20 - The Time of the Blind Beast (15+ Revised Edition)
Chapter 20
She knew exactly what to do first in a situation like this. It was thanks to the adults who taught children playing by diving in lakes or rivers to always leave their clothes outside before going in. Everyone had experienced the shivers, even in midsummer, from ignoring the adults' warnings and playing in wet clothes.
Rose fumbled with the buttons of Ezekiel’s nightshirt, hurrying to undo them. His wet clothes clung so tightly that her fingernails caught several times. Moreover, the man was strong. Every time he hunched his shoulders and struggled to trap even the slightest warmth, Rose was helplessly swept along, losing her balance and staggering. The man, curled up with his large frame crumpled, was like a mountain.
“I’m not doing this with any strange intentions. It’s because of hypothermia. Major, you’re a soldier… you know this well.”
She wasn’t sure if her voice would reach him, his reason completely scattered, but Rose whispered into Ezekiel’s ear.
“It’ll be quick. Just a moment.”
She managed to pull off his top, clinging to him with almost brute force. It was the moment she threw aside the heavy, sweat-soaked clothes and pulled back the sheets to hastily wipe his wet body.
The beast on the bed lunged at her in an instant.
* * *
When did my body become like this?
Ezekiel gritted his teeth.
Not only my eyes, but now I’ve become a cripple too.
All sensation had slipped from his control. The optimism that it would get better soon was a delusion. As time passed, his condition only worsened.
His symptoms were so varied that he couldn’t even tell where things had gone wrong. Just moments ago, he had been drenched in cold sweat from inexplicable abdominal pain that twisted his insides.
Then came muscle aches and chills, as if his entire body had been beaten. His limbs trembled violently. His teeth chattered, and his body convulsed like a quaking aspen. His muscles contracted, and his joints cramped. He couldn’t straighten his arms or legs.
It was cold, even though the weather wasn’t. He was freezing to death.
He scoffed in disbelief.
Cold? Me? Since when have I been susceptible to the cold?
Being a soldier who had fought in wars meant being immune to extreme heat or cold. In fact, Ezekiel was rarely affected by the seasons. He had spent many nights sleeping outdoors in the winter snow, and during ambushes, he had stayed hidden without a tent, relying only on a blanket, to avoid detection by the enemy.
He was also naturally healthy and had no memory of being ill. Even when injured, he fought battles just like everyone else, and his recovery was so remarkably fast that those around him were often astonished.
Therefore, his current state was absolutely not normal. His consciousness was already hazy, and with his vision plunged into darkness, he felt dizzy and seasick. The chill that seeped into his bones was terrifying.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Even with his fading consciousness, he quickly thought of ways to warm his cooling body, but for some reason, his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. He had never realized that removing clothes was such a delicate task.
He instinctively knew what was needed to eliminate this damned cold and pain.
…Rhodanum.
He felt thirsty. His instincts whispered slyly.
Yes, that’s it. Just a few drops of Rhodanum. It’s right there, within reach, isn’t it? You don’t need to drink much. Just touching it to your tongue will make this unfamiliar agony disappear immediately.
The temptation was sweet, tender, and gentle. Just like that woman, Rose.
Rose might have guessed that his reliance on painkillers was due to the pain of poison, but that wasn’t the whole story.
The first place he was offered Rhodanum was here, at Derosa’s star house. The reason was simple: Ezekiel had refused all forms of treatment at Claris’s family home.
He didn’t trust the doctor summoned by Achenaus.
“Why, Ezekiel? Are you afraid I’ll harm you?”
Even as the nerve-burning poison gnawed at his eyes, he stubbornly held on to his senses, fortifying himself on the bed and refusing to yield. Achenaus appeared and mocked him to his face, but his belief that no one in his family home should come near him remained unshaken.
Not even his parents were an exception. Whether it was Achenaus’s unilateral action or a conspiracy with his parents, the outcome would inevitably lead his parents to choose Achenaus, the one with intact limbs, over his brother.
If there was one stroke of luck, it was that the Valdemara family home was always a bustling, noisy place. The ill fortune that befell Ezekiel quickly spread through the city via the mouths of those who frequented the family home.
Only after his subordinates, who had heard the rumors, stormed the family home, spirited him away, and transported him to the byeolga where Madam Serva was, did Ezekiel receive his first proper examination.
Curiously, the place where he confronted the pain in his eyes head-on was also this Derosa. The family home, surrounded by enemies, was too tense a place to simply lie down and suffer. He couldn’t appear to be in pain there. He couldn’t appear weak. He had to stand guard over himself, wary of everyone, while simultaneously concealing his own vulnerabilities as much as possible. He had to be fine.
That resolve became a kind of hypnosis. In reality, at Claris’s family home, he felt relatively less pain. It was like soldiers who, even if one arm were severed, would re-grip their bayonets with the other, or advance on broken legs, he hadn’t realized he was in a state where he couldn’t fight effectively.
Surrounded by trustworthy people, Ezekiel finally spoke for the first time.
I’m in pain.
With that single word, the hypnosis broke, and the suppressed pain surged all at once. He corrected himself.
“This is truly terrible, damn it, what is this fucked-up feeling? What the hell did you do to my eyes!”
It was around that time that he caused a commotion, trying to gouge out his eyes after facing reality. The doctor, seeing his unstable state in many ways, urgently prescribed Rhodanum.
“You’ll feel much better if you drink this. Take it whenever you’re in pain.”
At the time, everyone agreed with the doctor’s diagnosis. But looking back now, the physical and mental suffering were actually natural and expected symptoms. His brother had become an enemy, and his eyes had been crippled overnight; it would be absurd if he felt calm and peaceful.
However, faced with this unprecedented situation, the frightened people around him rushed to push alcohol and medicine on Ezekiel at the slightest sign of distress. They urged rapid recovery through medication over an uncertain period of self-healing. Madam Serva even kept opium readily available on the bedside table to ensure it was never out of reach.
The effect of Rhodanum lived up to its name. The mixture of bitter wine and acrid opium flowed into his body, numbing his nerves. It was a hazy peace that reassured everyone.
The subsequent steps were inevitable.
They gave it to him, and gave it to him, and gave it to him again.
He even became so accustomed to it that he would wake up in the middle of the night and reach for the medicine without wandering.
If he had initially drunk it for mental and physical stability, he then had a new purpose for continuing to drink.
That woman.
The one who caused all this nightmare leading up to today,
Though she might be slowly fading into the oblivion of time,
He absolutely had to drink it to not forget Achenaus’s woman, of whom he knew nothing beyond a fleeting glimpse of her face.
The medicine’s effect was miraculous. One glass calmed his mind and body exceptionally well, and a few more glasses allowed him to see the scenes he wanted to see with clarity. It was an astonishing experience. For the moments he borrowed the power of the medicine, he was not blind.
In that strange illusion, neither awake nor asleep, Ezekiel saw the woman’s face again and again with clear vision.
It felt like a dream, yet it was too realistic to be a dream.
She had tied her rich chestnut hair into a single ponytail, her hazel eyes, with a faint olive hue around the irises, wide open as she met his gaze.
He peered at the woman’s delicate features, as if not to miss a single pore on her skin. He never tired, never grew weary. It was then that he realized her eye color was peculiar and quite mysterious.
Her expression, tinged with bewilderment, her slightly parted lips, the pulse fluttering at her fingertips…
At that point, the woman would sprinkle poison in his eyes and flee. At first, he had to let the receding illusion go, but now he knew how to react.
With a click, he would hold the illusion in place, then rewind it like winding a clockwork, and snatch the woman’s wrist.
