WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

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◈ Academy's Pure Love Dark Knight ◈

Chapter 120

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Episode 120. We Fight, But We Also Love.

Our group's cave escape went smoothly once Phine's wrath had worn off, but

"I'm sorry.. Licht.."

"It's fine, Phine."

The woman herself kept stroking my back and casting healing magic on it.

Something only Phine Gransia could do, something no one else could.

"Because of me.. you got hurt.."

"There you go again. There was nothing you could do once you got hit by the apostle's ability."

I'd heard that sharing a mana circuit would let her heal me, but seeing it in person still felt strange.

A warm, cozy sensation, a little like holding a hand warmer. Maybe this was what it felt like when I used the Savior Sword.

"Please…. don't hate yourself for this."

"Licht.."

Every time her small finger brushed the spot pierced by glass magic, a sharp, tingling pain shot through me, but I gritted my teeth and bore it.

Between the helmet hiding my expression and the fact that it was the woman I loved who'd made the mistake,

this much was bearable. Better than being the one who hurt someone else.

"I'll.. make the pain go away fast."

She seemed to sense I was in pain. Tears glinted faintly in her eyes, and the number of glowing motes of holy light kept multiplying.

How could I not fall for her, seeing this. Her heart was gentler and warmer than anyone's.

That was when it happened. The instant I felt the princess's careful touch through my clothes, a translucent status window rose up in front of my eyes.

[Lee Suhyun ♡ Phine Gransia 3% 'NEW!!']

Text that appeared along with a burst of pink hearts popping everywhere.

It was only one percent, but the affection level had gone up. I immediately focused on each letter.

'It went up just from touching lips with a finger..?'

What on earth was the standard this status window went by. With Baek-Mokryeon and Dennis, it had shot straight to 100% the moment Head died.

If it climbed this slowly, what was I supposed to do if it ever dropped instead.

"Licht..?"

"It's nothing."

Once the stinging sensation on my back faded, I signaled to Phine to stop the healing.

The caster had been dead a long while already, so the monsters' wrath state had lifted too, and

"I think you're all healed now, so please take your hand off my back."

Sophitia had said we could probably head down the mountain and pull back the defensive line protecting the northern territory.

"No.."

But Phine objected. She slowly shook her head side to side. Her hair, white and glossy like the snowy mountain around us, fluttered with the motion.

"..Phine?"

"I'm not satisfied yet."

Shff. Her white tail wrapped around my body again. Soft, warm wolf fur, the opposite of the cold, snow-swept scenery around us.

"I.. actually.. my memory's a little hazy.. Licht."

"..."

A skilled hunter's eyes were fixed on me. Looking up at me from that height difference, my heart skipped for a moment, but this was clearly a trap.

Anyone could tell it was a lie.

It had been the same when Nex and I got hit by Servi's ability, and the same during the gluttony incident too.

"That thing earlier, was it really a kiss..?"

I had to plead the fifth here.

There was no way it could have affected her memory. She clearly knew that and was asking anyway. Her golden eyes looked at me, faintly sad.

"It wasn't.. lemon flavored."

Her wolf ears drooped, as if scolding me for the finger-kiss, all their liveliness gone. Where had she even heard that superstition about a first kiss tasting like lemon.

"Oh dear.. my disciple.. don't tell me you…."

"I have nothing to say for myself. I'm sorry. Your Highness."

Squeeze. I took her hand in mine and started walking.

Nearly my first time consciously holding a woman's hand, my palm was sweaty and slick, awkward. I wondered if my Phine minded.

"Let's talk once we're safely down the mountain."

"Ah, nnh.."

Her drooping wolf ears perked back up, and a faint smile touched her lips. Good, seems she's fine.

Honestly, part of the reason I'd taken her hand was that the mountain was steep and full of tree roots hidden under snow, and I didn't want her to trip.

More than that, though, her ears moving like that. Adorable.

"I'll let this slide.. Licht."

As if throwing my own earlier words back at me, she laced her fingers through mine, and at the feeling of our hands becoming one, the blood raced through my whole body.

Startled, I glanced sideways and found her looking down too, unable to meet my eyes, clearly embarrassed as well.

I noticed Phine's eyes flickering, but there was no time to dwell on it.

"Phine, what's actually going on between you and this guy?"

Sophitia, with her black bear ears, asked what she'd been wondering, watching Phine walk pressed close beside me.

"Someone precious to me…."

The white-haired princess, in the middle of answering "someone precious to me," suddenly stopped talking. Why?

"Then don't tell me, did you two kiss back there in the dark?"

Made sense, since Shadow Fang meant they had no idea what Phine and I had actually done in there. It was only natural for the Northern Grand Duchess to be curious about this.

From their side, all they'd seen was the veil lifting and me holding an unconscious Phine, and now the Phine who'd been asleep was suddenly up and walking.

"We absolutely did not."

I had nothing to hide about it. It wasn't a real kiss, and it wasn't even a peck on the cheek.

All we'd done was press a finger to each other's lips.

"Then why are you both blushing like you actually did kiss…."

I was in the middle of confidently declaring that nothing like a kiss had happened,

"Hic. Hff."

the moment Sophitia said the word "kiss" for the second time,

Hic. Phine started hiccuping, cutely, her whole body jerking with each one, and she thumped her chest as if it felt tight.

"..Phine? Are you hiccuping?"

"No I'm not.. Sophie.."

Had I really made a big mistake?

She clearly remembered the finger-kiss. Otherwise there was no way she'd be reacting like this.

"I.. don't hab hiccubs.."

She'd been quietly poking her own lips with her index finger and thumb since a while ago; must have been quite startled to get caught by a friend.

"Phine, are you okay?"

"Mm.. Licht. I'm.. fine.. hiccp."

Watching Phine hiccup, I couldn't help but wonder. It had just been an indirect touch of the lips, was the stimulation really that strong?

The indirect kiss via tomahawk hadn't seemed to bother her, so I'd figured this wouldn't be a problem either. I pressed a hand to the forehead of my helmet and racked my brain.

"Phine, try holding your breath for a second."

"Ah, hff."

Following my suggestion, she puffed out both cheeks like a squirrel and held her breath. Judging by the way she talked, she clearly had about as much romantic experience as I did.

'The romance novels all said that just kissing someone makes them treasure you forever.'

If she'd actually been in a relationship, she'd know that was just fantasy. Though, granted, with looks as striking as Phine's,

'people who'd give up anything for a chance to bump lips with her would probably crowd out the whole of Grand Hearts Academy.'

Still, it wasn't like I could just go and steal her first kiss. I had to respect the other person's wishes.

Recklessly kissing her and hoping love would bloom from it would be shameless. And besides, I still hadn't met all the conditions for the Grand Route.

'Magic Hat's been bothering me.'

The Demon King who'd looked at me and acted like she knew me.

And I needed to hold off until I'd caught the sorcerer most likely to turn Phine into the Nameless Saintess and put her in danger.

I hadn't come here to win someone's love, I was a player who'd possessed a game character to save Phine's life and make her happy.

'Because I'm.. Phine Gransia's own pure-love Black Knight.'

Not some cunning hero out to defeat the Demon King and claim the princess's hand without any real feelings between them.

"Eeh."

While I was lost in that thought, Phine's body had stopped shaking so violently. Was she saying "Licht"? Good, seems she's calmed down.

"You can breathe now, Phine."

"..It's true. It stopped."

She might well have picked up some bad information somewhere and ended up with a distorted view of relationships between men and women. Like how I hadn't recognized Phine during my time as Mardol.

"Thank you, Licht."

"Don't mention it."

This clinginess toward me was probably part of that too. If she matured a little more emotionally, if that hollow, glass-like emptiness faded away,

'she might reconsider how she feels about me. There are plenty of good people in the world besides me.'

But the tip of the white wolf tail wrapped around me was swaying gently. Ease up a little. It's not like you'll keep doing this once the academy term starts again.

"Heh, you really are.. kind."

Thankfully, compared to when she'd first locked me up upon my arrival in the north, the grip had loosened a bit, making it easier to walk,

and having gotten a finger-kiss seemed to have satisfied her enough that her eyes had softened considerably.

If I kept walking in step with her like this, maybe I'd eventually reach the same happy Grand Route ending I'd once seen illustrated.

'If she can't stand at the starting line on her own, then I'll just have to support her and walk it together with her.'

A common, obvious thought, one that was hard to grasp even when explained out loud in words.

But that's what love was, at its core, to begin with.

* * *

Phine Gransia felt unsatisfied.

'That…. wasn't a kiss.'

In truth, she remembered clearly that Licht had only given her his lips through a finger, and

"What's wrong, Phine."

She stole a sidelong glance, a little put out, at the man wearing the Black Knight helmet.

Between the hiccuping earlier and the strange fluttering feeling her heart always seemed to get around Licht, Phine was unsettled.

"Licht really is.. a flirt."

"How am I a flirt. Phine.."

Asha Aureus had been standing there with her mouth hanging open, staring at the princess and Licht in shock, but Phine didn't care.

"Way too.. smooth-talking."

"..."

She kept overlapping him with the playboy characters she'd read about in novels, and there was also a part of her that wanted to keep some check on the beautiful golden-haired married woman,

"Come to think of it, you two said you're students at the same academy…."

"Yes, Lady Asha. Licht and I are friends."

Setting aside her princess's dignity for the moment, Phine kept marking her scent on him, emphasizing that he belonged to her.

"Licht. I'm sorry."

Even when the Apostle of Wrath had driven her out of her senses, he'd chosen to stop her by holding her close,

and even though she'd said it while out of her mind, he was the one who'd substituted a finger for a kiss.

"For hurting you, for locking you in that room.. sorry."

"I told you, it's fine."

A Black Knight who cared for others more than himself.

How many people like that could there possibly be in the world. He probably understood even Phine Gransia's trauma, and had become her emotional pillar of support,

"None of it was your fault alone, Phine."

"Really..?"

Licht was probably the only person who could keep making her feel this at ease. Feeling her heart settle, she pressed herself even closer to him,

"Yes, part of it was my fault too, for worrying you..."

"Heh, Licht."

An immediate, embarrassed reaction. At the momentary pause in his words, the princess's wolf ears perked up with interest.

"..Thanks for saving me, again, my Black Knight."

"Don't mention it."

Phine poked her own lips with her hand. Licht's finger had been bigger and thicker than hers, so it hadn't felt quite like this, she thought, and

"Phine, what are you doing…."

trying to recreate the tingling sensation from the finger-kiss a moment ago, she tried something similar, using her thumb and index finger.

"What's wrong..? Licht?"

"Ah, it's nothing."

But she felt nothing like the jolt of electricity from before, no real sensation at all.

No matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn't figure out why, and Phine sank into confusion.

A girl who knew nothing of love, still unaware of the small flame that had already been lit in her own heart.

"Um, Licht. Just once more…."

She was about to ask him to stamp his finger against her lips again, to solve the mystery, when

right then, the air trembled and every tree on the mountainside began to shake. Snow that had piled up in soft drifts came fluttering down.

Groaaaaaaarrrr!!!!

Something enormous rose up from behind Licht's group.

It looked like a patchwork doll of sorts, various kinds of hide crudely stitched together,

"It wasn't a greater demon summoning circle, it was necromancy!!"

a massive undead monster in the shape of a bear, mixed with the traits of several other beasts.

"..Necromancy."

The man in the Black Knight helmet stepped forward the instant he saw the enemy, shielding the princess, summoning his Heart Sword and readying himself to fight.

"Deliberately letting a wrathful monster get killed, then using it to make an undead…."

"Total checkmate. If something like that got loose in the northern territory, it'd be a disaster."

Drake, along with Sophitia and Asha, dropped into battle stances.

Phine, who'd just lost her chance for a kiss, looked at the monster that seemed to have been summoned by the Apostle of Wrath, and

"That thing, is so annoying."

bit her lower lip in secret, showing a fury more intense than anyone else's.

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