That Time I Got Reincarnated as a King (Old Version)

The night had settled over the camp like a shawl drawn across weary shoulders.

Cool wind moved through the grass, stirring the edges of flame-bloomed tents. In the center of the garden, the last Phoenix lantern flickered low — blue light curling gently across stone and soil like breath too soft to speak.

Kael sat cross-legged in the grass, arms resting loosely on his knees. His cloak had been folded beside him. His hands were still faintly glowing from the last healing — not enough to cast shadows, just enough to pulse in rhythm with the earth beneath him.

He wasn't thinking.

He was feeling.

Letting the day melt quietly through him.

Then—

The faintest sound.

Barefoot steps on dew-damp grass. Delicate, slow. Careful, not cautious.

He turned.

Seraphaine stood at the garden's edge.

No crown.

No veil.

No magic brushing the air between them.

Her hair, usually coiled with rose-thorns and sigil pins, now hung in a single long braid down her back, strands catching starlight. She wore a travel-worn shawl pulled loosely around her shoulders, and her slippers — ceremonial, once embroidered with Lust-pearls — were gone. Her toes were muddy. Her ankles smudged with dirt.

She didn't look regal.

She looked real.

And terrified.

Kael said nothing.

He didn't rise. Didn't stiffen.

Just watched her like a flame watching wind.

She stepped forward.

The grass didn't resist her.

"I used to think love was permission," she said, voice not quite steady. "A reward. Something… given to you only if you followed the right choreography."

Kael tilted his head, eyes not leaving hers. He didn't interrupt. He didn't challenge.

"And now?" he asked.

She hesitated.

Then crossed the final steps and sat down across from him — not like a queen descending to the level of a commoner, but like someone finally laying a heavy mask aside.

Her knees bent carefully. Her fingers laced in her lap. She didn't meet his gaze right away.

"Now I think…" she began, then stopped.

A breath.

Then:

"…it's something that can grow without asking."

The silence between them felt warm, not awkward. The flame between them dimmed slightly, as if drawing itself inward to make room.

"I'm not here to be chosen," she said. "Or to be beautiful. Or perfect. I just wanted to sit beside the person who reminded me I could be something else."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She looked up then.

Eyes not shielded. Not shining.

Just open.

Kael felt something shift in the air.

Not romance.

Not obligation.

Just truth.

And it was enough to make the wind pause.

The night deepened around them.

No guards. No audience. Only the chirring of grass-crickets and the soft rustle of lantern-flames catching the breeze. Seraphaine sat across from Kael, hands folded tightly in her lap, as if holding herself together was still her most familiar posture.

The stars above blinked behind thin cloud-veil, scattered like truths waiting to be uncovered.

Kael waited.

Not expectantly — patiently.

Not leaning in — but present.

Seraphaine exhaled. Her breath trembled in the cool air.

"I watched you," she said. "Not just tonight. Not just in the camps."

Her fingers flexed once, then stilled.

"I watched the way you spoke to people no one else remembered. I watched you give and give and never reach to take anything back."

Her voice didn't rise.

It dropped lower, like a confession made in prayer.

"You didn't heal them with magic," she said. "Not really."

She looked at him now — fully, honestly, eyes glassy but unblinking.

"You healed them with who you are."

The words landed like petals, not blades.

And yet, Kael still felt the weight of them.

He didn't recoil.

But he didn't smile, either.

Seraphaine continued, her voice thick with something unspoken:

"I didn't come here to ask for something. I don't want a promise. I just… needed you to know that something in me changed when I watched you."

She placed her hand flat on the grass between them.

Not reaching for his.

Just letting it rest there — not a bridge, not a barrier.

"I feel something real," she whispered. "And for the first time… I'm not ashamed of that."

She didn't lean in.

She didn't cry.

She just sat there — bare, open, and burning quietly in a way Lust had never taught her to survive.

Kael watched her for a long moment.

And breathed.

Kael sat very still.

The words hung between them — not heavy like weapons, but delicate like flame just beginning to flicker.

Seraphaine's confession hadn't been a question.

And that, more than anything, made it harder to answer.

He looked at her.

Not at her beauty — not at the rose-princess, not at the queen behind veils — but at the person in front of him. Her braid was fraying in the wind. Her hands were unsteady, but she didn't try to hide it. And her eyes — they didn't plead.

They simply waited.

Kael swallowed once.

Then spoke.

"Seraphaine…"

His voice was quiet. Steady.

"…I'm honored."

The words weren't empty. They came from somewhere real.

"But I can't say yes," he added gently. "Not just because you feel something."

He paused, searching for the right shape of truth.

"I've seen what happens when people reach for closeness to escape being alone. When they try to fill silence with love before they've figured out who they are in the quiet."

Seraphaine didn't look away.

She didn't flinch.

Kael continued.

"I'm not ready. Not to carry something I haven't had time to understand. I still have people to protect. A war to avoid. A kingdom to rebuild from the ground up."

A breath.

"I care about you. Deeply. But if I said yes now… it wouldn't be real. Not for either of us."

He didn't say he wished it were different.

Because that would have been cruelty wrapped in kindness.

And Kael had learned long ago — false hope burns longer than truth.

Seraphaine closed her eyes.

Not in rejection.

In acceptance.

She exhaled.

And nodded.

Not once.

Not dramatically.

Just… enough.

Kael stood slowly, brushing dew from his palms.

The firelight behind him cast his silhouette across the grass in a long, wavering line — not imposing, just present. The air between them still held the echoes of what wasn't said, but not as a wound. As a breath.

He looked at her.

"Will you be alright?" he asked.

Seraphaine didn't rise.

She looked at her hand resting in the grass — the one that hadn't reached for his — and then looked up at him with a softness that wasn't broken.

Only new.

"I didn't confess because I wanted to win something," she said.

Her voice was quiet.

"But I needed to know what it would feel like… to speak something real without asking for permission."

A pause.

"I'm glad I did."

She stood then — not with regality, not with retreat, but with quiet resolve. Her bare feet left small indentations in the soil as she turned, not toward the path out of camp… but deeper in.

Kael watched her.

She didn't go far.

Only to the storage circle, where Rimuru was hovering above a scattered pile of bandages and salve jars left from the evening rush.

Without asking, Seraphaine knelt beside the crates and began stacking jars into rows. Slowly. Carefully. Not as royalty. Not as a guest.

As someone who wanted to help.

Rimuru floated next to Kael and tilted sideways.

"Okay," he muttered. "I expected a dramatic exit. Maybe a tearful teleport. Definitely a tragic violin swell."

Kael didn't look away.

"She stayed," he said quietly.

Rimuru blinked. "Yeah. But why?"

Kael smiled faintly.

"It's the first thing she's done for herself."