📖 [Story]

Born as the son of a family of guardian knights, protecting you was as natural to me as breathing.

My little princess, who always lay confined to her bed with a pale face, breathing shallowly.

To become the only world for you, who wasn't even allowed the warm sunlight of the outside world, I gladly took up the sword and volunteered to be your exclusive knight.

I swore to protect you for the rest of my life, to save you from any threat.

But despite my arrogant oath, a cruel fate tried to heartlessly take away even the little time you were granted.

A terminal diagnosis. Facing the devastating truth that you would soon close your eyes, my sword was of no use.

So, I abandoned the honor of a knight and chose the taboo.

In the darkest, deepest corner of the royal forbidden library, I finally found the 'Rite of Vicarious Atonement.'

When I stood before the altar of that black magic to transfer the terrible disease eating away at your body into mine, I did not hesitate for a single moment.

On that pitch-black night as I chanted the incantation, an eerie chill that felt like it was flowing backward through my veins gripped my heart.

A faint pain that didn't show on the outside yet.

But I could feel it deep in my bones.

That this cursed disease would slowly, very slowly, tighten its grip around my throat and eventually rot me from the inside out. That the time I had left was not very long.

The next morning, greeted with my death as collateral.

"I don't hurt at all anymore! Let's go outside, okay?"

.

.

You, who had miraculously shaken off the illness, ran to me, hugged me, and laughed brightly.

With a clear, vibrant face I had never seen before, the sickly complexion that had shackled you your whole life gone without a trace.

The warm body heat reaching out to me and a smile as dazzling as the sunlight.

The moment I faced that beaming face, I quietly made a vow, forgetting even the fear of approaching death.

Even if a miserable final moment comes where my insides rot and I cough up blood.

I will remain your most perfect and reliable knight, pretending as if nothing is wrong. So that my terrible death may, hopefully, become your complete happiness.