Clink—

 

The spoon scraped against the bowl.

 

In the kitchen, where one wall had half disappeared, letting the wind drift gently in, the air carried the sweet smell of roasted sweet potato. 

 

As daylight broke, Langsion and Scylla rummaged through the collapsed hut. 

 

Anything worth taking had burned; all that remained salvageable were a few pieces of unburnt metal.

 

Langsion found a pot at the spot where the kitchen used to be and scrubbed off the blackened soot. He made soup from the sweet potatoes left in the garden patch. 

 

Since all the wooden bowls had burned, he poured the soup into a metal cup. 

 

Normally, Scylla would have licked the bowl clean in her eagerness, but today she merely picked at it halfheartedly. 

 

Langsion glanced subtly upward and confirmed that half the soup remained in her metal cup. He lowered his eyes again. 

 

In the quiet, only the corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly.

 

“All done eating.”

 

A dry, stiff voice. She set the spoon down as if she’d been waiting for exactly this moment. 

 

And then—

 

“And it would be better if you left now. Like I’ve said several times already, there’s nothing more for you to learn from me.”

 

I knew she would say that.

 

Stubborn old hag.

 

…Well, maybe “old hag” isn’t quite accurate anymore.

 

“Last night…”

 

Scylla’s shoulders flinched. Pretending not to notice her reaction, Langsion continued.

 

“You said you didn’t want me to leave.”

 

“…Me?”

 

She couldn’t quite bring herself to say “When did I ever—” because she wasn’t entirely certain. 

 

It had been the first time in her life she drank herself into a stupor, and the first time she had ever opened her body to a man.

 

“Now that I’ve confirmed your true feelings, Master, even if you tell me to leave, I won’t.”

 

“…”

 

“There’s no need to worry about me. I won’t become a nuisance to you either.”

 

“…”

 

“Rather—”

 

He cut off Scylla’s attempt to argue with one firm sentence. When she faltered and hesitated, Langsion eased the intensity from his voice and smiled gently. 

 

The subtle control over tone and pace that came from long years of living left Scylla’s urge to protest nowhere to go.

 

“My presence will be helpful to you, Master.”

 

Scylla pressed her lips tightly together and stared at him. She even had her arms crossed—thoroughly defensive. 

 

And that posture was just… unbearably cute.

 

Knowing full well that it would provoke her, Langsion still whispered with half-lidded eyes.

 

“How sad. Yesterday in my arms you were so adorable…”

 

Sure enough, Scylla’s face instantly blazed red. She glared at him even more fiercely.

 

“That was a mistake! I was drunk! If I hadn’t been, there’s no way I would have done something so embarrassing at my age. Yeah, that was really shameless of me. If you want an apology, then fine—I apologize.”

 

“Why would I want an apology? I’m the one who seduced you.”

 

“Kids like you don’t have any sense of discernment. As the adult, I should have—”

 

This is driving me insane. Langsion shook his head slowly.

 

“I liked it, though. And I can keep making you feel good from now on, too.”

 

Bam!

 

Scylla slammed both hands down on the table and shot to her feet.

 

A brief silence fell.

 

“I don’t need it.”

 

She spat the words as if chewing them up and spitting them out.

 

“To be honest, I feel uncomfortable when you act like this.”

 

Don’t come any closer.

 

Her sharp eyes seemed to pierce straight through him as they delivered the warning. 

 

‘Hmm…’ 

 

Langsion met her gaze with intrigued interest. 

 

Naturally, he had absolutely no intention of obeying her words. If she closed the door in his face, he would just force it open. 

 

The important thing was that she wasn’t doing this because she disliked him. She was only rejecting the embarrassment, the awkwardness, the unfamiliar sensation. 

 

In a way, her instincts were sharp. She already sensed that he was going to upend her entire life, so she was behaving wisely by trying to push back.

 

Of course, Langsion also knew exactly how to break down her adorable resistance.

 

Stirring the now-cold soup with the spoon, he gave a soft, crescent-moon smile. 

 

Smiling eyes clashed hotly against glaring ones.

 

Kyaaaaak—!

 

To Langsion’s eyes, she looked exactly like a cat with its fur bristling straight up, hissing in threat. 

 

A sleek black-furred wild cat with glossy shine and golden eyes.

 

As their eyes locked for a long moment, Scylla turned her head away.

 

“Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you could leave by the end of today. No—leave. Now.”

 

“Do you really want me to go?”

 

His voice carried a timbre that evoked last night. 

 

Do you truly dislike it, Master? Doesn’t the way I touch you feel good? 

 

Scylla’s shoulders trembled visibly.

 

“Stop wagging that tongue of yours any longer. I’m not going to listen to—”

 

“Why didn’t you ever say it?”

 

He suddenly rose from his seat and stepped closer. 

 

Scylla’s eyes darted around as if searching for an escape route. But Langsion couldn’t allow that. 

 

Just before she could bolt, he positioned himself in front of her, blocking any path of retreat. Scylla crossed her arms again. 

 

Langsion lowered his gaze and slowly scanned her defensive posture—from the deliberately rigid expression she wore to hide her tension, he took it all in carefully.

 

“Say what?”

 

Moving as silently as someone trying not to startle a frightened cat, he bent one knee and brought himself eye-level with her.

 

“That you are a sinner.”

 

Cracks spread through Scylla’s golden eyes like an amphora on the verge of shattering.

 

“…What?”

 

Langsion gently tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

 

“You must know the story of the mortal man who spied on the goddess bathing and was turned into a stag.”

 

“…”

 

“The gods are cruel and arbitrary.”

 

At the warm touch against her ear, Scylla shrank her shoulders. 

 

Unable to hold back, Langsion pressed his lips to the curve of her ear.

 

“They turned a young woman into an old crone simply because she displeased them.”

 

“…!”

 

The expression vanished from Scylla’s face; her golden eyes blazed. 

 

The ferocious glare that seemed ready to kill him on the spot made Langsion’s heart pound wildly. 

 

Mortals often look down on those punished by the gods, calling them sinners—but in the eyes of a god like him, they were nothing more than broken toys. 

 

Of course, some humans truly deserved divine wrath for committing heinous crimes, but Scylla was not one of them. 

 

That left only one conclusion: she was a pitiful soul who had simply caught the arrogant gaze of the divine in the wrong way.

 

And yet she refused to give in—she remained this strong, this resilient. 

 

Langsion genuinely admired her fortitude.

 

Her unyielding, weed-like tenacity and the warm, kind-hearted nature that couldn’t even bring herself to swing a fist were far too alluring to someone like him. 

 

Doesn’t everyone crave what they themselves lack? 

 

This woman was a proper human being. Her soul sparkled brilliantly, and those firm eyes made him want to lick them with his tongue.

 

“I’ll help you, Master.”

 

With the face of the most devoted disciple imaginable.

 

🫧

 

Moonlight settles. 

 

A perfectly round, flawless, beautiful moon rises above Scylla’s head. Its reflection floats in the basin of water she uses in place of a mirror. 

 

The pure white glow of the moon and, beneath it, Scylla’s dazed expression were both strikingly clear.

 

She watched—without so much as blinking—as her form shifted from that of an old woman back into a young woman.

Rigid from head to toe as though she had turned into a pillar of salt while seated, she remained frozen. 

 

Langsion gazed at her quietly. 

 

A sheen of moisture gathered over his gleaming amber eyes. 

 

Tears quickly welled up, trembling at the rims.

 

Would they fall?

 

“…So this is the face you grew up with.”

 

Contrary to Langsion’s expectations, the tears did not spill. 

 

With eyes brimming full, instead of crying, she gave a faint smile.

 

It was the smile of someone facing something long-missed yet strangely unfamiliar as she looked down at the water’s surface.

 

“If I do as you say… will this punishment—no, this curse—be lifted?”

 

She lifted her head. Their eyes met—his, who had been watching her just as intently as she had been examining herself.