TEOCH 94

Rohan fell asleep almost as soon as he lay down, but Rikiel remained awake for some time afterward. The thoughts filling his head were too heavy to allow him to sleep. He couldn’t even toss and turn, fearing the noise he made might wake Rohan, and so he only kept his silence.

But after enduring this state for about an hour, Rikiel too began to feel frustrated. Thinking Rohan must be asleep by now, he carefully raised himself from his spot. Just then, a rustling sound began to be heard from beside the soundly sleeping Tristan and Damian.

“You weren’t asleep yet either?”

“Weren’t you the one who wasn’t sleeping, Captain of the Royal Guard? You hadn’t moved an inch for an hour, so I thought you must be asleep.”

But Rehas had also been lying motionless for an hour. Rehas sat up with a face completely devoid of sleepiness, but Rikiel was not surprised in the least, as he had already noticed Rehas was awake when he laid Tristan down on the floor.

The two men looked at each other’s faces, then their gazes turned to Rohan almost simultaneously. Fortunately, that Hero seemed to be sleeping well. He was the type who, once asleep, wouldn’t wake unless a monster attacked, so there was probably no need to worry.

After staring at Rohan for a moment, Rikiel opened his mouth in a voice low enough not to wake the other colleagues.

“Rehas.”

“Yes?”

“You must have heard my conversation with Rohan earlier. That… do you think I pried too much?”

Having heard their conversation from the beginning, Rehas understood what the question meant, but he hesitated to answer. It wasn’t that he had no thoughts on the matter, but he was reluctant to voice them. Rehas briefly organized his thoughts and then spoke.

“Well, that’s not a question you can get an answer for by asking me. Whether that fellow felt the question was rude or not is…”

It was a slightly more polite answer than what was actually on Rehas’s mind. But Rikiel groaned as if he had quickly caught Rehas’s intention. Rehas let out a light sigh. Indeed, Rikiel’s attitude might have been perceived as a bit rude to Rohan. His intentions were surely not malicious, but Rohan was someone who tried not to reveal his inner thoughts. Especially when it came to stories about his own world.

Besides, as Rikiel himself had said, Rohan was a person from another world. To someone with whom he would no longer have any connection once he returned to his original world, hearing something like ‘Will you be happy if you achieve your goal’ would only be seen as excessive meddling. While Rehas was thinking this way and tilting his head, Rikiel spoke.

“It was certainly a bit thoughtless. But it was bothering me.”

“What part was bothering you?”

“That perhaps he… no, never mind. I feel like I’m about to say something unnecessary.”

Rehas tilted his head, but Rikiel did not elaborate further. It was because Rikiel himself was not confident enough in his thoughts to speak of them even to Rehas.

In truth, the anxiety that had been building up over the past five days played a part in why Rikiel had pried so excessively into Rohan’s purpose. Perhaps because of the chaos they had experienced in the previous area, Rohan in this area seemed exceptionally distressed, to the point of worrying those who watched him.

Of course, Rohan was as faithful as ever to his role as the party’s guide. The only reason Rikiel and the others were able to survive their first-ever experience of life underwater was all thanks to Rohan. Thanks to Rohan’s guidance, they could breathe sufficiently and obtain decent (though not very decent for Rikiel) food.

But as the party members grew accustomed to life in the sea, Rohan’s spirit seemed to be gradually breaking down. Rohan, who usually pretended to be strong and rarely showed his weak side, had seemed so unstable over the past five days that he couldn’t even maintain a minimal level of stubbornness.

He would be sleeping with the other colleagues, then suddenly jolt upright in the middle of the night, startled. He would break out in a cold sweat and talk in his sleep as if having a nightmare, a sight that was completely different from his usual self. Even in that state, he didn’t forget his duty as a guide and remembered to check on the king’s condition, but even that seemed less like something he was doing with a clear mind and more like something he was forcing himself to do to alleviate his anxiety.

For the colleagues who had relied solely on Rohan since coming to the demon world, it was only natural to feel anxious. Rikiel, in particular, seeing Rohan like that, came up with one strangely worrisome hypothesis. That is.

‘Did Rohan really come to this world of his own free will? Even knowing it would be this hard?’

Perhaps he didn’t come of his own volition, and was just putting up a brave front while being forced into the role of a hero. It was this anxiety that made him ask Rohan that unnecessary question. Until now, he hadn’t thought of such a thing, so he could treat Rohan without any issue, but if this ominous hypothesis turned out to be true…

Of course, since Rohan himself had openly denied the suspicion, it seemed there was no need to worry further, but Rikiel’s anxiety was not completely resolved.

Will Rohan receive a just reward for his suffering? Could it be that the reward Rohan gets for all this hardship is absurdly small and insignificant? Such thoughts still lingered in his mind.

After mulling over various thoughts, Rikiel eventually just let out a deep sigh and shook his head.

“My apologies, for bringing it up when I couldn’t even speak of it properly.”

“No, don’t worry about it. I understand why you have so many concerns, Captain of the Royal Guard.”

“Are you worried too?”

“Wouldn’t it be strange not to be worried? In this situation.”

“…”

“Well, in any case, how about you get some sleep now? You look very tired.”

Rikiel gave a bitter smile and lay down again. After watching Rikiel for a moment, Rehas let the stoic knight be lost in thought and began his own contemplation. Of course, he too was thinking about Rohan.

‘It’s true, isn’t it. In this situation, it’s impossible not to worry about that fellow.’

But Rehas’s thoughts were slightly different from Rikiel’s. While Rikiel was focused on Rohan’s suffering itself, Rehas was focusing his thoughts on why Rohan was suffering so much.

It might sound a bit heartless, but Rohan’s recent level of suffering was, in fact, an abnormal situation. No, of course it must be hard. The demon world is hard, life in the sea is hard, everything is hard.

But considering how Rohan had behaved until now, it was strange for him to be suffering to the point of death over just this. It wasn’t as if life in the demon world hadn’t been hard before, so for him to have put up a brave front as if nothing was wrong until now, and then suddenly start complaining of his suffering in this area?

‘No, if that fellow had some bad memory related to the sea, then maybe, but…’

Considering the conversation Rikiel and Rohan had earlier, that was definitely not it. It seemed Rikiel was the one with bad memories of the sea… In fact, the cause Rehas was thinking of was something a little different. Rehas, who had been carefully observing Rohan’s behavior since the ‘Island of Trees,’ had a rough idea of why Rohan was groaning in such agony.

‘Because His Majesty the King.’

Became like that. Rehas let out a deep sigh and lay down. As long as he knew that the Hero reacted with abnormal sensitivity to matters related to the king, he simply couldn’t find any other cause. The fact that the first thing he did when startled awake from sleep was to check the king’s condition was the biggest proof.

This is troublesome. Rehas thought so as he looked at the profile of the king lying next to him. If you’re wondering why it was so troublesome now that he knew the cause of Rohan’s suffering, it was because a very bewildering hypothesis had taken root in Rehas’s mind.

‘I want to believe it’s not true, but. That is, let’s say we turn a blind eye to the fact they’re both men, but His Majesty the King has Her Majesty the Queen…!’

It was definitely not a sense of duty, and it was hard to see it as a love-hate relationship. Rehas was practically certain that the feelings the Hero had for the King were of a very troublesome kind. If that weren’t the case, Rohan’s behavior over the past five days, no, furthermore… Rohan’s entire behavior since coming to the demon world could not be explained.

‘I can’t ask him about this directly, and it’s not a problem I can consult with anyone about.’

Rehas just ended up feeling frustrated. To ask Rohan himself, his condition seemed too unstable right now, and consulting with someone else seemed like something he couldn’t bring himself to do, considering Rohan’s pride. Still, agonizing over this alone was giving him a major headache. He wanted to just believe it wasn’t true. He wanted to believe it was his own misunderstanding, that there must be some other reason why Rohan was being overly protective of the king…

After groaning like that for several tens of minutes, Rehas had no choice but to try to sleep in a spot as far away from the king as possible. Other than sleeping, there was no way to ignore this worry.

A few hours later.

It was time for everyone to wake up, so it should have been called morning, but the inside of the cave was just as dark as it had been a few hours ago. The party members who had woken up were all sitting by Damian’s bonfire, looking at Rohan. Rehas and Rikiel looked hollow-eyed, as if they hadn’t slept properly.

“Starting today, I think we’ll have to take a few risks… But why do you two look like that? Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, Rohan.”

“That’s right, Rohan. It’s just because of the seasickness, so don’t worry about us.”

“Well, let’s just leave it at that.”

Even as Rohan said that, he sent a suspicious glance toward Rehas, but Rehas feigned ignorance as if nothing was wrong. In the end, Rohan stopped questioning the two and continued speaking.

“Ahem, well, anyway. As you all know, His Majesty the King and I do not have proper swords right now.”

“That’s true. They melted when we fought the human centipede…”

“In this state, never mind breaking through the Labyrinth of the Deep Sea, it will be difficult to survive even in the Labyrinth Outskirts. Therefore, in order for us to move forward, we must acquire new swords.”

The colleagues nodded at Rohan’s words. Since then, Rohan and Tristan had been getting by with spare daggers borrowed from Rehas. But there was no guarantee they could keep going like that forever.

Right now, they were hunting things like clams and conches, so they could manage with just spare daggers and Rehas’s arrows. Putting the Guardian aside, even the fish roaming the Labyrinth Outskirts were difficult to face without a proper sword. Those two absolutely needed proper swords.

“So, starting today, we must take some risks to obtain the materials for swords. The monsters we’ll be facing from now on are powerful creatures that can’t even be compared to things like clams, so everyone, please be careful.”

A tension filled the cave for the first time in a while, and all the colleagues nodded their heads gravely. Only Rehas noticed that Rohan’s gaze, as it swept over them, lingered on the king for just a little longer than the others.