I Tamed the Slave Male Lead Chapter 42

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“Gasp!”

I woke from my sleep, breathing heavily. Looking out the window, I saw that dawn had not yet broken.

“That… wasn’t a dream.”

I muttered while drenched in cold sweat.

“It was a memory. And an eerily vivid one at that.”

In the dream, I had become Arabella.

In other words, the real Arabella from before I possessed her body.

It was none other than the memory of the day Arabella bought Yusiliph from the slave market.

‘It was as vivid as if I were actually seeing and experiencing it myself.’

The rough sensation of grains of dirt getting inside my shoes, the scorching sun blazing overhead, the merchants’ hawking cries pouring down from all directions as though attacking me, even the heat of the blood dripping from my nose onto my chin.

Arabella’s memories had remained with me before, too, and I had relied on them to deal with many things.

But the dream I had just experienced was clearly different.

Before, I had looked into those memories from the perspective of a third party. But what I had just experienced was frighteningly vivid, as though I were seeing and experiencing everything myself in the present.

‘Did I have this dream because Yusiliph said those things?’

On the day he returned from the Magic Tower, he had asked me if I remembered what I had said to him when we first met.

Caught off guard, I had given him a vague answer, making up ridiculous excuses about suddenly being tired.

And understandably so.

Even among my recent memories, which were far from clear, the memory of the day I first met Yusiliph was particularly hazy.

As if she had deliberately erased it from her mind.

‘That’s why, until now, I could only roughly guess what had happened back then based on the information I had seen in the original novel.’

Arabella, acting on Crown Prince Sota’s orders, went to the slave market and bought Yusiliph and Alin. Afterward, she handed them over to Regita and Duke Ameshika, respectively.

That was everything I knew about what had happened back then.

And the situation I had encountered in the dream itself was not very different from what I already knew.

There was just one thing I had never anticipated.

Arabella’s feelings at the time had been completely different from what I had imagined.

‘She had fallen for Yusiliph.’

I placed a hand over my pounding heart.

‘She fell in love with him at first sight. Oh my God.’

Arabella had been an extremely prickly and realistic girl. Considering how fiercely she had always lived, as though she were at war with the world, it was perhaps only natural.

Because of that, she had been unable to properly interpret what was happening to her at the time.

When she wiped the blood from her nose with the cloth Yusiliph offered, took his hand, rose to her feet, and met his eyes, she had no idea what had happened to her.

In that instant, a storm had erupted in her heart.

It was as though lightning had struck overhead and the entire world had stopped.

The surroundings had fallen completely silent, as if the world had ended and only the two of them remained.

The only things filling that world were Yusiliph, the guilty human, his beautiful eyes, and the sensation left behind by his rough hand.

But Arabella had not been in a state where she could process such emotions at the time.

She had been backed into a corner, and Yusiliph was nothing more than a tool she needed to use in order to survive.

So she thoroughly suppressed her feelings.

Rather, as if to rebel against them, she trampled Yusiliph down even more cruelly.

She refused his request not to be separated from Alin and beat Alin right in front of him.

Then she handed him over to Regita as if she were selling off a beast, without even looking back.

But in truth, throughout every one of those moments, she had been vividly aware of his every movement, his gaze, and his hatred.

Each time, she had felt a pain as though her skin were burning away and her heart were being torn apart.

Without even knowing exactly why herself.

On the day she watched Yusiliph’s match after he refused to become Regita’s bed servant and entered the gladiatorial arena instead, she went to bed wishing she would never open her eyes again.

The final few days of her life had been like hell.

Every single day, she had suffered from fever, pain, and terrible self-loathing.

‘And then, one day, she met someone. And she heard something… shocking.’

I tossed and turned on the bed, trying to bring back the rest of Arabella’s memories.

But the more I tried, the more my stomach churned and twisted as though my insides were being wrung out, and nothing came to mind.

Her final days were still buried deep beneath her unconsciousness.

I shuddered with foreboding.

I had a feeling that if I tried to dig into this carelessly, I would see a true abyss.

‘Arabella. Who exactly did you meet? What happened that made you seal away your memories so desperately, right up until the moment you died?’

Whoosh—

Just then, summer rain began pouring down outside the window.

I wished the violent rain, falling as though it would wash away the entire world, could wash away everything in my mind as well.

As I was thinking that, there was a knock at the door.

“My lady.”

It was Yusiliph’s voice.

The moment I heard it, my throat tightened with emotion, and I had to take a moment to compose myself.

‘Those were only Arabella’s memories. Don’t let yourself get swept up in them.’

“Are you still asleep?”

After asking once more, I sensed him preparing to leave.

I hurriedly raised my voice.

“I’m awake. Come in!”

Don’t go.

I forcibly ignored the sentimental words welling up inside me and let Yusiliph into the bedroom.

He entered with his usual impassive expression, but stopped when he saw that I was still dressed in my nightclothes.

“…I’ll come back later.”

“It’s fine. Come in.”

I’m sorry.

Those words almost slipped out of my mouth again.

I bit the soft flesh inside my mouth repeatedly to calm myself down.

“…Are you really all right? You look tired.”

“I’m fine. Besides, I have a lot to do today, so I have to get up early anyway.”

Today was the day I would meet Duke Ameshika and enter the labyrinth.

Yusiliph must have known that this was the only time we would have to talk alone before we left, which was why he had come.

I draped a shawl over my nightclothes and sat on the edge of the bed.

“…Did you go?”

“Yes.”

Yusiliph lowered his eyes and placed a stack of papers beside me.

“Is this everything?”

“Yes.”

I picked up one of the papers from the stack he had placed down and read it.

<To my beloved daughter, Arabella.>

These letters had been written by the late Roderick Mayona to his daughter, Arabella.

But the letters had never reached their intended recipient and had remained hidden in a completely different place.

Inside Uncle Graham’s desk drawer.

The day I had infiltrated the office to find the seal I needed to enter the Imperial Palace’s secret archives, I had accidentally discovered this bundle of letters in the drawer.

I had been in too much of a hurry at the time, so I had shoved only one letter into my clothes before leaving.

When I read it later, I discovered that it was a letter Roderick had written to Arabella.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy in the letter, but I suspected there had to be some serious reason why Graham had intercepted these letters.

‘Considering that Graham is basically Sota’s lapdog, it could have been something Sota ordered him to do.’

And if Sota had gotten involved, there was a good chance that some unusual information was hidden among these letters.

To find out, I had asked Yusiliph to infiltrate the office one more time.

“Thank you for going through all that trouble.”

When I praised him, Yusiliph replied impassively.

“It was my employer’s order. I had to do it.”

“……”

For the three days since the day we returned from the Magic Tower, there had been a strangely chilly atmosphere between us.

‘You… must think I’m a complete psychopath.’

Knowing exactly what our—or rather, their—first meeting had been like only made me think that even more.

When I thought about how I had gone looking for him after possessing Arabella’s body, grandly declaring that I would save him without even knowing any of that, I felt like biting my tongue.

Now that Arabella’s emotions had returned along with her memories, I was having the worst time of my life.

‘Stay calm. Arabella is Arabella. I’m me. I can’t let myself get confused and make things even more awkward than they already are.’

I was certain of that.

And yet, as I continued looking at Yusiliph, my heart pounded like crazy, as though it had lost its mind.

“So… ahem. Did you memorize everything in the notebook I gave you?”

“Of course. It’s a matter of survival.”

Yusiliph answered that way and quietly gazed at my face.

At a loss for words, I avoided his eyes.

I remembered how I had vaguely brushed off his question a few days ago about whether I remembered our first meeting.

‘Back then, I genuinely couldn’t remember. Now the problem is that I remember it far too well.’

Don’t stare at me like that, Yusiliph. I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.

As I was having such a pointless thought, Yusiliph suddenly opened his mouth.

“So, about that. Wouldn’t it be better if I entered the labyrinth alone?”

“What? Why would you—”

“I’ve already learned enough about the monsters we’ll encounter inside from the materials you gave me.”

“That may be true, but what if something dangerous happens—”

“There’s a greater possibility that something dangerous will happen because I’m forced to protect you.”

“……”

Since he wasn’t wrong, I remained silent for a moment before carefully opening my mouth.

“Then let me ask you just one thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“Don’t misunderstand me.”

“…?”

“You know… Do you happen to know anything about, you know, sexual stuff?”

I could clearly see Yusiliph’s unwavering composure shatter with a sharp crack.