33 - The Time of the Blind Beast (15+ Revised Edition)
Chapter 33
"What kind of woman do you think is a 'good woman'?"
Ezekiel retorted, latching onto her trailing words. Though he didn't particularly like Rose's cautious answer, he adopted an attitude of listening to it for now.
Rose hesitated before speaking.
"...A woman who can be a great strength to the Major."
It wouldn't be easy to find such a partner in his current circumstances, but if Achenaus posed a threat, he needed a woman with a supportive family who could offer practical help, rather than a woman who would become a burden like herself.
"You know well. Yes, it's you."
"I don't have the strength to be of help to the Major."
"Your heart."
Ezekiel raised his head. He fixed his gaze on her as if he could see, and elaborated.
"You just need to give me your heart. Like you are now."
The gaze that flashed briefly was deep. Strangely so.
What is my heart?
What did he feel from me?
Suddenly, she began to ponder it carefully.
Ezekiel was not someone with simple, straightforward emotions. That contradiction always confused her. Achenaus, on the other hand, was easier to deal with, with his simple and direct emotions. She only had to hate and resent him. Ezekiel required several times more emotional energy than Achenaus, just to think of his existence.
If this feeling is also love, then what an unworthy first love I am having.
It was fortunate that he couldn't properly see her expression. She could hide the trembling of her hands and silence the trembling of her voice, but there was no way to conceal the trembling in her eyes. Despite her acting suspiciously several times, his eyes were not normal, so she was avoiding his suspicion.
The man who told her to give him her heart resumed his interrupted exploration. He gathered her breasts, kissed beneath them, and tasted every inch. He took her leg in his hand, tracing with his finger over the roundly protruding ankle bone, then moved up her calf and thigh.
As he spread his hand to encircle her ankle and carefully caressed her legs and hips, Rose couldn't relax, feeling that every movement was an attempt to meticulously gauge and memorize her form.
"Perhaps it's because you drank Lemon tea. You smell a lot like lemon."
She forced a laugh at his casually thrown remark.
"...It's much better than smelling bad."
"Well. I prefer your natural skin scent. But your body odor is faint. Other scents cling to you quickly. The day you first entered my room, you smelled of rain and soap. It was only when you came out sweaty after being locked in your room and rolled around that I first smelled your true scent properly..."
When he touched her entrance, she broke out in a cold sweat. The lemon slice pushed deep inside felt like it was constantly announcing its presence.
Only when the man, after thoroughly caressing her entire body, finally covered her with his large frame did she feel a sense of relief.
Because when ecstasy approached, her mind would quickly become a mess.
Time would disappear in chunks, without any room for suspicion or remembrance.
Rose pulled Ezekiel's head closer, pressing herself against him to urge him inside her more.
She wanted to quickly empty her complicated insides and be shaken uncontrollably.
The first penetration always came with a dull shock. Rose had already realized from past experience that it wouldn't get any better, no matter what.
He tried his best to sense her pain. He traced her lips with his finger to see if she was biting them from pain, or paused his thrusts if he sensed her taking a sharp breath.
"It's okay, it has to hurt once anyway. If so, please enter quickly, all the way..."
She was anxious that he might notice something catching inside if he inserted slowly. Rose gripped his forearm and pulled him closer.
"You'll get hurt."
"It's okay, ah..."
She had to get used to his body quickly. Rose breathed slowly, relaxing her muscles to match the tip entering and rubbing against her entrance. With a feeling of a dull widening, her entrance grasped the tip of his penis. Even that brought a sweet ache.
"Ugh, ah..."
"...Ha."
They both moaned simultaneously.
He widened her entrance by rubbing it little by little, and finally pushed through the narrow passage.
"Ah, ah!"
An ecstatic yet aching pleasure flashed.
Rose panted. Her womb felt heavy and full. The sensation of being completely one felt like fullness.
How wonderful it would be if time could stop like this.
If she could remain in this moment, this present, without past or future.
Facing the stimulation that began to swell, Rose was aimlessly pushed along, harboring a futile delusion.
With a few slow thrusts and withdrawals, her body became steadily moist. The slick, wet sounds and the increasingly smooth lubrication would hide the secret she held.
Rose prayed that the lemon slice blocking her cervix would serve its purpose.
All her strength was exhausted after several rounds of intercourse. Rose, who was about to lose consciousness from fatigue, opened her hazy eyes at the touch caressing her face.
Ezekiel asked in a low voice.
"Did I wake you?"
"No, not yet... Are you unable to sleep again?"
"No. I feel like I'll fall asleep the moment I close my eyes."
"Then why...?"
Her voice kept sinking, as if pulled from the threshold of sleep.
"As I listened to your steady breathing, I was suddenly struck by how miraculous everything is. I no longer crave alcohol or opium, and the pain has almost disappeared. The cold and heat have also receded. It's been a long time since my mind and body have been this peaceful."
Rose reflexively placed her hand over his, her hand mirroring his.
"It seems you've fully recovered. I'm relieved."
Ezekiel took her hand and stroked the back of it.
"Yes. It's a relief. So, I can write to Dr. Briman now, Rose."
Suddenly, her mind snapped awake.
The inevitable had finally arrived. It was time to begin the treatment.
Rose gazed into Ezekiel's unfocused eyes.
Could light return to these eyes?
The future, which she had found too difficult to even imagine and had kept postponing, had suddenly arrived.
Like some time in the past, a slight tremor ran through her fingertips. She quickly tried to pull her hand away to hide it, but Ezekiel didn't miss the tremor that brushed past her.
"Why, are you scared? After all, you did try to dissuade me, saying it was dangerous."
Rose paused for a moment. Her heart wanted to say no. She knew the role he expected her to play. To be his support, she should encourage him, telling him it would go well.
However, with her trembling hands exposed, there was no point in hiding her true feelings.
Rose replied softly.
"Yes, I'm scared."
I was scared.
I was scared that his sight would return.
I was scared that his sight would not return.
"You are cautious because you are timid, and I am fearless because I am not cautious. That's why we seem to complement each other."
Ezekiel laughed briefly.
"I am truly looking forward to it, and anticipating it. The results I will prove to you. That 'Major Valdemara' never fights a losing battle. Perhaps because you worry for me as much as I would, I don't feel afraid at all. I have a feeling it will succeed."
Then, in an assured voice, he declared to her.
"Rose, when my sight returns, the first thing I will see is your face."
6. Uninvited Guest
"Who is that person?"
As she was preparing lemons as usual and settling into a corner of the kitchen, Rose spotted a strange man lingering by the back door. Anna glanced at the person Rose indicated with her eyes.
"Ah, what was it. He said he came to deliver groceries."
"Suddenly? Weren't the merchants the estate trades with already decided?"
"It seems they've arranged to bring fresh, high-quality fruit. You like fruit, and you keep making Lemon tea... The Master instructed me to receive fruit every day so we don't run out."
She had picked out and eaten fruit even when she skipped meals, so it seemed he had paid attention to that.
Living in the same dormitory as students younger than herself, Rose had come to like fruit and sweet desserts. Especially during the transition from spring to summer, they would go out with baskets to pick wild strawberries. Baking pies or making jam with them was a daily routine.
"Do you know the Master has become more lenient lately?"
Anna didn't seem to have any intention of lowering her voice.
"The day before yesterday, the cook made a mistake and swapped salt and sugar in the food. But when the food tasted strange, he told us to check if it had gone bad and bring it out again. In the past, he would have flipped the table and exploded in anger, calling us all idiots with no tongues, but it seems it's thanks to you."
Rose immediately recognized when this had happened. The morning she woke up, she had been tormented by the man clinging to her, and had been too weak to get up. She had fallen asleep, and Ezekiel had eaten lunch separately, attended by Madam Serva.
"Did he?"
She hadn't heard about it and didn't know at all. It was an issue that had passed so lightly.
"Yes, later, when we tasted it ourselves, we were so nervous. We were surprised he didn't get angry."
Seeing Anna's great surprise, Rose just nodded appropriately.
However, wouldn't this be closer to his true nature?
If he were a picky eater and sensitive to his environment, he wouldn't be able to endure living in trenches for days in extreme conditions or subsisting on hard, tasteless biscuits supplied for military use.
Having been born and raised in a prestigious family, his tastes would naturally be refined, but his patience, unswayed by such things, would have made him renowned as a soldier. He was indifferent to cold and heat, and endured pain and hunger well. In fact, during their confinement together due to opium withdrawal symptoms, Ezekiel had warned Rose, 'If you don't let me go, you could get hurt too,' but he never urged or pestered her to do something immediately.
If he disliked extreme heat and cold, and didn't want to give up a comfortable bed and delicious meals, he would have tried hard to stay in Claris like Achenaus. Engaging in petty power struggles, plotting to send each other to the military in their place. But Ezekiel had enlisted cleanly and voluntarily long ago.
Therefore, what Ezekiel had endured was not the absence of taste, but the attitude and sincerity of his employees.
Because he couldn't see, he couldn't trust whether the employees' mistakes were genuine mistakes or intentional mockery of his blindness, so he deliberately got angry.
"But is it okay for me to keep speaking to you so casually?"
Anna suddenly widened her eyes, pausing mid-sentence.
