Hiding My Identity From My Husband - Chapter 31

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 31

He first saw her at the Guardian Entrance Ceremony.
Having passed the entrance examination in the Top Rank, he was preparing to deliver a speech as the representative.
A speech was nothing remarkable.
Yet there was pressure to execute even this small thing perfectly.

“Top Rank, they’ll say. Quite an achievement, or so it seems. But given that I carry my name on my back, it’s only natural.”

The High Priest had always been this way. He had taken in Lubantes, who’d been abandoned on Snow Mountain, but he had never shown him parental love.

“Don’t expect praise. Expectation is the burden of the incompetent. I see only results.”

The High Priest had always demanded satisfactory results from Lubantes, and so Lubantes had always lived gasping for success, struggling and clawing his way forward.

“Use this opportunity to prove it to everyone. You were raised under me, so you will make no mistakes whatsoever.”

Lubantes clutched the paper with his speech so tightly his knuckles whitened.
He couldn’t breathe.
As if someone were gripping his heart, his mind swam.
His head filled with a cacophony of noise, and he felt trapped in a chaos as though the world itself were crumbling around him.
His vision blurred, and the voices around him tangled together into incomprehensibility.
Then, someone drew near.
The first thing that entered his sight was pink hair.
Soft and delicate strands that scattered in the breeze glimmered with a gentle light—like a solitary luminescence shining through a world of chaos.
Next came purple eyes.
Deep and fathomless violet, unfamiliar yet mysterious. Even as the world blurred around him, those eyes remained crystalline and sharp.
A gaze neither warm nor cold—peculiar in its neutrality.
Remarkably, those eyes did not regard Lubantes with pity.
“Use this. Hold it to your mouth and breathe into it—you’ll calm down faster.”
She pressed a paper bag against his lips as she spoke.
“Breathe in slowly, then out. There’s nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about. So it’s alright.”
Lubantes began to breathe slowly, just as she said.
And gradually, he felt the chaos that had surged up so suddenly begin to subside.
“I know the feeling well enough—I’ve been through it many times.”
She patted his shoulder as she spoke.
Her touch was warm.
Warm and gentle. Yet at the same time, it was firm and certain—as if to say he could lean on her.
As though she were drawing him out from the darkness where he’d been floundering, pulling him toward the light.
How much time had passed like that?
With his composure somewhat restored, Lubantes finally came back to his senses. He pulled the bag away from his mouth and took another steadying breath.
The relief that things had improved was fleeting. Shame washed over him at having shown such a disheveled state.
He should thank her.
But the words wouldn’t come easily. Lubantes let out a short sigh and glanced up.
“Thank you—”
“Oh, this isn’t the time for that. I’m going now! Take care of yourself!”
But she hurried away before he could even receive his thanks.
“Wait—”
Left alone, he watched her retreating figure and pressed his lips together.
He wanted to ask.
How someone who shone as brightly as she did could possibly understand someone like him.
Whether she, too, lived a life like his own.
But he couldn’t ask.
She was already gone, and he himself would soon have to take the stage and deliver his speech.
Lubantes carefully folded the paper bag she had given him and slipped it into his inner pocket.
Then, resting his hand over the pocket, he took another deep breath to steady himself.

—Nothing’s wrong. There’s nothing to worry about. So it’s fine.

Tracing through those comforting words one syllable at a time.

It took a full month after that before Lubantes learned the woman’s name was Sharel.

* * *

“Ugh… it hurts so much.”
The moment Lubantes opened his eyes, he let out a hollow laugh at Sharel’s whimpering.
“Of course it does. You’re injured all over.”
“Do you have to put it like that? Where’s your concern?”
“I was concerned. That’s why I carried you all the way here.”
Only then did Sharel lift her head slightly and glance around. The smell of medicinal herbs told her this was an apothecary.
Bandages were wound tightly around her hands. A physician had been here.
Sharel flexed her fingers experimentally.
Fortunately, all five fingers moved, so there seemed to be no nerve damage. She exhaled in relief.
“Sharel.”
Lubantes, who had been gazing down at her, spoke.
“What on earth were you thinking?”
“Hm?”
“What were you thinking, throwing yourself at that pack of crocodiles with no weapons, bare-handed?”
Sharel blinked slowly.
What had she been thinking?
There was no thinking to call it.
“There was a child.”
It was instinct.
“I had to save the child.”
The instinct that the child had to be saved.
It was something carved into Sharel’s very body—a nature as inexplicable as it was fundamental, beyond any rational justification.
Yet Lubantes didn’t seem to understand.
Or perhaps even if he did understand, he couldn’t accept it. His expression far grimmer than usual, he opened his mouth again.
“Do you even know this child?”
“No. I don’t.”
“You nearly got yourself killed for a stranger.”
“But I didn’t die, so isn’t that what matters?”
Sharel’s composed expression was utterly infuriating. And it made him furious.
It was an ancient anger born from a fear and anxiety he could no longer suppress.
“You only think about the result. You never consider how badly you’ve been hurt, how much pain you’re in.”
Am I in pain?
She looked down at her body.
It ached, but it was a pain she could endure.
She had suffered worse than this before. Why should she complain about mere pain like this?
“I’m fine.”
So Sharel replied firmly.
“I’ve been through this many times. It’s not some extraordinary thing. So…”
“Sharel.”
Lubantes’ eyes trembled slightly. He took in her figure again, committing it to memory.
Biting the inside of his cheek, he spoke with deliberate weight, each word forceful.
“You always make me angry.”
From the moment we first met, every single time.
He recalled it.
The past. The second moment he had encountered her.

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