I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 5

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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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Chapter 5. The Fiancé’s Misunderstanding

The youngest daughter of the Hadenhartz House, rulers of the Northern Region.

Bianca Hadenhartz.

With the coldest face in the North, she was renowned as the Snow Maiden—a woman so expressionless she’d become legend.

Yet her looks were exceptional enough that rumor had it she’d become a stunning beauty in time.

So why was she his fiancée?

The reason was simple enough.

‘Because she’s perfectly suited for a political marriage.’

The Hadenhartz House gained from strengthening ties with Valheim, and Valheim gained from having a useless wretch to deploy when needed.

Either way, both she and he were bodies to be exploited through political marriage.

‘Well, it’s just what it is—a political marriage, nothing more.’

From the start, Bianca disliked him.

This time would likely be no different.

But her real problem lay elsewhere.

Because she was one of those who emerged from the World Erosion.

The very architect who’d once joined hands with a World Erosion entity and sought to bring about the world’s destruction.

The White Ghost.

It was a title she’d earned in her past world after slaying one of the Top Ten Strongest, a name of renown.

“Have her shown in.”

She’d come all this way to meet her fiancé in the Northern Region; he couldn’t simply turn her away.

Besides, at this moment, Krash needed her.

“Yes, understood.”

At Krash’s command, Aliod rose at once from his seat.

Krash caught his reflection in the mirror hung within his study.

Quite a wreck.

He’d need to change clothes, at least.

With that thought, Krash rose to greet his guest.

＊ ＊ ＊

Bianca Hadenhartz.

The youngest daughter of the Hadenhartz House, which ruled the Northern Region, she bore the epithet “Snow Maiden”—and her hair was pristinely white, cut short in a bob.

Her skin, pale as jade and befitting that nickname, caught the light of her blue eyes—eyes like moonlight—as she gazed down at her fingertips.

At the tips of her nails, a peculiar pattern had formed: the crystalline structure of ice.

It was the mark of a curse.

Before she was born, her mother had been caught in World Erosion.

In that calamity, she was cursed—and the curse passed down even to the child still in her womb.

It was a curse that rendered her a doll made of ice, incapable of feeling any emotion whatsoever.

Born into such a curse, her very soul had been bound by it.

No Curse Breaker could lift it.

Until the year she turned twelve, she had lived without laughter, without tears.

Her face, rendered all the colder by her pale skin and white hair, would have been remarkably beautiful—if only it had not been locked in that expressionless mask.

Yet even her beauty mattered little.

Because no god would enter into a Contract with a body corrupted by the curse of World Erosion.

And so she had always lived as an outcast within Hadenhartz House.

Without emotion, she could not harmonize with others; her siblings resented her—not only because she was born of a cursed act that had killed their mother, but because she was worthless to the house.

Here was a child who could not even enter into a Contract with a Deity.

The family had no use for her.

So she was given away without hesitation in a Political Marriage.

Today, too, the reason for her visit to Cheongsong Manor was to meet Krash Valheim, her designated betrothed.

Valheim—the most renowned martial force in the Staron Kingdom.

That she had become engaged to the youngest of such a house was an enormous opportunity for Hadenhartz as well.

For even the ruler of the Northern Region was ultimately outmatched when it came to the Central powers—that was the reality.

This was her second meeting with her betrothed.

Yet she felt no interest whatsoever.

Because in her memory, Krash was nothing more than a man who had abandoned everything—a loser.

‘Disappear. Don’t pretend to be my betrothed when all you care about is Valheim’s power—not Hadenhartz or anything else.’

If anything, Krash belonged to the category of people she disliked.

He spoke roughly, and he saw everything through a lens of pessimism.

Bianca was the sort who had no feelings to speak of, but preferences—those she possessed.

So this occasion was far from welcome to her.

Krash would surely find something to criticize about her, and she knew it.

Tap-tap-tap.

At that moment, footsteps sounded from outside the room.

Recognizing them as Krash’s, Bianca straightened her clothes.

Perhaps because she lacked emotion, she had matured far too quickly despite being only twelve—and she adapted to reality just as swiftly.

In the end, her position here was one that demanded deference.

Creak.

As the door opened, Bianca’s head turned toward it.

Krash stood in the doorway.

Blue and black mingled in his hair, and his eyes—a blue not unlike her own.

At thirteen, his face still held the softness of youth, though his fierce gaze gave him a rather predatory look otherwise.

“Bianca.”
“You’ve arrived.”

When Bianca replied with formal politeness, Krash studied her for a moment before taking the seat across from her.

He glanced at the teacup she hadn’t touched and spoke.

“Our maid has no sense. Scalding black tea for a cat’s tongue.”

Seeing Krash’s bitter smile, Bianca hesitated.

How had he learned that she couldn’t tolerate heat well?

But beyond that discovery, Bianca sensed something different about Krash than before.

It was as though the person himself had become… ordered.

“I’ll let the maid know next time.”

With that, Krash opened the container holding the cookies.

Then, as if it were the most natural thing, he placed a Macadamia Cookie on her plate.

The Macadamia Cookie was Bianca’s favorite flavor.

She watched his effortless gesture, momentarily dazed.

Krash set a chocolate-studded cookie before himself and opened his mouth to speak.

“You’ve had a long journey. Thank you for coming.”
“You’re my betrothed, after all. I should familiarize myself with you beforehand.”
“Is that so? Then why do you speak to me like I’m a superior, not a betrothed?”

Krash offered a faint smile.

The harshness in his gaze softened visibly in that moment.

Bianca tilted her head slightly at the sight of him.

“May I ask you one thing, Krash?”

Watching Bianca speak in a manner wholly unsuited to a twelve-year-old, Krash nodded.

“Has something happened to you?”

Just five months ago.

The Krash who had behaved as though he couldn’t even bear the sight of his own face had changed entirely.

He was not a man of such kindness and tenderness then.

Perhaps something had shifted in him over those five months.

In a way, it was a question he might have bristled at.

Krash lifted his teacup.

“Am I so different from before?”

The moment Bianca heard his words, she caught herself.

She had questioned his kindness the very moment he showed it.

“I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”

Watching her correct herself at once, Krash took a sip of his tea.

To be honest, Krash had no memory of how he had treated Bianca in the past.

His memories from the mid-to-late teens were already hazy—how could he recall his early childhood?

Unless something extraordinary had happened, like it had with Aliod, there was no reason for him to remember those days.

And his first meeting with Bianca fell into the same category.

What he could vaguely grasp was that in his younger years he had spoken carelessly and without restraint.

It had been the period when his despair and frustration had reached their worst.

In a sense, it was still a time before he had given up.

For once you surrender, there is neither despair nor frustration left.

“You haven’t changed at all, have you.”

One thing was certain: Bianca remained the same now as she had always been.

Even on that day when she faced her end before the burning Northern Ice Hall, she wore the very same expression she wore now.

And that scene still lingered in Krash’s memory.

“Pardon?”

When Bianca questioned Krash’s muttering, he waved his hand dismissively.

He set down his teacup, then interlaced his fingers and rested his hands on his lap.

“Bianca, I have a proposal for you today.”
“A proposal, sir?”

Her large blue eyes blinked.

She wondered what Krash, born into the kingdom’s greatest house of Valheim, could possibly propose to her.

“Is it a broken engagement?”

The first thing that came to Bianca’s mind was a broken engagement.

But Krash’s face only grew incredulous.

“Do you honestly think the two of us could break what our houses have arranged?”

She supposed not.

There was no way two youngest children could undo what the houses had decided.

“Perhaps in the distant future.”

Yet his next words suggested Krash was looking far ahead.

“Still, you’d probably be happier breaking the engagement sooner rather than later than being tied to someone like me.”

He spoke with unmistakable self-contempt.

Bianca studied him in silence.

She knew his circumstances well enough.

She had studied him precisely to avoid offending her betrothed.

So she understood perfectly why he bore the stigma of being Valheim’s disgrace.

‘And yet he is still Valheim.’

Born into a position that everyone else envied for life, and yet his self-worth was painfully low.

“I am your betrothed.”

And he was hers.

Unchanging, stretching into the future.

“That will never change.”

Not unless the house itself ceased to exist.

So when she spoke this way, Krash let out a hollow laugh.

Because she valued her house so deeply, there had been no personal emotion in her words just now.

For her, emotion was something that could not be manufactured.

And yet, somehow, he preferred it to mere flattery.

“In any case, I’m not calling off the engagement. I’d like to propose something else to you instead.”

Krash smiled faintly as he spoke.

“I recently made a Contract with Deity.”

Bianca was startled for a moment.

On average, most people entered into a Contract with Deity around age fifteen.

But he was Valheim.

The direct line of Valheim, marked by deities from birth, typically completed their Contract with Deity before reaching ten years old.

By that standard, Krash was considerably late.

Still, an occasion worth celebrating remained an occasion worth celebrating.

“My congratulations.”

When Bianca offered her congratulations, Krash nodded without particular enthusiasm.

“And I’d like to receive your Curse through the power I’ve awakened via the deity.”
“I beg your pardon?”

Yet what came from his mouth was utterly unexpected.

Bianca’s eyes blinked once, her question caught mid-breath.

He wanted her Curse.

It was an absurd thing to hear.

“I have a use for it.”
“You mean the Curse itself?”
“Yes. If you give me that Curse, I’ll grant you something you want in return. Of course, if that’s what you wish, I can call off the engagement.”

Bianca fell silent for a moment.

She simply could not understand.

‘He wants my Curse.’

Her Curse was one that stripped away emotion.

Why would he want such a thing?

“Are you perhaps thinking of imprinting the Curse directly upon yourself?”

For Bianca’s part, being without emotion had long since become familiar.

But for someone who already knew emotion, doing such a thing would surely bring great chaos.

When Bianca pressed the question, Krash simply nodded.

‘It’s a Curse that even the world’s most celebrated Curse Breakers couldn’t lift.’

Judging from Krash’s reaction, he seemed to think taking the Curse would be entirely natural.

‘Did Krash sign some kind of contract with a deity?’

Suppose he could take the curse with him.

But what was he trying to accomplish by stealing that curse and erasing his emotions?

Bianca traced through what she knew of Krash’s circumstances.

A half-blood of Valheim, treated as nothing more than a tool in a political marriage.

His relationships with other direct heirs were notoriously poor, and he’d already given up on himself.

A man like that was trying to erase his emotions.

‘He’s exhausted.’

The moment she laid out all the pieces, Bianca understood.

Krash was worn out.

He’d poured so much of himself into feeling that he no longer wanted to feel at all—desperate enough to cling to a curse.

And Bianca knew what became of people whose emotions had been driven into a corner.

‘Depression, wasn’t it.’

She recalled what her uncle, a mage in the Northern Region’s psychic arts who specialized in studying the mind, had once told her.

He often shared various stories with her about matters of the psyche, and Krash fit that description perfectly.

‘He said that when a person suddenly changes and becomes kind to those around them, it’s their way of saying goodbye.’

Bianca lifted her gaze, looking at Krash directly.

She hadn’t looked closely before, but now she could see the scars and chafed skin scattered across his body.

‘Self-harm.’

Seeing that, Bianca realized Krash was hurting himself.

Even she, who felt little emotion, could sense how cornered he was.

In truth, they were merely marks from rigorous training in the Secret Arts.

‘I’m his betrothed, after all.’

Having completely misunderstood him, Bianca placed her hand over his.

“You’ll be all right. You can endure this.”
“Huh? What?”

This time, Krash was the one left bewildered.

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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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