“None.”
He shook his head slightly, and I felt a wave of relief—though at the same time, a pang of pity tightened in my chest. Losing one’s memories was like carving out a part of your life—no, your entire life. Sure, most of it must have been unpleasant, painful, and exhausting, but even the good memories, however few they were, were gone.
Right now, there were probably loyal people still searching for Nox somewhere.
“I hope you remember soon. You need to go back, don’t you?”
Nox froze at that.
“…Go back?”
“Yes. To where you used to live.”
“Where I used to live… where is that?”
“W-What? Well, that’s obvio—no, wait, I don’t know.”
I almost said “the Grand Duchy” by accident.
“But surely you have somewhere to return to, right? You didn’t just fall from the sky…”
I stared into his eyes, which had gone frighteningly hard, and recalled our first meeting. His amethyst eyes looked as cold as if they were frosted over.
“How can you be so sure? How do you know I have anywhere to go back to?”
“Uh… well… I’m not sure, but, I mean, wouldn’t you?”
“Do you want me to go back?”
“…”
I swallowed hard.
Nox had taken my hand at some point and was now looking down at me. I couldn’t say anything—one wrong word and it felt like he might just devour me whole.
“N-Nox… this is just… you know, hypothetical.”
“Hypothetical?”
“Yes. If. If you had somewhere to return to.”
“Right. And if I didn’t?”
Before I could react, I let out a startled noise as my back hit the soft mattress. Leaning over me, Nox stared down with an unwavering gaze. His beautifully shaped lips parted slowly, deliberately.
“Then is this the place I’m supposed to stay?”
I couldn’t say yes or no. I just stared blankly up at him, caught in his gaze. The moonlight shimmered faintly in his eyes. …And for some reason, I felt that no matter what answer I gave, Nox wouldn’t care.
“That’s…”
Just then, I pushed his hand away and shot upright.
At the same time—crash! bang!—a loud noise erupted from behind the door. Nox and I looked at each other.
“It’s coming from the entrance.”
“Let’s go.”
“T-Together!”
Our house was small, so we reached the front door almost immediately.
“Nox, stay here for now. If it’s someone suspicious, help me then. They’ll probably let their guard down if they think a woman’s alone.”
“…Understood.”
Things like this hadn’t never happened in the past ten years. Strangers visiting in the middle of the night wasn’t unheard of.
I swallowed dryly and opened the door. Creeeeak. The old hinges groaned with a spine-chilling sound and then—
Thud. Someone collapsed in front of the doorway.
“Sis?”
My eyes widened as I rushed to support her. She was gasping for breath.
“What happened?”
“Hey, Amy. Nothing serious, I just… ran a bit.”
She panted heavily.
“Ran? At this hour?”
“Yeah. No time to explain. Listen carefully, Amy. Hide Nox in the basement. You know how, right?”
“W-What about you?”
“I’ll lure them away.”
“Lure who?!”
“Long story. A group I got into an argument with in the village, I think. They must have followed me. I rushed here because I was worried about you…”
Diana had never come home at this hour before.
I glanced over her and froze when I spotted the blood on her shoulder.
Clutching her sword, she said, “There are dangerous intruders in this forest.”
Intruders? The first thing that popped into my mind was the Imperial Knights.
The Crown Prince’s knights.
The infamous Red Dragon Knights.
Despite their childish name, they were infamous for their cruelty, leaving nothing but devastation in their wake. Could it really be them?
“S-Sis, who’s after you?!”
This didn’t make sense… Nox had said in the novel that he spent at least a year with the woman who saved him. He’d even referred to it as his “precious year.” It had barely been a month since we met him.
“Mercenaries.”
“Mercenaries?”
“Yeah. A mercenary group staying in an outer village. They didn’t seem like monster hunters, though… anyway, no time to talk. Hide with Nox.”
She stood up abruptly.
“Sis, be careful…!”
I grabbed her sleeve. She looked at me once and smiled faintly.
“Don’t you trust me? Who do you think raised you for ten years in this forest, Amy? Humans aren’t scarier than monsters.”
“…At least in this forest?”
“Yeah.”
She gently patted my head before turning away. Her figure disappeared beyond the fence quickly. I’d seen her leave plenty of times before, but every time, the worry in my chest was the same.
I bit my lip and stood.
“Nox.”
He stepped out from where he’d been hiding.
Diana was always sensitive to presences—a survival instinct honed over ten years of raising me here. Which meant she’d been in a real rush just now. Either that, or Nox was exceptionally good at hiding his presence. But whatever the case, the point was clear: she had gone to lure them away.
“She said ‘them’. That means there are a lot of them.”
“Seems so.”
“What?”
Nox placed a hand on my shoulder, eyes narrowing like a hawk focusing on prey.
“There are presences approaching.”
“You… you can feel that? Wait, do you know how many?”
“…Not exactly. But at least three or more.”
My expression hardened. Diana never failed to shake off pursuers in this forest. Which meant there were more of them than she expected.
Without thinking, I grabbed Nox’s hand.
“Nox, we need to go. Now’s not the time to stand around!”
“Go? Where exactly?”
“Didn’t you hear what my sister said? We need to hide!”
I tugged at his hand, but to my shock, he didn’t budge. Instead, he looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“Don’t tell me… you’re planning to fight them?”
“And if I am?”
“You can’t! Nox, do you even understand your current state? You’re still poisoned with Tetethis!”
“I’m not in pain.”
“Don’t underestimate that poison!”
“I know it looks like you’re fine right now. That’s because you’re dull to pain, Nox!”
He didn’t seem to understand the danger, but I knew very well just how terrifying this poison was. My sister had once been bedridden for an entire month after being poisoned by Tetethis—it was not something easy to detoxify. The only reason Nox had been running a slight fever during the day was because of this poison. He might look fine now, but that fever could flare up again at any time. He shouldn’t be moving around.
“If you move too much, the fever will come back. Please, just listen to me, okay?”
“Amy.”
“The wounds that were healing might reopen, and the remaining poison will reactivate. Even if it’s an indirect infection, normally this poison seeps into the bloodstream, causing paralysis, fainting, and in severe cases, death. Do you not understand?”
“Amy!”
He grabbed my hands, forcing me to release my grip on his sleeve. It was only then that I realized I had been clutching at his clothes so tightly that my knuckles had gone white.
“…I understand it’s a serious poison. But aren’t you worried about your sister? She went to face a large group of men alone.”
“…Of course I’m worried.”
I bit my lip hard. How could I not be worried? But—
“But I’m not afraid. My sister is strong. I know she’ll be fine.”
I’d watched her for years. I knew she would come back safely. The real problem right now was Nox, who hadn’t fully recovered yet.
“I trust she’ll be okay. Right now, what matters is us. There’s a place in this house we can hide, just like she said. Let’s go there and stay hidden.”
“Your sister was talking about me during the day, wasn’t she? Am I wrong? Is that space big enough for me to hide in?”
“…”
Nox’s eyes narrowed as he slowly tightened his grip on the sword in his hand.
“No matter how I look at it, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere big enough for me to hide in this tiny house.”
Just then, noises rose from the fence outside.
He released my hand and turned his sword toward the entrance.
“And it’s already too late.”
Crack. The wooden fence splintered as several intruders forced their way in.
I frowned at the sight of the bulky, rough-looking men.
A wave of frustration crashed over me.
“If we hurry into the forest, maybe—”
“The forest full of monsters?”
“They might have either cleared them out or driven them away if they’ve made it this far.”
But his stubborn gaze wasn’t even directed at me anymore. The men had already spotted us. I knew as well as he did that escaping from five men without being caught was impossible.
I glanced at Nox. If only he could use even half of his true strength right now…
“Over there. There’s someone there, isn’t there?”
“Well, well, there’s another girl here? Not the one we were chasing, but she’s still a fine piece.”
“They look like sisters. The one who ran was prettier, though.”
Their disgusting laughter filled the garden. Judging by the fact they had tracked us this far into the Night Forest, they were clearly not ordinary mercenaries.
“Doesn’t matter which one—making fools of our mercenary group won’t go unpunished.”
I didn’t know why they’d come all the way here, but their mocking eyes told me everything: they were confident in both their numbers and their strength.
“MacArthur, that idiot—getting beaten by just some girl made this mess worse.”
“Not just him, all those guys who ran after her got their asses handed to them. No wonder the boss is raging—he’s got a thing about women humiliating him.”
“Didn’t he get dumped by a female knight back in the day? Either way, this is just an excuse for him to blow up. Still, playing with a young girl for a bit doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Ha! You sound like a real bastard when you say it like that.”
They were deliberately ignoring Nox, as if he didn’t even exist.
I quickly scanned the garden and spotted the sacks piled up on one side. The white powder inside wasn’t as effective on humans as it was on monsters, but it could still paralyze them for a while.
I whispered from behind Nox, “Nox, can you hold them off for a bit? If I throw that powder at them, they’ll be paralyzed for a short time.”
“…How long do you need?”
I gave him the time estimate as calmly as I could, but before I finished, one of the men pointed a finger at me with a sneer.
“Hey, how long are you going to stand there shaking in fear?”
He grinned, his face practically dripping with sleaze. His hand gesture was unmistakably vulgar—something that would have been considered a severe insult back in my old world.
“Just wait, I’ll strip that little bitch naked.”
Suddenly, Nox yanked his hand free from mine.
All I could see now was his broad back, but a strange, indescribable feeling washed over me.
“Amy, you said that powder paralyzes them, right?”
“Y-Yes, that’s right. So just hold them off for five minutes, five minutes is all I—”
“There’s no need to keep them alive, is there?”
“W-What? Wait, Nox!”
But Nox was already striding forward, sword in hand.
I had no choice but to run toward the sacks, clutching at the one containing the paralyzing powder.
He can’t keep moving for long in his current condition. I had to throw the powder as soon as possible to end this before it got worse.
‘Which one was the Tarro powder again?’
As I frantically searched, a sharp sound sliced through the air from my right.
Shhhhk! I’d never heard the sound of a blade cutting through the air so distinctly before.
I turned my head with the sack still in my hands—and froze, my mouth falling open.
“…”
I stared in silence at the blood-soaked scene before me.
Nox was a Grand Duke. A commander who had survived countless battlefields, drenched in blood long before he became an adult.
He had survived by stepping over countless corpses.
He was strong. Yes, in the book, the male lead was unmatched.
I knew this. I knew Nox was strong. He was the strongest man alive.
But in the story, he had lost his memories and was incomplete, unable to use even half his original strength. So I had thought it would be too much for him to handle this…
I had been wrong.
Even in his current state, he dispatched these men effortlessly.
I had misjudged him.
“Amy.”
Standing before the last man, Nox looked up at me. Under the moonlight, his eyes gleamed like those of a beast, icy and blue.
“I-I’m listening.”
“What do we do with them now?”
“T-Them? Oh…”
I shook my head quickly, forcing my thoughts to focus.
“Tie them up… or bury them. Until my sister gets back.”
I knew Diana would find it strange, but the words just slipped out anyway.
I stared blankly at the drops of blood dripping from his sword tip.
“…I’ve helped my sister clean up monster corpses before. We collected the pelts. There’s a disposal spot in the backyard.”
It wasn’t hard to move the limp, unconscious men.
Nox silently lifted them one by one, tying them up or dragging them to the backyard, while I fought to keep my hands from shaking.
What would Diana say when she came back? No—could we even keep them hidden until then? I tried to distract myself with pointless worries.
But when Nox suddenly grabbed my hand, I flinched.
“You’re trembling.”
“W-What? Oh… yes. I guess I am. Strange. Why am I… shaking…?”
Right. Why was I shaking? He had just cut down five men as if it were nothing. He was the male lead of the story. Even without his memories, he was still the Mad Grand Duke.
I tried to smile awkwardly, but he saw through me instantly, his beastlike instincts sharp as ever.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“…What?”
“For a moment, I remembered something. …When I held a sword, people used to look at me the way you are now. Some even cursed me.”
His grip on my hand didn’t loosen. My trembling was obvious to him through that contact. But I tightened my grip as much as I could and lifted my head.
“It’s rude to be afraid of the person who just protected you.”
“…”
I knew what kind of man Nox was—cruel, merciless. And I’d been afraid of becoming his target someday, too.
I bit down on my lip. But his blade had never been aimed at me. It had only been aimed at those who threatened me.
“So I’m not afraid.”