They Say an Age Gap Like This Doesn’t Even Need Matching - Chapter 2

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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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I reflexively flinched, my body trembling.
‘What is this…?’
When I kiss an unfamiliar man I’ve just met today, shouldn’t I naturally feel repulsed?
So why do I feel no resistance?
Even as I thought this was strange, that this situation made no sense, my body responded entirely differently.
To be honest, I felt… a little good.
‘Maybe I’ve been poisoned by the toxin those demons spread.’
Yes, I’ve fallen into a trap.
‘There’s no other explanation for this.’
We were merely pressing our lips together, yet I didn’t want to stop.
When his tongue brushed against mine, I even parted my lips in welcome.
At that, he let out a low, pleased chuckle.
Delighted, even.
His tongue slipped in smoothly, climbing over my retreating one and coiling around it.
Our warm breaths tangled together in rapid unison.
‘…!’
My mind went white—so much so that I couldn’t even think to clear up the misunderstanding.
‘No, this can’t happen. I need to stop.’
If this continues, I’ll truly cross a line I can’t return from.
I seized the moment when he pulled his lips away to catch his breath, pressing mine firmly shut.
Making it clear to anyone watching that we were done.
I instinctively sensed that continuing would be dangerous.
“…”
A suffocating silence settled between us.
As my saliva-dampened lips cooled to lukewarm, he exhaled a long, wistful sigh.
“It seems I was clumsy after all.”
Though it was my first time too, he seemed anything but clumsy—quite skilled, actually.
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of forcing anything.”
He whispered softly, gently caressing my cheek.
“But… there’s no way I can pretend that kiss never happened.”
His voice was low and dark.
As if he wouldn’t give me a chance to escape, whether this was a misunderstanding or not.
“You promised. That you’d become mine.”
He pursued me relentlessly with his gaze, confirming once more.
“Didn’t you?”
‘No, who exactly are you?!’
So this is what people mean when they say they’re going mad.
‘…I absolutely must keep this secret from Mikhail and the expedition members.’
If they found out I’d given my first kiss due to such a ridiculous misunderstanding, I’d be the butt of jokes for at least a year.
And that was why.
“This way!”
I startled at the sound of hurried footsteps echoing from outside.
‘I can’t be discovered like this…!’
This would be…
At least three years of mockery!
“What’s wrong?”
The man asked with confusion, watching me roll my eyes in desperation.
“Does the commotion outside concern you?”
I wasn’t certain, but I thought the possibility was high.
Generally, the more intricate the magic, the greater the aftereffects.
Judging by how slowly my recovery progressed—barely able to move my fingertips now—the teleportation spell must have been high-grade magic as well.
‘The Royal Palace’s defense system would naturally have detected it.’
If the Chief Mage Caleb was staying in the Royal Palace, he would have reported my return with precise specificity.
‘Either way, this won’t do!’
I couldn’t let Mikhail, Caleb, or any of the Knight Order see me like this.
Not even a soldier who didn’t know my face.
‘It’s mortifying…’
I would avoid being directly witnessed no matter what.
I tensed my abdomen once more and forced out a voice.
And my desperation finally bore fruit.
“H… help.”
“…!”
His eyes widened at the barely uttered word.
Following his gaze as he frantically scanned the surroundings, I took in the room’s appearance.
‘What is this place?’
The barren space held no proper furniture besides a bed, and the window was completely barred.
Moreover, I now noticed the man was wearing shackles around his ankles.
‘Could this be a prison?’
A voice from the corridor allowed me to infer the man’s status.
“A magical explosion has occurred in the hostage’s room!”
‘…A hostage? What happened all this time that required something like that?’
“Open the door quickly!”
The footsteps stopped at the door before I could think further.
“The key is here!”
The loud sound of a lock being opened echoed through the room.
“Damn…”
With nowhere to hide due to the room’s layout, he wrapped me tightly in blankets like a cocoon.
“Just bear with it for a moment.”
He whispered, then pushed me under the bed with the blankets and pulled down the sheet to hide me from view.
Immediately after, the door burst open with tremendous force and someone rushed in.
“Restrain him!”
The man standing rigidly beside the bed was seized by the soldiers’ rough hands.
They forced him to the ground and twisted his arms behind his back, binding them.
‘What… what is this?’
I was startled by this completely unexpected situation.
‘He’s not even a criminal, and they treat a hostage like this?’
Here in Bardia, which Mikhail governs?
Throughout it all, the man neither resisted nor let out a single groan.
“Deposed Prince, what have you done here?”
Once the man was completely subdued, a knight approached and questioned him.
His overbearing tone carried not a shred of respect for his opponent.
“I don’t know. Nothing?”
The man answered in a cold voice, his words dripping with mockery.
It was a tone entirely different from how he spoke with me.
And as if he had been waiting for this moment, retaliation followed immediately.
The knight kicked him in the abdomen.
“How dare you play tricks?”
A knight who wielded aura was no different from a weapon itself—the man coughed blood.
“…This is excessive. Do you truly believe I could accomplish anything while restrained here?”
“If you don’t understand, I’ll teach you.”
Soon the knight’s merciless violence rained down upon the man.
Unable to resist with his limbs bound, he was kicked repeatedly before being struck with the hilt of a sword.
Yet the man endured it all in silence.
Until another knight could bear it no longer.
“Hamel, that’s enough. He was once your lord, was he not?”
“The past is the past. I am a knight of glorious Cradian, not of this rotting Bardia!”
The knight named Hamel cried out indignantly.
It was a reaction suggesting he found his origins shameful.
“Sigh, very well. But if he dies, it will trouble us as well.”
“If he were so fragile, Bardia would have collapsed long ago.”
As I watched from beneath the bed, I could not contain my shock.
‘What on earth is this…?’
From the conversation alone, I could deduce the truth.
This place was a rising nation called ‘Cradian,’ and that man, held as a hostage, was the Deposed Prince of my homeland, Bardia.
He appeared to be the final bulwark that had protected Bardia from collapse until the very end.
Yet the nation he had risked his life to defend had deposed him and surrendered him as a hostage to an enemy power.
In the process, the man had even been betrayed by those who once followed him.
Hamel’s lips twisted into a contemptible smile as he spoke.
“He needs proper education. To crawl and obey like a dog.”
…At those words, my reason seemed to snap entirely.
The traitor of Bardia mocked and inflicted violence upon his former master more actively than anyone else—even more so than the enemy knights.
Had he been forced to submit to protect his family or someone dear to him, such cruelty would have been impossible.
These were the words of one who had already sold the lives of countless people for his own comfort.
‘It is you who should crawl like a dog.’
I resolved to deal with this wretch here and now.
As long as I exist in this world, a traitor’s fate can only be one thing.
Beneath the blanket, I carefully clenched and unclenched my fists.
‘I can move, but my body is still sluggish.’
It seemed I would need roughly five more minutes for the aftereffects to fully dissipate.
‘I’ll have to use my power if I want to avoid detection.’
Distasteful as it was to wield the strength of that wretched demon, I had no choice.
I could not allow the efforts of the man enduring violence from my former subordinate—all to protect me—to be in vain.
‘Servant, answer my call.’
As I snapped my fingers toward the shadow cast upon the floor, it began to roil and bubble.
It seemed eager at my summons, ready to laugh with delight.
‘Silence. Do as you’re commanded. If you prove useless, I’ll place you upon my goddess’s altar.’
-…!
The threat had worked.
Before it could take full form, it transformed into mist and spread outward at my gesture, beyond the bed.
Then, unnoticed by anyone, it silently seeped into the shadows of the enemy knight and his soldiers.
And moments later.
Squelch—!
With a sickening sound of severance, the traitor’s head tumbled to the ground.
“What?”
The one holding the sword dripping with blood was the enemy knight who had been restraining Hamel.

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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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