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Even if his current condition wasn’t perfect, it was impossible. No one could have known to send an assassin here.

“What the…….”

Felix’s voice cracked. It felt like he was being crushed by a giant. He couldn’t even lift a single finger.

With a trembling hand, he weakly touched what was in front of him.

Creamy soft skin wrapped around his hand.

He was the one suffering from a fever, but he felt hot as if he had been burned.

At that moment, Felix was finally able to see his opponent clearly. It was Irene.

In the darkness, a pale ivory hand gently stroked his cheek and fell.

It was so vivid that he couldn’t tell if it was a dream or a reality. But this couldn’t be real.

Sure enough, as soon as there was a crack, it¹ dug right in.

He had expected it, but honestly…….

Felix, who controlled his mind with a deep breath, fiercely muttered as he gnashed his teeth and exhaled.

“Leraze.”

How much did the devil have to turn his insides upside-down² before it felt better? If it were him, rather than fall for its temptation, he would choose to jump into the flames with the devil trapped in his body.

“You gain nothing by doing something like this.”

At that moment, her eyes curved gently. When she smiled, dimples appeared on both cheeks.

Irene always smiled with such affection whenever she saw Felix.

However, she was always insecure.

No matter how lovely he said she was, she would make a bitter expression and say that he was covered with a bean pod³.

That’s right. She used to giggle awkwardly and say that it was enough as long as Claudia and Felix thought she was pretty.

Perhaps it was because Irene didn’t know how her eyes sparkled like stars.

Whenever he pinched her cheeks, she would look up with her eyes wide open, and when he patted her head, her eyes closed slightly, and her head would tilt to the side.

Irene didn’t know what kind of expression she made when she spoke about her favorite dessert and how her eyes would reflexively curve wherever she was in front of Claudia and Felix.

She didn’t know she had dimples on both cheeks.

She didn’t even know how lovely that momentary sparkle was.

“Get lost.”

Felix covered his eyes with his palms and mumbled helplessly. Then a soft, small hand gently wrapped around the back of his hand.

She slowly pulled it down. The golden eyes that he encountered shone like the sun in the dark.

He felt like his heart was being torn apart.

“Felix.”

Irene pursed her lips.

She called him the way she always did and smiled again. Even in this ridiculous situation, her courageous and tough appearance was faint as if it were to crumble at any moment.

The reason he barely clutched onto disastrously snapped.

Felix forced himself to shake off the invisible power that constrained him. Then he grabbed her by the shoulder and forced her down. It was a move to catch and suppress the devil somehow rather than to attack it.

“I told you to stop.”

The position was reversed in an instant.

“You treat me like a fool.”

It was wearing Irene’s face. It made her stared up at him, showing no signs of protest.

Leraze whispered while lying beneath Felix.

–You actually wanted to do this.

You wanted to suppress her with force, make her cry until she wept from pleasure, and torment her endlessly and tenaciously.

All you had to do was just reach out. Tell your Irene everything, corrupt her and drag her down to where you were.

–You can hold her in your arms and adore her every day.

You would be happy.

The moonlight seeped out the window and gently settled on her white forehead. The feelings of affection Felix had became tattered as if ripped into pieces.

It was awfully miserable.

“Ah, really…….”

Suddenly, it occurred to him that all this was futile.

“My words…… I don’t think you understand whatever I say…….” Felix muttered softly, drawing out his words.

‘Leraze, what should I do with you?’

He couldn’t tell if it was because he was crazy with the fever or if he was originally half-crazy. He looked into space, his eyes full of destructive impulses.

He spoke quietly, staring out the window which had darkened completely.

“The Holy Sword….…”

There was a relic containing the power of the devil. There was also a relic containing the power of an angel.

Like the devil’s relic, not much was known about the angel’s relic. It was probably hidden in a temple on another continent, but there was nothing he couldn’t obtain if he risked his life.

–Ho-holy Sword?

The devil was terrified.

‘–You lunatic, don’t tell me you’re thinking about that?’

Even children knew that light and darkness were forces that offset each other.

‘Offsetting’ was when the opposite force affected another, completely destroyed it, and then disappeared.

“It should be enough if I stab my heart with it.”

–…….

“Together, we shall die.”

With a weary expression, Leraze decided it should withdraw the illusion. He thought that shock therapy that stimulated lust would work, but it was counterproductive.

The more it provoked him, the more he resisted. His thoughts were more extreme than a madman.

Leraze decided to retreat as it was.

–I did that because…….

But it didn’t dare to continue.

–Irene has arrived.

It uttered a nasty word and left.

Felix opened his eyes and listened to the sound of the pouring rain.

Irene, who had diligently visited him in the morning, was now right beside him, wiping away the sweat on his forehead.

“I knew this would happen.”

He looked like he was in a precarious condition, so Irene had anticipated that he’d fall ill sooner or later. She grumbled as if upset, wrung out a towel soaked in ice water, and then wiped the back of his neck where his hair was tangled in sweat.

“Did you have a nightmare? You don’t look so good.”

He had a very bad fever.

Irene muttered anxiously.

Dreams and reality, reality and dreams, a feverish head, and a devil inside.

The devil and him, him and the devil.

Felix slowly reached out.

He grabbed the back of Irene’s head. She looked at him with a puzzled expression.

Her soft hair was tangled in his fingers.

“Do you still have the sword?”

“What?”

“…….I definitely warned you.”

‘You should’ve brought it. Innocent Irene.’

Felix blinked his unfocused eyes and pulled her head towards him without warning.

Their faces were so close that their breaths became intertwined. As the tip of their noses touched, a tickling sensation slowly spread from head to toe, spreading throughout her body.

“…….”

Too……. it was too close.

Wasn’t this too close?

Irene blushed in surprise but realized that the hand holding the back of her head was shaking. He must be lacking energy since he was that sick.

The opponent was a patient. As she thought about it, she suddenly began to feel indescribably anxious.

“Did you want me to measure your temperature?”

She pressed her forehead onto his with a serious expression.

She presumed the blazing heat in his eyes was because of the fever.

“Your forehead is burning as well.”

“…….”

“Lie down comfortably. You look really sick.”

At her words, he managed to regain reason and calm the overflowing violent energy.

Felix slumped onto the bed like a well-behaved child. And he slowly let out a shaky sigh that seemed to break off at any moment.

“Haaaa…….”

He laid his hands together on his chest beautifully and closed his eyes. Irene thought it looked like a prince sleeping in an ice castle.

Felix asked as he raised his snowy-white eyelashes.

“Will you be very sad if I died?”

But after hearing that, he looked like a dead body in a coffin. Irene turned pale. Was it so painful he wanted to discuss death?

“You can’t die! You survived that crisis, so if you die here, I won’t forgive you!”

“What do I do? I feel like dying more now……”

Felix let out a rare weak voice and covered his eyes with his forearm. The curses he mumbled were drowned out by the harsh breaths that rattled his chest.

“Because I hate it more when Irene is sad.”

Felix…….

Irene felt the tip of her nose tingled and tears welled up in her eyes.

It hurt enough for him to want to die, but he was worried about her being sad. He was so foolish, stupid, and had a heart of an angel.

* * *

T/N: I made a slight correction in chapter 58 (near the end):

• Previous sentence: “At dawn, when the rain had stopped falling, Felix suddenly opened his eyes.”

• Correction: “It had been raining since dawn, and it had finally stopped falling. Felix suddenly opened his eyes.”

(Based on this chapter, it turned out that when he woke up the rain stopped but it was night since he mentions the moonlight). Sorry about any confusion caused!

Also please note that the author switches to third-person narration in this chapter (so that’s why Irene is narrated as “her/she”).

^{1. In this chapter “it” refers to the devil. It would be too confusing to use “he/him” as Felix is occasionally narrated as that so to make it clearer I’ve decided to use “it”(or “the devil”) for simplicity.↩}

^{2. To “turn someone/something upside-down” means to figuratively upset and/or confuse someone/something.↩}

^{3. The Korean idiom “(one’s eyes) are covered with a bean pod” or “a bean pod has been put on” is similar to the phrase “blinded by love”. It means that the infatuated person cannot see things objectively (like how a bean pod shows the presence of the beans by the bulging bump, but you can’t see the beans themselves).↩}