Karina could no longer feel her legs.
It wasn't a figure of speech. There had truly been a point—who knew how long ago—when her legs had stopped fully belonging to her, and now they simply kept moving through a horrible mix of stubbornness and pure survival instinct.
Or at least, that was what she wanted to believe.
Because if she was completely honest with herself, she wasn't even sure she was still surviving anymore.
It felt more like a very slow, very dirty, and very undignified death.
"This… can't… be happening…" she muttered with a dry voice, pushing a branch out of her way. She looked closer to a wild woman than the daughter of a noble.
Her boot sank into damp soil.
She almost fell face-first.
Again.
She had to grab onto the nearest trunk just to keep from collapsing right there, with her blonde hair a complete mess, her clothes wrinkled, dirty, partially torn, and her pride shattered days ago.
Or weeks?
No. She didn't want to think about how long it had been.
"Lady Karina, at this rate you will faint again," said a voice near her neck with resigned exhaustion.
Karina lowered her gaze to the collar she was wearing.
"I'm not going to faint," she replied in such an unconvincing thread of a voice that even she didn't believe it.
Raka stayed silent for two seconds.
"We still don't know where the giants are. Resting will not delay you."
Karina frowned.
Or at least, she tried to.
Even that was starting to take effort.
"I can't abandon my mission just because I'm a little tired."
"'A little tired,'" Raka repeated in a tone bordering on offense. "Lady Karina, you have gone days without proper rest, you have eaten forest scraps that I would not have recommended even to a boar, you have stumbled seventeen times just today, and an hour ago you tried to eat a poisonous mushroom."
Karina looked away.
"That doesn't count."
"Why not?"
"Because…" she swallowed, her throat dry, her head heavier by the second, "because…"
Raka did not respond.
Which somehow made it worse.
Karina kept walking.
Or dragging herself forward with severely damaged dignity.
Her body hurt. Not just her legs. Her back, her shoulders, her head, her feet… especially her feet. Her feet felt like someone had decided to crush them with stones. She was hungry again, though it was no longer a "normal" kind of hunger, but that hollow, irritating, dizzying sensation that made every thought slower and more annoying.
And even so, she kept moving.
Because she had to.
Because Muno was still there.
Because her father was still there.
Because that demon was still there.
And because if she failed to bring back help, then…
Then she didn't want to finish that thought.
She couldn't.
She had left the city on her own. No one had sent her. There were no allies to rely on, no real plan, no proper strategy behind any of this. Just desperation, impulse, and the brilliant idea—which she now admitted was somewhat less brilliant than it had sounded in her head at the time—of going to find the forest giants to ask for help.
Giants she didn't even know how to find.
In retrospect, yes, perhaps it hadn't been her best decision.
But she couldn't just sit still while Muno fell apart.
She wasn't a great warrior. She wasn't a seasoned adventurer or a prodigious mage. She was the daughter of a baron, raised within walls, halls, and lessons that had never taught her anything truly useful—like how not to starve to death in the middle of a forest.
If she was still alive, it was because of Raka.
Only because of him.
And even so, "still alive" was starting to feel like a rather generous category.
Karina took another step.
Then another.
Then…
Something changed.
Not in the forest.
In the air.
Her body was so exhausted that it didn't react immediately, but she did feel a presence in front of her. A shadow. Something interrupting the space ahead of her path. Her vision took half a second to focus, and when she finally managed to lift her head…
She froze.
For a moment, Karina genuinely thought she had died.
There was no other logical explanation.
Because the man standing before her did not look like someone who should exist in the middle of a forest.
He was dressed in black.
Not the worn black of a traveler, nor the practical black of an adventurer, but an impeccable, elegant, deep black, cut with a precision that even Karina's current miserable state could not fail to notice. There were subtle golden details, clean lines, refined fabric, a long, composed silhouette that made him look… impossible.
As if the entire forest—its mud, its branches, its dampness, its filth—simply had no right to touch him.
And then there was him.
His face.
His presence.
He didn't look like a mercenary. He didn't look like a common noble. He didn't look like a real man someone could simply encounter by chance.
He looked…
Like something out of a fantasy.
Karina parted her lips slightly.
Her brain, already functioning at a painfully slow speed, tried to process too many things at once—and failed miserably.
"What a… handsome…"
She didn't finish the thought.
Her body gave out.
Everything tilted.
Her vision went dark.
And just before she completely lost consciousness, the last thing she felt were arms catching her with absolute steadiness.
***
Karina slowly opened her eyes.
The first thing she felt was softness.
Strange.
Her body sank into something warm, clean, and comfortable in a way so pleasant that for a second she didn't understand what was happening. She blinked once. Then again. Her head still felt heavy, but not in the same way. The hunger was still there, her body was still a mess, and her mouth was dry, but…
She was alive.
And, apparently, lying on the most comfortable bed she had touched in days.
Maybe in her entire life.
It took Karina a few seconds to sit up.
She looked around.
And stopped understanding the world.
The room was enormous.
Not just spacious, but beautiful in a way so refined that it took her a moment to accept it wasn't a hallucination caused by exhaustion. The furniture was elegant, the dark wood perfectly polished, the finishes delicate, the fabrics clearly expensive, and everything was so clean it made Karina's current existence feel like a crime within that space.
And the window.
No—the window wall.
An entire wall of glass facing outward, letting in natural light and revealing a wide, breathtaking, and dangerously elevated view.
Karina stared at it, her eyes slightly wider than usual.
"…Where am I…?" she murmured, almost to herself.
"In a safe place."
Her heart jumped.
She turned her head as fast as a startled animal.
And there he was.
Again.
Seated at some distance, with the same calm gaze he had in the forest, as if the entire situation—her waking up in a luxurious room, disheveled, confused, and surely a terrible sight—was nothing out of the ordinary.
Karina stared at him for a second too long.
Then another.
And, with humiliating precision, her brain failed her exactly where it shouldn't.
He was still absurdly handsome.
No—worse.
Now that she was awake and could see him clearly, the problem had intensified.
He had the kind of face that simply shouldn't exist outside the romantic novels she secretly read. Everything about him was too perfect. The symmetry, the gaze, the impeccable posture, the clothing… the way it highlighted his physique, powerful and elegant.
Karina felt heat rise to her cheeks.
"Do not be alarmed," he said in a calm, firm, low voice. "You are safe."
That helped.
A little.
Just enough so that Karina didn't scream.
Barely.
"Did I…?" she swallowed. "Did I faint?"
"Yes."
Karina wanted to sink into the bed and disappear forever.
Perfect.
Wonderful.
A truly unforgettable first impression.
Before she could begin dying of embarrassment, Satoru made a small gesture toward a nearby table.
"Before anything else, you should eat."
Karina blinked.
And then she saw it.
Food for two people.
Real food.
Not suspicious roots.
Not bitter fruits.
Actual food.
There was bread, soup, some kind of meat, fruit, and clean water. Everything laid out with an almost cruel simplicity, because the mere sight of it made Karina's stomach twist so violently that for a moment she thought she might cry.
But no.
No.
She was still a lady.
A noble lady.
With class.
With dignity.
With—
Her stomach growled.
Loud, brutal, and treacherous.
Karina froze completely.
It was so humiliating she could practically hear her soul leaving her body.
Very slowly, she lifted her gaze toward him.
Satoru didn't seem particularly affected by it.
For some reason, that made it worse.
Karina tried to compose herself.
"W-with your permission," she said, as if her body hadn't just betrayed her with the subtlety of a catastrophe.
She sat at the table with all the composure she had left, struggling to recall the manners drilled into her through years of lessons.
She took the bread.
It felt fresh.
She broke it carefully.
She breathed.
Forced herself to begin with moderation.
A small bite.
Then another.
Then…
No.
No.
She couldn't.
Her body took over, and all the nobility, femininity, grace, decorum, and any other elegant concept she had tried to preserve were thrown out of an imaginary window the moment hunger crushed her completely.
Karina began to eat as if the food might escape from her plate.
Everything disappeared quickly, along with the refined image she would have liked to maintain.
For a glorious, shameful, and deeply humiliating stretch of time, the world ceased to exist.
She could only think about food—so much so that even Raka's voice, trying to tell her something, failed to reach her.
And when she finished…
Reality came crashing down on her like a hammer.
Karina froze, her breathing only slightly uneven, her hands slowly lowering to her lap as the magnitude of what she had just done reconstructed itself in her mind with devastating clarity.
She had just devoured all of that food.
In front of him.
In front of the mysterious and handsome benefactor who had rescued her in the forest and brought her somewhere safe. And now, without a doubt, he had just witnessed her eating like a peasant possessed by a demon of hunger.
There weren't even any leftovers. Even the portion she assumed had been meant for him had disappeared.
Karina felt the heat rising to her face again.
Maybe…
Maybe she could still salvage something.
Perhaps he was the kind of gentle, mature man who didn't judge that sort of thing. Perhaps he even thought watching her eat like that was… endearing? Charming? A sign of feminine sincerity like some novels suggested?
Karina Muno had no experience with men her age. In Muno she had no noble suitors, so her family had to look elsewhere, but Muno's bad reputation always got in the way. On top of that, ever since she was little, Karina had been a dreamer by nature, longing for a fated encounter.
Maybe, if she simply acted with a little dignity from now on, she could still—
"There is no need to worry."
Karina lifted her head sharply.
Her heart gave a small leap.
Huh?
"N-No…" she repeated, trying to sound casual and failing rather tragically.
Satoru looked at her with the same serenity as before.
"It doesn't matter."
Karina blinked.
The air around her changed.
Not literally, of course.
But definitely inside her head.
It doesn't matter.
Her mind, which was very obviously her own worst enemy, began constructing a completely absurd scene in less than a second.
It doesn't matter.
He wasn't judging her.
He was kind.
Gentle.
Calm.
Mature.
Elegant.
Perfect.
Maybe, just maybe, the universe didn't hate her as much as it seemed, and this encounter had not been designed to humiliate her, but—
"I don't need to eat."
Karina went still.
The fantasy stumbled.
"…What?" she asked.
"I don't need to eat," he repeated with absolute naturalness. "After all… I am undead."
Silence.
Karina stared at him.
She blinked once.
Then again.
Her brain received the information, held onto it for a few seconds…
…and flatly refused to process it.
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
She heard Raka from somewhere in the distance, but her mind still didn't react.
Because no.
No.
That made no sense.
Nothing she was seeing in front of her had the slightest right to coexist with the phrase "I am undead."
Not with that face.
Not with that voice.
Not with that elegance.
Not with that… that offensively perfect man.
No.
Absolutely not.
How could someone who looked like that possibly be undead!?
"…What?" she repeated, a little louder this time.
"Lady Karina," Raka said suddenly, tensing against her neck, "you need to control yourself. This being—"
Karina turned her head slightly toward the collar, then looked back at the man in front of her.
"No," she said, as though correcting a ridiculous statement. "No. You cannot be undead."
"I am."
That was all.
Not the slightest consideration for the mental collapse he was causing.
And that was precisely what finally shattered everything.
Karina's entire fantasy exploded into a thousand pieces all at once.
The rescue.
The dreamlike room.
The absurdly beautiful man.
The romantic scene.
The absurdly beautiful man.
The food.
Her absurdly beautiful man.
Everything.
Everything reorganized itself in an instant inside her head under a new, horrible, and perfectly coherent conclusion according to the desperate logic of someone like her:
She had been kidnapped and deceived!
Her fragile maiden heart had been toyed with!
Karina shot to her feet.
"You!?" she blurted out, stepping back with one hand against her chest and the other instinctively shifting into a fighting stance. "What exactly are you trying to do to me!?"
"I have no ill intentions toward—" he said.
"You're lying!"
Raka vibrated slightly.
"Lady Karina, I suggest you remain calm."
"I cannot remain calm!"
Satoru raised one hand slightly, not in threat, but in a rather reasonable attempt to lower the tension.
"You are safe here."
Karina immediately pointed at him.
"Who could possibly feel safe with an undead!?"
Well, she had a point. An undead was not exactly trustworthy.
Raka tried once more to communicate. Ever since his mistress had fallen unconscious, he had been paying attention to the stranger and was certain he was not someone they could handle. That was why he wanted to warn her.
But Karina wasn't listening.
Or rather, she was listening far too little for any attempt at logic to have a chance of getting through.
She could still feel the heat of her embarrassment mixed with the brutal shock of the revelation. And that combination was completely destroying any possibility of a mature reaction.
Satoru took a small step forward.
Karina attacked immediately.
Not because she had a brilliant plan.
She simply threw a punch.
As someone who longed for adventure but was not allowed to carry weapons, she had spent her free afternoons training in martial arts.
She threw the first strike with slight awkwardness, but with real speed and force behind it.
Satoru avoided it with almost insulting ease.
Karina spun and threw another.
He merely tilted his body slightly to the side.
He didn't even have to move much.
That only made her angrier.
"Stay still!" she snapped, throwing a kick.
Satoru took a step back.
Then another.
Nothing more.
He dodged or deflected each of her attacks. To Karina, it was as if she posed absolutely no danger to him.
No, worse.
As if she were a child throwing a tantrum.
Karina felt the humiliation rapidly turning into pure frustration.
She attacked again.
And again.
And again.
None of it worked.
"Lady Karina, assess the situation!" Raka said tensely inside her mind. "This individual is extremely dangerous—we need to escape!"
"I noticed!"
"Then I suggest you conserve your energy."
"I can't escape with the door behind him!"
Raka went silent for a second.
"That is not the only exit—look behind you!"
Karina stepped back slightly, breathing faster.
This was horrible.
Horrible.
She couldn't touch him.
She couldn't recover any dignity.
She couldn't even sustain a proper confrontation scene without everything feeling ridiculous.
Overwhelmed by her emotions, she ran toward the huge glass wall.
The exit.
Or at least a direction that didn't involve remaining trapped in that room with the undead who had just destroyed her pride and probably her romantic future.
She swore she would never forget this experience!
She ran toward the glass with every intention of crashing through it, knowing that Raka would protect her from the fall.
Then Satoru warned her:
"I would not recommend doing that."
Too late.
Karina's head slammed straight into the glass with a dull, brutal, and utterly humiliating impact.
The glass did not break.
It didn't even crack.
Her body bounced backward.
And then she collapsed onto the floor with her eyes spinning.
***
Leon Muno was not a particularly difficult man to read.
Not because he was foolish or simple—though under normal circumstances he often was—but because at that moment he was carrying a kind of worry that, when born from genuine affection, became visible to anyone.
And right now, seated in a small workroom in the castle with tense shoulders and his gaze lost on the table, Leon looked exactly like that.
The city was still moving.
Outside, Muno was breathing for the first time in a very long while without feeling the immediate weight of catastrophe about to fall on it. Soldiers were coming and going, scribes were busy, orders were crossing through the halls, and there was a volume of work that was not going to solve itself.
But even in the middle of all that, Leon's unease was not with the warehouses, nor the trade routes, nor the defense of the city.
It was much farther away.
Nina, seated across from him, noticed it very quickly.
She did not say anything at first. She let him organize his thoughts at his own pace, observing him in silence with the calm patience of someone who already understood enough not to demand explanations.
At last, Leon exhaled slowly and passed a hand over his face.
"Was it really alright?" he asked.
The question was simple.
Tired, full of parental affection, and genuine concern.
And Nina understood immediately what he meant.
Leon was not a fool. After what he had seen, after what had happened on the walls, after having gone down with him to the core and watching him erase Zen's curse as if brushing dust off the road, questioning whether Lord Satoru could protect Karina would have been absurd.
That was not the problem.
The problem was that she was still his daughter.
And leaving his daughter in the hands of someone so disproportionately powerful and so difficult to interpret as Satoru was not an idea a father could easily accept just because, in objective terms, it was the best possible option.
Nina looked at him with something gentler than simple understanding.
"If what concerns you is her safety, then no," she answered calmly. "There is no better person she could be with right now."
Leon let out a brief, resigned breath through his nose.
As if he already knew that, and that was precisely why it made him feel even more uncomfortable.
Nina did not press that point.
Because the logic had already been stated.
And because what Leon needed was not a list of practical reasons, but something closer to reassurance.
Her gaze shifted slightly toward the window.
She thought of Karina.
And, as almost always happened whenever she thought about her for too long, a strange mixture of affection, resignation, and gentle fatigue settled in her chest.
Karina was a good girl.
That had never been in doubt.
But she was also impulsive, naïve, emotional to the point of disaster, and completely incapable of maintaining a refined image when something threw her off balance. She had been raised as a noble lady, yes, but her heart had always been too transparent for that. She had never really learned to hide what she felt. Not embarrassment, not excitement, not irritation, not enthusiasm.
Everything showed on her face.
And if she tried to hide it, it was usually worse.
Nina could almost picture her just by closing her eyes slightly: exhausted, disheveled, surely hungry, perhaps trying to maintain her composure in front of some imaginary ideal.
A very small part of her was almost about to feel sorry for her.
Only a very small one.
Because she thought that with Satoru's presence, there was no longer anything to worry about.
Because, being honest, Karina would never know how to act with hidden intentions even if she wanted to. She would not know how to approach someone like Satoru with calculation, or malice, or the sort of caution other ladies could pretend to have when it suited them. Whatever she felt would slip out. Whatever she thought would end up written on her face. And if she was embarrassed, it would probably be obvious from miles away.
And, curiously, that was exactly what made her suitable.
Nina had already understood something important about Lord Satoru.
With someone like him, social masks, unnecessary roundabout behavior, and petty manipulations were not worth the effort. Not because he was naïve, but because he absolutely was not. Trying to play beneath the surface with him would only be a clumsy way to waste time.
Or speed up your own death.
With someone like that, simple honesty worked better than any strategy.
And Karina, for better or worse, was made of exactly that.
Nina lowered her gaze slightly, with a faint tired smile that never quite became visible.
"If I may say so, Lord Leon…" she said serenely, "I believe that, to Lord Satoru, Lady Karina will surely seem like a charming young lady."
***
This woman is a problem.
Those were Satoru's only thoughts regarding the baron's second daughter.
****
Author's Note:
As always, thank you very much for reading and continuing to follow the story. I really appreciate it.
This chapter was a bit tricky to write, mainly because it's probably the most comedic one I've done so far. Satoru himself barely says or does much throughout most of it, so the dynamic felt very different from the usual tone.
At first, I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to handle that, but in the end, writing it mostly through Karina's perspective was what felt the most natural and convincing to me.
I just hope she didn't come across as too overwhelming, since she'll be sticking around for a while.
Ah, and of course—this is also officially the last girl from Satou's original harem that I'll be showing in the story.
The other girls are already in situations or places that are much farther away, so later on I'll probably gather information about how things have changed for all of them in this version of the story and post it on Patreon.
See you in the next chapter!