creep into her previously relaxed expression. It was not difficult to predict the onset of another seizure. Regen found a way to save Sasha from the pain that would soon come.

 

“Look at me, Sasha.”

 

While their eyes met, he pressed his lips against hers. Sasha’s two eyes and Regen’s left eye resonated, drawing a pattern of light. Wishing that there would be no pain in his mental world, and that his unconscious would hold onto her for as long as possible, he swallowed Sasha’s consciousness.

 

✦

Four days passed. Regen did not leave the bed for even a moment. Every time Sasha awoke, he pulled her back into his mental world and forced her to sleep. He repeated the same thing dozens of times a day.

 

At some point, something unusual happened. Even as Sasha’s consciousness was sucked into Regen’s mental world, Regen could stay awake and carry on with his activities.

 

After finally releasing Sasha from his arms for the first time in a very long while, Regen climbed out of bed and looked at himself in the mirror. In his left eye, a beautiful pattern of light swirled. It was also visible proof that her consciousness remained inside his mental world. Once this pattern disappeared, Sasha would awaken before long.

 

Regen didn’t know how much time he would be given to act. He decided to move quickly. “I’ll be away for a little while, Sasha.”

 

In preparation for Sasha waking while he was unable to remain by her side, he took some precautions. Regen couldn’t bring himself to bind her wrists with a ribbon. Instead, he put a bell bracelet around her wrist. In an emergency, the maids would hear the sound and come running.

 

Regen went straight forward to the window. The Silver Bird Room was on the second floor. Not wanting to waste the time it would take to leave through the door, he jumped over the railing. As if carrying out a covert mission, he moved quickly while avoiding the guards and moonlight.

 

The place Regen arrived at was the great library of the main palace. It was not a time when entry was permitted, but he did not care. The same was true of areas where access was restricted. Such restrictions meant nothing to him.

 

Records concerning the madness that afflicted members of the imperial family were kept alongside the records of domination. Regen rummaged through every material he could find, including documents no one outside the imperial family could normally view. He had to learn everything there was to know about the illness that was trying to take Sasha away from him. He read the records without rest as the moon sank toward the west.

 

The more information Regen obtained, the more his eyes gradually grew dull, as though all light had been drained from them. He could not find even the slightest hope.

 

The records stated the following.

 

[Every member of the imperial family who suffered from madness eventually died without exception. In most cases, their personal knights went mad as well.]

 

[An imperial family member afflicted with madness would die without lasting even half a month. They couldn’t consume food because of the seizures, and their strength rapidly deteriorated.]

 

[The fortunate ones would return to their senses once or twice. At that point, they had to prepare their last will. Personal knights who allowed themselves to hope that their master had recovered invariably went mad and died.]

 

“…”

 

Every record did nothing but warn Regen to prepare himself to face despair.

 

There was no way Regen could remain composed after reading words that were practically the vilest curse in the world. His mental state became extremely unstable. And the more he lost control of himself, the more his true nature was revealed.

 

An oppressive presence resembling coldness bore down on the surroundings as if it would suffocate everything. Stimulated by this, someone in the darkness flinched and accidentally revealed their presence. Without even turning his gaze, Regen opened his mouth. “Come out.”

 

The low mutter robbed the person of any desire to resist. The person hidden in the shadows obediently revealed himself. It was a blond knight in a blue uniform.

 

Dominic spoke with his usual apathetic smile on his lips. “Only members of the imperial family are allowed in here.”

 

“Was Sir Dominic an illegitimate child of the mad emperor?” The implication ‘you aren’t a member of the imperial family either’ had been molded into its most offensive possible form.

 

Dominic’s face immediately twisted. “That damned tongue of yours… What the? What’s wrong with your eye?” The pattern that had appeared in Regen’s left eye caught his attention. “Dominion power? Judging by how only half of your eyeball is glowing, I guess only half of the domination was completed. No wonder the way you looked at Rosasia was sinister in a way unbecoming of a personal knight.”

 

“…”

 

“But wait, Rosasia isn’t here. You’re all alone. So why the hell is the dominion power activating on its own? What a ridiculous phenomenon.”

 

Ignoring him, Regen focused on reading the records. But Dominic was not the sort to give up. He covered the page Regen was reading with his palm, interrupting him. His persistent gaze met Regen’s cold, sunken ones.

 

“What have you been doing for four days?”

 

“…”

 

“What have you been doing?”

 

“I slept.”

 

“You don’t look like you’ve slept at all.”

 

The person Dominic was taking such meticulous interest in was not Regen. Regen’s condition was merely a clue.

 

“Sir Dominic.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’d appreciate it if you could keep quiet. I’m busy right now, and if I accidentally kill you, it’ll be troublesome.”

 

This raw anger was the same. There was none of the leisurely arrogance that usually irritated Dominic to be found in Regen. The reason why that obnoxious b*stard, steeped in refinement down to his very bones, had completely lost his composure was obvious.

 

“Something really did happen to Rosasia. No wonder there hasn’t been any news from her for four days.”

 

There was no need to interrogate Regen any further. Dominic picked up the scattered records around him and quickly skimmed through them.

 

“Ha.” He reached the answer almost immediately, but he was in no way happy about it. “Madness?”

 

“…”

 

“You’ve got to be kidding. Why Rosasia?”

 

“…”

 

“Damn it. What kind of nonsense is this…?”

 

Watching his confusion, Regen asked in a voice as cold as his gaze, “Do you know anything about it?”

 

There was a reason he hadn’t particularly stopped Dominic from loitering beside him. The records had essentially been spread open for Dominic to look at as well. Regen intended to have Dominic pour out whatever information he knew about the imperial family’s madness. But it was of little help.

 

“Don’t know. I only heard about it, never saw it myself. I thought it was some strange disease that had disappeared from history.”

 

Regen no longer felt that Dominic was worth any more of his time. He returned to searching through the historical records. First, he would examine every single thing the imperial family members who had suffered from madness had done before their deaths. If that was insufficient, he would examine everything those imperial family members had done during their entire lives. And if even that was insufficient, he would examine the lives of every imperial family member throughout history.

 

Regen did not care about the sheer volume of it all. Even if he was at a loss because there was no clear direction, it did not matter. He could never stop groping for even a fragment of hope in the deep, dark swamp.

 

It was when Regen indiscriminately gathered historical records and piled them onto the desk before taking his seat. The seat across from him was occupied by Dominic.