TEOCH 96

[Let’s go.]

[……?]

[Let’s go back. It’s dangerous.]

My companions were staring at the coral reef as if half-entranced, but I gestured ‘let’s go back’ to them over and over and backed away. That coral reef cluster poses no threat as long as you don’t approach it, but once that thing’s ‘trap’ is activated, you will either die helplessly or……. Even if you don’t die, you could end up in a very difficult situation.

I tried my best not to look at Damian’s face as I returned to the temporary shelter. At first, my companions hesitated, but when I turned my back resolutely, they eventually followed me.

They all looked curious about what was so dangerous about that peaceful-looking coral reef cluster, but I couldn’t explain it properly underwater anyway. It would be better to talk about it once we returned to a safe place.

We swam silently toward the temporary shelter for an hour without exchanging a single word. When we finally arrived at the temporary shelter, my companions let out long, deep breaths as if they had been frustrated, and I began to prepare the food I had brought to make it easier to eat. Damian, who had lit a bonfire, was looking this way with a puzzled expression, but I focused as much as possible on just cutting the flesh of the conches.

However, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut forever. It took less than ten minutes to prepare the food, and my companions, who were waiting for the conches in the bonfire to cook, slowly began to speak.

“Come to think of it, Rohan.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“What was the reason you wanted to leave that place earlier? It seemed so peaceful.”

“That coral reef cluster is dangerous. The peace you see on the surface is fake.”

“Ah, so you call those sparkling things a coral reef? How exactly is it dangerous?”

I never thought the day would come when I would be more concerned about Damian’s reaction than Tristan’s. Like the curious wizard he was, Damian was waiting for my answer with sparkling eyes, and I couldn’t help but feel cold sweat trickling down my back. I felt that way even though I knew that person wouldn’t remember a thing.

That’s how bewildering and sorry a memory it was.

“You all saw the fish swimming around that coral reef, I’m sure.”

“Hmm, we saw them. They were small, pretty fish.”

“Didn’t you think they were too small and young?”

My companions looked at each other for a moment before nodding reluctantly. It was true that the fish staying in that coral reef cluster were only small ones, a few dozen centimeters in size. In the human world, that would be considered fully grown, but this was the demon world. A place teeming with demonic beasts that would grow to be several meters large if just left alone.

Yet there was only one reason why only small fish were gathered there. It was because once those fish reached adulthood, they would get caught in the coral reef cluster’s ‘trap’ and all die.

“Is there some reason for that?”

“Yes. That coral reef cluster is a kind of giant farm. The fish are sacrificed for the coral reef’s nutrients. The coral reef cluster poses no threat to young fish, but once those fish grow enough to be able to reproduce, that’s when the problem starts.”

“What kind of problem?”

“That coral reef cluster, it was strangely bright, wasn’t it? That light doesn’t come from the coral itself, but from a gas with luminescent properties that the coral emits. But that gas doesn’t just emit light. It is……”

“……?”

I took a deep breath and continued speaking, deliberately ignoring my companions’ puzzled expressions. Honestly, just explaining this is uncomfortable. No matter how many times I go through a situation like this, I never get used to it. I mean, this, how I know about this is.

“It has……. aphrodisiac properties. It doesn’t work unless they are adult demonic beasts, but once the gas’s effects start to take hold, all reason flies out the window and only the desire to reproduce remains.”

It was because I had personally experienced the effects of that gas before. Damian’s slightly reluctant gaze was strangely painful. No, in that actual situation, the one in pain wasn’t me, but Damian. Honestly, I’m just grateful that Damian neutralized me without killing me, but…….

I still don’t want to remember what happened back then.

About the time during the first run I entered Stage 2, when I was affected by that damned gas and almost did something terrible to Damian.

I still tremble with rage whenever I think about what happened back then.

When I defeated the Harpies for the first time after over four thousand deaths, the only ones who survived that battle were me and Damian.

The thief who went with us was unlucky and got caught by Charon’s instant-death skill at the last moment and died, and Rikiel, who had accompanied us, lost his life in the process of trying to save that thief bastard. Rikiel himself might have been satisfied since he stuck to his own beliefs until the end, but it was a problem for me and Damian. In the end, because of his meaningless stubbornness, Damian and I were left alone in the underwater stage.

‘Come to think of it, the Rikiel of back then was really selfish.’

Now, Tristan is here to control Rikiel, and Rikiel himself follows my words reasonably well. But back then, he was a true maverick. He would always oppose my words and die trying to save other companions. The thought that if Rikiel had been alive back then, he might have stopped me from trying to do something crazy, made me feel bad for no reason.

‘Well, it’s a meaningless hypothetical. In the worst-case scenario, we both might have inhaled the aphrodisiac gas…….’

Just thinking about it gave me goosebumps. Anyway, since it was the first time I had entered Stage 2, I had no idea what was going on. The system message that appeared as soon as I entered Stage 2 said, ‘You must find a hydrothermal vent to obtain oxygen,’ but I didn’t even know what a hydrothermal vent looked like, and to make matters worse, Damian at the time had used up all his magic power, so it was a situation where it was difficult for him to even properly cast a small-scale detection spell.

I couldn’t go out exploring with an exhausted person, nor could I just stay put in a situation where oxygen was running out, so I left Damian behind and went outside. After wandering around for several hours, what I finally managed to find was that coral reef cluster. I, who had wholeheartedly believed the system message that said, ‘There are many demonic beasts near hydrothermal vents,’ thought that place was the hydrothermal vent.

The system message had definitely said, ‘You can collect oxygen if you get close,’ but for some reason, no matter how close I got, I couldn’t collect any oxygen, and instead, I just felt strange. Then I discovered it. The fact that unlike the young fish among the coral, a pair of what appeared to be adult fish were behaving abnormally.

The female fish was laying a physically impossible number of eggs, and the male was endlessly spraying sperm over them. The moment I thought they might die from this, the female fish and the male fish finally ran out of energy. Those dead fish were instantly decomposed and absorbed by the coral. All that was left in their place was the large quantity of eggs the fish had laid.

Feeling sick at the sight, I immediately exited the coral reef cluster. But, even though I had clearly run far away, the nausea showed no signs of subsiding. My head was dizzy and a hot energy gathered in my lower abdomen. My physical condition was so bad that I couldn’t possibly explore in this state, so I naturally returned to the cave. I couldn’t find any other way.

Ten minutes before arriving at the cave, the already dark underwater world turned strangely red. I didn’t even realize at that point that it was my own vision that had turned red. Five minutes before arriving at the cave, my whole body felt tingly and my throat was parched. If I could have, I would have drunk the seawater. One minute before arriving at the cave, a fire boiled up in my stomach. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to somehow vomit out this itchiness and suffering, this disgust. I still remember that sensation vividly. The sensation of the reason that barely remained being erased, one piece, one layer at a time.

And the moment I arrived at the cave, I saw a familiar prey, sitting with his eyes closed, meditating.

I.

“So you’re saying, the fish that inhale that gas repeat the act of mating until they die of sexual exhaustion?”

“The expression ‘sexual exhaustion’ might be a bit strange for fish, but……. anyway, if they don’t escape from that gas, they will continuously attempt to reproduce due to a hormonal imbalance and eventually die of starvation or exhaustion. Those fish die and become nutrients for the coral, and the fish that are born either nibble on the tips of the coral or eat each other to survive.”

“Does that gas affect us as well?”

“That’s why we came back like this. The effects of that gas are activated even with just a moment of skin exposure. Even if you escape from the gas, you will lose your reason for a while and be tormented by sexual desire.”

“But still, wouldn’t it not be a big problem? After all, we’re all men here, and men can’t have sexual intercourse with each other……”

Rikiel, who had been speaking as if it were obvious, trailed off, flustered by the other companions’ subtle reactions. I let out a deep sigh, at a loss for words to say to Rikiel. Rehas, for some reason, kept glancing at me with a complicated expression, while Tristan and Damian just looked at each other and gave reluctant smiles.

Rikiel, bewildered by the meaning of those smiles, turned pale a long while later, as if he had finally figured it out. I knew that man was clueless in strange ways, so it didn’t really hurt me. Though I do feel like teasing him.

But, in truth, this wasn’t a situation to be concerned with Rikiel’s foolishness. Seeing Damian looking so carefree, not even remembering that he was almost the target of that ‘sexual release’ in the past, I felt a tightness in my stomach, a sense of discomfort and guilt. Though the him of now has no memory of experiencing such a thing, and though I will be the only one who remembers it from now on, still…….

“W-Well, I suppose that’s true. If one were to truly lose their reason, they might not be able to distinguish between men and women.”

“There are many cases of men doing that kind of thing with each other even without losing their reason.”

“What, what are you talking about……?!”

“……Anyway, that’s why it’s dangerous. Do you understand now? If you get out quickly, your life won’t be in great danger, but you will end up showing a rather embarrassing side of yourself in front of your companions, so you must never go near there.”

My companions nodded their heads, their faces pale. The conches were fully cooked while we were talking, and we diligently picked at them, feeling a hunger that poked at our stomachs. Rehas, who was putting a hot piece of flesh into his mouth and chewing, asked nonchalantly.

“Come to think of it, are such relationships common among wizards? You’re younger than Sir Rikiel, yet you accept it so casually.”

“It’s not particularly common. It’s just that there were a few such cases around me. One wizard got caught for touching his own disciple, and it caused a huge uproar.”

“A master touching his disciple, that’s a big problem. Wizards have weak physical strength, so it would have been difficult to resist.”

“Pardon? It’s not particularly a matter of physical strength……. I suppose it was difficult to resist because the other party was his master. If my master had done something like that, I might have set his limbs on fire.”

“Somehow, it seems like you really would.”

It wasn’t a matter of ‘it seems like I really would,’ I actually did it. I swallowed the flesh that filled my mouth with a bitter smile. The reason I had managed to stop just before the brink back then wasn’t because of the strength of my will. It was because just before things became truly irreversible, Damian had burned off both my arms with high-temperature flames and shoved an herb with a fainting effect down my screaming throat.

‘You’re going to apologize, aren’t you, Mr. Rohan? If you don’t apologize, I won’t put the parasites in for you.’

When I came to my senses, everything below my shoulders was already gone. Saying that he only burned my arms because there were only two parasites left, Damian smiled with a face that was a mess, his eyes bruised and his lips torn. He was smiling in that situation, just like he was now. If I couldn’t remember, like when I was dead drunk and blacked out, I might have been able to look him properly in those golden eyes, but I remembered everything I had done while I had lost my reason, so I couldn’t even do that. I, I…….

“Mr. Rohan?”

“……!”

“Why are you making that face? You must be very tired?”

An uninjured Damian, with neither bruised eyes nor busted lips, looked at me with a bewildered expression. I’m sorry, Damian. I was wrong. It was something I had said over and over while crying back then, but I repeated the words again in my mind. Even though that person will never remember what happened back then, no matter how much time passes, still.

“Yes, I am a bit tired. I’m going to sleep for a bit. Just for ten minutes.”

“Should I save this for you?”

“No, I’ve eaten enough. You eat what’s left. That seems to suit your palate.”

I felt like I would have a nightmare if I closed my eyes now, but it was difficult to endure the fatigue. I asked for my companions’ understanding and leaned my body against the cave wall for a moment and closed my eyes. The guilt that had filled my head to the brim became meaningless as I fell asleep in an instant.

I couldn’t quite tell if it was because of physical fatigue, or because of a desire to escape.