Chapter 106: A New Prologue -4-

One afternoon, while I was meticulously reexamining the defenses of the Cambenic estate in preparation for a potential surprise attack.

Buried under a mountain of paperwork, Kay’s ears caught the thunderous sound of hooves storming through the castle gates, racing madly toward the training grounds.

“My lord! A messenger from Camelot—no, Her Highness Alter has arrived, riding alone at a full gallop!”

Before his adjutant Calogrenant could even finish his urgent report,

Bang!

The office’s thick oak door burst open, and a lone knight clad in jet-black armor stormed inside, gasping for breath.

It was Artoria Alter—the woman who, even at twenty-five, looked exactly as she had at fifteen.

“B-brother…!”

She had ridden without pause from Camelot to Cambenic; beads of sweat dotted her pale forehead, and her usually immaculate hair was a tangled mess.

But more jarring than her disheveled appearance was her demeanor. The haughty, imperious dignity of the queen had vanished. Her eyes trembled like leaves in a storm, filled with utter anxiety and fear.

“Hey, Alter. What’s the occasion? You should’ve been in Camelot—and you come here without so much as a word…”

“A-are you hurt? You… you’re not wounded anywhere…?!”

Before Kay could finish speaking, Alter blurred forward as if using a teleportation art, grabbing his arms in a desperate grip.

Through the cold iron of her armor, he felt her hands shaking violently. Though she still used her usual informal tone, her voice cracked and trembled miserably.

“Y-you’re not hurt, are you? You didn’t… you didn’t bleed…?”

Alter probed Kay’s arms, chest, and even the nape of his neck, frantically searching for any sign of blood or injury.

She looked as desperate and fragile as a mother beast on the verge of losing her cub.

The same woman who would once have teased him with a light jab was now clutching his sleeve so hard it looked like she might burst into tears at any second.

“Calm down, Alter. I’m fine. Not a single scratch on me.”

Kay took her hands in his warm, firm grip, soothing her with a gentle yet resolute touch.

Only after Kay’s large, comforting palms touched her did Alter’s legs give out, and she collapsed to the floor.

“Ah… thank goodness. Thank God, brother… If… if anything had gone wrong… I—I…”

She buried her face, clutching the hem of Kay’s trousers. It was a picture of utter fragility and timidity, completely unlike the Alter he knew.

At that moment, Mordred, who had been sprawled on the office couch, propped herself up and puckered her lips.

“There she goes again, Mama Alter. I preferred it when you were all haughty and arrogant. Now you’re just like a lost puppy caught in the rain.”

Alter’s shoulders twitched and convulsed at Mordred’s brutally honest remark.

Kay also sighed bitterly. Mordred was spot on.

The Alter of the past had been a cocky, supremely confident figure—a high-and-mighty queen bee with a voracious appetite.

But years ago, after that horrific incident with the potion of hatred that struck Camelot, Alter’s personality had flipped completely.

The horrific memory remained burned deep into her mind.

Even if she had been under the drug’s influence, the fact that she had hurled abusive insults at Kay—calling him vermin, a parasite—and spewed murderous malice at the one she loved and depended on most had shattered her self-worth.

It was Kay who had saved her when she almost lost her life to Taquin’s monsters, and it had been Kay who had fed and supported them since their harsh childhood in Tintagel.

She had plunged into a pit of self-loathing as she reflected on her actions.

The reality that she had spent her life receiving only kindness from Kay, yet repaid his grace with hatred, cursing and wounding him.

She branded herself ungrateful trash, unworthy of being his sister or his lover.

That crushing guilt and remorse eventually ate away at her mind, turning her into someone who obsessively watched Kay’s every reaction, pathologically submissive… a broken shell of her former self.

“…Mordred’s right. I’m not fit to be a knight, much less a queen.”

Alter muttered with hollow eyes fixed on the floor.

“Hey, Alter. I told you until I was blue in the face that it was Merlin’s damned drug. It wasn’t your true self. You didn’t even stab me. So please, just shake off that ridiculous guilt.”

Kay crouched down, meeting her gaze as he comforted her, but his words didn’t seem to reach her.

She clasped his hand between both of hers, looking up at him with a desperate, almost manic gleam in her eyes.

“Um… brother… could you reconsider that favor I asked before…?”

“…That again?”

A deep crease formed between Kay’s brows.

“Sign a soul-level servitude contract with me.”

Alter’s voice was so heartrendingly desperate it bordered on eerie.

“I’ll hand over complete control of my body, soul, and magic circuits to you, brother. And if I ever get drugged or go mad and try to hurt you again… I want you to bind me with a curse in my brain so severe that one command from you will stop my heart and paralyze me. Only then can I rest easy… I just want to become your perfectly obedient dog… it’s better than turning into a monster.”

An extreme form of self-preservation, and a twisted manifestation of love.

This once-brilliant, noble black tyrant was now begging in a quivering voice to put a leash on herself and crawl as a slave.

Kay felt a pounding ache in his head and let out a heavy sigh. The potion had left a deep sickness in her soul.

“I refuse. I’m no twisted sorcerer—why would I put a leash on my own sister? It’s disgusting. In a relationship based on real love, you don’t do that. That’s slavery, not family or romance.”

Kay snapped tersely, then flicked Alter lightly on her rumpled forehead.

“Ouch…”

“That hurt, didn’t it? No matter what happens, you just stay by my side as my food-gobbling little sister, complaining as you devour burger patties. And while you’re at it, be the lover who supports me. Got it?”

“Ugh…”

Even after the flick, Alter, like a zealot receiving divine salvation, gazed at his large hand with a rapt and bittersweet expression, gently nuzzling her white cheek against it.

Her wounded heart had long surpassed the point where Kay’s delicious cooking alone could heal it.

“Aaah! This is so pathetic I can’t stand it!!”

At that moment, Mordred, who had been flopped on the couch, roughly mussed up her hair and shot to her feet.

She strode over and grabbed Alter by the scruff of her neck as she sat on the floor.

“Get up!”

“Huh? Mo-Mordred? What are you doing…?!”

Alter, flustered, was helplessly dragged to her feet.

“Dad said you did nothing wrong! So that’s that! Stop digging yourself into a hole and sobbing all the time! You’re driving me nuts!”

Mordred grumbled as she clenched Alter’s wrist firmly.

“Dad’s busy working, so leave him alone and come with me to hunt monsters in the woods! Let’s sweat out this dreary, damp depression for once! Whoever fails to catch one before dinner loses, okay?!”

With no room for argument, Mordred yanked Alter along and headed out of the office.

Mordred, whose raw strength was almost on par with Alter’s, dragged the mentally weakened Alter along so swiftly that the latter didn’t even have a chance to resist.

The two of them receded down the corridor.

“Hey, Mordred! Where do you think you’re going, leaving brother behind? Let go… let go of me…!”

“Quiet! Dad’s gonna grill up a mountain of burgers later, so empty your stomach, alright!”

“Bur-burgers! Ah, well… still…”

As their bickering voices faded away, Kay leaned against the window of the office and let out a soft chuckle.

Mordred’s brash energy—shoving the self-critical Alter out into action rather than offering drawn-out comfort or philosophical lectures—might just be a far more effective cure than a hundred of Kay’s own reassurances.

“Yeah… spending time colliding and running around like that is a hundred times better.”

Kay propped his chin on his hand as he gazed out at the lush forests of Cambenic.

Family bonds aren’t so fragile that a single drug can shatter them. Even if it takes time, sweating together and sharing body heat will gradually heal the wounds in her heart.

Kay’s silver eyes flickered sharply toward the dark shadows beyond the trees, where unseen enemies might lurk.

“That damned incubus who messed with my family and that piece of trash who fired those arrows… I’ll find them both and crush their skulls for a stew.”

The fierce anger that had simmered down while watching over his wounded sister now boiled coldly within his chest, poised to explode.

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