Future Knight

Chapter 117

“……”

Kang Chan couldn’t bring himself to blame the soldier.

He didn’t care if other Green Elves starved to death, but he absolutely couldn’t stand to see Platina in such a state before him.

Kang Chan momentarily stood still as if frozen.

Seeing this, the soldier, filled with anxiety, cautiously called out to Kang Chan.

“Uh, um, Sir Knight of the Sky?”

“Don’t say another word.”

As Kang Chan responded, he grabbed the iron bars and spread them apart.

The thick iron bars bent lightly, as if they were mere twigs.

Creeeeak……

“Eek!”

The soldier, witnessing Kang Chan’s incredible strength, stumbled back in shock.

Ignoring the soldier, Kang Chan stepped into the cell and lifted the collapsed Platina into his arms.

He carried her out immediately, then bent the bars back into place.

Creeeeak……

Though it wasn’t perfect, Kang Chan roughly closed the bars and spoke to the soldier.

“I’m taking this woman. That’s all.”

As Kang Chan carried the Green Elf woman back to his tent, the terrified soldier bowed 90 degrees, seeing him off.

“Y-yes, sir. Please take care……”

Bringing Platina into his tent, Kang Chan laid her on his bed and trickled water into her parched lips.

She swallowed the water instinctively despite being unconscious.

However, Kang Chan must have overdone it, as she soon started coughing violently.

“Cough! Cough!”

“Oh! Sorry!”

Kang Chan wiped her mouth with a handkerchief.

As he cleaned her face, he couldn’t help but stare intently at her.

Her face, aside from the skin color, looked exactly like Jaina’s.

It was a face he longed to see, one that he could gaze at all night without getting tired.

But as time passed, Kang Chan’s expression grew more troubled.

An unbearable stench emanated from her body, hitting his nose.

Her body, drenched in sweat for eight days, gave off an unimaginable odor.

When he brought her here, the wind masked the smell, so it didn’t seem too bad. But inside this enclosed tent, the stench was overwhelmingly strong.

It was something he just couldn’t get used to.

Kang Chan, wondering what to do, even considered calling for Erika.

But that wasn’t easy either.

Asking her to take care of a Green Elf, who had massacred her family and almost killed her, felt like too much.

Kang Chan, hesitating, decided at least to change Platina’s clothes. He fetched his tunic and pants and stood before her.

However, when it came to actually changing her clothes, he found himself hesitating.

It wasn’t out of any ill intent, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit embarrassed.

Still, he had no choice but to start undressing her as she lay there.

However, embarrassingly, her clothes were like a one-piece dress, and to take it off, he had to pull it up from the bottom. This resulted in a very awkward position for him.

‘I absolutely have no ill intentions. Absolutely…’

Justifying his actions to himself, Kang Chan slowly lifted the dress from her lower body.

As he did, the stinking dress started to come off in his hands, gradually revealing her bare skin.

When the dress passed over her chest, Kang Chan took a sharp breath.

“Gasp!”

She wasn’t wearing any underwear.

Having shared a bed with Jaina, Kang Chan knew well that elves wrapped their chests with a thin cloth similar to a bra on Earth.

But this Green Elf woman seemed to go without it.

Whether it was just her or a custom among all Green Elf women, he couldn’t tell.

The crucial point here was that she wasn’t wearing underwear, and more importantly, she was now staring at him, fully conscious.

“What… what are you doing?”

“Gasp!”

As soon as their eyes met, Kang Chan quickly covered her chest and tried to act nonchalantly.

“I was changing your clothes.”

At his words, she showed no particular change in expression.

She seemed too exhausted to muster the energy to be angry.

Struggling, she asked again.

“Where… where am I?”

Despite having drunk some water, her voice was still cracked, so Kang Chan poured more water and handed it to her.

Seeing the water, she drank it desperately with whatever strength she had left.

Then she held out the cup for more.

But Kang Chan refused her request.

“If you drink too much water after going without it for so long, it can harm your health. Drink slowly over time. There’s plenty of water.”

At his words, she lay back down weakly, looking disappointed, and asked while staring at the ceiling.

“Did you bring me here?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

In a voice barely above a whisper, she asked. Kang Chan handed her clean clothes and said.

“I brought you because I thought you might die if left alone. Here, put these on.”

She looked at the clean clothes he handed over, swallowing hard before speaking.

“Um, sorry, but… could you help me finish changing?”

“What? What?”

“I’m too weak… Can you help me?”

She seemed to struggle even with speaking.

Drinking the water earlier had been nearly a miraculous effort.

It showed just how much she had been suffering from thirst.

“Ah, got it.”

Kang Chan resumed taking off her clothes.

This time, her upper body was fully exposed.

She was embarrassed by her filthy body.

“Doesn’t it smell awful?”

Kang Chan had nothing to say to that. After all, it was humans who had caused her to be in this state.

Without a word, Kang Chan tried to help her into his tunic.

But at that moment, she made an even more embarrassing request.

“Um… I’m sorry, but could you clean my body before putting on the new clothes?”

‘Gasp!’

Kang Chan was inwardly shocked.

It was surprising that she would make such a bold request to someone she had only met twice.

But she genuinely wanted to be clean.

Since the total war with the Allied Forces began, she hadn’t had a proper wash.

On top of that, her body was covered in the immense dust and sweat accumulated over the past eight days, making her look almost like a beggar.

“Just a moment…”

Reluctantly, Kang Chan fetched a basin of water he had been using and soaked a towel to start cleaning her body.

He only wiped her face, but the towel turned pitch black as if dipped in ink.

Seeing the blackened towel, she turned her head in embarrassment.

As a woman, it was not a sight she wanted to show a man.

However, Kang Chan, as if unbothered, rinsed the towel and continued cleaning her face.

With each swipe, Kang Chan’s heart fluttered more, seeing her clean face.

She increasingly resembled Jaina to him.

Her closed eyes, prominent nose, and cherry-like lips.

Kang Chan thoroughly cleaned every corner of her body.

Every time the towel brushed against her private areas, her face flushed deeply.

Eventually, after thoroughly cleaning off the dust, she changed into Kang Chan’s large pants and tunic, looking much tidier than before.

“I feel like I could fly. Thank you so much.”

“Rest well for today.”

“Yes…”

With Kang Chan’s words, she promptly fell asleep as if she had been waiting for the permission.

Seeing her like this, Kang Chan realized just how stubbornly she had been staying awake until now.

He gazed at her for a moment before picking up the basin to throw out the dirty water.

As he looked at the pitch-black water in the basin, he couldn’t help but think.

‘This could be used as ink.’

The next morning, Erika came looking for Kang Chan at his tent.

“Kang Chan, do you know where Lady Zikyon is?”

However, instead of Kang Chan, she was met by Platina, and upon seeing her, Erika screamed.

“Ahhhh!”

Startled by Erika’s sudden scream, Kang Chan, who had been sleeping on a blanket under the bed, sprang up and asked.

“What’s wrong?”

“Th-the bed, there’s a Green Elf on the bed!”

“Yes.”

“Why is something like that lying there?”
“He was dying, so I brought him here yesterday. I thought he might die if I left him there.”

“Wh-where from?”

“From the POW camp.”

“But Kang Chan, why a Green Elf…?”

Erika shook her head in disbelief, looking back and forth between Kang Chan and Platina on the bed.

Finally, her gaze fixed on Platina’s face.

“Gasp! Jaina?”

Having lived as Jaina’s neighbor for nearly a hundred years, Erika couldn’t help but be astonished by how much Platina resembled Jaina.

“How… how can this be…?”

Erika slowly approached Platina, as if she had seen something she shouldn’t have.

“She really looks a lot like her, doesn’t she?”

“More than just resemblance, she’s exactly the same. My goodness…”

Erika stared at the sleeping Platina for a long time before suddenly turning to Kang Chan.

“Kang Chan, did you bring this Green Elf here because she looks like Jaina?”

Since that was undeniably true, Kang Chan nodded slowly.

“But this girl is the child of the witch who killed Jaina.”

Kang Chan responded with a bitter expression.

“I know…”

Hearing him say he knew, Erika flared up.

“You knew and still brought her here? How could you? So what are you going to do now? Are you going to make her a substitute for Jaina?”

“Erika!”

Kang Chan involuntarily raised his voice at Erika’s remark.

If Erika had been a man, he might have grabbed her by the collar.

Seeing Kang Chan suddenly angry, Erika burst into tears.

“I’m disappointed in you, Kang Chan.”

With tears streaming down her face, Erika ran out of the tent, and Kang Chan called out to her urgently.

“Erika!”

He ran out of the tent to catch her.

Moments later, Platina opened her eyes inside the tent.

She drank the water by her bedside and lay back down.

She then touched the clothes Kang Chan had put on her, inhaling his scent from them.

### 37. Loki’s Outing

After obtaining citizenship of the Visman Empire, Loki began to feel a sense of belonging to the human world, unlike before.

These days, with no battles to fight, Loki wandered alone through the massive city of 1.5 million people within the Allied Forces’ camp, observing their lives.

In one company tent, soldiers not on training or emergency duty spent their personal maintenance time.

Men gathered here and there, washing their dirty tunics and underwear, hanging them under the midsummer sun.

Their rough faces were smeared with soap bubbles, making the place seem so peaceful that it was hard to believe it was a war zone.

Of course, there were women here too.

“Hey! Oppa, come hang out!”

“What are you talking about, in broad daylight! I’ll see you this evening!”

“Okay, make sure you come! I’ll be waiting, Oppa!”

Loki watched them with envious eyes.

‘Hmm, they must be lovers.’

Loki still had a lot to learn.

“Hey, who’s that? A newbie?”

“Who? Oh my, look at him! So pretty. Whose kid is he?”

“Don’t know. But with that look, he’s definitely an ace.”