TEOCH 43

“M-Mr. Rohan! Help me! Let me use magic!”

“Do you want to burn this perfectly healthy bird’s back to a crisp?! Just bear with it!”

“I’m confident I can do it without affecting the bird at all! A flea, a flea is sucking my blood…!”

“Your Majesty, please!”

Damian let out a half-crying sound as Tristan dispatched the flea that had attached itself to Damian’s leg. It was a bit comical, but it was an understandable reaction since he had already had his blood sucked five times. I let out a soft chuckle and plunged my sword with all my might into the louse clinging to my leg. The monster collapsed helplessly without even a chance to resist.

True to being creatures that just parasitize a bird’s feathers and suck its blood, the lice and fleas here weren’t that difficult to deal with. All these things knew how to do was suck blood, after all. They didn’t suck enough blood to kill a person, they weren’t that big, and they didn’t inject poison or sever limbs, so in terms of simple difficulty, they were even less of a threat than the spiders from the tutorial stage.

However, even if they were that weak, it was a bit tricky to handle when over a hundred of them swarmed you at once. We couldn’t use Damian’s large-scale fire magic because we couldn’t startle the giant bird. No matter how busily Tristan and I moved, we couldn’t block every attack, so we had no choice but to allow the fleas’ attacks several times. The attacks weren’t life-threatening, but… the mental damage my companions were suffering seemed to be quite significant.

“Does this bird have no concept of cleanliness?! To be this infested with bugs!”

“Well, if the bird had the self-awareness to remove bugs, wouldn’t we have been shaken off first? From the bird’s perspective, aren’t we and the fleas just the same kind of bugs!”

“At least we don’t suck other people’s blood!”

“We may not suck blood, but we’re still unwelcome beings, aren’t we? Since our situation and these bugs’ are similar anyway, let’s not be too harsh on them!”

Rikiel, who had been suddenly demoted to the same level as a flea, looked displeased, but Rehas laughed cheerfully and kicked away a flea that was lunging at him. Even though we were chatting as if nothing was wrong, everyone must be quite exhausted by now. We had been exterminating fleas for an hour already, but the attacks showed no signs of letting up.

But I wasn’t too concerned. I was going to level up after catching just a few more fleas anyway, and above all…

“It’s about time we left this place.”

“R-Really?!”

“Yes, we can’t keep doing this bird favors forever, can we? Let’s climb up that vine hanging up ahead!”

My companions let out a cheer, and I struggled to catch even one more monster before we reached the vine. From my companions’ perspective, this place might have felt like the middle of hell, but from my perspective, as someone just looking for a chance to level up, this was the optimal place. It was safe, you could get plenty of experience points, and enemies came at you endlessly, so it couldn’t be better as a hunting ground.

Of course, we couldn’t stay here forever. The moment the level-up message appeared with a pure white light, I immediately threw myself forward and ran toward the vine. My other companions immediately ran towards me as well. I felt a sense of urgency because we had to climb up as quickly as possible, taking into account the speed at which the bird was flying.

“Damian, get on my back! Let’s go up!”

Rehas, with Damian on his back, was the first to grab the vine. He climbed the vine at a surprisingly fast speed, even with a grown man on his back. I was about to send the other companions up right after him when I suddenly realized that Tristan had never climbed a vine before.

Could this man really climb a vine that was nearly 15 meters long? If he lost his grip for even a second, he would fall to his death, right? Worried, I immediately opened my mouth.

“Your Majesty, I’ll go up a little later. For now, with Sir Rikiel…”

As I was saying that, I suddenly realized that Tristan was not in my line of sight. Wait, where did he go? While I was looking around, bewildered by the sudden development, I realized that Rikiel’s perplexed gaze was fixed behind my back.

“May I be in your debt this time?”

“…?!”

At the body heat that suddenly pressed against my back from behind, I froze, unable to even scream properly. Before my mind could process what was happening, my body reacted first. My face flushed red and my breath caught in my throat.

I sent a pleading look to Rikiel, trying to ask for help in any way I could, but Rikiel just frowned, seemingly not understanding why I was acting this way. I mean, if that man were to notice what I was thinking, that would be a huge problem in its own right, but… still, this.

“You don’t want to?”

“Th-That’s not it…! Please let go of me first, then we can talk!”

“But the bird is already moving, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we decide now?”

Tristan’s nonchalant voice finally snapped me to my senses. He was right, there was no time to bicker with him right now. If we didn’t climb up immediately, we might miss the vine. Of course, with Rikiel here, we could probably manage to get up one way or another. I urgently pleaded with Rikiel with my eyes. What are you doing, you carry him! You’re the one who usually clings to him even when I show my dislike!

“Your Majesty, I think it would be better if I carried you…”

“I can’t hear what you’re saying, Rikiel. Why don’t you try saying it again, clearly?”

“…Make your decision quickly, Rohan. As His Majesty said, we don’t have much time.”

Seeing Rikiel change his tune in an instant at a single word from Tristan, I grit my teeth. I knew it, that man is useless! It seemed Tristan saw Rehas joking about being held earlier and wanted to copy him.

But the situation now was different from when I had indulged Rehas’s joke earlier. Because, I could feel his body heat from behind, his warm breath was touching my neck and ear, and, and…!

“I’ll… I’ll do it! Let’s get going!”

That man Rehas, I’m going to kick him square in the back as soon as we get up! In the end, I had no choice but to climb the vine, like I was eating mustard with tears in my eyes. With my stamina fully recovered from leveling up, there was no reason for it to be any more difficult just because I was carrying one person, but my heart kept pounding and my breathing grew ragged, making it terribly difficult to calm myself down.

I tried to suppress my breathing, pretending there was no one on my back. It’s all an illusion. The body heat that clung to me tightly whenever my posture became unstable, the soft hair that kept tickling the back of my neck, the fair skin that kept peeking into the edge of my vision…

“Thank you for granting my unreasonable request, Rohan.”

“…Don’t squeeze my arms so tight. I can’t breathe.”

The reason I couldn’t breathe was completely different, but I tried my best to ignore that fact.

“Rohan, are you all right? Why is your face so flushed?”

“Would you believe me if I said it was because of you?”

“My friend, you’re saying some very dangerous things now, aren’t you? No matter how deep your feelings for me are… Ow, ow, ow! It was a joke! Stop pinching me!”

After safely(?) climbing up the vine, I exercised the utmost self-control and vented my frustration with a minimal amount of violence. Rehas looked quite wronged by the unexpected blow, but I turned my head away sharply without a single word of apology.

To be honest, I wasn’t that upset. If I had to say, it was actually on the pleasant side, but… that’s precisely why my mind was in turmoil. To think my heart could be swayed even when I know it’s impossible, what on earth am I doing?

Furthermore, Tristan himself was just watching what I was doing with an amused expression, which made it all the more bitter. He probably didn’t even guess why I was picking on Rehas. He wouldn’t know what I was thinking while carrying him up, either…

Thinking that, my own actions felt unbearably ridiculous, so I stopped tormenting Rehas and gave a light cough instead. It was a calculated move, figuring it was better to focus on the task ahead than to be distracted by strange thoughts.

“Ahem, anyway, I’m glad everyone made it up safely. That’s a good thing. Right?”

“A g-good… thing, I suppose?”

“Yes, something like that. In any case, from now on, I will explain our future schedule. As you can probably guess, we need to explore this entire island and find items that will be helpful for our future explorations.”

As I continued speaking, I looked around. The island we had arrived on was covered in a lush tropical forest, the kind you would only see in a jungle. Of course, unlike the forests of the human world, the leaves were dark red and the tree bark had a bluish tint, but the exotic image that a tropical forest brings remained intact and unspoiled.

Where we were now was a small coast surrounding the tropical forest (considering this is an island, that’s the only way to describe it). It wasn’t covered in sand like a typical coast, but the soil wasn’t as fertile as in the forest either. Seeing the large pebbles and finely crushed stones rolling around here and there, I tried to guess what kind of island this was.

‘The ground has a lot of pebbles mixed in, and I can hear the sound of flowing water in the distance… This seems to be the ‘Island of the River’.’

The twelve islands all looked similar on the outside, but their internal characteristics were all different. Some islands were rich in food but dangerous because monsters lurked there, and some islands seemed peaceful with no monsters, but held unexpected traps. On any island, wandering around carelessly was likely to lead to danger, so smooth survival was only possible by moving according to the characteristics of each island.

“Items, you say. Do we have to find something like a parasite again this time?”

“No. This zone doesn’t have as many parasites as the last one. The helpful things you can find here are things like injection fluids, luminescent fluids, and skill scrolls, but… there is actually something we absolutely must find here.”

“What is it? Is it important?”

“Yes, they are very important items. The story is a bit complicated, so I’ll explain it to you slowly later.”

Answering Tristan’s question, I mentally organized a list of items to find on each island. In this stage, we had to go through all the islands and find twelve ‘magical tools’ to survive the boss fight.

Of course, we could still enter the boss fight even if we didn’t find them, but the biggest problem was that without borrowing the power of the magical tools, we couldn’t block the boss’s instant-kill attack. No matter how great our equipment and parasites were, what’s the point if we die in a single blow?

Finding the four ‘Amplifiers,’ the six ‘Gems,’ and the two ‘Controllers’ is the goal we must prioritize above all else right now. If this is truly the Island of the River, then we must find an Amplifier on this island.

“Now, let’s head into the forest for now. Let’s do a light check to see what kind of structure this island has.”

I said as much, then brushed myself off and stood up. My companions also packed their belongings and followed behind me. Even though Tristan was clearly walking far away, a lukewarm body heat seemed to cling to the small of my back and refused to leave, and I could only let out a soft sigh.