What He Never Told Her

It was already as good as exposed.

Max dropped his head to the floor and protested desperately.

“I-I just thought about it because I was angry! I never actually planned to do it—”

“Even your excuses are stupid.”

“Aaaaargh!”

Lucian pressed down harder with his foot.

Pain like his spine was about to shatter exploded through Max’s entire body.

“You were banging on the apothecary door from early morning, screaming like a madman.

You were planning to shove that syringe into Shana’s neck the moment she came out and knock her unconscious, weren’t you?

And after that, what were you going to do?”

Lucian bent down toward Max’s ear and whispered like a devil.

“W-what do you mean?
I didn’t think about anything—”

“You were going to tie her up with rope.

Strip her. Defile her. Toy with her.”

Max sucked in a sharp breath and looked up at Lucian.

How did he know?

It was exactly what Max had imagined.

“Ah. Looking at your face, I guess I was right.”

The moment that was confirmed, all of Lucian’s movements stopped dead.

The air around him froze solid.

“Then I guess it’s fine to kill you.”

“N-no, th-that’s not—”

Max tried desperately to explain, but fear crushed his voice into incoherent fragments.

Lucian had never intended to listen anyway.

Instead, he began speaking as if recalling an old story from long ago.

“I saw it. In a dream.

At first, I didn’t know who it was… but after seeing your behavior, it became obvious.

Thanks to you, I got to watch those filthy fantasies from beginning to end.”

In a dream?

Max couldn’t understand a word of it.

But one thing was clear.

His ugliest thoughts had been completely exposed, and now he needed to beg until his bones turned to dust.

Lucian pressed down again with his foot.

He moved as if this were something he’d done countless times before, as if he knew exactly where it would hurt the most.

“A-aaargh!”

“With those filthy hands…thinking about touching Shasha here and there, treating her like a toy—don’t you feel disgusted with yourself?”

As he spoke, Lucian stared intently at Max’s right hand sprawled on the floor.

Then he slowly curled his own right index finger.

What is he—

The thought barely formed before—

Crunch.

Max’s right index finger twisted unnaturally and snapped.

“Aaaaaagh!”

A scream on an entirely different level erupted from his throat.

The once-normal finger now dangled uselessly, bent like a broken worm.

Lucian slowly curled his middle finger next.

Crack.

This time, Max’s middle finger shattered like a snapped tree branch.

“S-stop! Please, stop! Aaaah!”

No matter how much Max screamed and cried, Lucian didn’t even blink.

After waiting a moment, he curled his ring finger.

“Ggh—gghhh!”

One more.

As if narrating it, Lucian continued curling his fingers one by one.

Until all of them broke.

Max’s eyes never left Lucian’s hand.

Only then did he understand.

Lucian wasn’t breaking them all at once because he wanted him to wait.

To tremble in terror, wondering when the next one would snap.

“Ggh… gghhh…P-please… spare me… please…”

Even now, Max didn’t truly believe Lucian intended to kill him.

If he did, why target fingers?

This was just a highborn noble venting his rage on a commoner before leaving, wasn’t it?

But it hurt.

It hurt so much that the words please spare me fell out on their own.

Trying to survive through exaggeration, Max wriggled forward with his elbows, bowing as deeply as he could.

“J-just once…I swear I’ll never do it again…Please, just let me live…”

“Just once.”

Lucian finally lifted his foot from Max’s back.

He tapped his shoe against the floor, as if the mere act of touching Max had been filthy.

Then he walked to stand by Max’s head.

Lucian’s shadow stretched long over him.

He slipped one hand into his trouser pocket, bent slightly at the waist, and met Max’s gaze as Max lay flat on the floor.

Shrouded by shadow, Lucian’s face wasn’t fully visible.

“I saw a lot of people like you on the battlefield. Even among soldiers. ‘Never again,’ ‘absolutely not twice’

—but you know what? Not a single one of them actually stopped.”

“I-I really—”

“That’s how I learned the most reliable way to keep someone from committing the same crime again.”

“…Ah.”

There wasn’t even a hint of hesitation in Lucian.

This wasn’t something he’d done once or twice.

Max froze, barely breathing.

His heart felt like it was about to burst.

Lucian’s shadow writhed, and from it formed a massive scythe.

The pitch-black blade hovered above Max’s head like the reaper’s tool itself.

This is it.

Max squeezed his eyes shut.

But just before ending his life, Lucian paused.

“…Come to think of it, I didn’t consider the cleanup. If I kill you here, Shasha might find out.”

Find out?

Was he hesitating because of her?

He cared about her that much?

“Right. Let’s make it look like a carriage accident.”

Lucian snapped his fingers.

A complex, geometric magic circle spread beneath Max.

Serpentine strands of mana coiled tightly around his body.

The circle glowed brighter and brighter, choking off his breath—

And then he vanished.

Teleportation.

Lucian watched until everything ended, then straightened and snapped his fingers again.

All that remained was to dump the body onto some road and arrange an unfortunate carriage.

Lucian crushed the syringe on the floor beneath his shoe until the glass turned to powder.

The unnecessarily vivid and brutal dream imagery still clung to his mind.

“…Still not enough.”

Maybe he should play with him a little more before the carriage ran him down.

How dare he.

How dare he think such things about Shana.

What could trash like that possibly know about Shana’s body?
About Shana’s bed?

‘Only I have the right to look at Shana like that.’

Realizing where his thoughts were going, Lucian buttoned his shirt neatly up to the collar.

“No.”

This wasn’t the time to indulge possessiveness.

Ever since taking the medicine, his thoughts kept spiraling strangely.

If he wasn’t careful, he might lose everything—Shana included.

“I need to regain my rationality. At least before I face Shana again.”

Lucian snapped his fingers.

The syringe, the bloodstains, every trace vanished elsewhere through spatial magic.

All that was left was to return to Shana’s side.

‘To Shana’s side…’

That was when the image surfaced again.

Shana trapped inside Max’s filthy fantasy.

Bound. Helpless. Crying in terror.

Damn it.

Heat surged violently through his body.

Here? Even now?

This dream had been far too vivid.

Since becoming intimate with Shana, he hadn’t held her even once.

He couldn’t scare her.

Night after night, he’d taken cold showers in his own home, forcing himself to endure.

But everything he’d suppressed now burst forth uncontrollably.

Lucian covered his face with one hand.

‘No. This isn’t right.’

But his trembling hand moved to his belt.

He was already hard, hot, painfully aware.

Breathing unevenly, he cursed under his breath and began stroking himself.

“Shasha…”

Only Shana’s face and body filled his mind.

He tried not to imagine it.

But his mind conjured her effortlessly—
her startled expressions, shy movements, breathless voice.

“Ggh… Shasha…”

Only when he reached his peak did he finally stop moving.

“…Damn it.”

Overwhelming pleasure washed through him, melting his thoughts, as Lucian leaned his head against the wall.

A satisfaction he didn’t want to acknowledge lingered thickly in his gut.

Damn it.
He wasn’t an animal.

He wanted to leave immediately.

But just before teleporting, he noticed his shoe had stepped into a smear of semen.

“…Shit.”

He’d almost gone back to Shasha like this.

As if erasing what he’d just done, Lucian ground his shoe into the floor.

It wasn’t enough, so he used magic to eliminate every last trace.

“Shasha…”

As if his hands weren’t clean enough, he pulled out a handkerchief and scrubbed them harshly.

It was the pale pink handkerchief Shana had given him.

Touching the fabric made it feel as if she were right beside him.

Shana had no idea.

Not back at the Academy. Not now.

Every single person who had hurt her had been repaid tenfold.

‘If Shana weren’t so soft-hearted that even small acts of revenge scared her…I would’ve told her.’

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

And not telling her had only made her lonelier. More hurt.

“…It’s time to go back to Shasha.”

Lucian said softly, smiling bitterly as he disappeared.