I Captured the Enemy Who Tried to Kill Me - Chapter 27
A life of acting as the Duke with every fiber of my being.
A life of trying not to reveal anything strange to Luias, who occasionally visits, even in bed.
A continuous string of lies: not letting the stoic Emperor see my fear while delivering cold remarks, always being the spiritual pillar for the magicians.
To escape from all that.
‘I guess it was quite overwhelming for me.’
Here, I could just be ‘me.’
Not Hillaria, but me.
“Tell me your name next time.”
The system window’s effect was ending.
“You must. Understand?”
The hand holding mine moved away, and a dizzying sensation like scattering fog arrived.
Looking at the blurring figure before me, I realized something shocking.
Me from South Korea.
The hardworking Guide civil servant.
The Emperor before me was the male protagonist of a novel I enjoyed reading.
And everything else.
But…
My heart gave a great thump.
‘I can’t remember.’
What Kaisis had asked about.
‘My name.’
I couldn’t remember my name from South Korea, my original name.
***
The teleportation magic activated, and I opened my eyes in my bedroom at the Duke’s mansion as usual.
“You’re back, meow? Today there’s no Luias kid, meow. The great cat Lucy blocked the door, meow!”
The cat’s thick tail tapped the floor in clear expectation of praise.
It looked quite cute, but that wasn’t important to me at all right now.
Grip.
“Kyaak!”
When I grabbed its stubby front paw and lifted it up, the fat guide cat grimaced.
“What’s wrong, meow? Let go, meow!”
“My name.”
“Kyaak?”
“My name, I mean.”
“……”
“You knew, didn’t you?”
The guide who had been having a fit went quiet.
I narrowed my eyes and glared.
Since it was a reward given by the system, it must have known.
“I can’t remember my name.”
I said through gritted teeth, but the cat annoyingly, just licked its front paw that I was holding.
“Since when did you know?”
“What, you just realized that now, meow?”
Facing its smug smile, anger surged within me.
“Tell me properly. What do you mean?”
I was scared.
Memories are like the soul.
They were the important foundation that made me who I am.
And now I’m forgetting them?
Could it be because of the quest?
Because I interfered with the original story for the sake of that ???? qualification or whatever?
“What’s happening? Don’t tell me I’m going to… lose my memories? Tell me!”
The cat quietly asked.
“What are you afraid of, meow?”
“Of course I’m afraid, wouldn’t you be?”
Opening my eyes in a strange world, forced to live as Duke Ariel due to the relentless quests.
The thing that helped me endure all those moments was the memory that I could exist as ‘me.’
The existence of memories from before my death.
And now I might lose all of that?
I was so scared that my teeth chattered as if I’d been thrown into the middle of winter.
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to lose them. Am I going to forget all my memories like this?”
“Sigh.”
“Say something! You can explain, can’t you? Tell me everything you know. Please.”
The cat, staring at my pitiful state, heaved a deep sigh and then pressed its soft jelly paw pad firmly against my forehead.
“Pull yourself together, meow.”
It was gentle, but I couldn’t even laugh.
“Blending into the world means losing parts of yourself, meow. Didn’t I warn you? To choose carefully and think things through, meow.”
Strangely, my vision became blurry.
Something, something was… rummaging through my head.
“Remember the first important quest, meow. You must quickly make contact with the key humans, meow. If you don’t obtain the ???? qualification—”
Or else what?
Ah, I couldn’t bear it anymore.
Something was coming out…
My vision spun lazily.
And then.
“Achoo! Achoo, achoo!”
I sneezed like crazy.
After several sneezes, there was one ugly fat cat looking at me as if I were pathetic.
“What?”
One player who seemed to have just returned from guiding the Emperor.
I blinked and scratched my head.
What were we just talking about?
It seemed like we were discussing something important.
At that moment, the system window suddenly appeared, effectively commanding my complete attention.
[Congratulations!
Points have accumulated.
Current Guiding Points: 13
Accumulate more guiding points through intimate guiding.]
“Only 13?”
I let out a deep sigh of disappointment.
“Kissing isn’t even easy, and only 13 points? How much more of this do I have to do?”
As I grumbled with a pouting mouth, the status window smoothly changed its text with an eerily responsive timing to my question.
And a long list appeared.
[We will guide you on how to accumulate points faster.
Kiss, 13 points.
Skin-to-skin contact under clothes, 15 points.
Tongue below the collarbone…]
Wait!
“S-stop.”
Covering my reddened face, I hastily scrolled down with my finger to clear the endlessly listed items from my view.
The content I just glimpsed seemed too explicit and vulgar!
“This was supposed to be a 15+ age-restricted novel. This isn’t right! Of course, this isn’t a novel now, but still, this isn’t right!”
“Tsk tsk, what are you doing, meow.”
The cat clicked its tongue, watching me freak out.
Someho,w the fat cat looked particularly annoying today, so I pulled its tail straight out, making it hiss.
I squeezed it with a wringing motion.
“Anyway, I have no choice but to work hard. Kaisis did something harsh, but it doesn’t seem like he’s seeing properly, so that’s a small blessing in this misfortune. Ugh, points. Those damn points!”
I will definitely fill up 99 points and unlock either teleportation magic or attack magic, I swear!
I felt like I had forgotten something important, but I figured I would remember it later.
I let out a long sigh as I lay my tired body on the bed.
The cat Lucy also let out a long yawn beside me.
“Sleep well, meow.”
Yeah, you too.
I surrendered to my drooping eyelids.
“Today was really a long day…”
The path of living as Duke Ariel, the Emperor’s political rival and his hidden match, was arduous again today.
***
The hunter stared down at the magic stone in his palm that was quietly glowing.
There were certainly side effects.
Nevertheless, the effect was sufficient.
‘The memory remained.’
Vivid memories, markedly different from the fragmentary ones that had remained before.
But the blurred vision that prevented recognizing the other person was still there.
‘Speech patterns unfamiliar with palace life. Abundant hair. Someone living a noble’s life despite not being a noble. Someone who deviates from the typical life of an Indoja and an Awakened One. Someone who appears… favorable to the magician, specifically Duke Ariel.’
The components that made up his match were an incomprehensible combination of words.
What could their identity be?
And…
That awkward yet fresh appearance, noticeably flustered by his aggressive actions.
Willing behavior that found men difficult, uncharacteristic of a skilled Indoja.
A pleasant smile spread like a hungry beast that had fully satiated itself.
Having properly recognized his match and even conversed with them, he felt that all this was vivid reality, not a dream.
That alone gave him a terribly ecstatic sense of fullness.
It was fascinating how infinite goodwill surged toward someone whose face and identity he didn’t know.
Is this the relationship between an Indoja and an Awakened One with matching compatibility?
The pleasure of pain being offset by joy that spread dizzily with each touch of those soft hands was beyond words.
The woman before him was lovely, so very lovely.
The Empire’s monarch could whine like a child and rub his face against her fingertips as much as he wanted.
He could smile wickedly and cunningly like a beast hiding its claws and beg for favor.
None of those behaviors mattered.
The woman was honey.
She was so sweetly intoxicating that he might sink the Awakened One’s wicked fangs into that white nape if he wasn’t careful.
‘A dangerous person I cannot let go.’
The woman. His counterpart. His match.
He would definitely find her.
‘By my side.’
He would grasp her in his hands.
And.
Whatever was blocking her, he would tear it to pieces and set her free.
So that lonely face.
‘Yes, the lonely one.’
That gaze similar to his own.
That loneliness he clearly felt even amid the fog, where he couldn’t see clearly—he would eliminate it.
