TTEWD 08

Episode 8. To Avoid Being Abandoned by My Beautiful Master

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? It’s because the master is going to abandon me!”

Enrik had started seriously blaming me.

“You’ve been stressing me out and now you’re pretending you don’t know? You said if I don’t even have a name and I’m useless, you’d throw me out!”

He grumbled in a resentful tone. It didn’t feel rude or annoying.

If anything, I almost felt like laughing. When I kept my mouth shut, Enrik crossed his arms.

“Now that you know my name, you won’t kick me out, right?”

His attitude was bold, as if demanding a reward.

A name proved nothing. There was still a chance he was a spy from Colonatus.

There was no arena in the imperial palace. Nor did I need a slave so handsome that he would ruin the maids’ productivity.

The scandal surrounding Enrik and me was only growing worse. There were countless reasons to throw him out.

And yet, I was still hesitating. Enrik seemed deeply hurt.

“You’re still thinking about it? That’s really too much!”

“I don’t need a gladiator slave.”

It was something I said to convince myself, not him. Enrik, who I thought would get angry, instead moved as if he had been waiting for this.

He walked to the window he had climbed through and pulled up a large black sack.

“I figured you’d say that, so I prepared something.”

“What is that?”

“A rat who was secretly spying on you, Master.”

What Enrik set down wasn’t just a sack, but a man wrapped tightly in a black cloak.

Kicking the unconscious man—his nose clearly broken—Enrik grinned.

His eyes sparkled like a hunting dog waiting for praise.

“I caught him. While your knights were nodding off.”

“I thought you couldn’t fight.”

“I can. And I’m pretty good at it.”

“Then why did you keep running away in the arena?”

“If I fight, I have to kill. If I want to win without killing, the only way is to run.”

It was my first time seeing it that day—a match that ended without anyone dying.

Enrik had turned himself into a spectacle and saved a life.

Why would a man who seemed arrogant even before elite knights try to save a slave?

“Those guys there were nice to me.”

Enrik smiled without pretense.

A child abandoned by his mother. A child who suffered in the name of God. A child who lived as a black insect in the arena—yet he smiled.

That smile was so pure and untainted that, for a moment, I felt as though I had been saved.

Even if it was just an illusion… it was enough.

“Would this be enough to become your guard knight, Master?”

His golden eyes were filled with burning desire and hope.

So this was the way you found—to avoid being abandoned by the master you had chosen.

Enrik had remembered the name he had forgotten and found a new role beyond being a gladiator slave.

And while he was trying so hard… I had been trying to die.

*‘Is the method you found really just suicide? You’ve already died once, and now you’re going to drink poison given by a husband who isn’t truly a husband, and a father who isn’t truly a father? How foolish, Stella! No wonder you’ve been used your entire life!’*

Even after returning, I believed I couldn’t escape the fate surrounding me.

Because I couldn’t use my legs. Because I had never learned what happiness was.

They weren’t lies—but they were excuses.

Excuses not to run from what was familiar.

Excuses not to give up a life of elegance and luxury.

Excuses not to resist or fight.

It was so easy to curl up like a wounded child and blame the empire and Clifford for ruining my life.

I acted noble, as if sacrificing for my homeland, as if bearing all responsibility—when in truth, I was nothing but a tamed slave.

I simply lacked the courage to fight fiercely.

*‘What are you afraid of, Stella? Are you going to throw away even this second chance you barely got?’*

I shook my head violently. It felt as though a red-hot spear pierced through my body.

I hadn’t wanted to return, but now that I had, I couldn’t waste time meaninglessly.

At best a few months, at most a few years—my life wasn’t long.

If I wanted to make the most of the time I had left, what should I do?

What did I truly want?

*“The heart matters most. Once it’s wounded, the scar never truly heals.”*

The man who said that was looking at me now, clenching his fist, listening to my heart.

Like a firefly drifting in the night sky—small and fragile, yet undeniably alive—something within me was finally given space.

It felt awkward at first, but over time that small light grew clearer, shining brighter and brighter,

until it became a radiant brilliance that engulfed the entire world.

*‘Just once… I want to live freely. Not out of duty, but for my own happiness…!’*

After losing my precious family and being abandoned by Clifford, I had lost my purpose in life.

*‘So what if you don’t have one? You can find it from now on.’*

Something hot, something I had never felt before, filled my throat.

Feeling my heart pounding strongly, I looked up at Enrik.

If I ever found happiness I had never known before, it would all be thanks to him.

Even this sense of fullness and realization alone was enough to thank him a hundred times over.

“Thank you, Enrik.”

Perhaps thinking he was being praised for capturing the spy, Enrik shrugged his shoulders.

“Just give the order, Master. I’ll catch anything for you anytime.”

“Lower your head toward me.”

Though confused, Enrik obediently bowed his head.

I reached out my bruised and swollen hand and placed it on his head.

Then, solemnly, I declared:

“Enrik. I appoint you as the First Personal Guard Knight of Empress Angel.”

—

When Stella’s small hand touched his head, Enrik felt as though his heart would burst.

It wasn’t simply because she had appointed him—a mere slave—as a knight.

The joy of being acknowledged and the pride of having accomplished something bloomed at the same time.

*‘Why did I want to be acknowledged by this woman?’*

He asked himself again and again, but no answer came.

Enrik didn’t know who he was.

He wasn’t even curious.

He didn’t realize his memories were gone.

If he was hungry, he ate. If sleepy, he slept. If told to fight, he fought.

It was as natural as a part of his body.

Though he fought, he never wanted to kill anyone.

When he met Stella in the arena—

When he saw her face, striking like it would brand itself onto his soul, and her clear violet-blue eyes—

Enrik felt as though his entire world had flipped upside down.

*‘I know that woman…!’*

A fragment of his erased memories throbbed painfully.

Something that had never happened in six months.

Though it was the first time seeing her, she felt strangely familiar.

*‘I can’t lose her. No matter what, I have to get close to her.’*

His instincts screamed that.

The reason he failed to dodge attacks that day in the arena was because all his attention was fixed on Stella.

Was it coincidence that she chose him?

Enrik didn’t believe in fate—but at that moment, he was certain.

Because otherwise, it would have been impossible.

*“Her Majesty the Empress is your new master. Serve her well.”*

Her Majesty the Empress. My master.

Though bound to a wheelchair, she radiated an untouchable brilliance.

A perfect and noble woman—

And at the same time, one so fragile she seemed like she might shatter if touched.

After meeting Stella, Enrik realized:

*‘I was nothing more than a moving straw doll. Living without any purpose.’*

He wanted to see her. He wanted to follow her orders.

He didn’t know why. Blind devotion was fine.

Like a lost shepherd following a star, he simply chased the only light he could see.

*“I don’t want to call you a black insect. Tell me your real name.”*

It was the first time he realized that “black insect” couldn’t be a name.

It was also the first time he had seen a master who tried to respect a slave.

*‘What was my name? Who were my parents?’*

Stella wanted to hear about a past he had forgotten so long ago that he didn’t even remember it existed.

It meant she saw him not as property or livestock—but as a human.

*“What should be done to those who stabbed what is mine, made what is mine bleed, and insulted me—their master?”*

Stella had called him hers.

She had scolded knights to protect him.

A thrill he had never experienced before wrapped around his entire body.

He had only shed a few drops of blood—

Yet Stella had been angry for his sake.

She had even given him an expensive handkerchief.

If he could feel such joy again, he wouldn’t mind shedding blood countless times.

But then she said she didn’t need a nameless gladiator slave.

*“I will give you emancipation papers and settlement money. Take them and leave. That is my final mercy.”*

Enrik couldn’t leave Stella.

He didn’t want to go back to being a meaningless straw doll.

But he said he would obey.

He had seen countless times what happened to slaves who disobeyed.

He had to obey—but find another way.

A way not to be abandoned by his master.

A way to remain under that starlight.

And because of that, he remembered a voice he thought he had completely forgotten—his mother’s.

*“You ruined my life, Enrik! You cursed child. You should never have been born.”*

His mother, a wandering merchant, had held a goddess’s cross upside down.

Where had she been when priests in black dragged him to the temple?

When they stripped him and subjected him to human experiments with whips, iron spikes, and branding irons?

Had she not heard his screams?

Did she know he survived as a gladiator slave?

Did she know he had killed countless people—

That surviving was more painful than dying?

He couldn’t remember anything from those twelve years.

So why was his mother’s last voice so vivid?

There was so much he didn’t know.

And he didn’t want to know.

He hated things that were vague or complicated.

So he decided to focus on something clear and shining.

Stella.

Brighter and more beautiful than anyone else—his star. His master.

“You won’t inherit nobility, but you will be treated as one. You’ll receive a stipend equivalent to the imperial guard.”

Though lying in bed, Stella’s dignity remained untouchable.

Wanting to see her more closely, Enrik stepped right up to her bedside.

A faint medicinal scent mixed with a sweet floral fragrance lingered in the air.

It was a strange scent that heightened his senses and dulled his reason.

Ignoring the heat rising in his body, he asked:

“Is it okay to grant knighthood to a slave?”

“I have that authority.”

“I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me.”

“No one can put the Empress in a difficult position.”

Stella’s voice turned slightly sharp.

It wasn’t scary—it was almost cute.

The slight frown, the way her lips jutted out—

*‘So the master can make expressions like this too… She’s really pretty.’*

He almost reached out to touch her face.

If not for the presence he sensed outside, he might have done something he’d be scolded for again.

“Someone’s coming.”

Enrik quickly adjusted his stance, shielding Stella protectively.

She didn’t seem very surprised.

“We have many visitors tonight.”

“Small build, slow ნაბიჯs. The attendant who was dozing just woke up. Doesn’t seem like an assassin.”

“If they meant to kill me, they would’ve snuck in like you.”

“That was unavoidable—”

Before he could finish, the attendant’s urgent voice rang out:

“You wish to have an audience with Her Majesty at this hour? Absolutely not!”

Stella closed her eyes tightly, as if tired.

Even from that alone, she seemed to know who had come.