I Became a Barbarian's Bride - Chapter 157

“What’s there to worry about? You don’t have to eat it, Princess. You’ll have all the finest delicacies to yourself.”

It did feel a little awkward to eat fine ingredients alone while everyone else was eating beast meat.

As if sensing her hesitation, Kagan quietly reached out and gently stroked her hair.

“Whatever exists in this world, you deserve the best of it. I told you—power means exactly that.”

“…Mm.”

“And besides, I’d much rather you not get sick from trying food you’ve never had before.”

At Kagan’s words, Nisha slowly nodded.

Well, if he said so, then maybe that was that.

She didn’t know how beast meat could possibly be cooked, but judging from the images of beasts she’d seen in books, it wasn’t exactly appetizing.

Nisha looked at Kagan in silence for a moment, then let out a soft laugh.

“You always say it’s fine, no matter what I do.”

“Hmm?”

Kagan tilted his head, then gave a brief chuckle.

“Because it is.”

“…”

“No matter what kind of trouble you cause, as long as it doesn’t harm your body, it’s never a big deal to me.”

At such an overly confident declaration, Nisha awkwardly scratched her cheek.

From the start, he was someone she simply couldn’t win against.  

Nisha looked quietly at Kagan, then gave a small nod.  

“Anyway, I hope someday we won’t have to eat beast meat anymore.”  

“Thanks to you, that might really happen.”  

“If I can be of help…”  

Nisha blinked slowly, gazing out over the barren lands of Xieman.  

Maybe because there was nothing there, the desolation made Xieman’s land seem all the more vast.  

“Then I couldn’t ask for more.”  

Nisha hoped that some trace of her existence would remain somewhere in this world—and if that trace was as part of Xieman’s legacy, nothing would make her happier.  

She was well aware that her unrecognized longing for meaning had twisted itself into something strange.  

Even so, recently, she had been living a life that left her feeling surprisingly fulfilled.  

In other words, she was content.  

“Kagan, you… need me, right?”  

“…What?”  

Kagan blinked a few times, then furrowed his brow hard, as if wondering what kind of nonsense she was suddenly spouting.  

“What kind of obvious question is that, Princess? If I didn’t need you, I wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to bring you here in the first place.”  

At Kagan’s words, Nisha paused for a moment.  

She looked at him with a curious expression, then let out a small laugh and nodded.  

“Really?”  

“Really. I resented Roshan, sure, but in the end… you were always the real reason.”

As Kagan spoke, he scratched his head.  

“Well, I guess the way I did it wasn’t exactly the best.”  

There was a faint hint of sheepishness in his added words.  

Nisha let out a small laugh and shrugged.  

Well, to him, it might have seemed like a violent act. And in truth, it had been so aggressive at first that she’d completely frozen up.  

Even now, she sometimes recalled how he’d smeared blood across her cheek at that dinner table, and the memory sent chills down her spine.  

This man was capable of being that cruel—and yet, before her, he became endlessly gentle.  

“Kagan.”  

“Hmm?”  

“You might not realize it, but you saved me. In more ways than one.”  

Had she stayed in Roshan, she would never have learned the things she now knew.  

She’d seen sights she would never have witnessed in Roshan and received gazes filled with respect—something she had never felt back there.  

She ate to her fill, lazed about all day doing nothing, and no one said a word.  

If anything, they told her to rest more, to take it easier.  

To Nisha, all of it felt strange—and delightful.  

That’s why she didn’t find it wasteful to spend her life on Xieman.  

There were people who cherished her. People who needed her.  

There was no reason to hate it, and no reason to fear it.

“…Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Then that’s a relief. I haven’t even finished giving you everything I’ve got yet.”

As he said that, Kagan’s gaze turned chillingly sharp.

It was the kind of primal, beast-like look he never showed in front of Nisha—one that made her instinctively suck in a deep breath.

Whenever he revealed this side of himself, Nisha would tremble, as though seized by some unknowable emotion.

She couldn’t explain it.

Was it fear? Terror? Or perhaps a kind of anticipation, something closer to pleasure?

But this man was clearly a predator—and yet, before her, he behaved like a beast who had willingly dulled its fangs.

Wasn’t that enough?

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