I Captured the Enemy Who Tried to Kill Me - Chapter 20
“What are you worrying about meow?”
As soon as I saw the cat eating something again today, I collapsed face down.
“Please save me. The emperor threw crap at me.”
I’m about to die.
I don’t know what kind of mischief the emperor is playing, but he’s telling me to use magic.
He wants me to battle with the Awakened Ones!
“Save me, Lord Cat! I know I’m a Grand Magician, but nobody knows I’m magically impotent… How do I solve this? Huh? Huh?”
“Pathetic meow, so pathetic meow!”
The cat wore an indifferent expression at my urgent words.
“If you’re going to insult me, give me a solution too. Don’t just eat, do some work!”
“Sigh, are you stupid meow?”
“What?”
“Why can’t you remember what I told you meow?”
Thanks for showing me that cats can make such expressions every time I see you, damn it.
Perhaps reading my disrespectful thoughts, I got hit on the philtrum with a thick tail.
Ugh!
“Tsk tsk, you really are stupid meow. Didn’t I tell you before? Why don’t you examine the system properly meow!”
Well, my hobby was reading web novels, not gaming.
While grabbing the cat’s tail that was swishing back and forth, I replied with a sour expression.
“There’s nothing special there. I did look through it roughly. There wasn’t anything immediately helpful.”
The system is surprisingly vast and complex, so it’s bothersome to open and check everything…
“Kyaak!”
“Ugh!”
I got hit by the tail again.
Ignoring my indignation, the cat burst into anger.
“How did such a dim-witted thing fall here and make me suffer like this meow! Look meow. Solve these to accumulate points! Then it becomes possible by unlocking stages meow!”
“Unlocking?”
Oh. My eyes lit up.
There was a “view all” option below the daily quests, and when I pressed it, a complete quest list appeared.
I scrolled through the list frantically.
‘Let’s see. There are many trivial things. Picking up apples. Greeting people. Showing charisma? I don’t know why “pulling roadside weeds” is there, but anyway, I can collect points with these? But is this okay? These aren’t things Duke Ariel would do.’
Anyway, are you saying I could unlock all magic and become a real Grand Magician? Really?
“You are already a Grand Magician meow.”
The cat, clicking its tongue with disdain, now looked adorable to me.
“Because these are quests, people around don’t get suspicious? Even if they find it strange, do they just let it pass? Because it’s the system? So that’s why you’re telling me to do it?”
“That’s right meow.”
My heart raced.
If I become a Grand Magician, I won’t have to fear the power of violent Awakened Ones!
Although I desperately wanted to try something right away.
Phew, I let out a deep sigh.
It’s late now.
It’s also the second night I haven’t visited the emperor.
I raised my head.
“I need to solve that first, right?”
“Of course meow! Were you planning to postpone it until yesterday meow?”
“Today. I was going to go today.”
The emperor’s rage risk level was changing from orange to bright red.
I rolled my eyes as if the man were standing right in front of me.
Cruel man. Such a cruel man!
‘Since he has no way to call me, he’s testing by throwing his body into danger.’
The only thing I could trust now was the system window’s ability.
I hoped whatever trick the emperor had prepared would have no effect.
And tonight, I had something in mind too.
‘Fight threats with threats!’
I couldn’t keep visiting the emperor every night with my heart in my throat.
‘The desperate one isn’t me. It’s Kaisis, that man. Let’s use that.’
If I play it right, I might be able to make a deal.
With a determined expression, after confirming no one was coming around, I firmly pressed the system window.
And then spreading bright light.
A dizzying sensation.
Before I knew it, I was standing in a familiar corridor.
***
Kaisis was desperately maintaining his sanity.
Last night, the woman didn’t come.
‘Was I wrong?’
He had expected her to be closely monitoring his condition, but was that not the case?
However, at some point, his vision rapidly blurred.
As if walking in a dream, regardless of his raging state, his head became hazy.
‘Again.’
This sensation was familiar now.
That mysterious woman.
His distant match, the Indoja.
She had come.
Along with resentment, anger surged.
Why did she slip through his fingers like sand, never within his grasp?
‘Why.’
The woman who appeared like smoke flickered before his eyes.
He sensed her approaching.
He stabbed his skin with the sharp glass shard he was gripping tightly.
With the throbbing pain, his vision became slightly clearer.
It was a harsh method using a body that repeatedly regenerated and damaged itself.
‘But this is not enough.’
If he stayed like this, he would forget everything again.
His memories would fragment, and he wouldn’t be able to question how she managed to evade the numerous knights he had stationed outside.
‘No.’
He didn’t care about such things anymore.
At this moment, he desperately wanted to know about the woman.
He wanted to speak to her. He wanted to hold her hand. He wanted to grab her waist and breathe in her sweet breath.
And thus, he wanted to feel the sensation of being liberated from this terrible pain.
‘Remember, Prince. You are a monster.’
His mother’s sharp words.
‘That’s how it is. Until you find your Indoja, you must never let yourself rage.’
His father’s gaze told him to endure the pain with willpower.
‘Breathing itself will be painful for you. But Your Highness, you were born as the strongest Awakened One. Pain has been your birthright from the very beginning.’
Memories of his younger days, despairing while searching for an Indoja who never appeared.
Why were these pitiful memories, which he had cast away as a grown adult, coming back so vividly?
Kaisis twisted his lips.
A cruel desire for her mixed with a desperate feeling of not wanting to hurt her.
A terrible wave of ambivalence that could never be reconciled washed over him.
‘Indeed, I…’
I cannot hurt this woman.
It was then.
His salvation, who always drove people mad by giving only warmth before leaving, spoke.
“Your Majesty.”
She calmly asked, seemingly aware of his efforts to maintain sanity while bleeding.
“You’ve been looking for me, haven’t you?”
Her tone was surprisingly ordinary and informal.
“Your Majesty, I came to help you. I don’t want to be hunted like a criminal.”
Is she not a noble?
That thought occurred to him.
“So on these nights when I come to you, if you try to capture me or search for me.”
Yet strangely, her voice sounded familiar, like he had heard it somewhere before.
She seemed to resemble someone intensely.
Who could it be?
“I will not come again.”
“……”
His thoughts abruptly stopped.
She won’t come again?
She’s abandoning me?
His savior, whom he had desperately waited for, was enduring with difficulty while feeling strangled by anticipation.
His match was abandoning him.
“Why?”
A terribly low voice emerged.
“Why, do, you, say, that?”
Perhaps by following her trail.
By using magicians to find her traces?
Or by releasing knights to catch the butterfly that visits at night?
“But if you have no intention of restraining me when I visit each night.”
The touch that approached was warm.
A sigh escaped at that warmth settling on his shoulder.
A kind and warm energy, so addictive it was frightening, seeped into every vein of his.
“If you promise just that, I’ll come. I’ll continue to visit you, Your Majesty.”
The pressure that had been squeezing his heart nearly to bursting dispersed gently, like finding the one he had been longing for.
Damn it all, he could breathe again.
“Please promise me. Can you do that?”
He simply couldn’t help but nod at that kind threat.
The approaching woman whispered.
“Don’t try to forcibly capture me when I visit at night. Don’t be curious about me. Welcome me naturally. Don’t tell anyone and just wait for me. If you keep just that, if you do just that for me, I will come whenever you are in danger.”
He had no choice but to agree.
If he didn’t permit it, she would never visit again.
“I, promise.”
“Don’t forget this.”
During the day, he would search for her, but at night, he would leave her free.
With his confused mind, he barely recalled that promise.
The strongest monster in the world willingly nodded.
Drip.
Pitter-patter.
Blood slowly trickled from the fist he had been clenching till the end.
***
The next day.
The magicians thought.
‘The Family Head has gone mad!’
No, not quite mad.
‘She’s become strange!’
At least that seemed certain.
