I’m Stuck on a Remote Island With the Male Leads - Chapter 231

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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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Side Story Episode 16
“…That’s a bit much. Don’t get so close to me. I’m a woman meant for marriage. So let’s not create situations that could be misunderstood. This is purely for survival. For survival.”
“What?”
Kaiden stares at her as if seized by an episode. His red eyes gleamed with an eerie light.
She, startled without reason, brushed her chest and muttered.
“Why are you so shocked? You know I’m in the middle of making a Love Potion?”
“Ah. Your mind has been frozen in that time, hasn’t it.”
“What are you talking about.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. In the end, it’s me who is with you right now.”
It was something he had been saying all along, but the Great Mage Kaiden she knew felt considerably different in tone and atmosphere.
He was certainly a man who despised and abhorred Margaret. Yet now, his gaze was filled with affection and suppressed desire directed toward her.
It was an undeniably bewildering reaction.
“Your hands are frozen.”
Kaiden grasped her left hand and spoke. True to his words, she had no sensation in her hands now.
Soon his hand enveloped her cheek. For a moment, Margaret felt as though her body was melting away.
His hand was as hot as a furnace.
She exhaled a sigh and leaned her cheek against his hand, closing her eyes. It felt as though she were pressing against a heater.
‘I think I’ll survive.’
Then she heard Kaiden’s soft and seductive voice near her ear.
“Margaret, shall I make you even warmer?”
Her eyes snapped open. Kaiden’s face was right before hers.
‘Even for me, this is a bit flustering.’
It was strange. Until now, she had regarded all men other than Crown Prince Enoch as little more than sparrows and treated them accordingly.
No one but Enoch had appeared to her as a man.
Yet why did Kaiden appear to her as merely an ordinary man, as an attractive person?
Moreover, they were now in an Extreme Environment where they had to endure teeth-chattering cold.
Perhaps because of this, she found herself unwilling to distance herself from the man before her who radiated such unnaturally warm comfort.
As if she were addicted to that warmth. As if stepping away would mean death itself.
She swallowed dry saliva slowly, asking as if entranced.
“Even warmer? How?”
“Like this.”
He slowly pulled her into his embrace. He held her so tightly, with not a single gap between them, that she could barely breathe.
She should have refused.
‘This is strange.’
Kaiden’s body was so warm….
It felt good. As they shared body temperature, her body warmed with a pleasant sensation.
It felt as though a hazy fog had settled in her mind. She too was different from usual. She could not think and act as she normally did.
Even as she engaged in acts she could never have imagined in her normal state, she could not easily recognize this fact.
“What is your true identity.”
Only after a long while, having barely separated from him, were those the first words she uttered.
What on earth is it about you that has me so utterly enchanted?
‘Could this bastard be using illusion magic?’
Kaiden offered no response to her question.
He drew closer to her once more and asked.
“Why? Do you dislike it?”
Her cheeks flushed with warmth, and those captivating red eyes gazed at him with a languid softness.
Margaret understood in that moment.
It wasn’t illusion magic. This man himself was simply far too mesmerizing.
For someone whose entire life had known only Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid as a man, to be captivated by him was quite remarkable.
“Your Highness Crown Prince dislikes you anyway, Margaret. Do you truly think he would marry you?”
….
Hearing such words should have upset me.
Yet contrary to my usual nature, sorrow flooded through me instead of anger.
It was something I had always heard from others. Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid despised her, far beyond mere indifference.
I knew this myself. So why did it pierce my heart more deeply when Kaiden spoke those words?
Whoooosh—
Suddenly, a fierce blizzard began to howl outside the cave.
A tremendous gust swept in, bringing with it an even more intense cold air than before. Her extremities were freezing once again.
“Sigh. We should venture deeper inside.”
Kaiden lifted Margaret into his arms without hesitation.
She settled quietly against his chest before a question occurred to her.
“Lord, what exactly is your true identity?”
“What?”
“It doesn’t feel strange when you touch me, Lord. More than that—it feels familiar.”
As he set her down deeper within the cave, Kaiden laughed, as if he knew something she didn’t.
“That’s because we’re bound by fate.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“You answer well, considering your entire body must be frozen solid by now.”
As Kaiden said, she could barely move. The cold was overwhelming, so intense that even her mind felt rigid and numb.
“Shall I warm you?”
“How? By saying you’ll warm me up again?”
“You know me well.”
He grasped her hand.
Ahhh. She exhaled contentedly. Their joined hands melted with warmth.
“Should I not? But at this rate, you’ll die. Here, in my unconscious mind.”
“Then think quickly about how we can escape this place. You’re the only one who can solve this.”
“Satisfy the sleeping true self.”
The “sleeping true self” he spoke of seemed to refer not to the unconscious manifestation before her—Kaiden’s alter ego—but to the real Great Mage Kaiden himself.
“…How?”
Even her face was beginning to freeze solid now. Speaking had become difficult.
“You know, yet you ask. How adorable.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. Then to her cheek.
Each kiss he branded upon her skin burned as though seared by flame.
My body melted gradually.
Our breaths intertwined once more.
“Where would you like me to warm? Here?”
He tilted his head lower, burying his face against my nape.
Then his head descended further, and further still.
Without my realizing it, I gripped his hair in my hand and swallowed the sound threatening to escape. His soft silver hair slipped through my fingers like silk.
“I can be rather rough, Margaret.”
Kaiden lifted his head and spoke. His lips were flushed. He laughed, licking his lips with his tongue.
“If it’s too much, you can hit me or scratch me. I rather enjoy that.”
This crazy person.
Kaiden, his face buried in my palm, murmured like a sigh.
“Ah. I should have met you first.”
This time he pressed his lips against my palm.
I could not push him away. Instead, I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of his body temperature against my skin. It felt far too wonderful.
Seeing my expression, I heard Kaiden’s low laugh.
As I slowly opened my eyes, he gently laid me down on the floor.
I moved as he guided me, my expression bewildered.
I wondered if this was why he had brought me to this flat surface, but there was no time to dwell on such thoughts.
Kaiden had positioned himself above me in an instant.
“I really do love you so much, Margaret.”
He interlaced his fingers through my hair and lowered his head. This time, he embraced me far more forcefully than before, burying his face against my nape.
Heat circulated through my body. The cold was gradually receding.
Kaiden’s weight pressing down upon me was considerable.
‘This is my first time embracing a man.’
I had always firmly believed that all my first physical contacts would naturally be with Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid.
‘But the Crown Prince and I aren’t even in any sort of relationship yet….’
Had Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid not recently refused my proposal? Saying he disliked me.
Indeed, one can never predict how life will unfold.
While I harbored such thoughts, Kaiden kissed my cheek and whispered.
“In the next life, come to me first. I’ll be waiting.”
What?
His confession was so intensely poignant that I looked at Kaiden again. His expression was just as sorrowful as my own.
‘Why does this man speak as though he knows me so intimately?’
Entertaining this thought, I formed a hypothesis.
What if I had lost my memory?
What if I had actually spent considerable time with Kaiden here, but had forgotten those memories?
Staring blankly at his face, I placed my hand upon his cheek and slowly caressed it.
No matter how absent Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid was from this place, I could not bring myself to abandon him, not even in empty words. I was incapable of such a thing.
There existed within me a strange, unwavering conviction that one day, Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid would come to me, even if he did not acknowledge me now.
My love for him was not so trivial as that.
“Good evening, Prince Enoch. You are truly beautiful.”
“Beautiful? Are you speaking to me in such terms right now?”
“It seems the Young Lady judges people by their appearance. No matter how exceptional my looks may be, my meager background means the Young Ladies would not spare me a glance.”
“You do not realize that every Young Lady here is stealing glances at Your Highness. They lack the courage because your beauty is so overwhelming.”
“Does the Young Lady possess such courage?”
“Of course. I am a scoundrel, after all. I am different from the other Young Ladies. That is my charm.”
“A scoundrel is charming? Could it be that you were influenced by the future Young Lady you met in your dreams?”
“How did you know that? The future version of myself I met in my dreams was so magnificent. She is my role model now. But how could you possibly know that? Have we met before?”
“We could not have met.”
“Everyone else dismisses what I say or calls me arrogant, but Your Highness does not mock me.”
“Mock you? I would say you are magnificent instead.”
“What? What did you just say?”
“If I say that the Young Lady in such a manner is magnificent, will you mock me in return?”
What had I said at that moment?
“You will come to regret those words.”
“Because hearing them made them sincere.”
Yes. That was how it had been.
Just a single phrase—and in that one phrase, I fell in love. Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid was the only person who recognized my true worth when no one else did.
So no matter how much Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid now pushed me away and said he despised me, I could never release his hand as he stood alone and forlorn within the Imperial Palace.
Margaret Rose Flone looked up at Kaiden once more.
This man, whom I had now seen twice today, gazed at me as though I were his entire world.
His expression was so sorrowful that I could not even bring myself to ask whether he had truly lost his memories.
It was as though my image was reflected in his eyes.
That must have been why.
Why I did not dislike this man’s actions, and why I felt the urge to care for him even more.
“Lord. In any case, in the next life, neither you nor Your Highness Crown Prince will recognize me. The me of that life cannot be the me of now.”
“It does not matter. I will recognize you. That you are you.”
Margaret Rose Flone paused to consider his words.
I could not imagine—nor did I wish to imagine—myself taking the hand of a man other than Enoch Aster Klaus Langrid.
I did not understand the situation at all, nor did I comprehend why this man was behaving with such poignant tenderness, yet I could not speak such words.
Even a scoundrel like me could sense that the atmosphere was not conducive to such a response.
Only after considerable time had passed did I speak to him again.
“Then you must come find me first.”
“What?”
“If you recognize me first and come to me, that would suffice. Then do not wait for my choice—you make the choice instead.”
A tear fell from Kaiden’s red eyes with a soft sound.
He gazed at me for a moment, unable to speak, before finally answering.
“I hadn’t considered that.”
“…Is that enough?”
“Yes. That’s enough.”
Tears streamed down his cheeks in an endless cascade.
My chest ached so intensely that merely witnessing it stole my breath away.
“That’s enough, Margaret Rose Flone. With just that alone, I could live an eternity.”

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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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