HPV 47

It was unusual.

Banwes entered the room and simply stood there for a long while.

This was supposed to be my private room. You were only supposed to come in if you had a reason—but for some reason, he said nothing.

I was about to ask why he had come, but I held my breath instead, afraid my voice might still be shaky with tears.

Did he hear me sniffling from outside?

With Banwes’ hearing, it was possible.

Was that why he was here?

But even after seeing my reddened eyes, he didn’t say anything.

No strange looks, no questions.

I didn’t think Banwes even had the concept of comforting someone with silence.

But if not that, then why was he here?

I didn’t want anyone to know I had been crying.

Even if the rest of the group found out, I wanted Banwes to be the only one who didn’t.

“Say what you need to say and leave.”

My voice came out low and ugly, even though I’d tried to speak carefully.

“If I have nothing to say, I don’t have to leave, do I?”

I tried to roll my eyes, but they were too swollen, and all I managed was a scowl.

Speaking in that incomprehensible tone, Banwes casually sat down—not on my bed, but on the empty bed beside it.

The frame groaned a little under his weight.

Then I noticed: he was holding something in his hand.

A pair of apples, red and glossy, looking sweet just at a glance.

Two apples. His hands were large enough to hold them both easily.

The apple tree from the front yard immediately came to mind.

It must have caught Banwes’ eye since the first day we stayed here.

But because it was under the domain of the Gaioh’s priests, he must have taken several days to assess whether it was safe.

Only after seeing Penzey and Paronai munching on the fruits and even seeing Bzhan sitting on the tree one did he decide it was safe to eat.

With his free hand, Banwes held out an apple to me.

For a moment, I didn’t understand.

It took me a few seconds, confused, before I accepted the apple.

Now that I thought about it, I had only ever given food to Banwes before; it was the first time he had given something to me.

Crunch.

The sound of Banwes biting into his apple was crisp and refreshing.

The sharp scent brushed past my nose, and without thinking, I opened my mouth.

Ack!

I bit into the apple just like Banwes did, but my teeth didn’t pierce through; they got stuck hard.

I nearly dislocated my jaw and barely managed to pull back.

Banwes looked—not just unimpressed—but outright in disbelief.

As if he was witnessing, for the first time, a living creature losing a battle against an apple.

I didn’t even have the strength or will to argue.

I just let my hand holding the apple fall limply to my side.

Banwes took the apple back without a word.

He pried open the deeply sunken stem with both thumbs.

With a loud crack, the apple split like a log under an axe.

But he didn’t stop there.

He kept breaking it apart, again and again, as if the apple had personally wronged him.

By the time the pieces tumbled back into my hand, each chunk was barely the size of a fingertip.

My mouth isn’t that small,

I thought.

Normally, a sarcastic comment would have come to mind, but not this time.

I just stared at the apple pieces.

My throat tightened, and tears threatened to rise again.

I picked up a piece and put it in my mouth.

Ripened under the warm sun, the flesh burst with sweet juice.

The crisp texture brushed gently over my teeth.

Banwes, meanwhile, didn’t bother wiping his slightly sticky hand with cloth.

Instead, he brought it to his mouth and licked it clean.

An old habit from living among monsters, no doubt.

For no reason at all, my heart jolted the moment I saw the tip of his crimson tongue flick over his hand.

I quickly turned my head away.

For a while, only the sound of us chewing apples filled the room.

Then, completely out of nowhere, he spoke:

“I’ll stay nearby until I find a way to get rid of the demon.”

I heard him clearly, but it was so unbelievable that I almost convinced myself it was a dream.

“Why…?”

“Because you need me.”

It felt unfamiliar.

Could I believe this?

Banwes was staring intently at the wall in front of him, showing no expression I could read.

He was someone who lied constantly, even in the game.

Someone who hated revealing his true feelings—and probably didn’t even know what they were himself.

He had already lied once, just by coming into this room.

He said he had nothing to say.

It would be a lie to claim that receiving exactly what I needed, at the moment I needed it, didn’t hurt my pride.

I wasn’t someone who could lean on others.

The heroes in our group never betrayed each other, but I wasn’t really one of them, so that rule didn’t apply to me.

Still, like the apple pieces in my hand—

I couldn’t fully trust, but maybe, just maybe, I could at least touch a little.

“Thank you.”

An unbearable silence followed.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at Banwes, and though I couldn’t see him, it felt like he was avoiding looking at me too.

Suddenly, the tips of his fingers brushed against my open palm. He picked up one of the remaining apple pieces and popped it into his mouth.

He and I quietly nibbled on apple pieces, dragging it out as long as possible so the awkward atmosphere wouldn’t settle in once the food was gone.

Once the apple pieces ran out, the tension became unbearable, and I eventually tried to break away.

“Go back to your room now.”

I wanted to rest a little before dinner.

Banwes didn’t seem like he was stubbornly refusing; rather, he stayed put as if to say, “I never had a room to begin with.”

I checked Banwes’s room next door.

It was a complete wreck.

The bed was smashed to pieces, the walls were cracked and letting in drafts, and the window was shattered with glass strewn all over the floor.

When both I and Yurichen stared pointedly at him, he confessed.

“It was an accident. Human-made things are just too flimsy.”

“You’ve never made that kind of ‘accident’ before. Why now?”

“I just did.”

It was suspicious to no end, but since he was insisting, there wasn’t much ground to argue.

Besides, compared to everything the group had done for the Duchy, a little money for house repairs was nothing.

“We have no choice. You’ll have to share a room with someone…”

Yurichen looked at Banwes’s face and quickly corrected himself.

“Share a room with Riarun.”

It was a bit unfair, considering every room had two beds, but I didn’t feel strongly enough to object, so I quietly agreed.

If it had been right after the conversation with Yurichen earlier, I might’ve exploded.

But after hearing Banwes’s words, my resentment had softened a little.

We’ve been sharing rooms all this time anyway; what’s one more day?

After dinner, I started to feel chilled. Once my tension eased, my eyelids grew so heavy they felt weighted.

I barely made it to the bed and collapsed, pulling the covers over me—and from that moment, my consciousness vanished.

—

I woke again in the early dawn.

Startled, I found people gathered around me. Fortunately, the eyes staring down at me—red, black, green, and gold—were all familiar.

“Since you’re awake, drink some water and take some medicine. But don’t move beyond that. Your breathing is strained, your body temperature is too high. You probably can’t even move your limbs properly, right?”

I tried twisting my body to sit up and immediately groaned from the muscle pain gripping my whole body.

It wasn’t particularly surprising.

Yesterday, I had pushed myself to an impossible sprint while being chased by enemies.

It was a miracle my knees hadn’t given out.

Plus, I’d killed people, fainted because of a demon, gone through intense mental stress, and spent more energy crying.

In short, I had pushed my frail body way beyond its limits and collapsed.

A fever was serious, yes—but was it really something worth everyone losing sleep over to check on me?

Even Bzhan was sitting on the window sill, staring down at me upside down.

“We thought the door was going to break down.”

“It did break. There are cracks everywhere except this room.”

“Banwes, that’s not how you’re supposed to knock. Still struggling to control your strength, huh?”

“Funny how selective your strength control is.”

Even as the Hero and the Mage bickered, the only response Banwes gave was a curt “Shut up, you’re noisy.”

Yurichen briefly channeled some holy power into me, then stopped and made a much more ordinary, practical decision.

He ushered everyone else out, changed my sweat-soaked clothes, and laid a cool wet cloth on my forehead.

“Healing power isn’t omnipotent. It’s hard to heal the aftermath of overused muscles through magic.”

Spirit power was the same way.

It could heal injuries and restore lost blood but couldn’t replenish drained stamina.

Paronai suddenly nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, if muscle pain could be healed easily, noble families would’ve raised their knights by keeping a healer around during training. That’d be unfair. Managing your stamina is part of being a warrior.”

My head was spinning, so I squeezed my eyes shut.

After thinking for a while, Yurichen made a decision.

“Let’s rest for one more day.”

“Is that okay?”

“I’ll rework the schedule.

Honestly, the real reason we were in a hurry to leave the Duchy wasn’t so much the black dragon problem… it’s that the Duchy itself has been too unstable lately…”