Chapter 68: Chapter 68 I want to live next door to her house (6)
Feeling some strange sensation from his waist, he raised his hand.
Taking his lips off hers reluctantly, he looked at her lips. Then, he quickly kissed her lips again. He saw her opening her eyes and her shoulders began to tremble again.
The strange noise was heard again, making the two turn their eyes toward that direction.
She broke off the bandage around her index finger and looked down at a small plant growing on the edge of his crumpled shirt in surprise. He was also looking down at his waist in embarrassment.
The small plant grew thin branches and shot out light green leaves over them. She grabbed a branch in a hurry, startled at the wonder her fingers made. Fortunately, the plant stopped growing after it grew as high as an adult’s palm.
“…If I stay with you, I’ll see an endless display of wonders.”
He cracked a joke, who was more surprised than he, and her face turned white.
His face, which was always expressionless, had a light smile.
“I didn’t mean to do it…”
Looking up at his face for a moment, she spoke while avoiding eye contact with him.
She was so embarrassed.
“Would you tell me the name of this tree?” He asked, unbuttoning his shirt one by one.
“This is an ash tree. ”
“Ash tree… I’m very curious why this is growing here.”
“Reason? There is nothing like a reason for that. I’m embarrassed, too. So, please don’t give it any meaning! ”
Wendy glanced at him, flushed. While talking to him with an annoyed tone, she was stunned to see him taking his shirt off.
“… Why are you unbuttoning your shirt? ”
She hurriedly stepped back, finding his chest half-naked .
Alarmed by her reaction, he knitted his brows as if it was unfair and said, “Well, I think I have to change my shirt as it’s torn like this. I can’t sleep with this tree hanging on my side. ”
“Oh, let me bring you clothes.” She hurriedly left the kitchen as if she was running away.
After she left, he took off his shirt and picked up the small, thin ash tree. It was a tender vibrant green sapling. Fortunately, it was not dry and sap rose in it. As time went by, there would come a day when he could see its dark blue leaves with the sap rising in a fully grown tree.
Though the ash tree growing on his shirt was small, he didn’t feel any regret and smiled again.
That night she lay down in bed with a deep sigh and wandered alone in chaos.
Although she did not want to admit what happened, she could not help but acknowledge it. How could he kiss her? And he was none other than Lard! She closed and opened her mouth, looking in the air.
‘What the heck is this ash tree? How can I see it growing suddenly on his shirt when I can’t sort out my complicated mind? Should I comfort myself with a small tree like that? If I had grown a tall tree with colorful flowers, I would have not ended up settling here and left somewhere else…’
“Oh my God…”
She was in agony, lying on the bed. Then, she remembered seeing the phantom in front of her house on that rainy day when she walked along the street with him. That ash tree shooting out petals like the setting off of firecrackers! She had not the slightest idea of why she would relate what happened today to that ash tree, but she crumpled the corners of the pillowcase as she felt uncomfortable and embarrassed about the kiss.
Although she was exhausted, she could not easily sleep. The sound of ripples waving in the lake buzzed in her ears like tinnitus.
‘How can I see his face tomorrow morning?’
She moved his legs nervously with a deep sigh. She just wanted to erase the memory of a moment ago. If she could have her way, she wanted to turn the clock back and strongly refuse his visit. This would not have happened if she had not gone to the kitchen to find the jar of herbal tea.
‘If I had not opened the cupboard, if I had not accidentally touched the stacked plates, if he had not entered the kitchen at that moment, if the jar of lemon tea had not spilled, or if the lid had been closed more tightly, this kind of embarrassing thing would not have happened to me!’
She closed her eyes as if she couldn’t forget his soft touch on her lips.
But she could not deny what already happened, no matter how hard she tried to deny it.
Ripples had already begun on the surface of the quiet lake.
That day the petals fell from the white poplar by the river.
Dressed in his uniform, Badge Enos, the head of the 2nd Imperial Knights, reported to the chief of the Imperial Knights Corps a day later. Originally, he was supposed to report yesterday after he cracked down on the disturbances in the Henobi region and returned to the capital. As soon as he returned, however, he was dispatched to the Brugonu forest to search for Wendy and Lard, which delayed his report to the captain.
With fatigue still on his face, Badge left the chief’s room with a light heart after receiving the chief’s passionate welcome. Obviously, Badge made a great contribution by quelling the turmoil in the Henobi region, and he even found Lard and his partner who went missing at the hunting contest.
After he was given one week’s vacation as the reward for his special contribution, Badge walked with a happy expression.
The training field of the 2nd Knights Division was empty because lots of knights were dispatched to the Brugonu forest to search.
Badge grinned at his achievement. ‘Wasn’t it a huge event? How did I get involved in the missing case involving Captain Lard!’
In addition, the news that he had interrogated Altarin in person surprised him a lot.
That was a pretty serious scandal. Although it was widely known that Altarin had set her heart on Lard, no one would have known that the situation developed further and brought about such a disastrous result.
Admittedly, she acted too recklessly, but he was more surprised that Lard was in charge of the interrogation in person.
‘Maybe it’s because of her?’
Badge recalled the woman he saw in the forest. Why was she so familiar to him when he met her for the first time there? He remembered that Lard gave him a sharp glance when he stared at her intently. He found Lard’s glance dreadful. Recalling Lard’s actions last night, he chuckled.
While he was chuckling to himself, he quickly found a familiar guy sitting on the grass next to the field and quickened his pace. His unusually white hair came into Badge’s view at a distance.
“Hey, Sir Lennox!”
When Badge called him, Dylan Lennox was surprised and quickly stood up.
Dylan saluted him with a pleasant expression.
“How have you been?”
“Sir Enos! I heard that you came back. I’m glad to hear that you’re safe. ”
Looking at the drawing book in front of him, he said, “Not a big deal. I feel like I was on a local inspection tour. By the way, you are at it again today. ”
In the album were some dynamic drawings on the knights’ sparring at the field.
“It’s my hobby, sir.”
“Where is that woman who used to inspire you so much? With her gone, are you drawing these silly things? Well, your drawings are dynamic, though. Haha.”
Badge asked him, recalling a woman he accidentally saw in Dylan’s drawing book.
Back then, he was immersed in drawing alone. In fact, he was completely absorbed in drawing that he didn’t sense Badge approaching right up close. He drew a beautiful, brightly smiling woman, holding a handful of light red begonia in her arms. As someone who had an eye for beauty, Badge was greatly impressed with Dylan’s drawing.
So, he almost forcibly took it from Dylan and took a careful look at her. He always drew the same woman, who was sometimes drinking tea, sometimes riding a horse, or sometimes taking a walk. Even when he rarely drew a landscape, there was always the same young woman at the corner of the painting.
Hearing first that a guy with such a strange hobby was admitted to the 2nd Knights, Badge became very interested in him. It wasn’t common for a knight to take drawing as a hobby, so Badge thought Dylan was quite an interesting guy. As far as he remembered, his seniors made fun of his drawing, calling it a sissy hobby. But their mocking stopped when they sparred with Dylan in fighting with swords.
Just like he had a strange hobby, Dylan’s wielding a sword was also unique.
He beat his rivals with anomalous attacks disguised as graceful movements.
It was obviously different from the pure swordsmanship he showed in the Sinuel contest designed to qualify for imperial knighthood. He said he had inherited the swordsmanship from his family, but the anomalous movement steeped in pure swordsmanship interested Badge all the more.
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