Four Hearts for the Wise - Chapter 5

How much emotion can a person handle while staying sane?

Kalia found herself pondering this question. How far could someone endure? How intense could emotions become before they were unbearable?

Sadness, regret, fear, frustration—it didn’t matter what kind of emotion. What mattered was the sheer quantity. How much could a person bear?

The emotions Kalia experienced in just one night were all unfamiliar, strange in ways that overwhelmed her. But more than the variety of feelings, it was their intensity that felt alien to her.

For someone with her background, Kalia had led a fairly uneventful life. She had moments of despair over her circumstances, but she’d never encountered hardships so severe that they broke her. She had never once regretted her entire existence.

Until now.

For the first time, Kalia regretted her entire life. For the first time, she felt utterly betrayed by her own choices. She had never distrusted anyone before, had never harbored malice toward another person. Yet now, she was consumed with regret and bitterness.

And so, Kalia couldn’t help but wonder: How much emotion can a human endure? If countless emotions strike all at once, does one crumble under the weight? If the feelings are too much to bear, what happens? Do you lose yourself? Do you run from them, fleeing into numbness?

Are such overwhelming emotions stronger than the feelings that come just before death?

There wasn’t much logic behind her musings. At first, the drug in her system dulled her mind. Then, she fainted outright. What followed was a torrent of sensations far more vivid and overpowering than any emotion she could feel.

“Ah… Ugh… Ngh…!”

It seemed the bleeding had finally stopped. But she’d lost so much blood that she could no longer summon strength into her limbs. Her entire body was sticky and clammy, from the stab wounds to the damp, unrelenting sensation clinging to her skin.

Even lying still felt alien. Something slick and foreign was sliding over her wounds, a sensation both strange and disturbing.

Her head spun. She knew exactly where she’d been stabbed. Yet instead of sharp pain, an eerie, tantalizing sensation wrapped around those spots.

She couldn’t figure out what it was. Whatever it was, it relentlessly slithered over her body. Every time the slimy thing touched one of her wounds, Kalia’s body jolted involuntarily.

“Ah… Ngh… Haah…”

She gasped softly, breathless, the sound strange even to her own ears. The sensation wasn’t confined to her wounds anymore. What had started as an almost clinical attention to her injuries was now roaming across untouched, tender parts of her body.

With her sluggish mind struggling to process anything, Kalia tried to think about what this strange feeling could be. She soon felt pressure on her skin—at her neck, the delicate flesh behind her ear, beneath her jaw, her abdomen.

It was a bizarre sensation.

Her body trembled once more. Her clothes were clearly gone, though nothing seemed to be wrapped around her body. Yet, she wasn’t cold. If anything, heat was building inside her, radiating outward.

“Ngh… Ah…”

Her voice. Her soft cries. They sounded strange. As though they didn’t belong to her.

Was this truly her voice? Could such a sound come from her throat?

In her dazed state, Kalia barely had time to process the thought before another moan—soft and yielding—escaped her lips, sounding just as foreign as the first.

The sensation… How could she describe it? Kalia had never experienced anything like this before, but if she had to put it into words, it felt as though someone was licking her skin, applying pressure, and sucking at her wounds. It was as if they were intent on drinking every last drop of her blood.

And this wasn’t just confined to one area of her body; the sensation spread to multiple places at once.

Even if it had only touched her wounds, it would have been enough to elicit a strong reaction. But now, the sensation crawling across her body deepened, growing more intimate and persistent. It almost felt as though her faint moans only encouraged the relentless attention.

Kalia desperately tried to escape, to move, to break free from whatever was happening. But the licking and sucking motions only grew more intense, showing no signs of stopping.

Summoning all her remaining strength, she managed to lift her eyelids. Her vision was hazy, blurred to the point of being useless. Nothing discernible came into focus.

She tried to speak, to plead, her voice trembling with weakness. She needed to beg for this to stop.

“Hah… Don’t… lick me…”

Was someone really licking her? Or was she imagining it? Her spinning head made it impossible to tell for certain, but it felt real enough for her to voice the thought aloud.

“Hmm.”

A short, low sound—deep and resonant.

Surprisingly, the movement paused for a moment after that. Had she been right? Had there truly been someone—or something—licking her?

Through her blurry vision, she saw faint shapes. Silver, then gold… were those hair and eye colors? And black, a darker figure, as if there were more than one person—or creature—around her.

And then… something else, too…

“Nngh… No… I don’t want this…”

Her voice quivered as she pushed the words out, trembling with the effort. Her plea hung in the air, but she couldn’t tell if anyone—or anything—was listening.

After a brief pause, the overwhelming sensations returned with even greater intensity. Kalia moaned again, her voice shaky and weak.

If she had been in her right mind, her first thoughts would have been to question what was happening, who the beings surrounding her were, and why they were doing this to her. But Kalia was far from capable of clear thinking. Her mind was fogged, her body unresponsive. All she could do was whimper and plead in fragmented sentences.

“Don’t… lick me. Please… Stop…”

She repeated her words a few more times, and once again, the movements stopped.

Whoever—or whatever—they were, they weren’t mindless beasts. They could understand her, that much was clear. Despite her hazy vision, Kalia could make out their faint forms—human-like figures with hints of silvery hair, golden eyes, and darker shapes moving among them.

Her mind drifted between clarity and confusion. In her muddled state, the only words she could muster were simple and broken.

“Stop… No… Don’t…”

Beyond those pleas, only moans escaped her lips, unbidden and unfamiliar.

One of the figures, their voice deep and resonant, responded to her weak protests. It was unmistakably one of “them.”

“Hey, you’re the one who begged us to save you.”

“Hicc…!”

A low laugh resonated near Kalia’s ear, brushing against her skin with a closeness that made the fine hairs on her neck stand on end. The deep sound seemed to reverberate directly in her skull, unsettling and inescapable.

“I’ll save you. But in return, help us. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“Huuuh… Why… this…?”

She wanted to ask why they were doing this to her. But her tongue refused to move properly, and the words came out slurred and fragmented. She couldn’t speak clearly.

“Your blood. It seems… useful to us.”

“Wh-what… blood…?”

Even though her words were incoherent, the unfamiliar voice understood her perfectly and answered her question.

“My blood is… useful?”

Kalia’s sluggish mind struggled to process the meaning behind the words. But before she could dwell on it for long, another moan escaped her lips. The beings around her had resumed their actions.

“Three? No… four of them? Four people…”

She tried to estimate their number based on the sensations—hands, tongues, and the occasional low, murmured voices that punctuated the surreal experience.

She remembered begging for her life. There had been loud noises—chaos—and before that, she had fainted inside the tower. Prior to that, there had been the holy knights of the Sacred Nation.

Now, she had no idea where she was. It didn’t feel like the tower anymore. The surface beneath her back was soft, almost plush, and there was a faint smell of grass in the air.

“Save me. I’ll do anything. Just save me.”

That thought echoed in her mind as she spoke, or tried to. If they needed her blood to save her, then so be it. She was willing to give it.

But her reasoning wasn’t clear. Her current state—on the brink of death, combined with whatever drug the knight had forced her to ingest—clouded her thoughts.

Even as her wounds seemed to have stopped bleeding, the word “blood” stirred something deep within her.

She could feel sharp sensations, as if teeth or claws grazed her skin. It seemed as though they were intent on taking more blood from her. If it was truly useful to them, then perhaps they would make fresh cuts.

“S-save me…”

“I’ll save you. Alright?”

This time, the voice was soothing, almost tender, as if trying to calm her.

But why did saving her have to involve taking her blood? And had the bleeding really stopped? Everything was too confusing.

Kalia’s breathing hitched as she tried to make sense of the situation. She stammered out another desperate plea.

“If… more blood… I’ll die… hic… I’ll…”

“Hmm.”

“Tch.”

Everything stopped.

Kalia’s mind and body were far from normal. Her thoughts were muddled, her emotions overwhelming, her body wracked with sensations she’d never experienced before. It was too much—more than she could handle.

Finally, she broke.

Tears streamed from her eyes as she began to sob, her chest heaving with each trembling cry.

“Hic… Huu… Hic… Sob…”

Kalia had been stabbed by a sword, her blood spilling freely. There was no pain, only the crushing sound of desperate screams that had made her head throb until she fainted. When she woke, she found herself in this strange state—not entirely conscious, but aware enough to be terrified.

She had become a broken record, repeating the words “Save me” like a parrot. Then she reacted to the word “blood” with tears, weeping uncontrollably. It was not the behavior of a rational adult.

The soft, slick sensation that had been licking deep within her wounds now moved to her face, lingering around her eyes. Whatever it was, it seemed intent on tasting the tears that were steadily dripping from her.

“Ah… Your tears are delightful, too.”

“Hnngh… Hic…!”

“But that’s not really the point, is it? Hey, hey, stop crying already. You’re going to drive me insane.”

She didn’t know why they kept speaking so close to her ears. Their low voices swirled around her, circling her ears and reverberating in her skull, making her head feel like it was about to split. Kalia couldn’t help but let out a few more moans, her body trembling. A new fear crept into her mind: Would she ever regain her sanity after this?

Then, they stopped again. But this time, it felt like there was a different reason.

“…What’s this?”

“We’re being tracked.”

“By who?”

“…Not sure yet. Humans, most likely.”

Their voices grew quieter as they whispered among themselves. She could only make out fragments of what they were saying. “Tracked,” they said. She caught that much. But everything beyond that was too much for her already overwhelmed mind to grasp.

“Weren’t they all dead?”

“Revenge? Maybe we went too far.”

“No, it’s new ones.”

“Hmm.”

A brief silence followed.

Apparently, the trackers weren’t far behind.

“Tch. We only returned the favor.”

“Haha. But we need to be certain about our target, don’t we? Are they after us? Or…”

“Shut up. This isn’t a laughing matter.”

“The target. Us.”

Kalia’s head spun even more violently. She shut her eyes tightly, unable to make sense of what they were talking about. She had hoped that if they stopped their actions, she might feel better, but instead, the dizziness worsened.

She felt as though she might vomit if this continued any longer. Just as she was on the brink, her body was suddenly lifted.

Her position shifted abruptly. Dazed, she squinted her eyes open, trying to see where she was being taken. The surroundings were dark, but one thing was clear.

A man.

She was slung over a man’s broad back, his strong frame carrying her effortlessly. His sharp jawline and disheveled black hair stood out in the dim light, wild like a mane. His back was firm and expansive, as if built to carry the weight of someone like her.

“Urgh…”

“Hey. You’ll be fine.”

Another voice chimed in, gentler this time. A large hand stroked her forehead, as though trying to soothe her spinning head.

“Yes, you’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

The comforting gesture was followed by a cheerful, almost carefree laugh.

As the sounds of footsteps crunching through the grass faded into the distance, Kalia’s eyes fluttered shut once more, and she fell back into unconsciousness.