Chapter 15
‘Damn it!’
As if those words were a signal, I immediately turned around and started running.
I messed up. I ended up running into the male lead I absolutely had to avoid.
That man was Kaiden Blake Rohade, the male lead 5 in the novel <What's More Important Than Survival>.
‘I liked him the most when I read the novel, but he's the craziest, so I never wanted to run into him!’
If Enoch hated Margaret the most in the original story, Kaiden was the most threatening to her.
Margaret eventually met her death at Kaiden's hands. Other male leads were involved in the murder, but he was the one who ultimately killed Margaret.
Life is definitely made up of shitty timing!
I ran through the bushes, frantically trying to escape Kaiden. Unfamiliar landscapes flashed by quickly.
I was running without a clear destination, which was dangerous. I could encounter a wild animal or fall off a cliff without seeing it.
But all I could think about was escaping from Kaiden.
“Wait a minute!”
Kaiden's shout came from behind me.
It's not that I forgot that I could accidentally run into the male leads. Still, such a sudden encounter is confusing.
I was eventually caught by Kaiden, and while struggling, I rolled on the ground with him. He climbed on top of me and pinned my hands down.
“Hey, just stay still!”
I struggled violently and ended up hitting my cheekbone on a pendant that fell from his robe.
“Ouch!”
I snapped to my senses.
“Are you okay?”
Kaiden carefully examined my face.
Only then did I calm down and pick up the pendant that had struck my cheek. It was a metal pendant with a shining sun as its object.
Judging by its considerable weight, my cheekbone, which was hit by it, would probably be bruised. It was numb and very painful.
Kaiden, who was quietly observing my face, narrowed his brows and tilted his head.
“Your face looks familiar.”
I tried to avoid his gaze and shut my mouth. I strained my wrist, but Kaiden's monstrous strength, which was holding me down, didn't budge.
“It's definitely familiar.”
Kaiden scanned my face for a long time. His blood-red eyes were eerie, and he gave off a scary vibe overall.
An uncomfortable silence continued.
“Ah, I'm sorry. Was it hard? Get up.”
Kaiden belatedly got off me and helped me up. Of course, he held my arm tightly and didn't let go.
“Understand. It's suspicious for anyone to suddenly meet a woman who looks like a noble in this remote place.”
Kaiden smiled and asked for my understanding. I understood it rationally, but I was still annoyed.
For now, he didn't seem like he had met the female lead. He looked like he was alone without any companions.
Clang.
As he moved his head, I heard the sound of earrings clashing.
I looked at the earring on his right ear. It was the earring that was frequently described in the original story.
In his childhood, after being kidnapped and experimented on in the temple, he couldn't control his Mana without the earring.
At the time, it was revealed that the kidnapped boy was the second son of the Rohade family, which caused a stir in the world, but the Marquis of Rohade made some kind of deal with the temple, and the incident was absurdly settled. Only Kaiden became an unfair victim.
Anyway, because of that past, he hated his family and the temple. He would overturn all the experiments conducted in the temple and the experiments sponsored by the family.
Margaret happened to promote and sponsor the ‘Love potion’ experiment conducted by the temple at that time.
As a result, Kaiden came to the Flone ducal family and caused a ruckus, but Margaret did not give up her will and pushed ahead with the experiment.
Kaiden came to hate Margaret because of that incident.
“I don't know, I can't remember where I saw your face.”
After a long time, Kaiden, who took his eyes off my face, smiled attractively. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to remember Margaret's face.
“But you're really pretty.”
……Wouldn't you have to be crazy to say something like that in this situation?
If it were me, I would have said, ‘I didn't know there was anyone else here besides me’, ‘How the hell are you here’, or ‘Who are you’ first. Or, like Enoch, I might have asked, ‘Is this your doing’.
But Kaiden didn't ask any of the questions I expected.
“Why did you run away?”
He asked me, his eyes gleaming eerily.
I decided to keep my mouth shut. I didn't want to attract his attention or offend him by opening my mouth unnecessarily.
“Can't you talk? That's strange, you definitely screamed a little while ago.”
He seemed to want me to open my mouth no matter what. I tensed up when I saw his red eyes gleaming with madness.
‘He's not going to go berserk like Enoch, is he?’
As I remember, his Mana control earring breaks down in the original story. As soon as he wakes up on the island.
Thanks to that, his Mana couldn't be properly purified in his body and stagnated, causing problems. He would suddenly suffer from high fever, and sometimes he couldn't control his emotions seriously.
And the only person who could calm him down was Yuanna. Of course, the method was the same as in Enoch's case.
……It's love, I guess.
Anyway, while I was wondering if I should prepare a dog training method for Kaiden like I did for Enoch, he suddenly leaned his head towards me.
Hot breath tickled my sensitive ear.
“Or, do you not want to talk to me? You'll have to talk even if you don't want to. If that's the case, should I make you open your mouth?”
“……What do you want.”
I finally opened my mouth. At my question, Kaiden smiled prettily.
He had a very flamboyant appearance. Maybe it's because of his light hair color, but his unkempt eyes, as sharp as his eyes, looked like an untamed wild animal.
The reason I liked Kaiden was actually because of his appearance.
Kaiden's gaze swept over me again like a snake.
“Your voice is pretty too.”
“I'm originally all pretty. But why are you talking informally?”
At my question, Kaiden shrugged as if it were nothing.
“It's more friendly this way. You talk informally too.”
Why should I be friendly with you!
But he didn't seem to have any intention of using honorifics at all.
Kaiden was a heaven-above-all-else type, but we haven't even introduced ourselves yet, so it's right to use honorifics.
Enoch was able to speak informally because they knew each other's identities, but Kaiden wasn't.
Well, since he spoke informally first, I should do the same to be fair, right?
“Let go of this.”
“No.”
However, Kaiden didn't seem to care whether I spoke informally or not.
“But no matter how I look at it, you……. You look a lot like someone I know.”
Kaiden scanned me carefully with the eyes of someone observing something strange.
Well, it was quite a while ago that Kaiden came to the Flone mansion and asked Margaret to stop sponsoring the experiment.
And even then, Margaret rejected Kaiden's request with a single blow and disappeared right away, so the time they actually faced each other was very fleeting. It's not strange that he doesn't remember her face.
“Who are you?”
I asked a question to prevent him from thinking too deeply.
“Kaiden Blake Rohade.”
Kaiden looked down at me with an attractive smile that made his dimples pop out.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
I shook my head firmly as he asked.
He quietly examined my face and tilted his head, then suddenly stopped moving and looked me straight in the eye. I avoided his gaze with a bad feeling.
“Ah, wait a minute. I remember. You, you look a bit like the Langrid Empire's crazy Lady Flone?”
Crazy, who's calling who crazy!
“Don't you know it's rude to say that in front of someone?”
“Are you really Lady Flone?”
I narrowed my brows and pondered, then shook my head and denied it for now.
Then Kaiden laughed as if it was a good thing.
He didn't seem to be pretending not to know even though he recognized my face. But I swallowed my breath at Kaiden's next words.
“Really? That's a relief. I hate that woman a lot.”
Kaiden said it playfully, but I felt like my blood was drying up.
It was on a different level from Enoch threatening me. Kaiden was someone who could really kill me.
I was feeling threatened and on edge.
“Oh? But…….”
He suddenly tilted his head and buried his nose in my neck.
“You smell sweet, that's strange.”
Hot breath tickled my neck. It was so close that I almost felt like his lips were touching me.
