TEOCH 64

With a dizzying sense of falling, everything turned purple. The ‘Confusion’ spell, completed with every last bit of Damian’s demonic power, covered the entire coastline, and the monsters that had been flocking toward us began to writhe and scream in agony. The wind whipping around my entire body made it difficult to even open my mouth properly, but I held onto Rehas’s and Tristan’s hands with all my might.

“Sir Rikiel! Over here!”

It didn’t seem like he would hear me even if I shouted, but I yelled into the void while holding onto the two of them. The duration of the ‘Confusion’ spell that Damian had cast with all his strength was about 30 seconds. Considering that the duration when using a moderate amount of demonic power was at most between 3 to 5 seconds, this was a tremendous improvement, but the problem was that during those 20 seconds, we had to join Sir Rikiel and hide.

‘If we fail here, all our efforts up to now will be for nothing!’

Damian was clinging to Rehas’s waist, even using his barely restored right arm, and Rehas was waiting for Rikiel to grab his only free left arm, which was stretched out into the air.

I was sure we had jumped off at the right time, but there was still no sign of Rikiel. He should be here by now…!

Whoooosh-!

It was then. A familiar sound of flapping wings began to be heard from far away. I twisted my head with all my might and looked in the direction the sound was coming from. Rikiel, a mess with his armor shattered here and there, was flying toward us at full speed. He reached out his hand with all his might toward Rehas, and Rehas, while staggering because he couldn’t maintain his posture properly, desperately stretched out his arm.

“Damn it, I can’t reach!”

Because his posture was too unstable, Rehas couldn’t easily grab Rikiel’s hand. With one hand held by me and Damian clinging to his waist, it was perhaps only natural.

Only then did I realize I had miscalculated. It would have been more stable if Tristan and Rehas had held hands with each other, and I had been the one to grab Rikiel!

But at that moment, I heard Tristan’s shout from beside me.

“Rikiel, grab this side!”

Wait, Tristan’s left arm should be injured right now? I reflexively tried to shout no, but come to think of it, we didn’t have much time left.

If Rikiel couldn’t grab us now, not only would the plan, which was on the verge of success, be ruined, but our lives could also be in danger. Shouldn’t saving our lives be the priority right now, even if it means enduring some amount of bleeding?

While I hesitated, Rikiel reached out to Tristan, and Tristan raised his bleeding left arm to grab Rikiel. And then.

“Got you!”

The moment Rikiel’s shout burst out, my body shot upward with tremendous force. I held Tristan’s hand tightly.

“Phew, I really thought I was going to die.”

Rehas let out a deep sigh as if he were completely fed up. From ‘above,’ the cries of the pterodactyls searching for us were still loud. A few of the pterodactyls boldly went down as far as the sea to look for our bodies, but before long, they were attacked by the jellyfish floating in the sea and retreated, screeching and screaming. If we had mistakenly fallen into the sea, we would have been eaten by those jellyfish long ago.

—Screech? Screech screech?

—Screeeee!

We watched the pterodactyls’ movements with bated breath, worried we might be discovered, but fortunately, the pterodactyls never found our location.

In the first place, they didn’t even come near where we were. If the ones that had been wandering over the sea had come just a little closer, we would have been discovered, but they seemed to firmly believe that we had fallen from the island and didn’t even try to come ‘here.’

In the end, the pterodactyls that gave up on searching the sea flew around in the sky, communicating with each other in some unknown way, and before long, they let out loud shouts and flew upward. And a little later, the monsters on the island began to cheer loudly, one and all.

—Screeeeeee!

—Kweck! Kweck!

It seemed those monsters had finally given up on finding us. I cautiously nodded to my companions, and we, who had been hiding by clinging to the feathers under the giant bird’s wing, let out sighs of relief and climbed up. Thanks to having exterminated the fleas during our multiple island moves, we were the only ones on the giant bird’s back now. We had finally gotten a chance to rest.

“Those monsters seem incredibly excited, thinking we’re dead.”

“I know, right? Those things are really stupid. Well, I guess they don’t have much of a brain to use, being birdbrains and all….”

“Well, in any case, good work everyone. You all went through a lot of trouble.”

Thinking of the monsters on the island, who must be in a festive mood by now, I was finally able to relax. By now, those monsters are probably thinking something along the lines of, ‘the cornered humans jumped into the sea and died, and the jellyfish ate their corpses.’

Since they couldn’t find our bodies anyway, that would be the most logical conclusion. They would never imagine that we jumped off the island at the exact moment the giant bird arrived and clung to the underside of its wing.

Of course, if they thought about it a little more deeply, they would realize something was strange, but fortunately, most of the monsters on this island are on the stupid side. There is no way that creatures foolish enough to mistake ‘a person carrying someone on their back’ for ‘a person with two heads’ would have the intelligence to see through a trick. Besides, we even cast a confusion spell at the last moment, so no one would have seen us hiding under the giant bird’s wing.

So now, we can rest assured. Really.

“We should be able to reach the next island in about two hours, so let’s rest here until then. Let’s all check our physical conditions.”

“Your Majesty, may I take a look at your arm? It seems you were hurt quite badly.”

After confirming that Rehas was taking care of Tristan, I forced myself to look away. If I had my way, I would have checked on Tristan’s wound immediately, but the ones who actually needed my attention right now were Damian and Rikiel.

Both of them had overused their parasites, so there was a chance that egg sacs might have formed by now, and besides, these were the people who had shouldered the greatest burden today. After shaking off the lingering attachment in a corner of my heart, I checked on the two of them.

First, Rikiel didn’t have any major injuries. He had thrown his body around so recklessly that he should have been injured and broken here and there, but in reality, apart from some broken armor, he didn’t have a single scratch. It was partly thanks to ‘Emergency Situation,’ which nullifies one attack after a piece of armor is broken, but even considering that, it was amazing that he was that unscathed. Rikiel, feeling my gaze, let out a light sigh and spoke.

“I am fine. No need to worry.”

“Are you sure? If you feel unwell in any way, you must tell me immediately. It would be a huge problem if an egg sac were to form.”

“There are no signs of that yet, so there is no need to worry. I am more worried about Damian than myself….”

I quietly nodded and approached Damian. Indeed, it was more reasonable to take care of Damian, who had actually had to endure immense pain, rather than Rikiel, who looked fine for now.

When I removed the arrowhead and lifted his arm to check its condition, I could see a hideous egg sac growing in size below Damian’s elbow. Fortunately, the condition wasn’t serious, so I immediately imbued the egg sac with the energy of purification and finished the first aid.

Damian looked up at me with a deathly pale face. The wound on his arm had long since fully recovered, but his body was still trembling.

“Are you alright, Damian? It must have hurt a lot, right?”

“Yes, it hurt a lot. I really felt like I was going to cry….”

It wasn’t that he felt like crying; his face was already a mess of tears. It seemed he had shed tears involuntarily due to the physiological pain. I wiped his face clean and gently hugged him. Damian quietly let himself be held in my arms and caught his breath.

As I rubbed his back with one hand and combed through his hair with the other, Damian let out a groan that was close to a sigh. Doing this always helped him calm down quickly.

“Huuu…”

“It’s okay, Damian. It’s all over now. You won’t have to suffer for a while.”

“It was really hard…. Ah, can I stay like this for just a little longer? I feel like I’m going to fall asleep.”

“Please do. It should be fine to close your eyes for a bit.”

As I continued to stroke his hair and back, Damian went limp in my arms, completely exhausted. Because he was such a strong-willed person, he had fought on, even accepting the ridiculous demand to blow off his own arm, but there was no way that even he didn’t feel fear and pain. It was fortunate, at least, that Damian was the type to honestly say when he was in pain.

‘Come to think of it, I’ve done some pretty terrible things to him, too.’

He had experienced tens of thousands of deaths by my side and had barely gotten a chance to rest for eternity, only to have to go through new hardships under the pretext of a ‘second playthrough’ because of my greed. Of course, I think a living Damian is better than a dead Damian, but that is, in the end, just my own selfish desire, and I don’t know if Damian himself would agree.

Feeling unnecessarily sorry for Damian, I hugged him tightly. If I could comfort Damian even with something like this, I could do it for hours. Of course, I would have to push him again when we face a dangerous situation in the future, but still…

“Is Damian doing a little better, Rohan?”

I lifted my head at the voice I suddenly heard. Tristan, who was receiving first aid from Rehas, was looking this way with a worried expression.

As soon as I saw his pale, bloodless face, I reflexively turned my gaze to the wound on his arm. Tristan hastily tried to hide his arm, but because he was being held by Rehas, the attempt failed.

“Do not worry, the wound itself is not serious. Though my fingers do not move well.”

“…It seems a tendon was damaged. It will take quite some time to recover.”

Tristan smiled awkwardly and avoided my gaze. He insisted it wasn’t a serious wound, but the gash, which ran for more than a handspan from near his elbow to his wrist, was gaping wide and pouring out a lot of blood. It was only natural, as he had strained his left arm to grab Rikiel’s hand earlier.

“I have not done much, yet I only cause you worry. I am sorry.”

“No, Your Majesty, you have fulfilled your role sufficiently.”

“Thank you for saying so. But if I were just a little stronger, I would not have had to cause you worry….”

If my arm had been injured a little more, would I have been able to get a parasite? Tristan said, giving a bitter smile, but honestly, it was no laughing matter for me. While I hesitated, unable to say anything, Rehas, who was beside him, thankfully comforted him.

“Don’t say such things. Your Majesty was truly amazing today, wasn’t he? Honestly, if we’re talking about who did nothing, I’m the more pathetic one.”

“But you couldn’t help it, could you? You just couldn’t use your bow because you were running with Damian. That is not your fault.”

“Well, that is true, but…. In any case, what I mean to say is that I, at least, had my life saved thanks to Your Majesty, so you can take pride in that.”

Rehas shrugged lightly and tied a bandage around Tristan’s arm, and upon hearing his words, Tristan managed a smile. Of course, Rehas, who was saying this, was not in good shape either.

No matter how light he was, Damian was still a grown man, so Rehas, who had run at a similar speed to the rest of the companions while carrying him, was also drenched in sweat and completely exhausted. Moreover, there was a limit to Tristan’s protection, so his body was covered in scratches and cuts.

‘Everyone is in terrible shape.’

I forced myself to ignore the stinging on my cheeks and the back of my hands and stroked Damian’s back. It seemed I, too, had gotten various scrapes and cuts while fighting the monsters. But a wound of this degree was nothing. Compared to the injuries my other companions had sustained, it was truly a drop in the bucket, and besides, there was a decisively important reason.

“Still, we somehow managed to survive.”

Rehas, having finished treating Tristan, let out a long sigh and lay down on the giant bird’s back. Yes, Rehas was right. Although we were all a mess and sprawled out like defeated soldiers, we had, in any case, succeeded in escaping from those monsters safely.

In just a few more hours, we will arrive safely at the ‘Forest Island,’ and if we hide on that island and regroup, a chance for a comeback will come someday. Tristan’s wound will also be healed by then….

So, it’s alright.

At least, it seemed like it would be alright for a while.