TEOCH 73

Rehas couldn’t even fathom what state of mind he was in as he fled. He moved his body frantically, as if under anesthesia, feeling like it wasn’t his own. He stared wide-eyed as his armor melted from the vomit of the tree woman pouring down from above. He just ran, not even feeling the sensation of the dwarves’ stone teeth digging into his legs. He ran and ran.

The person running at the very front was none other than Damian. Perhaps due to the effects of the ‘Battle Ready’ spell, he didn’t stop running even as he gasped for breath, and he desperately tried to protect everyone by continuously creating a wall of fire behind the party.

No, was it really for protection? Or was it rather to prevent anyone from breaking away from the path? Someone like, for instance, Sir Rikiel, who kept looking back, staring at the flames with pained eyes.

Whenever the party was about to suffocate from the demon world’s poison-laced atmosphere, the king would conjure a strange protective barrier around them, allowing them to breathe. No monsters could enter the barrier, but unfortunately, it would flicker for a few tens of seconds before vanishing as if screaming.

Was the king’s barrier only able to hold for that short a time because he wasn’t the real hero? In his dazed mind, hazy from running nonstop, Rehas had such a thought.

In any case, the party was somehow managing to escape the ‘Island of Spirits.’ Just as Rohan had said, the spirits didn’t actively try to capture them. At most, they sent only a few dozen minions to chase them out. If all 500 or so monsters had pursued them, the party would have never escaped the island, so in the end, Rohan’s judgment had been correct.

‘No, was it really correct? Looked at another way, isn’t it possible that everything is going according to the monsters’ will? Is it okay for us to leave him behind and go like this?’

All sorts of thoughts floated around in his head, but Rehas’s body moved on its own. The power of the gauntlets he had recently acquired proved quite useful. With his two hideously misshapen arms, which felt like they weren’t his own, Rehas smashed the heads of dwarves and tore their bellies apart.

Occasionally, if a tree spirit blocked his path, he would immediately shoot an arrow and shatter its chest. Through a few trials and errors, he had learned that he must never shoot for the head or neck, because one wrong move could cause the vomit and tree sap-like blood that had pooled up to the throat to pour out all at once. It was better to shoot the chest; the tree spirit, its lungs destroyed, would just choke and slowly cough up sap and vomit through the hole in its chest without causing a major problem.

It was quite a disgusting sight, but fortunately, the state of anesthesia seemed to slightly numb his psychological repulsion as well. Thanks to the dulled senses and the taut tension, the visual shock was somehow manageable. Although it was a bit agonizing that a painful vision kept flickering before his eyes every time he saw it.

‘Could Rohan be in this state by now?’

Rehas flinched every time the vision of the hero, a hole in his chest, coughing and painfully spitting up clots of blood, flickered before his eyes. But he couldn’t go back. Damian led the party forward, ever forward, and behind them was only a wall of brilliant blue flames. The heat, which felt like it would turn them to ash just by touching it, was as frightening and threatening as the monsters, so much so that he couldn’t bring himself to turn back.

“Just hold on a little longer! If we can just escape to the coast, we can somehow return to the ‘Island of Trees’!”

Damian was right. The number of monsters chasing the party was gradually decreasing, and it seemed that by the time they reached the coast, only a dozen or so would be left. Rehas thought that the four of them could easily drive off that number, so returning to the ‘Island of Trees’ shouldn’t be difficult.

Truly, it was surprisingly not difficult.

To abandon Rohan and run away.

The magic circle Damian activated transported the party safely to the ‘Island of Trees.’

‘If only I had noticed a little sooner.’

Rehas thought as he staggered back to their temporary shelter.

It might have been better to just recklessly stop the young man, even without any certainty. The dozens of traps set in mid-air had blocked the vision of the ‘Spider’s Eye,’ so Rehas couldn’t realize it until Rohan had cleared the remaining traps with his own body. The fact that the gem itself was a massive trap.

Still, if only he had stayed by the young man’s side. It might have been much better to be captured together, if they were to be captured. Rehas lamented, but it was no use regretting it now.

Rehas’s party had already left the ‘Island of Spirits,’ and Rohan would have been captured by the bizarrely-shaped monsters. In this situation, there were only a few things Rehas could do.

For example, holding onto Rikiel’s arms as he lunged at Damian, ready to kill him at any moment.

“Stop it, Captain of the Royal Guard!”

“Let go of me, Rehas! Damian, what in the world are you…!”

Because Rikiel’s strength was so immense and Damian’s ‘Battle Ready’ spell had not yet worn off, Rehas couldn’t fully control his rampage even with the help of his gauntlets. Rehas gestured to Damian with his eyes to release the spell, but for some reason, he just shook his head with a reluctant expression.

The calculation was that if he just removed the strength-enhancing effect on Rikiel, Rehas’s own strength could somehow hold him back, but Damian seemed completely unconvinced.

‘Release the spell.’

Rehas mouthed the words to Damian once more. Finally, Damian sighed and released the spell. However.

“Ugh…!”

Along with the immense, sharp pain that shot through both his arms, Rehas realized why Damian hadn’t dispelled the ‘Battle Ready’ spell until now.

‘Wait a minute, couldn’t you have just released the spell on him? If you had to release my spell too, you should have said so from the start!’

As Rehas collapsed to the ground from the pain that felt like it was tearing not just his arms but his entire upper body to shreds, Rikiel sprang forward and grabbed Damian by the collar. Damian, whose physique was like that of a child compared to Rikiel, couldn’t even put up a fight. Rehas tried to stop it somehow, but the excruciating pain made it impossible. It felt as if his arms were already gone.

“Why, how could you abandon him like that!!”

Rikiel’s voice was so desperate that it pierced through Rehas’s mind, which was in a panic from the overwhelming pain. Hearing those words, Rehas was struck once again by the reality. We really did abandon him.

No matter how much Rohan himself insisted, no matter that he himself chose to be captured by the monsters, still… the fact that Rehas and his comrades had abandoned him and fled to save their own skins remained unchanged.

“You’re very agitated, Sir Rikiel. Please calm down.”

“How can you tell me to calm down in this situation? Are you saying you’re fine?! That man was captured by monsters and we don’t even know if he’s dead or alive, and even if he is alive, we don’t know when he might die, and you can be calm?!”

Damian, being shaken by the collar by Rikiel, was as limp as a puppet with its strings cut. But his golden eyes were strangely cold and settled like metal, to the point that an observer would have a hard time telling who was grabbing whom by the collar. It was Rikiel, shaking Damian, who looked more like a drowning person struggling not to die, looking strained and agonized.

Still, shouldn’t someone stop this? As Rehas was thinking that and panting, someone’s hand grasped his shoulder. It was Tristan. He made no move to stop his younger brother, instead whispering to Rehas to ask if he was okay.

Unable to say he was okay even as a pleasantry, Rehas shook his head. Tristan silently took off Rehas’s gauntlets and draped his own cloak over his shoulders. The inside of the cave was quite cold, as Damian was in no state to provide heating.

With eyes scrunched in pain, Rehas glanced at Tristan’s profile. Looking at his unnaturally trembling left hand and the multiple, long gashes carved up to his forearm, Rehas let out a light sigh.

Right now, this man was in no condition to stop anyone either. Not just his left arm, but the wounds on his leg and side were also quite severe, looking like they needed immediate treatment.

If Rohan saw this, he would be angry or feel sorry for him, Rehas thought. Of course, Rikiel’s shout instantly pushed that thought away.

“Yes, in the end, we abandoned him and survived. But we shouldn’t have done that in the first place. He’s someone who wouldn’t have even come to this world if it weren’t for us, and for us to do that to him…!”

“So, Sir Rikiel.”

Rikiel’s shouting stopped for a brief moment. It must have been because of Damian’s strangely emotionless voice. Damian slowly raised a hand and grabbed Rikiel’s arm, peeling the hand that was gripping his collar away. Surprisingly, Rikiel let go of Damian without much resistance.

Damian coolly straightened his clothes as if nothing had happened, then glanced at Rehas and picked up the staff that was rolling on the floor. With a light swing of his staff, the inside of the cave instantly became warm. As Rehas let out a heavy sigh, Damian quietly opened his mouth.

“Sir Rikiel.”

“…”

“In that situation, what should I have done?”

The atmosphere turned chilly, rendering the fire pointless. Rikiel looked bewildered, as if he had just come to his senses. Damian tilted his head up to look at Rikiel’s face. The height difference was so great that Damian had to tilt his head way back, but no one saw him as ridiculous.

“What could I have done that would have satisfied you? Should I have ignored Mr. Rohan’s words and waited there for an hour? What if we all died then? Is your idea of the best course of action for him to be captured and for all of us to die?”

“I, I.”

“With Mr. Rohan unable to move, and His Majesty the King being the only one who can kill monsters, can we really last for an hour? You know as well as I do that it’s impossible, don’t you? And even if we did last an hour and Mr. Rohan could move, escaping would still be impossible, right? We were able to escape because most of the monsters didn’t chase us, not because we were so great, right? If 500 monsters came at us all at once, I couldn’t drive them away even if I turned my right arm into a rag, right?”

Rikiel stumbled backward. Compared to the tremendous ferocity he had shown just moments before, his figure was truly pathetic. It seems I’m getting angry at Sir Rikiel, Damian thought, tilting his head.

At least to Rehas, Damian looked angry. His voice was certainly calm and his expression was placid, yet Damian’s golden eyes, as he stared steadily at Rikiel, looked strangely terrifying.

Perhaps it was because they were devoid of any particular emotion, just the impassive eyes of someone explaining a situation to a child. Damian frowned for a moment as if his throat hurt, and finally, he spoke again.

“Mr. Rohan told me to do it.”

“…Damian.”

“He told me to do it, so I did. What more could I have possibly done?”

“I’m sorry. I, I…”

“Was there any other way? There wasn’t. So can’t we stop now? Everyone is tired, aren’t they? And some are injured. And, Sir Rikiel.”

“…”

“Don’t cry.”

Startled by that one word from Damian, Rehas looked at Rikiel, but Rikiel let out a sigh that sounded like a sob and quickly turned his head away. After watching him for a moment with indifferent eyes, Damian turned his gaze to Rehas and Tristan. Rehas was a little curious about what Damian would say, but what he said was quite unexpected from Rehas’s perspective.

“Are you hurt anywhere, Mr. Rehas?”

“I’m not particularly hurt. Though I am suffering a bit from the aftereffects of the gauntlets.”

“Ah, that’s a relief. For that, it won’t hurt if I cast an anesthetic spell. Let’s go out together.”

“…What?”

“Mr. Rohan had the emergency food, but he’s not here now, so we have nothing to eat. So let’s go find some food. It would be impossible for me alone, but if you come with me, Mr. Rehas, we should be able to gather it quickly.”

“You…”

“His Majesty is badly injured, so I think he should stay here. Perhaps Sir Rikiel will take care of him?”

Damian said this as he put on his helmet, and a speechless Rehas grunted and got to his feet. It was certainly logical. Since there was no food, they had to go out and find some. Since that fellow couldn’t do it alone, someone had to go with him. And Rehas’s arms hurt, but they weren’t seriously injured, so it would be fine if he cast an anesthetic spell…

Somehow, thinking in that way, Rehas’s own heart seemed to calm down a little. After receiving Damian’s ‘Battle Ready’ spell, he no longer felt the pain, and his steps felt lighter.

Of course, the vision of Rohan flickering before his eyes still hadn’t disappeared.