Ch.10Temptation

“Use healing magic, will you?”

“Alcohol… is meant to be drunk to get drunk… So why… hic, should I use healing magic…?”

Charlotte poured wine into the glass until it overflowed.

At first, she claimed to be enjoying the aroma and only filled the bottom with a thin layer, but as one glass became two and two became three, the level in the glass gradually rose.

And now it had come to this.

As the overflowing wine wet her hand, Charlotte licked it, her tongue darting here and there to taste the wine that had spilled on her fingers.

The way she moved her tongue reminded me of a cat. Then she picked up the glass and emptied its contents in one gulp. The purple liquid trickled down the corner of her mouth, leaving a seductive trail to her chest.

I stared blankly at the purple line contrasting against her white skin, then turned my head away, feeling self-conscious about what I was doing.

But Charlotte hadn’t missed my gaze.

“Just now, hic, where were you looking…?”

She raised her index finger, tapping the air, and I felt something poking my cheek. It was clearly telekinesis. Poking cheeks with telekinesis—it’s amazing she could control her power so precisely while that drunk.

“Death penalty, death penalty… How dare you look at my chest, hic, you deserve to die a thousand times…”

Her hand flailed in the air a few times before finally grabbing the wine bottle. She tilted it, but what she expected didn’t happen.

Only a few remaining drops trickled from the empty bottle, falling to the floor and distorting their shape.

Charlotte’s mind, thoroughly soaked in alcohol, seemed unable to comprehend that the bottle was empty and no more wine would come out.

Her hazy eyes stared at the bottle. After shaking it up and down a few times, she raised it above her head to peer inside.

Realizing it was empty, Charlotte brought her tongue to the opening. Her bright red tongue licked the bottle’s mouth. Her tongue fluttered as it tried to reach inside.

A few drops of saliva trickled down her tongue. Charlotte continued licking the remaining wine from the opening, then suddenly pushed the bottle into her mouth.

“What are you doing right now…?”

Before I could finish my startled question, Charlotte coughed and removed the bottle from her mouth. The bottle’s opening glistened with saliva.

After coughing a couple of times as if something had poked her throat, Charlotte extended her tongue again and began licking down the neck of the bottle.

I sighed watching Charlotte grip the wine bottle with both hands while enthusiastically moving her tongue, then stood up and took it away from her.

Her hands, suddenly without purpose, flailed in the air a couple of times before dropping limply to the floor.

“If you’re not going to use healing magic, stop drinking now. Let’s just go to sleep.”

“Death penalty… death penalty…”

I tossed the wine bottle aside carelessly and put Charlotte’s arm over my shoulder as she kept repeating the same phrase like a parrot.

I supported her by placing my hand behind her back and lifting her under her armpit. As I’d noticed before, she was unnaturally light, making me wonder if she was really a normal person.

In the short distance from the chair to the bed, Charlotte’s legs gave way twice, nearly causing her to fall. I had to use extra strength to keep her upright before finally laying her on the bed.

Her heated breathing carried the mixed scent of alcohol and grapes.

“My lord…”

As I was about to get up to clean the table, which was a mess with fruit peels and the wine bottle, Charlotte gently grabbed my arm.

Unlike her usual self, there was no strength in her grip. It was so weak that I could have easily shaken it off if I wanted to.

“I’m listening.”

“Don’t go…”

There were small tears in the corners of Charlotte’s eyes. Though the hand pulling my arm was incredibly weak, I obediently lay down beside her, following that hand.

As soon as I lay down, Charlotte quickly embraced my arm. The scent of alcohol wafted strongly from right beside me.

My arm was pressed between her cleavage. She lightly bit my shoulder and rubbed against my thigh.

But despite her actions suggesting she was thoroughly enjoying my body, her hands were still trembling. Was it from the alcohol?

Since she had refused to use healing magic despite being so drunk, I figured she wouldn’t listen if I told her to let go. So I left her to do as she pleased, and before long, Charlotte fell asleep with a soft purr.

I gently pulled my arm from her now limp hand. I laid her straight on her back and somehow managed to fix her negligee, which had been revealing quite a bit of bare skin.

The blanket… I didn’t need to cover her. She was already lying on top of it, and I couldn’t pull it out anyway.

Now what?

With a body that didn’t really need sleep, it felt awkward to just lie there beside her. My desire to clean up the messy table had completely disappeared. Someone would take care of it later.

“Mmm…”

Charlotte kept moaning as she tossed and turned. It was obvious she’d end up like this after drinking so much with barely any food.

If she had used healing magic, she might have felt better. She brought this on herself.

Unlike Christine or Serena, Charlotte without magic was just an ordinary person. This meant that while she could dispel drunkenness with magic, it was impossible for her not to get drunk at all.

Unless she suddenly came to her senses and cast a spell on herself, she would sleep soundly until the alcohol wore off.

After gently wiping away the tears still lingering in the corners of her eyes, I got up. Careful not to step on any broken glass that might make noise, I walked toward the door.

Each time Charlotte moaned, I turned around, wondering if she had woken up. Of course, it was just my needless worry.

When I gripped the doorknob and pulled, the corridor came into view. The fact that the door opened easily now suggested that she really had trapped me in here earlier.

Though I felt a little troubled by how she had held onto me with tear-filled eyes asking me not to go, I simply shrugged and left the room. She was drunk, so she probably wouldn’t take it to heart.

The door closed.

A suffocating silence enveloped the room. The sound of breathing and the occasional moans that had been heard until two people became one all disappeared. Darkness and silence descended simultaneously.

The shadow lying on the bed suddenly opened its eyes. Red eyes that shone clearly even in the darkness were contained within.

The shadow rose. The silver hair, scattered in all directions, naturally gathered downward.

The red eyes scanned the spot where human warmth had been just moments ago. Then, they turned toward the direction where that warmth had disappeared.

“It was useless after all.”

Charlotte spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. It was a cold, low voice that was hard to believe belonged to the woman who had been moaning in ecstasy and craving male warmth just moments ago.

Her fingers briefly caressed the empty space beside her on the bed, but Charlotte soon withdrew her hand.

It had all been an act.

The eyes moistened with tears, the pungent grape-scented alcohol mixed in her breath, the unsteady legs that could barely walk, the chest she had subtly rubbed against his arm, the trembling body that seemed unable to forget the past.

Perhaps everything about the human called Charlotte.

What was her true personality? Even Charlotte herself would struggle to answer that question.

She knew it was extremely difficult to define a human being, but Charlotte’s curiosity was far from such philosophical questions.

“…If you wish, I could be any woman you desire.”

A queen of the kingdom, a loyal maid, an ordinary woman, a cheap prostitute. She was confident she could be any woman he wanted.

This current image of a heartless and tearless queen might be called Charlotte, but she could discard this persona in an instant if that man wished it. That was the woman called Charlotte.

The Charlotte that her beloved thought of was a cruel queen who had not completely overcome her past trauma and bloodied her kingdom according to her moods, ruling through terror—and so she maintained this personality.

If he had wanted a queen who had magnificently overcome her past trauma and ruled with benevolence and love, Charlotte would have gladly become that.

Charlotte was confident in her acting.

The chances that he had noticed that her drunkenness, her difficulty walking, and the chest she subtly rubbed against his arm were all an act were infinitesimally close to zero.

But there was something she had used to lower that 0% probability even further.

“Heal.”

With that quietly uttered word, the flush on her cheeks completely disappeared. The slight heat mixed in her breath regained its coldness.

Her rapidly beating heart returned to its normal rhythm, and her lower abdomen, which had been throbbing with desire, calmed down.

To turn that infinitesimally small probability into a negative, Charlotte had used an aphrodisiac on herself. Not because she didn’t trust her acting, but to make it more perfect.

Charlotte, who had completely regained her usual cold demeanor known as the Blood Queen, expressionlessly looked down at her body.

Her chest that could never be called small, her taut abdomen with visible 11-line abs, the black underwear covering her intimate parts, and her still slender legs.

And the complex heart-shaped tattoo on her lower abdomen. It was what was known as a womb tattoo.

As Charlotte stared at the tattoo, the faintly pink glowing mark slowly began to disappear.

Since she had failed to achieve her goal, there was no need to keep it any longer. If she had succeeded, she would have kept it as an eternal memento.

“My lord… you still don’t see me as a woman.”

Delicate fingers rubbed her lower abdomen. Inside was her womb. A secret place that she would allow only one man in her entire life, a place that other worthless humans would not even be permitted to look at.

“Therefore, you must treat those other women the same way.”

Her red eyes emitted a sinister light.

If he wouldn’t fall for her, then he should rightfully treat other women the same way. What Charlotte wanted was exclusivity.

She didn’t want him to exchange words with any other woman. She didn’t want his eyes to capture the image of any other woman.

If possible, she wanted to lock him away somewhere deep and make him see only her.

Of course, she hadn’t acted on it. When she had hinted at confinement, twisting her expressions in various ways, he had grimaced and his expression had hardened for some reason.

When she asked why, he just said it was something from the past and changed the subject.

Charlotte was very good at walking the tightrope, crossing lines. Even when she occasionally stepped over the line, he would sigh and let it go as if he had no choice, treating her as if she were shameless.

Having lived for so long and being an eccentric person seeking death, he often calmly accepted things that ordinary people would abhor.

But her instinct warned her never to cross the line regarding confinement.

That’s why Charlotte had politely apologized and backed off. She was certain that if she pushed further, there would be no turning back. Something must have happened in his past.

Charlotte didn’t like that either.

Of course, given how long he had lived, she had vaguely suspected that there might have been others who had asked for ‘suicide’ in the past, besides Charlotte, Serena, and Christine.

But that didn’t completely suppress the unpleasant feeling when suspicion became truth.

Because everything about that man should be solely her possession.

The only person she could trust in the world was just one. The only person she would open her heart to was just one. The only person she would dedicate everything to was just one.

Then, naturally, that person must take all responsibility. That was the natural order and providence.

If she were allowed to freely release this desire, Charlotte would probably burn the entire kingdom to ashes and live in a world with just the two of them.

Just the two of them, forever, in a world where all living things had perished. The mere thought made her lower abdomen tingle.

If that happened, after the entire continent burned to nothing, the only one left who could fulfill his wish would be Charlotte herself.

He could despair, curse, and be disappointed. In a world where nothing remained except the two of them, he would eventually return to her.

“…I should start cleaning up.”

With a flick of Charlotte’s finger, the bed floated up. The chair, the table, and even the carpet decorating the floor.

In that state, Charlotte created a transfer portal and pushed the furniture into the gaping black mouth of the portal. These were precious items that had been touched by him. It would be too wasteful to leave them in the room.

Anyone who saw the place connected to that transfer portal would be horrified. Everything that man had touched in the palace would be crammed into the place connected to that portal.

After this time, even the door would be added to her collection.

With the bed gone, which had asserted its presence with its large size, the room suddenly felt empty. Charlotte looked around, then pulled a sofa over with telekinesis and sat on it.

In her line of sight was an old wardrobe. As if it were an eyesore that had been forcibly brought in, the old wardrobe was shoved into a corner.

Charlotte raised her hand to fire a flame spear but soon lowered it with a smirk. This was a thought she had had tens of thousands of times before.

She knew all too well that she would never be able to destroy that wardrobe, now or ever.

And this room as well. Even when she had destroyed and rebuilt the entire castle with magic, this was the room she had left untouched until the end.

While decorations, carpets on the floor, and wallpaper had changed a lot, the room itself remained exactly as it had been in the past.

There was only one reason. Thanks to this room, and thanks to that wardrobe, she had met him.

If she hadn’t entered this room, if she hadn’t hidden in that wardrobe, the life of the woman called Charlotte de Gargantua would have ended there.

So, she couldn’t destroy it.

Even if they constantly reminded her of old memories, the joy of recalling her first meeting with him far outweighed the pain of recalling old memories.

Thinking about it now, she even felt grateful. Thanks to it, her meeting with him could be more dramatic, and because of that dramatic meeting, she could experience such deep love.

If nothing had happened then, her parents would surely have stopped their daughter from following that man, and she wouldn’t have felt this ecstatic feeling filled with love.

Of course, Charlotte’s love was inevitable and destined, so mere parental opposition couldn’t have stopped it forever.

Before she knew it, Charlotte’s hand was gently caressing the wardrobe. The surface of the wardrobe was so worn out that it seemed like it might crumble at any moment.

It would be a lie to say it wasn’t painful to look at this. This wardrobe, this room, reminded her of the time when Charlotte wasn’t as twisted as she is now.

But what of it? The present, somewhat twisted, was much happier than the time when she wasn’t twisted. The present, when she loves, is much happier than the time when she was loved.

A bleak smile spread across Charlotte’s face.