ERTHMB Chapter 69

Immoral and Unwholesome

 

Ian ran frantically. He raced through the night-fallen forest like a madman.

 

Sharp branches occasionally scratched his skin, but he couldn’t feel them.

 

The unwholesome heat consuming his body was devouring all thought and sensation. He had to wash it away, even physically.

 

Whoooosh—

 

Before long, the sound of cool rushing water struck his face. His untimely midnight flight came to a halt only when he reached beneath the waterfall.

 

Ian threw himself into the ice-cold water on the verge of freezing. The fierce stream poured down over his head.

 

At the same time, the afterimages of the atrocity he had dared commit also poured down. They stabbed at his conscience like daggers.

 

‘What have I done. What on earth have I done…!’

 

If he had known he would crumble so easily, he wouldn’t have accepted that medicine in the first place. Even if he had accepted it, he should have left it to Gelda.

 

The medicine Flam had given him a few hours ago was the kind that had to be dissolved and swallowed, not mixed with other liquids.

 

However, Helena’s mind was lucid for extremely brief periods during the day, and to bring down her fever as quickly as possible, he had to get her to absorb it somehow, immediately.

 

It can’t be helped. Clinging to that pathetic excuse, Ian slipped his fingers between Helena’s lips.

 

As if testing him, the somewhat thick pill didn’t dissolve easily.

 

After a brief yet long agony, Ian slowly moved his finger left and right. The medicine gradually began to dissolve against her warm tongue, rubbed by friction.

 

It was then that Helena’s upper and lower lips wrapped around his index finger as if sucking on ice.

 

‘…!’

 

Her cat-like tongue slid over his fingerprint.

 

Ian’s reason began to melt faster than the medicine from that moment on. His muddled thoughts clung stickily to every nerve in his mind, stretching out.

 

The patience he had built up layer by layer through years of endurance crumbled futilely at that one soft, moist sensation.

 

His hesitating finger moved again. The worn medicine was now small enough to swallow.

 

Yet he didn’t withdraw the finger that was teasing her tongue. As if he wanted to perfectly examine the inside of Helena’s mouth, he thoroughly swept and rubbed every corner.

 

Helena’s mouth was empty only after his finger had become two, and more than ten seconds had passed.

 

“Mmm…”

 

A groaning sound immediately flowed out to fill the space his fingers had vacated. Ian looked down at Helena without unclenching his gritted teeth.

 

It was already the third day with no significant improvement despite all their efforts.

 

Seeing her continue to suffer, a sinister solution raised its head in his confused mind.

 

‘You know the shortcut. Yet will you only watch this woman’s pain? She might even die?’

 

When such overload occurred, it was typical to endure the aftereffects alone.

 

However, in Helena’s current case, there was a way to reduce the pain by half.

 

A method possible because of his presence, a method that required him.

 

It was to absorb her aura into his own body.

 

To transfer the still-raging raw energy to a larger body capable of handling it. A way to eliminate the rejection reaction.

 

However.

 

‘The problem is that method is too intimate.’

 

Ian’s gaze fixed on her lips, half-parted and breathing heavily. Her skin, reddened further by the boiling fever, glistened with moisture from his earlier actions. His mind churned violently.

 

What would that temptation taste like if he bit into it? Did the first humans who couldn’t refuse the forbidden fruit feel like this too?

 

If so, would this moment become his sin?

 

“Mmm…”

 

Her densely arranged eyelashes trembled. Helena made another sound of distress. With a small movement, her pale neck stood out prominently. The color of her red hair, contrasting with it, pierced his retina with violent clarity.

 

Ian’s last thread finally snapped.

 

‘I’m sorry, Helena.’

 

He could no longer hesitate and leaned his upper body over her. He could no longer bear it. It was irresistible.

 

For the single reason that it was her, this immoral act even felt like a sacred mission that must not defy God’s command.

 

In the desire mixed with transgression and guilt, their lips finally touched.

 

Ian first bit her upper lip and breathed his cool energy into her. Breaths that couldn’t be distinguished as belonging to either of them mingled. Thick breaths exchanged, matching their lips to the same temperature.

 

Helena’s brow, which had been furrowed and rigid for three days straight, was also gradually relaxing. Ian slightly tilted his head to change the angle.

 

The lips that should have stopped at mere contact finally began to explore within.

 

He swept over soft mucous membranes and clashed against teeth. Like swallowing sweet fruit, he absorbed Helena’s boiling aura. He penetrated without hesitation and desired without reserve.

 

He now filled with something else all the corners he had confirmed with his fingers. He greedily desired without knowing his place.

 

“Hah…”

 

Perhaps lacking air, Helena occasionally let out uncontrolled breaths. Even those were sweet enough to make his mind distant.

 

Ian changed angles once more and lunged in. Around that time, Helena’s fingertips scratched his back over his shirt. Not knowing what she was clinging to, she held on desperately. It was a dizzying sensation that made him shudder involuntarily.

 

The moment her nails dug into his spine, Ian suddenly came to his senses.

 

‘What am I doing.’

 

His head, consumed by unwholesome heat, rang bright red alarms. He had to stop before crossing the irreversible river.

 

Thinking it was the last time, he mustered all his strength to gather his self-control. Barely biting down on it, he separated from Helena. A small watery sound painfully clawed at his heart.

 

And now. He was in the middle of praying that his sins might be washed away by the midnight waterfall baptism.

 

‘To harbor lust toward a woman who can’t even open her eyes from pain—even madness has its limits.’

 

But if that were all, he wouldn’t be reproaching himself so much. He wasn’t condemning himself for becoming aroused toward a woman whose mind wasn’t intact. Rather, it was the opposite.

 

‘I wish you were mentally sound. I wish you could completely remember all the time we shared.’

 

Ian wanted her to know that it was he who had left warmth on her lips. He wanted her to hold him in her tightly closed eyes and treasure this moment forever.

 

He didn’t want it to remain a sensation felt by him alone. He wanted to make her fall completely into him, leaving not even a handful behind.

 

That was what was so pathetically unbearable. He hadn’t even known himself that his affection of unknown depth would be this terrible.

 

Of course, even if he had known…

 

‘I had no intention of stopping.’

 

What difference was there between him and a beast? Ian carved into himself reproach similar to despair.

 

He didn’t leave from beneath the waterfall until the lips that had sinned so carelessly turned blue.

 

Behind him, a figure quietly approached. When Ian turned around, a brief exclamation flew first.

 

“Wow, so you are interested in the other gender after all.”

 

“…Elai.”

 

“I wondered sometimes. Of course, I respect all of Your Majesty’s preferences.”

 

Elai smirked, lifting his meaningful gaze from Ian’s lower body. Ian let out a long sigh with sunken shoulders.

 

“When did you arrive?”

 

Ian waded through the current that reached his calves and stumbled out of the water. As he did so, he unnecessarily struck the lake surface hard. Water splashed up to the rock where Elai was standing.

 

Unconcerned, he extended his hand to Ian.

 

“Enough to figure out who my lord’s woman is.”

 

Ian used his extended hand as a foothold and leaped up onto the rock. At the same time, he used the pulling force as is and pushed Elai down below.

 

Splash—a considerable spray of water shot up.

 

“Cough, cough!”

 

Elai, who had staggered to regain his balance, wiped his thoroughly soaked face. Looking down at him, Ian asked.

 

“What about the others?”

 

As soon as his frequent coughing subsided, Elai answered readily.

 

“The Southern Army will move as soon as they join with the Central Army. Contact will probably come within this month, so it would be better to prepare in advance.”

 

“…We can’t delay any longer.”

 

“If you’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest, you have to burn it before they swarm. We might be the ones to suffer otherwise.”

 

“…Right.”

 

Despite his agreeing words, Ian’s expression became dubious. Elai climbed up gripping the rock and sat down heavily. After spitting out the last of the water pooled in his mouth, he wore a grinning smile.

 

“By the way, I gave you such a grace period, and you’re still in the same place?”

 

“…”

 

Ian sat silently beside him. The dry rock created small puddles with the water the two men were dripping.

 

Elai glanced at Ian’s face, faintly revealed in the moonlight, then casually threw out words.

 

“What are you worrying about so much? It’s unlike you not to just push forward.”

 

“What if she runs away?”

 

“Then catch her again.”

 

“And push forward again?”

 

Elai nodded as if it were obvious. Ian sighed deeply and turned his head away from Elai.

 

“Forget it. Why am I asking someone who can’t even distinguish between hunting and love…”

 

The hand sweeping back his drooping silver hair was troubled. He rested both elbows on his bent knees and rubbed his brow with one hand.

 

The red hair he had just grasped still seemed to be sliding between his fingers.

 

And even redder than that, the gap between parted lips that had exhaled heated breaths, and the two cheeks that had glistened moistly with sweat. The eyelashes that had hung down densely like a veil woven by angels, tickling his nose bridge, and the prominent collarbones that had stuck to his palms.

 

Just thinking about it, Ian felt heat rising again. It was ridiculously pathetic. There was nothing he could do about it, so pitiful.

 

‘It’s not me who always shows the bottom—it’s you, Helen.’

 

Why must he become a pathetic and pitiful man precisely to the one he most wants to look good for?

 

There was no path of retreat left now. Perhaps it had been a predetermined sequence from the moment he decided to find Helena.

 

Just as Eugene’s existence had been a stake to Helena, her existence was that to him. A life he had willingly driven into his heart.

 

The center that made him throb, beat, and feel alive.

 

If forcibly pulled out, he would collapse without leaving any form behind. Like she had the moment they reunited.

 

‘I wish….I were that to you too. Would that be too great a desire?’

 

Couldn’t such a day come, whenever it might be?