For the heart - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 1

The reputation of the Arsed Empire’s ‘Cold Blade,’ feared by all nations, was in reality this incomplete.

The frozen slaughterer, the reaper of bitter cold, the undying sword.

Countless epithets followed her, but they were meaningless if a Healer didn’t heal her broken body.

In the end, she was nothing more than a being of words who had to endure excruciating pain until a Healer arrived.

“Huu, p-please spare me! I-I don’t want to die!”

“A runaway Healer sure talks a lot!”

An hour ago, the voice of the runaway Healer Nina had last used echoed in her ears.

Healers born only in Arsed lost their freedom after the current emperor, Rainer Arsed, ascended to the throne.

They were used according to state management and were absolutely forbidden from using their healing powers at will.

If caught trying to escape Arsed, they were branded as ‘runaway Healers’ and sent to battlefields.

The runaway Healer, dragged here by a Knight gripping his neck, appeared to be over forty but cried like a child, desperately wanting to live.

“Huu… please…”

Despite his desperate struggle to avoid touching Nina, his hand was forcibly placed in hers, and she roughly grasped it for her assigned mission.

“H-hheok…!”

The Healer’s eyes bulged as if they would pop out, his pupils dilating greatly.

Though he was an ability user who converted his life’s unique temperature and flame into healing power, he was powerless before the force absorbed by an undying body.

From between his gradually parting lips came the desperate breathing sounds of a life fading away.

Nina, who absorbed his healing power as if sucking it out, felt her right eye that had been pierced by an arrow and her throat that had been penetrated by a spear slowly regenerating.

Only after she had absorbed healing power for a long while and released his hand did the vacant-eyed Healer stagger to his feet and walk away.

Since everyone knew the outcome, no one stopped him.

One step, two steps, three steps.

Thud.

A nearby Knight checked the Healer’s neck and shook his head. Now there were no Healers Nina could use until the rear guard arrived.

But in the meantime, the enemy formation, which had quickly regrouped, fired millions of sharp sword energies.

It was the combat magic of the Ordor Kingdom that utilized wind, and their carelessness due to the season having almost no wind was their downfall.

Thus, the elite knight order that Nina had led as the advance guard was completely annihilated.

Though small in number, it was the first complete annihilation.

Nina barely retreated within the borders of the Arsed Empire, dragging her sword with an arm hanging by mere tendons, but her body struck by sword energy was no different from rags.

If she weren’t an undying being, she too would have already perished like the other knights.

“Ah… This is the worst…”

She knew that her body was now so severely damaged that one Healer wouldn’t be enough to heal it.

The Healer arriving with the rear knight order would arrive tomorrow at the earliest.

Nina’s body, enduring the pain wrapping around her entire form, finally collapsed to the ground.

Clank.

She raised her relatively intact arm and removed the helmet she wore on her face.

Faint breath flowed out between her slightly parted lips.

Her brow furrowed at the metallic taste of blood felt in both her blood-spitting mouth and escaping breath.

Having her body repeatedly broken, she no longer lost consciousness from this level of pain.

That didn’t mean the pain dulled either.

Truly, it was a harsh life.

‘I’m only twenty now… How long must I endure this pain? When the war ends… will this pain end too?’

If only she could end in death like ordinary people.

Whenever this terrible pain visited, Nina thought of something she could never achieve.

But then.

Rustle.

Cautious footsteps, as if spying, pierced her ears.

What entered Nina’s vision as she turned her head like a rusted weapon with creaking sounds was definitely a human figure.

That figure, standing quietly in the darkness watching her, seemed to make up his mind and gradually approached closer.

The one who came right up to her was a man of great height, dressed in shabby everyday clothes, apparently not a knight.

The man knelt down and waved his hand back and forth in front of Nina’s face.

Nina furrowed her brow slightly.

“You… you’re alive.”

“Indeed. I’m alive.”

His appearance with disheveled black hair covering his face like a black curtain was somewhat eerie, but Nina replied nonchalantly.

She must seem equally eerie to the man, responding normally in this condition.

“You’re not from Arsed, I see.”

Nina noticed from the man’s subtly different accent that he wasn’t from Arsed.

“…Was crossing over to Ordor.”

The man who answered slowly tilted his head quietly as if examining Nina’s condition.

Then unexpectedly, these words came from him.

“Shall I heal you?”

“You mean you’re a Healer?”

“Well, something like that.”

The man’s voice was quiet yet low.

Through the hair cascading forward with only his chin barely visible, his prominent nose bridge and clear lip line faintly revealed themselves each time he spoke.

A Healer at a time like this.

Though it was questionable that he wasn’t from Arsed, it was heaven-sent luck for Nina. He could free her from this terrible pain.

However,

“…If you heal me, you’ll end up lying in this spot instead of me.”

“…”

“The moment you touch me, all your healing power will be absor—”

Before she could finish speaking, the man’s hand cupped her cheek, and Nina unconsciously held her breath.

Ah, you should listen to the end. I still haven’t said the part about you dying.

“That won’t happen.”

But the man answered as if he knew what Nina was going to say.

“Move your hand. You’ll really regret…”

Ah…

Nina couldn’t finish her words and let out a long sigh.

Before she could even absorb his healing power, a powerful healing force was already being injected from the man.

This was her first time encountering such a Healer. Moreover, the man’s healing power swept through Nina’s entire body in an instant.

The warmth spreading through her cold body felt so strangely pleasant that her body even trembled slightly.

“Is it because your condition is so severe? This is my first time seeing someone with such low body temperature. It would heal a bit faster if I placed my hand near your heart, but…”

Did he see through the crack in her armor?

The man who realized Nina was a woman muttered to himself as if troubled.

Nina found the man’s words quite unfamiliar. Those words, as if he couldn’t easily touch her because she was a woman, felt like consideration for her sake.

It was a first. The first time in her life she felt someone was being considerate of her.

‘But this man will die soon too.’

Her wrecked body would devour his healing power to the end once it made contact with the Healer.

It was truly regrettable and futile that there was no way to reverse it.

How long… would she have to take other people’s lives?

Looking up at the sky with vacant eyes, Nina spoke.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have a heart.”

“There’s no person without a heart.”

The man’s words were quite firm.

“There is. Here.”

Nina’s answer was also short and firm.

She didn’t have the energy for a long explanation. The warmth transferred from the man was restoring her battered body to wholeness at an unbelievable speed.

Even without placing his hand near her heart, her broken leg mended and her dangling arm regained its proper form in an instant.

“Ha… It feels like my non-existent heart is pounding.”

Feeling a hot life force beyond mere healing, Nina felt for the first time in this moment that she was truly alive.

As the man’s hand smoothly withdrew, Nina sat up and lightly rotated her now-intact arm.

Such fast and perfect healing.

The man who had been quietly watching Nina chuckled softly.

“I’ll say it again, there’s no person anywhere in the world without a heart.”

“I’m different from other people.”

“Well. You definitely have a heart. If you believe that… someone deceived you.”

“What…?”

“Or, you deceived yourself.”

That’s the same thing.

Leaving behind the dumbfounded Nina, the man raised one knee as if preparing to get up.

“Ah.”

Then he paused for a moment and swept back his hair that had fallen forward with his large hand.

“…?!”

“Remember it. My face.”

Nina was momentarily stunned by the man’s revealed face.

She had tried to tell him that he would die soon from healing her, but everything was wiped blank from her mind.

It was because of his deep, red eyes like rubies soaked in blood.

She had never seen such cruelly deep red eyes before.

Moreover, the face that was briefly revealed was so handsome it was almost shocking.

Only after his face disappeared back behind the black curtain did Nina come to her senses.

Though it was just a moment, she felt strange, as if she had been enchanted by something.

The man who had risen with his large frame looked down at Nina who was looking up at him and spoke.

“If we meet again, it will be a terrible fate.”

Nina could only move her lips soundlessly at the man’s retreating figure.

One step, two steps, three steps, four steps…

It was strange. The man didn’t collapse, and continued walking without any wavering.

To think there was a Healer in the world who didn’t die even after healing her. A thrilling shiver ran from the top of her head to her toes.

Before she knew it, Nina was counting the man’s steps aloud.

“Eight steps, nine steps, ten steps…”

When the man’s figure completely disappeared into the darkness, Nina felt strangely anxious and ended up shouting.

“You should at least tell me why it would be a terrible fate!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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