Two Steps 1

“I have always been alone since birth.”

Michaela Wittelsbach was alone.

The only thing that always stayed by her side was a sword born with her.

Her parents didn’t give her affection.

Her parents despised her.

Her parents wanted to erase her existence from this world.

Perhaps that was natural.

A child born with a sword.

How could they give affection to something closer to a scabbard than a child?

Michaela simply accepted it.

There was no way an object could have emotions.

That’s what she thought at the time.

Even if she was confined to a sunless attic room in her newborn body from birth.

Even if she was abused and starved by the servants.

She could be indifferent.

Yet, was it because she feared death?

When faced with the crisis of death, Michaela ran away.

She ran, and ran, and ran again.

“It’s not that I didn’t give affection to anyone. Rather, the opposite.”

A miracle happened.

Heroes who save the world, the hero party.

The girl was saved by them.

“I had comrades early on. Those who saved me and guided me.”

That day, for the first time, the girl became aware of human emotions.

“I loved those comrades.”

Chris, Anna, Lucia.

Michaela still couldn’t forget those names of her former comrades.

“For me, they were incredibly precious comrades. They were my compass, fellow warriors I fought alongside risking my life, and benefactors.”

She loved them.

Loved them so much.

“I wanted to live for them. I wanted to protect them. I wanted to repay their kindness. I always lived thinking that. It was my whole life.”

She loved them one-sidedly.

She loved them blindly.

“However, good intentions don’t always bring about the right results.”

I can do anything for them.

That’s all she thought.

“There was internal strife. There was conflict. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding. It might have ended as just a simple argument.”

Without regard for their actual wishes.

“That man was a guide.”

Without thinking whether they wanted that.

“He was skilled not only in guiding the way but also in various miscellaneous tasks. Although not connected to combat, he was a man who received everyone’s respect. He came to manage everything from the budget to important items.”

He was a guide.

He sometimes called himself a porter, with self-deprecating humor.

“We respected him. Although he looked like a boy of the same age, he acted as maturely as an adult.”

He was an unusual man.

With exotic features of black hair and black eyes.

He was like a figure from this world before the Gates, seen only in textbooks.

“We had an enemy to defeat. A very strong and terrifying enemy.”

The Demon King.

It was similar to the Gates of this world.

He suddenly trampled the world along with monstrous creatures.

Defeating him.

That was the party’s purpose.

“That enemy was too strong. To the extent that we couldn’t easily guarantee victory.”

However, faced with a powerful enemy, we couldn’t care for the safety of non-combat personnel.

“So on the day of the final battle, we made the non-combatant man stay away from the battlefield.”

Thus, he was excluded from the battlefield from the start.

Even if we couldn’t win in the worst case, at least the man could return alive.

“It seems the man didn’t like that. After the fight ended, he disappeared once.”

The man considered it a betrayal.

“I searched for him. Because he was important to my comrades.”

In fact, it might have been a reasonable thought.

Even as a non-combatant, he had shared our joys and sorrows.

Even if faced with death, wanting to be with comrades is a natural selfishness.

Michaela would do the same in that situation.

“The man I reunited with was consumed by revenge.”

If only it had ended there.

“Actually, I didn’t care what he said. Contempt and insults were familiar to me. But.”

The man crossed the line.

A line that shouldn’t have been crossed.

“But that man insulted my comrades.”

‘I’m going to get revenge on that hero who ignored me and stole all my credit, and those bitch followers! I’ll return the humiliation I received and train them!’

…Even now, recalling it, those were words I still don’t understand.

“I didn’t hesitate. …I killed him.”

It was a single stroke.

The Sword of Winter took the man’s life in one blow.

“I believed without doubt that it was for my comrades.”

Before my friends who arrived late.

“But when I killed him, they showed tears instead of cheers. What I did thinking it was right for them brought them despair.”

There was no joy.

They just shed tears endlessly.

“I didn’t have any conversation with them. I stubbornly thought. That I was right. That I wouldn’t regret whatever outcome came from what I did for them.”

It might have been resolved through dialogue.

Nevertheless, Michaela didn’t talk.

That was her way of loving others.

Arbitrary, and therefore arrogant.

“So I am nothing more than a mere scabbard.”

That’s why Michaela swore to herself never to have emotions again.

“I thought I didn’t deserve to be loved by anyone, that I shouldn’t love. Because my love is arrogant and one-sided, hurting others.”

Because her love was unnecessarily heavy.

Because it shouldn’t be directed at others.

“I had already hurt someone precious once. But.”

A second life.

Although I swore to end my life as a scabbard this time.

“Yet, you approached me.”

Michaela met.

She ended up meeting.

A girl like a bright spring breeze.

“Even though I rejected, pushed away, and repeated this many times. You stayed by my side.”

Like the sun that couldn’t be rejected no matter how much it was pushed away.

“By my side, you whispered love.”

Sunlight shone on her winter.

“I like you. Seoyeon.”

So it was impossible not to like this.

“As you can see, it seems I’ve fallen for you.”

It would be strange not to like you.

“It’s your fault.”

Michaela has loved others before.

But she has never been loved by others.

To such a scabbard.

She always gave excessive, undeserved love without limit.

“Even though I pushed you away again and again. You treated me so kindly like this.”

The girl named Han Seoyeon made Michaela like this.

“I was scared and afraid… that you might really drift away.”

She made me know the emotion of jealousy.

She awakened my possessiveness.

“Seoyeon. Seoyeon. Seoyeon.”

Michaela uttered that name, which she wouldn’t tire of calling hundreds of times.

“My love might be a mess, excessive, heavy, and unable to consider your feelings. Nevertheless, I dare to tell you.”

Michaela spoke for the first time in her life, with human-like free will.

“I like you so much.”

Love.

Something that only a human could do.

“You don’t need to answer right away. Just as I had secrets, you have secrets and things you need to do. Like how you saved those children in the slums. However.”

With a face turning bright red.

Unable to hide the tension in her voice.

Unlike her usual self.

No, more like herself than ever before.

“When you’ve finished what you need to do. After that.”

Michaela.

“Would you go out with me?”

Michaela Wittelsbach confessed to Han Seoyeon.

“…”

For a moment, Han Seoyeon lost her words.

She momentarily forgot not only how to speak but even how to think.

“…Is it okay?”

Something dreamed of only in dreams, something not even imagined in dreams.

“With someone like me, really.”

“Don’t belittle yourself.”

“…”

“I like you. I like you because it’s you.”

Her senior confessed first.

“…Yes.”

Is it okay to be this happy?

In this depressing world.

Han Seoyeon decided not to hesitate.

Because she was a munchkin protagonist.

“And, I need to correct one thing.”

What should be pursued is a happy ending.

Together with the person she loves.

Han Seoyeon, as of this moment, found another reason to live besides Han Suho.

“…Not senior.”

Michaela, shyly lowering her head, says.

“Michaela. When we’re alone, I’d like you to call me that.”

Ah, this won’t do.

Han Seoyeon could no longer maintain her sanity.

“…Kiss me. Michaela.”

“If that’s what you want.”

Whose moan was that?

“Hnngh…!”

Savoring the red, soft sensation, their lips entangle.

Mixing tongues, exchanging sticky saliva.

Falling onto the bed just like that.

And then.