Chapter 120
“Really, I’ll End Up Kissing You”
“Why?”
Roitz finally turned his gaze from the distance back to me.
“I need to confirm something.”
“What is it?”
“Just… please try it once.”
Roitz pressed his lips forward slightly, rounding them softly.
His deep blue eyes trembled, as if lost.
‘Cute.’
…What was I thinking now?
I shook my head hard. Not the time for strange thoughts. Focus!
Roitz, lips still pushed out, glanced at me. I stared at his mouth, trying to imagine it.
But I failed again and again.
“Why won’t it work!”
No matter how hard I tried, I only thought he looked cute. I couldn’t picture it. It made me angry with myself.
Roitz lowered his lips and asked,
“Serdin, what was that for? Why did you tell me to do that?”
“I was trying to imagine… kissing you.”
I blurted it out without realizing, too frustrated to stop.
“….”
Roitz froze, lips pulled back in.
“No, it didn’t mean anything! No meaning at all.”
I waved my hands to explain.
Roitz bit his lips lightly. His once-dry lips looked soft and moist again.
Without meaning to, my eyes locked on them. Then I snapped out of it, startled.
“…Serdin?”
I walked toward him with a determined look.
As I got close, heat rushed over me again — but I decided this was something I had to endure.
Yes. Up close, I’d simulate it properly.
“Commander, stick your lips out again.”
“…So you can imagine it again?”
“Yes.”
“…Why do you need to imagine that?”
“It has no meaning. I just need to check something.”
“No meaning?”
“Yes.”
Roitz stepped back, but I grabbed his arms and pulled him closer.
He leaned in, suddenly right before me.
“Serdin, if you keep this up… I’ll really end up kissing you.”
“…Would that be okay?”
Roitz turned his gaze aside and muttered,
“…Try and see.”
Of course, he wouldn’t actually do it. I told myself that.
Maybe he was joking, or maybe he was just more open-minded than me, who grew up conservative.
‘Hmm.’
I tried again, up close, but in the end I couldn’t picture it clearly.
‘Forget it. Let’s stop here.’
I stepped back.
But then—Roitz caught me.
His large hand pressed against my back, stopping me from leaving.
“….”
He said nothing, just stared at me. From so close, our lips almost touched.
Without thinking, I leaned one step closer.
Warm breath brushed my lips.
And then—
Thud.
“…?”
Roitz collapsed on the spot.
Blue eyes flashed open in the dark.
“….”
A dream? No.
“Ah, Commander, you’re awake. I was just bringing what you need…”
This was his residence. The voice was Deneb’s.
“When… did I get here from Centia?”
He must have been unconscious all this time.
“Where is Serdin?”
“She’s in the cell right now.”
“…?”
“What? Why?”
“She said she thought she’d insulted her superior… and walked in herself.”
Roitz leapt from the bed and ran.
Straight to the detention wing inside Elche.
Most knights never stepped foot there. With Elche knights’ strict sense of honor, the cells were nearly empty.
“Serdin!”
She turned her head from where she stood inside, facing the wall.
It was true.
Deneb wasn’t joking. Serdin had really opened the door herself and gone in.
“Commander?”
Even in this situation, she looked calm, as if it was nothing.
But—maybe it was just his eyes—she looked a little thinner.
“What are you doing here?”
His chest twisted painfully as he demanded an answer.
She wasn’t even healed yet. Why this?
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to tease you.”
“…What?”
“You were so upset you collapsed. I won’t do that again.”
Roitz didn’t even know where to begin.
No—explanations could wait. First, she had to get out.
He opened the bars and beckoned her.
“Out. Now.”
“But I still need time to reflect—”
“Now.”
If she refused, he would order her.
He couldn’t leave her in a cell with no reason.
He trusted her judgment, yes. Always. She wasn’t reckless without reason.
But this—this was too much.
‘No. I won’t leave her here. Respect isn’t abandoning her behind bars.’
“…Yes.”
Thankfully, Serdin glanced at him and walked out. Her body felt chilled.
“Come with me.”
Roitz took her to his office, wrapped a blanket over her.
She stayed silent, lips pressed tight. Was she still trying to “reflect”?
He handed her a warm cup of tea, then sat opposite her.
“What was it you wanted to say yesterday?”
“Me? Nothing. I didn’t want to say anything.”
“You said you had something.”
“Oh.”
Serdin looked like she remembered, and opened her mouth.
Roitz’s eyes drifted to her lips.
Softer than her hair, small but expressive — swelling when she ate or shouted.
He quickly turned away, sitting back on the desk.
She spoke, but all he could think of was that moment yesterday — when they nearly kissed.
“It has no meaning.”
“Yes.”
He knew she meant it.
Maybe just curiosity, or a bet, or some other reason he didn’t know.
Whatever the reason, it wouldn’t be the one he wanted. He knew that.
But even if it was only her reason—Roitz couldn’t refuse.
Because refusing meant nothing to him anymore.
Pride was long gone.
He liked her too much. Enough that the thought of her lips had knocked him unconscious.
He hadn’t imagined that.
“Yesterday… what I wanted to say was about my aura.”
Serdin finally began.
At once, Roitz remembered.
“I can’t use my aura.”
Her words from before.
And yet, on the battlefield, she had released another aura entirely.
A power that destroyed all the monsters.
“At the temple, when I returned alone, I was attacked.”
She explained the incident from two days ago.
Her voice was calm, steady — as if in just two days she had already accepted it, thinking only rationally.
Yesterday, she had panicked. Now, she was composed.
“I’ve been thinking of ways to recover my Flame Aura. But if someone really took it away… I think they’ll come after me again.”
To face her reality so calmly in such a short time—Roitz found it remarkable.
“Why do you think that?”
“If someone stole it on purpose, they must have had a goal.”
“That makes sense.”
“And I don’t think I’ve done anything to earn a deep grudge. So they must want something from me.”
Roitz propped his chin on his hand, listening.
“What about the other aura? The one you showed yesterday?”
“I thought about that too.”
After a pause, Serdin spoke.
“This is only a guess. But… there’s only one conclusion. I must have inherited someone else’s aura.”
She was right.
Sword aura was passed down in families. From one successor to the next.
Her Flame Aura came from her mother’s Vivi family.
Then this new aura…
“I think it came from my father’s side.”
Serdin didn’t even know her father’s face.
But his family was also a sword-aura lineage. That meant she had inherited it from him.
If they could identify the aura, they could trace her paternal family. But…
“An aura that erases whatever it touches? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Roitz thought grimly.
When he looked back, Serdin was propping her chin with both hands, staring right at him.
“…What?”
“Nothing.”
Unlike her, who met his eyes without trouble, Roitz secretly swallowed hard.
Just one fainting spell was already shame enough.
Embarrassed by something like that—he wanted to dig a training hall fifty floors underground and train for fifty years.
Now, even meeting her eyes made him remember that moment. It drove him mad.
But he couldn’t collapse again.
Roitz forced himself to endure.
