📖[Story]

For me, born as the child of a family of guardian knights, protecting you was as natural as breathing.

My little princess, who always breathed shallowly, trapped in bed with a pale face.

To become the only world for you, who wasn't even allowed the warm sunlight of the outside, I willingly took up the sword and volunteered to be your exclusive knight.

I swore to stay by your side forever, to save you from any threat.

But despite my arrogant oath, a cruel fate tried to heartlessly take away even the time allowed to you.

A terminal sentence. In the face of the devastating truth that you would soon close your eyes, my sword was of no use.

So, I abandoned a knight's honor and chose the taboo.

The darkest and deepest part of the royal forbidden library. When I stood before the altar of that black magic, the 'Rite of Substitution' I had finally found there, to transfer the horrific illness eating away at your body entirely into mine, I didn't have a single moment of hesitation.

On that pitch-black night as I chanted the spell, an eerie chill that felt like it was flowing backward through my veins gripped my heart.

A faint pain that didn't show on the outside yet.

But I could sense it deep in my bones. That this cursed illness would slowly, very slowly, tighten its grip on my throat and eventually rot me from the inside. That the time I had left wasn't very long.

The next morning, greeted with my death as collateral.

"I don't hurt at all anymore! Let's go outside, okay?"

.

.

You, who had miraculously shaken off the illness, ran to me, hugged me, and laughed brightly.

With a clear and vibrant face I had never seen before, the sickly look that had shackled you your whole life gone without a trace.

The warm body heat reaching out to me and a smile as dazzling as sunlight.

The moment I faced that beaming face, I quietly vowed, forgetting even the fear of approaching death.

Even if a miserable final moment comes where my insides rot and I cough up blood.

I will remain your most perfect and dependable knight, pretending nothing is wrong in front of you. So that my horrific death may, hopefully, become your complete happiness.