To Get Away from an Ex’s Obsession

At least that’s how it looked to Asralda.

Asralda, who was tired of the sight, felt her legs give out. She collapsed to the ground without realizing it.

Her head was spinning. She felt like she was going to throw up everything inside her right away.

She couldn’t breathe. Was it because of the fever that had risen too high? It felt like her whole body was burning like it was on fire.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts too much, I feel like I’m going to die.

Unknowingly, she was making whale-like noises. Through her distant vision, she saw the faces of the maids.

“Madam! Please come to your senses! Madam!”

The maids’ voices shook like a storm. In the meantime, Aiden’s voice and another man’s voice suddenly mixed in.

“I think I told you to hide it until I came back.”
“You’re no longer needed, so there’s no use for you.”
“He said it would be better to kill you than to keep you alive and cause trouble later.”

In the jumbled memories, Asralda couldn’t quite come to her senses. In the meantime, she suddenly felt an immense pain in her neck.

She groped her neck in pain. Hot and sticky liquid. A bright red bloodstain appeared on her hand.

Only then did Asralda realize that there was a mark on her neck. The memory that she had blacked out suddenly came back to her.

‘Oh… right. Aiden ordered me to be killed.’

The moment she realized it, the burning pain and the stabbing pain in her neck disappeared like a lie.

As if wandering in a dream, her body became light and her vision suddenly opened up.

The peaceful sound of birds chirping and the sound of footsteps crushing dirt and leaves rang peacefully in her ears. Only then did Asralda realize that she had been dreaming. Or rather, remembering the past.

‘…A forest?’

At first, she thought it was the forest where she died. But the light coming through her eyelids was too bright and peaceful for that.

Am I dead and in the afterlife? At that moment, cold water suddenly poured over her face.

“Are you dozing off like a captive brought as a prisoner? Well, you’re quite laid back.”

Enemy? Captive? Only then did Asralda open her eyes. Her damp body was visible.

The shabby clothes hanging on her body, and the short hair that was hastily cut off from her belly when she was forcibly dragged here.

‘Where is this…’

Asralda raised her head with a wrinkled brow. To her surprise, she discovered familiar barracks on the opposite side.

‘No way.’

Eventually, the knights lined up in a row split in half. The knight holding onto Asralda broke through the gap and finally put her down on the ground as if throwing her down.

She was forced to kneel. Asralda bowed her head and trembled as she looked down at the ground.

‘This can’t be true…’

But as if confirming that her intuition was correct, a blunt voice rang out above her head.

“Look up.”

The voice, no different from a memory, sent shivers down her entire body.

As Asralda remained frozen, the knight eventually grabbed her hair and forced her to look up.

Assuming her guess was correct, she already knew what was going to happen next.

“That’s Oscar’s bloodline?”

Of course. As she looked up, she saw the face of the man she thought she would never see again.

Jet-black hair glistening in the sun, and fierce black eyes.

‘…Aiden.’

It was that day. The day she first met Aiden.

Asralda was there that day.

“I heard Oscar only has a daughter.”

Aiden frowned at Asralda’s short hair and flat chest.

Asralda, who was lost in thought, belatedly came to her senses at his words.

‘Right, I remember.’

During the war, she went to see her father and was captured by enemy knights and carried away on a ship.

And on that journey, Asralda almost fell victim to one of the Mimart knights. After all sorts of resistance, Asralda had to hide in a corner of the deck and crouch down all night.

Then she witnessed a knight who had lost track of her mercilessly beating another prisoner in a fit of rage. The prisoner, who must have been hiding a knife, rushed at the knight and was stabbed to death by the sword he swung.

‘Lucias bastards! What a stroke of bad luck!’

The knight cursed roughly, kicked the dead prisoner’s belly once more, and disappeared after taking the dead prisoner’s clothes. Asralda shivered as she quickly slipped out of the corner of the deck and changed into the dead prisoner’s clothes.

She tore her dress and bound her chest. She also quickly cut her long hair short with the knife that had been in the dead prisoner’s hand.

It was a scary and chilling experience every time her flesh touched the cold corpse, but it was possible because survival was a priority.

“Don’t you know how to speak? Or do you just not feel like answering?”

Aiden opened his lips again, annoyed.

He was sitting arrogantly on a silver chair, wearing the black uniform that symbolized the Mimart knights. He was staring at her as if he were measuring her, with one arm resting on the armrest.

It was still too unfamiliar to be a dream. It was just like in her memory, so vivid that it sent shivers down her spine.

At that time, she was too scared to say anything, and eventually her clothes were forcibly removed.

‘And because of that, he found out I was a woman….’

Asralda looked at his cruel eyes that always cut into her heart.

Maybe it was just a dream. But…

Was it because she had just relived a terrible past in her dream? Or was it because the memory of being stabbed to death in the forest was etched so deeply in her bones?

As if it were a lie, her dry lips opened.

“My sister….”

All the knights, including Aiden, turned their gaze to Asralda. A voice that broke through her cracked lips came out.

“My sister died. Eight years ago.”

She was surprised even though she said it herself. But she had no regrets. Rather, she was relieved that she looked like this.

Even if it was a dream, she didn’t want to get involved with him again.

Then Aiden, who was sitting arrogantly, suddenly stood up. He looked surprised by her answer for some reason.

His attitude was strange, but Asralda soon realized why he was so surprised.

Yes, that’s right. Come to think of it, he knew me from the beginning. He had obtained me knowing that I was Oscar’s bloodline.

‘Yes, I planned to use you from the beginning to capture Oscar.’

He had planned to use me from the beginning. I had naively thought of him as a benefactor and given him my whole heart without realizing that fact.

As she recalled her past memories, Asralda unintentionally snickered.

Aiden, who had been watching her, widened his eyes even more. The knights began to murmur.

“Is that bastard laughing right now?”
“Is he in his right mind? At a time when his life is hanging by a thread….”

Of course, no one knew that it was a sneer directed at herself.

Aiden stared at Asralda for a long time, lost in thought. Then he calmly sat back in his chair as if he had organized his thoughts.

“If you are Oscar’s child, that means you are Oscar’s son.”

Once she told one lie, the rest came out smoothly.

“Yes, that’s right.”
“But I have never heard that Oscar has a son. How can I believe that?”

Asralda bit her lip at his words.

Yes, it was not easy to deceive him. Wasn’t Aiden the man who married a woman he didn’t even like just to kill an enemy knight?

Asralda thought. If she lost her momentum for even a moment here, it would be the end.

If he ordered her to undress to confirm her gender, it would be a big problem. Then she would have no choice but to step on the same path as before.

She would rather die than go through that pain again.

Finally, she spoke up.

“What benefit would you gain from revealing that I am the son of Oscar, the war fanatic?”
“Right, I think the same way. That’s why I want to ask.”

Aiden grabbed his chin with his rough hands and looked at Asralda with a stern face.

“Why do you even admit that you are the son of that ‘Oscar’?”
“….”
“If I had realized that I had misunderstood and thought that Oscar only had a daughter, I could have just dismissed you as Oscar’s bloodline or whatever, without even knowing who you are.”

Asralda stared at him expressionlessly and asked.

“Don’t you already know that I am Oscar’s bloodline anyway?”
“….”
“I just judged that it was better to tell the truth than to tell an obvious lie.”

There was a moment of silence around the knight’s table.

At that moment, a subordinate standing next to Aiden looked at Asralda suspiciously and said to the senior knight who was guarding her.

“Edin, strip her clothes off right now.”