As always, Leon had another intense and long day today.

He woke up at dawn to complete his personal training, and in the morning he stopped by the Grand Temple to attend an event for ordinary believers. In the afternoon, he spent the entire time at the Holy Knights’ training ground, instructing the lower-ranked knights.

Due to his extremely tight schedule, he skipped meals as usual.

In fact, the schedule was just an excuse; he had been significantly reducing his food intake lately.

When his stomach was full and he had excess energy, those terrible symptoms appeared more frequently.

That cursed desire where suddenly the world would appear blood-red, and he would crave something terribly, like a blood-starved vampire.

When those symptoms first started, he didn’t even know what the nature of that craving was.

He simply thought it was some kind of fever. He believed he could heal it sufficiently with his holy power.

However, every time those symptoms occurred, his holy power was completely useless.

And not just his holy power.

His self-restraint, patience, and willpower that everyone praised. Everything became powerless in the face of that craving.

The first time he noticed the true nature of that craving was when Leon, weakened from struggling with the fever, went to see a healer at the temple.

‘Vice Captain, are you alright?’

Before the healer arrived, an apprentice cleric tried to place a hand on his forehead to check his temperature.

‘Huk.’

The moment the cleric’s skin overlapped with his hot body temperature, he swallowed a breath.

Because from the area where their body temperatures met, a shameful desire spread intensely.

It was a kind of craving he had never felt before in his life.

It felt as if a red beast was rising from within his stomach. He wanted to lick the other’s hand thoroughly with a hot tongue, and not satisfied with just that, he wanted to finally devour it.

It was a desire so immense it was frightening.

Leon, who was already weakened, grabbed the cleric’s hand abruptly in his delirious state. Then he buried his nose where the pulse was and inhaled deeply.

‘…?! Vice Captain?’

‘Ugh.’

Leon retched for a moment.

The smell.

Because a terrible odor suddenly wafted from the cleric. Leon reflexively threw his hand away.

‘Aack. Vice Captain! What on earth are you doing? Ouch, that hurts.’

That was the beginning.

Whenever he unconsciously reached out to people due to the surging desire, they smelled. Terrible stenches.

Every time the symptoms of lust appeared, all his senses became extremely sensitive, and he detected even the slightest physical reactions and emotions of humans in the form of smells.

‘Brother. Why are you suddenly…?’

Fear smells like red-hot iron on a blacksmith’s anvil.

‘Oh my. Young Master. You look a bit unwell now, shall I support you? Hoho.’

Cheap lust smells like a sewer.

‘Um, Young Master. Your eyes seem to be… a bit red right now. Are you alright?’

Disgust smells like rotting fish.

And from his own uncontrollable desire came a fishy and unfathomable smell. As if he had been covered in someone’s hot blood.

Since there were quite a few women who wanted to throw themselves at him, fulfilling his desire wasn’t actually a difficult task.

However, even when the temptation to do so arose after barely enduring his desire, once he smelled them, he simply couldn’t bring himself to touch their skin.

Because the terrible smells would overwhelm him to the point of dizziness.

Caught between desire and revulsion, he sometimes wanted to strangle himself, feeling like he would finally go mad.

If he didn’t have things to protect, if there weren’t people depending on him, he might have done so long ago.

The most frightening thing was that this cursed lust was growing increasingly uncontrollable.

‘Have I committed some taboo? Have I unknowingly done something to deserve such a terrible punishment from God?’

He had tried more than dozens of things to atone for sins he didn’t even know.

Confining himself in a small room of the temple for a month, fasting and praying, or whipping his bare body thousands of times.

Disposing of nearly half of the inheritance he had received in advance and donating it to the temple.

Volunteering for dangerous tasks that only criminals were mobilized for, damaging his body.

He even took care of senile elderly people, enduring all kinds of abuse, in the ward where old and sick high priests resided after retirement.

However, even after employing all the means of atonement he knew, the trap that constrained him only became more tenacious and powerful.

He became increasingly devastated throughout those times.

People who didn’t know better praised him, saying that Holy Knight Leon’s good deeds were becoming more and more astonishing.

But he knew. That one day, when he would be devoured by this desire, he would go completely mad. That a significant part of his humanity had already worn away, and he was only acting out the shell of a holy knight.

He didn’t mind if he died or went mad alone, but if that happened, everything he had protected would also collapse.

His family, his precious siblings, would be treated like trash under the stigma of a corrupted holy knight.

So he was enduring with all his might.

In the yoke of a corrupted holy knight that he could never deceive himself about, even if he could deceive others’ eyes.

However, there was something even more painful than such self-loathing.

‘If only I could hold someone’s hand, just one hand, to cool this heat.’

On nights when he satisfied himself alone after panting with desire, and curled up under the moonlight, an intense loneliness would wash over him.

This filthy desire that he dared not confess to anyone.

The terrible craving to touch someone’s skin.

Could there be someone who could fulfill it without hating, fearing, or mocking it?

‘No. Never.’

Even if such a person existed, they certainly wouldn’t be normal.

Perhaps they would be as mad as himself.

That’s what he thought and gave up.

‘I…’

‘I hope you’ll be happy.’

She really appeared.

A woman who said such crazy things.

“Hah! Haah!”

Even as he swung his sword like mad in the training ground all afternoon, Leon simply couldn’t shake that woman from his mind.

In fact, it had been like this for the past few days.

‘I can help you.’

Crazy woman.

‘Did you think… that no one had noticed?’

Terribly suspicious woman.

‘Cough, cough.’

A woman with an extremely thin and white nape that fit entirely in his grasp.

“Haah! Yah!”

“I yield, I yield! Please have mercy, Vice Captain!”

The knights who had been sparring 5 against 1 with Leon all fell, pretending to die. However, that woman showed no sign of leaving his mind.

“Uwaah!”

Crunch, bang.

Finally, even the training dummy that had endured his attacks rolled on the ground.

Huff. Huff.

Thick beads of sweat dotted the dirt floor of the training ground.

But. Still. No matter how much he gritted his teeth!

It was still vivid in his mind.

That woman’s soft and cool skin that cooled his mad heat.

Her spine bones that slid nicely under his fingers as they protruded beautifully.

Her eyes that had a strangely flowery color.

Above all, that woman’s body scent that was purely fragrant without any mixed odors.

‘Why? How?’

Does that woman not have any human-like desires or emotions?

‘That can’t be.’

It’s impossible for a human to have no desires. Where on earth is there a human who is only clean without a speck of dirty emotions?

But her breath was incredibly clean, unbelievably so.

As if she had let go of all foolish expectations about the world and become free.

He was able to face a person without holding his breath for the first time in a very long time.

‘Get a grip. If this is a curse as that woman said, shouldn’t I be thinking of a way to break free from it?’

‘I hope you’ll be happy.’

Instead of recalling such lip service, such nonsense.

“Uwaah!”

Leon finally threw his sword far away.

The sword flew between the frightened knights and embedded itself in the stone wall of the training ground.

Huff. Huff.

Beads of sweat that rose from his scalp flowed down his entire body like rain.

His arms, now numb even to pain, trembled.

He bit his lip.

“How dare you. Who are you to…”

Gasp. Gasp.

In the hot afternoon sunlight, his eyes shone brightly.

And yet.

After spending such a pathetic day and barely returning home, she appeared before him like a lie.

‘Sir Leon.’

‘Has it been a week?’

To be precise, it had been 8 days.

The fact that he knew so exactly how many days had passed since meeting her was pathetically miserable to himself.

Her unusually tired-looking pale face, fatigued appearance, and languid body scent also disturbed his mind.

‘…Did I invite you?’

Even as he uttered those words, he knew. That his unbearable desire had already begun to respond to her appearance.

To hide his own desire that was starting to grow heavy, he hurriedly turned his back coldly.

‘Guide her to the study on the second floor. I’ll wash up and come.’

He needed time to cool his desire first.

To avoid making a fool of himself in front of that suspicious woman.

To avoid being foolishly deceived or used.

“I’ve drawn a bath for you, Lord Leon.”

Passing by the servant who bowed politely, he entered the bathroom and poured cold water over himself instead of the warm, steaming bathwater.

Splash.

Haa. Haa.

Even drenched in ice-cold water, steam still rose from the top of his head.

He glared at the mirror across from him. In it, a madman who looked like a drowned rat glared back at him.