I’m Stuck on a Remote Island With the Male Leads - Chapter 203
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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 203
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No matter how long I waited, Kaiden showed no response.
Jenas, who had been staring at me intently, shrugged his shoulders with a helpless expression.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Margaret Rose Flone. Our young lord has nothing left to do but enter Hibernation.”
I pressed my lips firmly together and glared at Jenas. A brief silence settled over us.
Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid stood with his arms crossed inside the sealed Magic Circle, leaning at an angle as he alternated his gaze between Jenas and me. It was an unusually unruly posture for him.
Yuanna Lucy observed the situation carefully, gauging the moment. I understood she was timing her strike—preparing to seal the dimensional rift the instant the Magic Circle’s seal broke.
We had to seal the dimensional rift, destroy the Magic Stone, and eliminate Jenas. If Jenas possessed the remaining Magic Stone, that was all the better. Dealing with him alone would be sufficient.
Yes, even entering the Island this way had worked out favorably. The confined space made it easier to devise a method to end his life.
Even with an automatic detonation device in place, as long as Jenas remained with us, we couldn’t recklessly detonate the Island. I had to keep him trapped here by any means necessary.
I calmly surveyed my surroundings.
The Prince of Asdal sat in a cross-legged position, quietly observing our conversation, while the other Knights stood ready to move at a moment’s notice should Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid give the order.
I turned my head to look at Jenas again. Behind him lay the ruins of the collapsed Cabin and the Forest.
The North Island didn’t have much solid ground to stand on. I suspected it was because Anata had taken a direct hit when she unsealed the Pendant.
Yet it was remarkable that the area within a hundred meters of the Cabin remained relatively intact.
Being here like this made it feel real—that I had truly returned to Alea Island.
That damned, cursed Alea Island.
‘If what you want is simply to disappear as things are….’
‘I’ll walk that path with you. So come back first.’
Those words I had spoken moments ago were not empty promises. They were all I could offer Kaiden right now.
I spoke toward Jenas.
“You don’t know Kaiden. The Kaiden I know can do anything.”
Upon hearing my words, Jenas furrowed the space between his eyebrows as if he had received an unexpected answer.
It was just as he opened his mouth, his expression displeased, to say something to me.
“Damn it, what——”
He suddenly dropped to one knee and collapsed to the ground. Clutching his heart, his body convulsed as though he were locked in battle with something within himself, and he appeared to be in distress.
“This insolence…!”
Jenas clenched his teeth. A groan escaped through the gaps between them, and he suddenly coughed up blood.
The pattern of wind surrounding him shifted.
Witnessing this, a faint glimmer of hope kindled within me. I pressed myself close against the Barrier, staring down at Jenas as he precariously collapsed to the ground.
When he finally opened his eyes again after remaining motionless with his head bowed, the air around us had transformed completely.
I watched him with a tense expression, unmoving. Just in case, I pulled down the Loading Lever on the Flare I was holding and hooked my finger over the Trigger.
A cold wind swept through, and silver hair drifted gently. The disheveled strands settled calmly across his forehead, and sharp focus crystallized in the man’s red eyes.
He looked at me quietly for a moment, then his eyes widened in surprise, and he called out my name in a hoarse voice.
“…Margaret Rose Flone?”
I lowered the Flare and tapped against the transparent wall.
“Kaiden!”
“Good heavens, Lord! You’ve finally returned!”
The Prince of Asdal and the others, startled, approached the transparent wall of the Magic Circle and looked at Kaiden.
“What happened to Jenas? Since the Magic Circle hasn’t dissipated, it seems he’s not dead.”
The Prince of Asdal asked Kaiden, but Kaiden was staring at me so intently that he seemed not to hear the question at all.
Judging from the situation moments ago, it appeared he had seized a brief moment of initiative when Jenas let his guard down.
However, since Jenas had regained his Mana, there was no telling when he might reclaim control of the body again.
Kaiden approached me. I exhaled a sigh of relief upon seeing him.
“Thank goodness. You’re alive. Thank goodness. Really. Thank goodness…. Thank goodness….”
My words became slurred, mingled with tears.
I roughly wiped away the tears streaming down my cheeks. He needed to know how desperately I had worried, how much my heart had ached. He truly needed to understand.
“I thought you’d entered Hibernation.”
“I was going to… I don’t know, damn it. I kept thinking of your face, so it was difficult.”
Kaiden answered with a hollow laugh. I lifted my head and met his gaze directly.
“What’s the situation now? Can you tell me?”
“I’m searching for a way.”
“A way? What kind of way?”
“I came out because I have something I want to tell you. Don’t worry even if Jenas returns. Trust me.”
With those words, Kaiden tapped his finger against the transparent Barrier formed by the Magic Circle between us.
“Just bear with this for a little longer.”
“If I bear with it for a little longer, you’ll come back to me?”
“Yes.”
It then occurred to me that Jenas might be listening to our conversation from within Kaiden’s body.
“Then I have one request.”
“What is it?”
“When I tell you to, dissolve the soul servitude contract.”
“What? That’s not possible.”
“Trust me too. Just bear with being together with Jenas for a little longer.”
At my words, Kaiden’s brow furrowed. I had simply repeated what he had said to me moments before.
But since Jenas might be listening, I couldn’t explain in greater detail.
In truth, I wanted nothing more than to drive Jenas out right now while Kaiden held control of the body.
But Kaiden clearly had another plan. So I decided to wait for that plan to unfold.
Kaiden glanced at my face and asked.
“You were worried about me?”
“Of course I was worried.”
“You thought of me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“…What?”
I blinked at the unexpected question, pausing to process his words. I couldn’t fathom why he was asking in such a manner. I furrowed my brow.
“You two over there—I can’t hear what you’re saying. How about you stop talking just between yourselves and include all of us in the conversation?”
“Ah, come on! Can’t you just be quiet instead of being so tactless?”
At that moment, I heard the Prince of Asdal’s complaint from a distance, and Yuanna Lucy scolded him for it.
Kaiden fixed his gaze solely upon me, as though nothing else in the world existed for him.
What was he thinking now? What did he intend to do? Did he truly have a plan?
I had countless questions burning to be asked, yet none that I could voice. For now, I had no choice but to trust him.
Kaiden looked at me with an expression of genuine bewilderment.
“Why were you thinking of me? Why were you worried about me? Hmm?”
He pressed his palm against the transparent barrier, his red eyes gleaming with vitality as he pressed me for answers.
His past words came flooding back to me. He had once said he didn’t understand the concept of affection.
He had even declared that his feelings toward me were not love.
“Margaret, I don’t quite understand what you mean by affection. If you ask whether it’s love, I don’t think it is.”
“It’s just that I miss you when you’re not there, I feel good when you smile, I like touching you, and I wish you would look only at me.”
“I like touching you. And I like it when you touch me too.”
“I’m sorry for kissing you without permission. If I ask for forgiveness for that reason, will you hate me?”
When I thought about it, we were all clumsy with love. Me, Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid, Kaiden, Yuanna Lucy, and everyone on the Island.
Kaiden, in particular, had never been loved, so he seemed not to understand what that emotion even was.
But love exists in far more complex and varied forms than that.
I knew that what Kaiden wanted from me was the same as what Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid wanted. Yet my love for Kaiden took a different shape.
“Of course I worry about you and think of you. Because you’re precious to me. It’s not as though only romantic love counts as love.”
“If you want the dictionary definition, I know it too. The way I like you is as a man.”
Kaiden ran his fingers through his hair as he answered. His expression was complicated—the face of someone with much to say but uncertain where to begin.
“I’ve thought about it a lot. Within this body, for an enormous amount of time, continuously.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“No matter how much I struggle, I thought I could never possess anything. Not even my own life. And….”
You.
His lips certainly seemed to form that word, but it was whispered so softly that I couldn’t be certain.
“But now I understand that it doesn’t matter. Whether as a man, as a friend, or as one human being’s affection for another.”
Kaiden slowly drew closer to me.
“What truly matters is that you love me in whatever form that takes. And that my life, having received love from someone, is no longer so wretched.”
He gazed at me with profound eyes before exhaling heavily and lowering his head. His forehead met the transparent barrier of the sealed Magic Circle.
“So thank you, Margaret. Wait for me just a little longer.”
The moment those words left his lips, a faint wind swept around us. Kaiden showed no surprise, as though he had sensed this coming.
His face contorted sharply, as if enduring some terrible pain.
A guttural sound escaped him.
“Kaiden!”
I pounded against the barrier and cried out, but Kaiden did not turn to face me. His legs gave way, and he collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood once more.
An abnormal wind swirled around the Dirt Ground where Kaiden had fallen, carving deep furrows into the earth.
It soon became a violent whirlwind that erupted upward, obscuring Kaiden’s form within its fury.
“Damn it, Kaiden!”
After a long moment, the wind subsided.
Standing within it, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with a leisurely expression, was Jenas.
“Ah, I was careless. If there had been no activation word, this could have gone badly.”
Based on what Jenas had just said, it seemed he had recited the ‘activation incantation’ he’d mentioned before, putting Kaiden into a state of suspended animation.
‘You understand as well as I do—I have very little Mana left. Even if I recite the activation incantation, it’s impossible for me to completely take over our descendant’s body. Unless I regain control of Mana again.’
I recalled the words Jenas had spoken in Duke Flone’s Castle Garden.
Now he held a considerable amount of Mana in his grasp. From his earlier statement that ‘I can now wield Magic as I please,’ it was clear he had absorbed all the remaining Magic Stones.
I clenched my fists with tension.
I desperately hoped that while Yuanna sealed the dimensional rift, Kaiden would endure this trial and overcome it. As long as he didn’t succumb to Jenas’s power and fall into Hibernation.
“It’s too late to do anything now. Don’t worry. I told you—I’ll protect you.”
“Cut that bullshit. I don’t need your protection.”
At my curse, Jenas burst into loud laughter, as if delighting in the antics of a cherished Pet.
“Oh, and that creature there—how many Magic Stones did it consume?”
Jenas pointed at Eun-ji perched on my shoulder as he spoke.
Screeeech!
Eun-ji responded with a fierce and sharp reaction, baring its fangs toward Jenas.
“How adorable, being so insolent. It makes me want to devour it.”
“What?”
“Just joking. So how many did it eat?”
“Do you think I’d answer that?”
“Right, well, that’s not really important anyway.”
At my words, Jenas fell silent. The smile that had pervaded his face gradually faded away.
“I’m waiting. If there’s something I’m looking for. After that, I’ll let you out. I need to realize my plan quickly.”
With those words, Jenas turned without hesitation and walked away. It was clear he truly had something to find on this Island.
What could it be.
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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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