‘So it was Zachary who brought me here after all.’

Zachary possessed such strong divine power that he could burn down the mansion in an instant. There was no way Erhan could have handled him.

Zachary’s cold face looked exactly the same as when I last saw him.

He stared blankly at me as I gradually stiffened. I was just sitting on the floor in a mess. Soon after, he swept back his hair and let out a hollow laugh as if in disbelief.

The moment I heard his laughter, it felt like cold water was pouring over my feverish head. My burning head cooled instantly.

He was no longer the Zachary I knew. I couldn’t feel any of the gentle warmth I used to know from Zachary looking at me now. Only a mid-winter-like coldness remained.

He looked down at me as if I were a nuisance. His eyes seemed to regret bringing me here in the first place.

‘When he hates me this much, why…’

If he had left me in the burning mansion, someone as weak as me would have died.

‘Or is he planning to keep tormenting me out of resentment…’

He had reason enough. I had kept him as a servant for many years while he was possessed by the spell. So he must have been furious with me after being freed from the spell.

Moreover, on the last night we spent together, we had slept together. After regaining his senses belatedly, did he want to erase me from this world because the memory of that night was so disgusting?

But if that were the case.

“Fuck, you’re saying you set me free? You must have abandoned me.”

…Why would he say such a thing?

It didn’t add up. I was confused by countless questions, but Zachary’s anger towards me was certainly not fake.

At that moment, he strode towards me. His aura was so fierce that I thought I was about to get hit. He reached out his hand towards me. I flinched and squeezed my eyes shut.

‘This is definitely going to hurt.’

Having never been hit by anyone, let alone Zachary, I held my breath, terrified.

However, the sensation that followed wasn’t pain. A large, cold hand brushed over my forehead and eyelids. I slowly opened my tightly shut eyes.

Contrary to his hate-filled gaze, the action of lightly tapping my forehead was full of gentleness.

“Drink this.”

And he held out the medicine that had been on the table earlier.

Why suddenly… As I glanced at him uncertainly, Zachary muttered slightly in a tone that suggested he found it absurd.

“What. Afraid I might have poisoned it?”

“No. I’ll, I’ll drink it.”

I drank it immediately without even checking what kind of medicine it was. The taste was familiar.

‘Is this a mix of painkillers and fever reducers…?’

Because it was the medicine I usually took when I had a fever. This shouldn’t be an easy medicine to obtain, so how is it here?

I couldn’t understand Zachary even more. His brow was still furrowed with irritation and anger, and beneath his seemingly calm gaze, a cold energy swirled. But even so, he gave me medicine.

‘…It really is Zachary.’

I fiddled with the empty medicine bottle. His familiar kindness made me feel as if I had returned to the past. I must be looking at him with a foolish expression. It was understandable, as my heart was pounding just from seeing Zachary.

I hadn’t gone a single day without thinking of Zachary since that day. However, my stirring feelings gradually subsided at some point.

“…”

Zachary’s eyes were like glass beads. They were colder than when he was bound by the spell. My expression began to harden in response.

The moment I turned my gaze away, unable to bear his cold eyes any longer.

“…Kuk.”

I heard a grating laugh. Startled, I had no choice but to look back at Zachary. The corner of his mouth turned up crookedly. This was… undoubtedly contempt.

He was laughing with a distorted face as if he were sick of this situation.

A Zachary who hated me this much. I had expected it, but facing it directly was more painful than I had imagined. Unable to bear his contempt towards me, I lowered my eyes.

“Why.”

As I lowered my eyes, his low voice grew closer. He continued in a tone tinged with a chilling laugh.

“Are you still afraid I might hurt you?”

What I truly feared wasn’t that.

I was afraid of his contempt. Zachary looking at me with nothing but contempt, without a shred of kindness.

“No. I…”

I saw him with sharp eyes that looked like they would mercilessly rip through the cracks in my emotions. If he were to discover my feelings of liking him, it might truly become uncontrollable. He would treat me with more than contempt, asking how I could harbor feelings of affection after manipulating him while he was under a spell. Perhaps because of this, I was at a loss for words.

“Then, what about this?”

“Ugh.”

Zachary roughly grabbed my wrist. Without my realizing it, my hand had been trembling. Zachary’s crooked smile deepened. He then put down my hand as if throwing it away and stood up.

I wanted to say something. That it wasn’t him I was afraid of.

“Let’s hear your pathetic excuse.”

He coldly rebuked me as I hesitated.

“Fuck!”

He turned around, chewing on the curse. And he moved his steps unhesitatingly as if to leave the room.

“Zachary…!”

I called out to him urgently, but he didn’t even turn to look at me.

Belatedly trying to follow Zachary, I stood up abruptly from my seat, and my head spun. I collapsed back down.

He seemed to hesitate for a moment as he looked back at me, but he didn’t approach. Nuisance, troublemaker, all those expressions seemed to point at me. He sighed irritably, looking like he wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.

My mind went blank. A sudden intuition flashed through my mind that if I let him go now, I might never see him again. I quickly got up again to try and stop him.

‘Ah, damn it.’

This cursed body. I cursed my own body. Due to my dizziness and blurred vision, my feet tangled and I fell. With a loud noise.

“Ugh, ack.”

I managed to avoid planting my face directly on the floor by clumsily extending my arms forward, so I wasn’t badly hurt. However, my hands, which had practically slammed against the bare floor, stung.

“You, really…!”

The footsteps that had been moving away suddenly came close. He pulled me up in one swift motion.

Thud, thud. At the same time, something red dripped down my nose. Whether a blood vessel had burst from the fall, my nose was bleeding.

‘How filthy…’

I didn’t want to stain Zachary. I tried to back away somehow.

But his hand firmly held me. I barely managed to exhale a breath heated by fever.

“I, I…”

Although my mind was hazy, as if I might faint at any moment.

“I’m sorry.”

I begged.

I couldn’t let him go like this.

“I know, even I would hate myself. When you remember staying with me in that terrible mansion, you probably want to tear me apart and kill me right now, but… Even so…”

Unable to hide my trembling hands, I continued speaking.

What if I had no feelings for Zachary at all? I would have firmly rejected his abnormal obsession with me and sent him back to the Empire.

But I couldn’t do that. And this was the result of my unrequited love.

“L-listen, Zachary. I, who have studied spells, might be quite useful.”

He was looking at my blood-stained face with pain. Seeing Zachary’s agonized expression, I was certain. Although he hates me enough to kill me, he can’t kill me. He wanted to kill me but ultimately couldn’t, so he brought me here.

Even as he burned down the mansion, Zachary was like that. Instead of being angry at the life he had to live as a servant, he was angry and resentful, saying that I had abandoned him.

“I’ll help you.”

I said, roughly wiping away the tears that had started to flow without my realizing.

This whole situation pointed to one truth. The spell hadn’t been completely broken. According to the original story, Zachary, having regained his sense of self, would have wanted to burn and tear apart the second child of the Serpentine family, me. However, due to the incomplete dispelling, the obsession with his master and his anger collided, leading to the current situation.

“While I’m here, I’ll somehow resolve the remnants of the spell left in you.”

Although even I don’t trust myself much, I’m still from the Serpentine family, aren’t I? Somehow, I will bring him back. I didn’t want to see him suffering in an incomplete state, unable to kill me because of the brainwashing spell. Even if Zachary, having fully regained his senses, truly despises me and ends up killing me…

“Then you’ll be free too. After that, you can… do whatever you want with me. I’m a person from the family that tormented you and used you as a servant for years. Just let me break the spell first, and then you can do whatever you want…”

“Young Master.”

It’s a familiar form of address. He slowly released his grip that had been supporting my body. Only then did I stagger and sit down on the floor.

He bent his knees to meet my eyes. When I lowered my head to avoid his gaze, he grabbed my chin and slowly lifted it. Despite his chilling killing intent, his expression was actually calm. Rather, as if he had heard a very interesting story, he smiled more pleasantly than I had seen since meeting him.

“After hanging around with dogs, have you really become one?”

Contrary to his beautifully curved eyes, his tone was harsh.

“You think I’m still under a spell?”

However, despite his smiling lips, his eyes somehow looked more hurt than mine.