The Obsession of a Fallen Paladin

13. To Tame a Dangerous Beast (2)

As always, Leon had another intense and long day.

He woke up at dawn, completed his personal training, attended a public event for ordinary believers at the cathedral in the morning, and spent the entire afternoon guiding the training of junior knights in the training grounds of the Holy Knights Order.

The schedule was so tight that he skipped meals as usual.

In fact, the schedule was just an excuse; he had drastically reduced his food intake lately.

When his stomach was full and his energy levels high, those terrible symptoms appeared more frequently.

The cursed desires that made the world suddenly appear blood-red, making him crave something intensely like a vampire starved for blood.

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

He thought it was just a fever and believed he could heal it with his holy power.

But every time those symptoms appeared, his holy power was utterly useless.

Not just his holy power.

His much-praised self-control, patience, and willpower—all were powerless against that craving.

He first realized the true nature of that craving when, weakened by the fever, he sought out the healer at the temple.

‘Commander, are you alright?’

Before the healer arrived, an apprentice priest tried to take his temperature by placing a hand on his forehead.

‘Gasp.’

The moment the priest’s skin touched his burning flesh, Leon gasped.

An intense, shameful desire spread from the point of contact.

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

It felt like a red beast was rising in his belly. It wanted to lick every inch of the priest’s hand with its hot tongue, and ultimately, it wanted to devour it.

The desire was so immense it was terrifying.

Weakened as he was, Leon grabbed the priest’s hand in a daze. He buried his nose in the pulse point and inhaled deeply.

‘…?! Commander?’

‘Ugh.’

Leon gagged immediately.

The smell.

A horrible stench emanated from the priest.

Instinctively, Leon flung the priest’s hand away.

‘Ah, Commander! What are you doing? It hurts!’

That was the beginning.

Every time he unconsciously reached out to people driven by surging desire, they emitted a smell. Horrible stenches.

Whenever his lustful symptoms flared up, his senses became incredibly sensitive, and he could detect the faintest human physical reactions and emotions in the form of smells.

‘Brother, what’s wrong all of a sudden…?’

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

‘Oh my, Grand Duke. You look a bit troubled, should I help you? Hoho.’

Cheap lust smelled like a sewer.

‘Uh, Grand Duke. Your eyes seem a bit red… Are you alright?’

Disgust smelled like rotting fish.

And his uncontrollable desires had a fishy, overwhelming smell, like being drenched in someone’s hot blood.

Plenty of women wanted to throw themselves at him, so satisfying his desires wasn’t difficult.

But whenever the temptation to give in and sate his desires arose, the stench they emitted made it impossible to touch their skin.

The overwhelming stench made him dizzy.

Caught between desire and repulsion, he sometimes wanted to strangle himself.

Had there been nothing he needed to protect, no people relying on him, he might have done it already.

The most terrifying part was that this cursed lust was growing increasingly uncontrollable.

‘Did I break some taboo? Have I committed a sin deserving such a horrible punishment from the gods without knowing it?’

He had tried countless ways to atone for a sin he didn’t even understand.

He locked himself in a temple cell for a month, fasting and praying, or flogged his bare body thousands of times.

He donated nearly half of his pre-inherited wealth to the temple.

He volunteered for dangerous tasks reserved for criminals, damaging his body in the process.

He even took care of senile elderly priests in the retirement ward, enduring their insults.

But despite using every means of atonement he knew, the trap tightening around him only grew more persistent and powerful.

During those times, he became increasingly worn out.

Those who didn’t know better praised the Holy Knight Leon for his astonishing acts of charity.

But he knew. One day, when consumed by this desire, he would go completely mad. His humanity had already eroded significantly, and he was merely playing the role of a holy knight.

He didn’t mind dying or going mad alone, but if that happened, everything he had protected would crumble with him.

His family, his beloved younger siblings—they would be treated as garbage under the stigma of a fallen holy knight.

So he held on with all his might.

Trapped in the guise of a holy knight, fooling others but never himself.

However, what pained him more than that self-loathing was something else.

‘If only I could hold someone’s hand and cool this fever.’

When he was alone, gasping from desire, satisfying himself, and curling up under the moonlight, a profound loneliness overwhelmed him.

This filthy desire he dared not confess to anyone.

The intense longing to touch someone’s skin.

Could there be someone who wouldn’t hate, fear, or mock this and could fulfill this need?

‘No. Never.’

Even if there were such a person, they wouldn’t be normal.

They’d be as mad as he was.

He had given up, thinking that way.

‘I….’

‘I want you to be happy.’

She had truly appeared.

A woman who uttered such insane words.

“Ha! Haaap!”

All afternoon, swinging his sword madly in the training ground, Leon couldn’t shake her from his mind.

In truth, it had been this way for the past few days.

‘I can help you.’

A crazy woman.

‘Did you think no one would notice?’

A deeply suspicious woman.

‘Cough, cough.’

A woman with a terribly slender and white neck that fit perfectly in his grasp.

“Haaap! Hyap!”

“I surrender, I surrender! Please have mercy, Commander!”

The knights, who had been sparring with Leon five to one, all collapsed, pretending to be dead. Yet the woman wouldn’t leave his mind.

“Uraaaah!”

Crash, thud.

Finally, even the training ground’s straw dummy couldn’t withstand his assault and toppled over.

Huff, huff.

Thick beads of sweat dripped onto the dirt floor of the training ground.

But no matter how hard he clenched his teeth!

She was still vividly in his mind.

Her soft, cool skin that had soothed his burning fever.

Her spine, rising beautifully beneath his fingers.

Her eyes, with their strange, flower-petal hue.

Most of all, her scent—untainted by any foul odor, purely fragrant.

‘How? Why?’

Did she lack human desires and emotions?

‘That’s impossible.’

It’s impossible for a human to have no desires at all. Where in the world is there a person entirely free of dirty emotions?

Yet her breath was unbelievably clean.

As if she had cast off all foolish expectations of the world and become free.

For the first time in a long while, he could face someone without holding his breath.

‘Get a grip. If what she says is true, and this is a curse, then I need to find a way to break it.’

‘I want you to be happy.’

Instead of recalling such flowery, nonsensical words.

“Uraaaah!”

Leon finally threw his sword away.

The sword flew through the air and embedded itself in the stone wall of the training ground, causing the startled knights to cower.

Huff, huff.

Sweat poured down his body like rain from his scalp.

His arm, so numb from exertion that it lacked any feeling, trembled violently.

He bit his lip.

“Dare. Who do you think you are.”

Huff. Huff.

In the hot afternoon sun, his eyes gleamed fiercely.

* * *

Yet.

After such a pitiful day and barely making it home, she appeared before him as if by magic.

‘Sir Leon.’

‘It’s been a week.’

Precisely eight days.

He found it pathetic that he knew exactly how many days had passed since meeting her.

Her strangely exhausted, pale face and tired expression, along with her languid scent, unsettled him.

‘Did I invite you?’

Even as he spoke, he knew. His loathsome desire had already begun to respond to her presence.

To hide the heavy desire building within him, he quickly turned away coldly.

‘Follow the butler to the second-floor study. I’ll go wash up.’

He needed time to cool his desire.

If he didn’t want to show disgrace in front of that suspicious woman.

If he didn’t want to be deceived or used recklessly.

“Your bath is ready, Sir Leon.”

Ignoring the servant who bowed respectfully, Leon entered the bathroom and drenched himself in cold water instead of the warm bath prepared for him.

Splash.

Huff. Huff.

Even with ice-cold water pouring over him, steam rose from his head.

He glared at the mirror opposite him. In it, a madman, looking like a drowned rat, glared back.