The Forgotten Field - 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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Chapter 31
The man’s large hand traced slowly across her abdomen through the soft fabric, as though caressing something that belonged to him.
“You wear the same fragrance as your mother. I caught this same scent in Senevir’s hair. Once you become intoxicated by this fragrance, you find yourself addicted, unable to stop searching for it… unable to stop…”
His hand crept upward toward her chest.
Talia twisted her body instinctively to escape his grip, but the man remained immovable.
He embraced her from behind, pressing his moist, fevered lips below her earlobe—like a larva clinging to skin and drawing its fluids.
Talia, rigid and trembling with tension, soon began to thrash about convulsively.
The man knocked her down, pressing her brutally onto the soft carpet.
She flailed her limbs like a drowning person. A table toppled, and the puzzle tower she had spent hours constructing came crashing down. She writhed desperately to escape the beast crawling over her, but when he seized her ankle, he dragged her downward with brutal force.
Talia looked up at him with terror-stricken eyes. A primal fear washed over her at the realization that someone could so easily render her powerless.
“Please… just stay still for a moment.”
The man gripped both her wrists with one hand while cradling her jaw with the other.
She struggled desperately to turn her head, but couldn’t move an inch. He forced her mouth open by pressing her cheek, then thrust his thick tongue inside.
Her throat constricted painfully with revulsion. It felt as though a massive slug were crawling into her mouth.
She lacked the courage to bite down on that abomination. She wept quietly, choking in agony, while his muscular frame writhed against her, his breathing ragged and labored.
“Ah… Senevir… how I have longed for you…”
His hand crept beneath her skirts. The rough sensation of his calloused palm against her bare skin sent tremors through her entire body.
A terror akin to death flooded through her. She felt long, firm fingers invading the deepest place between her thighs.
A sharp, burning pain erupted within her body, and Talia gasped like a fish cast onto shore. The man pressed his adhesive lips against hers, muttering in a hoarse voice.
“There is no need to struggle so. The pain will be brief. Soon Your Highness will cry out in pleasure…”
Then, suddenly, the weight crushing her vanished as though it had never been.
Talia instinctively crawled into a corner and huddled there. For a moment, she couldn’t fully comprehend what had happened.
Only after several seconds did she realize that Barcas, dressed in the uniform of the Roem Knights, had seized the man’s head with one hand and was savagely smashing his face.
The sight was so surreal that her mind went blank. Half of the man’s once-handsome face was scraped raw against the rough wall surface and drenched in blood, while his grotesquely gaping mouth emitted anguished cries.
“Stop… stop this… we can talk about…”
Barcas seized the man’s thrashing head and slammed it mercilessly against the wall. With heavy thuds, the man’s face was crushed horrifically. Talia barely stifled a scream.
“Talia.”
He spoke quietly, his gaze fixed on the blood-soaked face.
“Go to your chamber.”
His voice was so serene that it seemed impossible it came from someone capable of such violence. Because of this, Talia didn’t realize he was addressing her. Only when she met his blue eyes, clouded as though by ash-gray mist, did she understand he was speaking to her.
“Talia Roem Guerta.”
His voice was eerily quiet. Barcas, who had dared speak the princess’s name so carelessly, continued slowly.
“Did you not hear me tell you to go to your chamber?”
Talia remained huddled in the corner, staring up at him blankly. Then an explosive roar erupted from his lips.
“Now!”
In that instant, a sensation like sparks cascaded across her entire body.
She bolted from the Study like a horse struck by a whip. She threw herself into her Bedroom and burrowed into the thick blankets, where a sharp, aching pain suddenly flooded through her body.
She rubbed her stinging skin roughly, trying to erase the sensation of the slimy tongue and hard palms that still seemed to crawl across her flesh. She scrubbed frantically at her neck, chest, and thighs, then began striking her own body with her fists.
It was horrifying. That man, his groping hands, the fact that Barcas had witnessed her in such a state—all of it was unbearable.
She struck her thighs with such force that bruises formed, then buried her face in her pillow and released a bestial cry of anguish.
How long had I been sitting there when I sensed another presence besides my own. My head snapped up abruptly.
Barcas stood in the doorway, as always presenting an impeccable, elegant figure without a single flaw.
“You will never see that man again.”
He spoke with detached composure. Talia, who had been staring blankly, let out a trembling question.
“…Did you kill him?”
At that, Barcas’s brow furrowed slightly.
After a brief silence, he spoke again.
“He will face permanent exile. For the rest of his life, he will be forbidden from setting foot in the Capital or any major city….”
In that instant, the last thread of my reason snapped completely. I seized a pillow and hurled it directly at him.
“Why! Why did you let him live! You should have killed him! You should have killed him brutally! Cut off those filthy hands that touched my body…! That filthy tongue that violated me…!”
I screamed like a madwoman, then suddenly clutched at my throat, my shoulders trembling violently. A suffocating sensation overwhelmed me, as though invisible hands were strangling me.
“If you let that monster live, he’ll come again…, he’ll come to trample me. He’ll try to defile me. He said so himself. Like an addiction, he said he couldn’t help but keep seeking me….”
From my constricted throat, sobs erupted suddenly.
I wrapped my distorted face in my hands and gasped roughly. Then, as if possessed, I began hurling everything within reach at him.
“Useless! I don’t need someone like you! Get out! Get out! Disappear from my sight…!”
As I was flinging books and dolls indiscriminately, I suddenly froze. A candlestick I’d grabbed without thinking flew toward his head.
The heavy metal object scraped roughly across Barcas’s forehead and temple, then clattered loudly across the floor.
I watched in shock as dark crimson blood stained his pale cheeks and neck.
Strange, sighing sounds—ah…, ah…—escaped my throat. Barcas looked down at me with cold eyes, then slowly turned away.
In that moment, an icy chill spread through my entire body as if I’d been doused with freezing water.
I scrambled out of bed to stop him. But Barcas had already left the room.
I stood staring blankly into the darkened Corridor, then collapsed as if my legs had given way. I wanted to sink into the earth itself.
Barcas had saved me. Yet I had made him my target for rage. It was strange that he wasn’t disgusted. It was natural that he would be repulsed. I buried my pathetically contorted face into the carpet and wept hot tears.
After that day, Barcas did not appear before me. Only months later, at the Imperial Knight Order Commander’s appointment ceremony, was I able to see him.
I watched from a distance as he knelt on one knee before the Emperor and recited his oath of loyalty in a calm voice.
My father drew the Imperial sword and placed it upon his shoulder. Then, in a solemn voice, he proclaimed that Barcas had been appointed to the position of Commander of the Imperial Elite Guard.
For a youth barely twenty years old, it was an extraordinarily heavy burden, yet no one questioned his qualifications. Barcas turned slowly and descended the steps. Sunlight poured down through the windows like a torrential rain, illuminating his composed face.
I burned every detail of that moment into my memory.
With his back straight, Barcas crossed through the crowd. His cold profile passed by me without acknowledgment.
I whispered quietly toward his retreating figure, moving further away with each step, beyond the reach of my hands.
Goodbye.
After uttering those words, I added quietly without thinking.
Don’t go.
Tears threatened to spill over, so I furrowed my brow. Soon his figure disappeared completely from my sight.
Seven years ago, the boy my mother had given me as a gift left my side in that way.

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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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