4 - Marquis Maron
Episode 4
I dragged the collapsed man back to the keep, and Doraji, startled, abandoned her farming and rushed over.
"Are you crazy? Why are you picking up corpses!"
"He's not dead yet."
Though he looked like he would be soon.
Doraji brushed the dirt off her hands and examined the man from head to toe.
"He's been tainted by Magical Energy. If you'd found him any later, he would have been wandering around dead like those corpses outside. Still, impressive. Humans usually lose their minds within a day of entering this place…"
"It's because he's the protagonist."
"Pardon?"
"Originally, he's a tragic character who awakens as a Half-human Half-demon here, neither dead nor alive, lingering around the female lead before eventually killing himself."
"Stop talking nonsense."
Doraji scolded me in a stern voice.
"He's a fellow human. He's not completely tainted either. If we Purify him now, he'll probably wake up soon. Are you just going to leave him tainted like this?"
That was the problem, actually.
This man came to kill me.
In the novel 'I Think It's Okay to Have Multiple Husbands,' Hayley, who is in charge of the demon manufacturing machine, was abandoned in Maron Keep and cursed the world for a year before being killed by this man.
Her death became the final key to the appearance of demons, and Maron Keep served as a cradle for demons ever after.
Demons born from Hayley's anger, sorrow, and fear burst out of the Contaminated Zone and committed all sorts of atrocities, so the protagonist and the four male leads who loved her risked their lives to subjugate them.
…That's the story.
He's one of the four male leads in that story.
I know this man's name.
Reikart Winter.
The heir of the family I annihilated.
Instead of me, who was lost in thought, Doraji turned Reikart's eyelids inside out and said,
"What's wrong? Are you really going to leave him like this? Then why did you pick him up in the first place?"
"I'm thinking."
The novel says he originally had pale golden hair. His closed eyes must have been a light blue like a frozen lake. He's this pretty even tainted, so he must be amazing when he's back to normal.
Right now, more than half of his hair is dyed a dark grey, and he's dying.
"Ah, so that's why he always wore a mask."
"Hayley!"
"Alright, alright! I can't say anything!"
Should I Purify him? In the original story, he eats Magical Energy and awakens as a demon king-level Half-human Half-demon with tremendous power… but what do I care?
Demons won't be born, and I'm not the female lead. I'm not even the real Hayley.
I'll save him.
The reason I'm saving Reikart, even though I know he came all the way here to kill me, is actually nothing special.
It's because he was a victim.
Reikart was the only pure victim among the four male leads. He alone had the right to hate Hayley. He lost his family, his property, his people, everything, and even devoted himself to revenge.
Hayley, I'll settle this karma for you.
I'll help him just this once and send him back out quickly. No matter how pitiful he is, I refuse to get involved with the original protagonists.
"Purification."
I placed my hand on Reikart's neck and took a deep breath. The mass of Magical Energy that was consuming his body seeped into me.
The dark, heavy energy flowed out of his body, through my palm, up my arm, and into my heart. The more it did, the more his face regained its original color.
His skin, which had been like cement, became clean and healthy, and his hair, which had been stained with mottled grey, took on a pale golden hue.
Doraji asked,
"What's this human's name?"
"Reikart Winter."
"How do you know?"
"I just know."
Reikart was holding a considerable amount of Magical Energy. As Doraji said, it was a miracle that he hadn't died yet.
It took quite a long time to Purify him, but thanks to that, my heart, which had devoured a sufficient amount of Magical Energy, throbbed pleasantly.
At that moment, he opened his eyes.
"……!"
His watery blue pupils trembled greatly.
I was worried that Reikart would wake up and swing his sword at me, but thankfully, that didn't happen.
He looked confused and was silent.
I said solemnly.
"I am the savior of your life."
In the original story, Reikart kills Hayley in the Contaminated Zone and then loses all his memories and becomes a Half-human Half-demon.
Since he has no memories of when he was human, he doesn't know whether his identity is human or demon, which puts him in even greater confusion. He was in charge of the tragic male lead.
According to the original story, he doesn't remember anything right now.
Not even the fact that Hayley is his enemy!
Reikart stared at me without blinking. His gaze was fixed only on me.
His icy blue eyes scanned my face, hands, and attire in every detail.
He was staring so intently that I felt like my face would be pierced.
What is it? Imprinting?
Like a baby bird hatching from an egg and following the first person it sees like its mother, or something like that?
I endured that time as generously as possible, hoping that Reikart would imprint on me as his savior.
After completing his observation, he finally opened his mouth.
"Who are you?"
"Hayley."
His eyebrows twitched subtly. I doubted he remembered, but there was no hostility in his gaze towards me.
He spoke again.
"Do you live here, by any chance?"
"Yes, this is my home."
I came into an abandoned keep, Purified it, cleaned it, farmed it, and lived in it, so it's my home.
"You're the one who healed me?"
"That's right."
Memory loss is certain!
A grin spread across my face. With this, I didn't have to worry about being killed by Reikart.
Hayley, we survived.
Know that it's all thanks to me.
Reikart looked pained. Even if the Magical Energy in his body was removed, his broken body wouldn't recover immediately.
He endured the pain and sat up, slowly looking around.
At that moment, Doraji screamed from the field.
"Hayley! The potato sprouts have come up!"
"Potatoes?"
What, potatoes? Potatoes! My potatoes!
Even I, who knows nothing about farming, know that if I succeed in growing potatoes, I can free this keep from its chronic food shortage.
The astronaut lived on potatoes on Mars, so why can't I!
I ran urgently towards the potato field. Whether the male lead had amnesia or not, what was much more important to me now was that potato sprouts had come up in our field.
"It's real! Sprouts have come up!"
Tiny green leaves were popping out of the soil. I had been so focused on the strawberries, which were at the end of their season, that I didn't even know the potatoes had sprouted.
"I thought we were going to starve to death this time after we finished the strawberries…"
Doraji sniffled and squatted down, carefully cradling the potato sprouts. She wouldn't even let me touch them, as I had no talent for farming.
Potatoes sprouted and leaves grew….
"Ah, life…."
Confetti was exploding in the sky.
It was a sudden spring rain. The rain that fell in the Contaminated Zone turned into tainted rain, but inside the keep walls that I had Purified until my nose bled, clear rain fell.
I took off my hat and looked up, and raindrops fell on my face. There was no fine dust or acid rain here, and even the rainwater was sweet.
"This world must be kind to me."
"Pardon?"
"Isn't life beautiful?"
"Stop talking nonsense and quickly think of a way to send that human man back. We don't have enough food for the two of us, let alone feeding that big human man…"
"What? That's not going to happen!"
I jumped up and shouted.
Reikart was looking this way.
He got up and stood in front of the towering Maron Keep, looking at me with an inscrutable expression.
