I Just Want to Live, You Bastard!

"Hah!"

I bolted upright in bed, gasping for air as though I'd just surfaced from deep water.

"Oh my! My lady, you're awake!"

"Becky...?"

As the maid hurried toward me with a relieved smile, I glanced around the room. Bright daylight was already streaming through the window.

No way. Did I sleep through an entire night? Then why does my body feel...

When I looked down at my hand, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

The swelling and the rash that had tormented me before I fell asleep were completely gone. Not only that — the labored breathing, the splitting headache, all of it had vanished. I felt like I could actually live.

It was the first time since my transmigration that my body had felt this light.

"The physician scolded us yesterday, you know. He asked why we'd dragged him back from his day off when you looked perfectly healthy. But last night your face was all swollen and you had such a terrible fever!"

Becky chattered on, then leaned in and asked carefully, "What on earth did the apothecary mix up for you that you recovered so quickly, my lady?"

"No idea."

To escape her relentless probing, I quietly pulled the blanket up over my head.

So Graham must have been pressing her to dig up information. If there really were a medicine that worked against the Urutu Kumquat allergy, my dear uncle would be desperate to be the first to know about it.

I sorted through my thoughts in the dark cocoon of the blanket.

But it can't have been anything the apothecary brewed yesterday. If we're talking about an elixir that could erase those horrible allergic effects in one stroke, there are exactly two things in this world capable of it.

The Elixir held by the imperial family, and Eusilif's blood.

The palace would never have helped me, so I suppose Eusilif must have saved my life, then?

So helping the protagonist actually gets you rewarded, huh. For all his prickly temperament, it seemed that before his humanity had fully curdled, Eusilif simply couldn't stand by and watch someone die.

I was sighing with relief, still wrapped in my blanket, when I tilted my head.

Wait a moment. I definitely woke up from a nightmare just now... what was it about again?

But strangely, all that remained was a vague, clammy sense of unease. Nothing else surfaced — which was odd in itself.

Forget it. What's the point of remembering a nightmare anyway?

I decided to simply be grateful I'd survived and consigned the dream to oblivion. Fatigue swept over me almost immediately, and sleep came crashing down in waves.

At midnight that day, a massive shadow blocked Arabella's path as she stepped out of the bathroom.

"Ah. Eusilif."

Though she wore nothing but a bathrobe over bare skin, she faced him with perfect composure — as if she'd known he was coming.

It was Eusilif, in fact, who faltered. He had infiltrated her bedchamber in the dead of night to confront her, but he hadn't counted on catching her mid-bath.

"Were you waiting? I slept the whole day through and felt so grimy afterward that my bath took a while."

She wrapped a towel around her dripping hair and smiled faintly.

Despite the washed-out pallor typical of someone recovering from illness, Arabella's face — restored to its original features — looked as fresh and young as a kitten's.

From soaking so long in the bath, her entire body had turned a deep, flushed pink, from her small face to the bare skin peeking through the loosely tied robe.

The instant that color — like a perfectly ripened peach — registered in his eyes, Eusilif abruptly became aware of an odd tingling in his index finger. He consciously pulled his gaze away and took a step back from her.

"...I'll come back later."

But she called after his retreating back.

"It's fine. Is it my state of undress? If it bothers you, I could get dressed."

Eusilif stared at her as she carelessly tugged the robe closed, his expression souring.

Why would he possibly care what Arabella was wearing? He wanted to sneer as usual, but for some reason, even meeting her gaze felt uncomfortable.

Was it because the image of her — sweetly swallowing his blood and blindly suckling his fingers — still clung to some corner of his mind?

Her utter nonchalance, in such stark contrast to his own state, grated on him all the more.

Forcing his expression back to its usual blankness, he asked in a stiff voice, "Is your body truly recovered now?"

"Yes. Thanks to you. After resting properly, I finally feel like I might live."

At Arabella's words, Eusilif's eyes narrowed. Faced with that wary look, she blinked in confusion.

"What's wrong?"

"Thanks to me...? Why would you say that?"

At his question, she darted her eyes about, clearly realizing her slip. Seeing that face only deepened Eusilif's suspicion.

Don't tell me — does she know that I healed her? But how on earth could she?

She had been fast asleep at the time. And if she'd only been pretending, there was no way he would have failed to notice.

Sensing his gaze sharpen, Arabella let out a troubled sigh.

"Here's the thing... the truth is, I know. I know you used your blood to save me."

At her answer, his brow twitched, and his eyes flared with a savage light. She hurried on.

"I-I'm really, truly grateful! If it weren't for you, I would have brushed past death twice in a single day. I know you hate using that ability of yours. That's why I'm even more thankful. I mean it."

Arabella clasped her hands together and poured every ounce of sincerity into her eyes. But the stunned Eusilif couldn't see any of her effort at all.

...She even knows that? How, exactly?

His cursed regenerative ability did not, in fact, stop at self-healing.

Anyone who ingested or applied his bodily fluids could share in that miraculous regeneration, however briefly.

It couldn't cure long-standing illness, but healing wounds and inflammation or restoring someone's strength was more than possible.

The one confounding detail was that his regeneration didn't work equally on everyone.

The effects varied from person to person, and some felt almost nothing at all. For better or worse, Arabella happened to fall into the astonishingly receptive category.

But only three people in this world know that truth — me, my father, and my sister.

His father, Sheryen, had always warned him: if this ability ever came to light, he might spend his entire life being exploited as a cure for loathsome humans, living in endless agony.

And so he had desperately buried this extraordinary power for as long as he could remember.

Then who exactly is this woman...?

Could it be she had known everything from the very beginning? Was that why she'd bought him at the slave market without a moment's hesitation?

Did this woman know even the reason he'd come to the capital?

If that were really true—

His gaze turned suddenly feral. Before she could notice and open her mouth, his hand shot out with startling speed and seized her by the throat.

"So I should have just let you die. What a pointless act of kindness."

"Kkh—w-wait, Eusilif, wait—"

Arabella clawed desperately at his grip, but his hand, hard as stone or tree trunk, didn't budge an inch against her resistance.

"Tell me. How on earth do you know about my ability?"

"That's... that's — hah — you wouldn't understand even if I explained."

At her answer, his eyes grew colder and more murderous. Flushed crimson from the pressure on her throat, Arabella forced out her words in desperation.

"If I die, then Allin... Allin stays locked in the Magic Tower for the rest of her life. Is that... all right with you?"

In that instant, a genuine murderous intent flickered through Eusilif's dark crimson eyes. His grip tightened further, and Arabella's vision flashed white. Primal terror of death flooded her eyes until they brimmed with tears.

Thud.

The next moment, she crumpled to the floor as though flung aside.

"Koff— koff, hahh..."

Arabella heaved, coughing violently. Looking down at the woman he'd thrown away, Eusilif's eyes had sunk into an abyss, chilling enough to raise the hairs on one's neck.

Before he could do anything more, she scrambled to speak.

"I-I'll explain everything... eventually. Koff. Once I've rescued Allin and kept every promise I made to you... I'll tell you everything. I mean it. Koff."

His eyes, offering no reply, remained utterly frigid.

"And I swear, haah... I have no wicked intentions. None. I'm, I'm...! I just want to live, you bastard!"

The emotion burst out of her, the last words escaping almost as a full-throated cry.

I want to live. It was a desperate wail utterly unbecoming of a noble lady. Yet in that moment, her crumpled face held something so raw and urgent that it could only be read as genuine.

Meeting her eyes, Eusilif paused for a long moment before speaking.

"Then talk. Tell me how Allin can be saved. And don't even think about scheming or stalling for time."

"Koff..."

Clutching her throat, Arabella shot him a resentful glare, then hauled herself unsteadily to her feet.

"You're — koff — far too emotional."

Eusilif sneered.

"If I were truly emotional, you'd already be reuniting with your dear departed father in the great beyond."

"Now you're dragging my family into this?"

"You laid hands on my family first."

Their exchange had devolved into a petty squabble — one that came to an abrupt, forced end when Arabella's next coughing fit broke out worse than ever.