Chapter 55 \n<h1>I Don’t Want to be an Ojakgyo (55)</h1>\n
Young Shuraina’s mornings always began with running laps around the West family’s personal training hall.
Her short orange hair was ruffled by the wind. Shuraina wanted to become one of the most powerful knights in the royal palace: magical knights. To achieve that goal, she woke up at midnight and ran laps every day, even at such a young age.
Shuraina had a single reason for wanting to become a magical knight: it was because they were paid the most in the realm of civil servants. Shuraina, who remembered being a breadwinner at an early age, was trying her best to have a stable job from childhood.
She wasn’t particularly talented in swordsmanship, but Shuraina had always been a steadfast, hardworking person, even in her last life. She underwent difficult, grueling training sessions every day to improve her skills, and later she combined magic and swordsmanship together to improve her skills quite well.
Shuraina’s expression as she ran against the wind was more aggressive than usual. Shuraina, with her originally scary face and her sambaekan, had always been asked if she was angry even when she wasn’t, but now she was actually frowning so she looked more frightening than before.
‘The duke and his son will be coming today. Shushu, go play with him.’
Shuraina thought back to what her father, the West baron, had said to her that morning.
“Eugh, sounds like he’ll be coming soon. The little asshole.”
Shuraina muttered, scowling.
She thought about the little Blanche lord.
The little lord’s name was ‘Swanhaden Blanche’. He was someone that Shuraina really, really wanted to avoid.
The main reason why she wanted to avoid him was because of the horrible first impression she had of him. When the West and Blanche families began to visit each other, Swanhaden had come to her home with the duke.
The baron had touted about Shuraina’s skills and asked for her to duel with Swanhaden. Shuraina, who had defeated plenty of boys her age, had been confident. But Swanhaden defeated her in an instant.
Swanhaden easily defeated her and made a bored, annoyed expression. Swanhaden’s expression as he looked down at Shuraina had stuck itself in her mind.\nWhenever Shuraina bumped into Swanhaden, she read hatred and boredom on his face. But that expression wasn’t something that he just showed her: he looked at every single person with that same look. A bland, expressionless look that somehow held a deep, deep hatred. Shuraina didn’t like that Swan. It was more wariness than dislike, though.
That day was the same. Shuraina had finished her basic strength training and was practicing the sword as Swanhaden walked into the West training hall. Swanhaden, like the days before, didn’t look like he was in a good mood. Shuraina didn’t want to bump into him and wanted to go back to her room, but she didn’t want to show Swan that she was affected by him so stayed still.
Out of everybody Shuraina had ever seen, Swanhaden was the prettiest. From head to toe, he had a beauty that was pure white, without even a bit of darkness. But even though he was just a little kid, the gaze that Swanhaden showed wasn’t pretty at all.
Shuraina looked at Swanhaden, who had begun to use the training hall.
He had always worn long sleeves, but strangely, he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt today. Swan had always worn long sleeved shirts, even during warm weather. Shuraina had always thought that was weird, and was surprised to see him wearing short sleeves for once.
His exposed arms and legs were wrapped with white bandages. The parts where the bandages weren’t properly wrapped around exposed his skin, and she could spot scars on those parts. Swanhaden’s body was filled with big and small scars.
Shuraina wanted to ask about the scars, but it was obvious that he was sensitive about it: he was hiding it. So she just quietly watched Swan from the corner of her eyes.
Swanhaden was definitely an annoying brat, but if he had some kind of unspeakable reason for it, she could understand.
Shuraina didn’t want to pity him, but seeing such a little child walk around with scars on his body made her keep looking his way even when she didn’t want to.
Until now, the only thing that Swan had said to her was “Leave.” Shuraina knew that she would be rejected as soon as she approached him, so she decided to train instead of trying to start a conversation with him.
‘But he looks worse than usual today.’
She bit her lip in worry as she looked at Swan from the corner of her eyes.
His skin was already pale, but he was paler than usual today. There was no color in his lips, and the sound of his sword swinging wasn’t as powerful as last time.
Then, Swanhaden let out a small moan of pain mid-training.
“Eugh……..”
Swanhaden bent over slightly, frowning. The bandages on his arms and legs began to bleed red. Even though she had seen the wounds had become scars earlier, when she looked again, the scars had changed into wounds. The open wounds began to bleed profusely.\nStunned, Shuraina began to search for the emergency box at the corner of the training hall. She took out the bandages, disinfectant, and ointment before running to Swanhaden. He didn’t even move excessively; why was he suddenly bleeding? Shuraina frowned.
Swanhaden briefly looked at the blood on his hands. Then, he saw the bandages stained red and frowned harder.
“Damn it.”
Swanhaden murmured. Shuraina had never seen him say anything other than “Leave.” But now, she had heard something other than “Leave.” That word was “Damn it.”
Shuraina quietly approached Swan, who was in pain.
Swan wiped the blood on his body with his black clothes, staring at the approaching Shuraina with a displeased expression on his face.
If she touched any of his injuries to try and treat him, she was sure that he would be angry at her. She didn’t touch it.
‘Look how horrible his attitude is.’
Even as she cursed him in her mind, Shuraina threw him new bandages and medicine so he could treat himself. Swanhaden looked at the new bandages and medicine that Shuraina had given him and looked at her with a gaze that was just a second away from murdering her.
Swan stared blankly at the bandages she had given her and, without even a thank you, began to change his bandages. His scars, which had turned into wounds, were worse than Shuraina expected.
Swanhaden didn’t apply any medicine on the wounds and just changed his bandages. Interestingly, the wounds had changed back into scars. Swanhaden stuffed the bloodied bandages in his pocket and went back to training with his sword.
“Sir Swanhaden, the duke’s work is done. Let us head back.”
One of the people from the duke’s family came looking for Swanhaden. His training ended. Swanhaden nodded at the person who came to get him and began to gather his belongings.
As Swan headed out of the training hall, he approached Shuraina and opened his mouth.
“If you go around telling people about this, I’m going to kill you.”\n“Haha.”
Shuraina scratched her head at Hestia’s compliment and smiled shyly.