HPV 72

My body felt limp, and I couldn’t gather his senses. It was as if I were glued to the bed.

I felt so good that I wanted to stay in that languid slumber forever. The warm, heat was comforting.

The once hollow space inside me, no matter how much I tried to fill it, now overflowed with a tangible, mellow warmth that poured into me endlessly, until it felt like all strength had left my body.

Just then, the sound of knocking at the door jolted me awake.

“Ria, are you still asleep? Can I come in?”

As soon as the carefree and refreshing face of the hero came to mind, all sleepiness fled. A sharp gasp burst from my lungs.

‘What time is it? Where am I…?’

I tried to throw off the blanket but froze in place.

First, because my waist and hips hurt so badly it felt like they would give out.

Second, because I realized my legs were tangled with someone else’s.

I had momentarily overlooked it due to lingering sleep, but this kind of warm coziness was something I could never create alone.

And Banwes was half-naked, wearing only his undergarments.

Realizing that I had been sleeping with his face buried against Banwes’s chest, arms and legs wrapped tightly around him, made my heart thump.

The hot, bare chest slowly moved away.

Banwes stretched slowly, like a beast waking from sleep, lifting his body with a heavy, lazy motion.

“Why… didn’t you go back to your room?”

My voice came out hoarse.

It was no wonder—I had cried out so much last night that I couldn’t even imagine trying to recreate it.

Banwes’s eyes were unbelievably calm and clear, not at all like someone who had just woken up.

No, Banwes hadn’t been asleep.

He might have been awake even before Paronai knocked.

Which meant he had stayed, holding me the whole time.

A cold wave of tension swept through my body. Only then did I realize how disastrous the situation was.

‘What do I do?’

We all slept in separate rooms. But if Banwes were seen coming out of my room…?

It was too late to sneak him out. Paronai was already outside. He might have realized it already. If he had checked Banwes’s room and found it empty…

Banwes said nothing. He simply released his arms that had been holding Riarun and stood up.

There wasn’t a hint of urgency in his expression.

I was horrified.

“What are you thinking?!”

We couldn’t get caught. But—caught for what?

For the fact that Banwes and I had slept together last night…

“How’s your body?”

Banwes didn’t seem the least concerned that someone was outside.

He placed his large hand on my head.

That massive hand covered my crown like a cap, then clumsily smoothed my messy hair before cupping my cheek.

The sensations from the previous night flooded back, and I flinched. I quickly pulled the blanket between us and replied in a sulky tone,

“It hurts.”

It was the natural result of using muscles I normally didn’t.

I vaguely recalled the feeling of my lower body nearly splitting apart from the night before.

I raised my eyes slightly—only to meet Banwes’s gaze head-on.

For a moment, I missed Banwes’s usual teasing. Because the way this large man was now looking at me with worried eyes was unbearably embarrassing.

“Ria~ Are you okay? I’m coming in?”

At that moment, Paronai knocked a few more times.

Wait!—I was about to shout, but a hot hand clamped over my mouth.

With a single look, Banwes commanded me to stay quietly under the blanket.

He tucked me snugly in, as if telling me to leave it to him.

The heavy weight lifted from the bed.

Banwes picked up his pants from the floor and slipped them on.

His firm, broad back disappeared under his tunic shirt.

Honestly, I had never seen Banwes get dressed so fast before. If he could move like that, why had he always fumbled around so much before?

“Ria—Ack!”

A loud thud mixed with a scream.

Banwes opened the door without hesitation and smacked it against Paronai’s forehead.

“Ah! I’m fine—wait, what?”

Paronai’s bewildered voice echoed in the room.

Why is he coming out from there?

I hid under the blanket, holding ly breath.

My heart pounded wildly.

“Don’t make a fuss.”

Banwes’s voice was cold and dry, stripped of any emotion, but it made him sound completely innocent.

In this compromising situation, he even acted like he had done nothing wrong.

“Riarun is sick. Thanks to your shouting, his headache must be even worse now.”

“What? If Ria was sick, you should’ve woken us up!”

But Banwes remained flawlessly composed.

“What good would that have done?”

He even pretended to be his usual blunt self.

Or maybe… he wasn’t pretending at all.

The moment the tension eased, fatigue weighed down heavily on my body.

As Banwes carried me on his back, I sagged helplessly, unable even to open my eyes, leaning against the familiar, warm body like a sick child.

Since I wasn’t injured, the muscle aches and drained stamina couldn’t be healed by spirit or divine powers.

The only solution was to sleep and recover.

Before leaving the villa, Banwes cleaned up the traces of the previous night, but there was nothing he could do about the soiled sheets.

He bundled them up and instructed a tight-lipped servant to dispose of them discreetly.

I felt a pang of guilt for causing so much trouble, but I couldn’t make any excuse.

‘It’s not like I clung to him because I wanted to? It was part of treatment? What could I even say.’

I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut and become a troublesome guest.

Drifting in and out of sleep on Banwes’s back, I eventually noticed the group had stopped. They decided to make camp early because of the worsening weather.

Banwes carefully laid me down on a blanket.

He thickly covered Riarun with a fur blanket, then sat on it and gently removed his uncomfortable winter boots.

Closing and opening my flickering eyes, I dozed off again—and through my blurred vision, a pure white figure appeared.

“Please rest. I’ll gather firewood with Penzey,” said the high priest.

The noble High Priest could never imagine what kind of debauchery the seemingly innocent Riarun had succumbed to the night before.

Nor could he imagine that the usually blunt and silent man had stripped naked and spilled his lewd fluids while lifting Riarun’s equally naked body.

Thanks to Banwes’s indifferent demeanor, the High Priest was completely fooled. Fooled enough to worry about me.

The rest of the party seemed clueless as well.

Maybe the cunning mage had sensed something—but since he kept silent, there was no way to know.

“Then I’ll go with Bzhan to check the area for danger,” said Paronai, getting up.

As the companions scattered, a silence fell over the camp.

As usual, the handy priest and mage would tidy up the campsite, while the hero and elven boy, both with keen instincts, would patrol the surroundings.

It was the same division of duties they had followed throughout the journey.

But just this once, I desperately wished I wouldn’t be left alone.

Trying to stay quietly awake, my lower back throbbed in pain.

I cautiously turned to lie on my side.

The blanket slipped down, exposing my ankle to the cold air.

‘Cold…’

The chill sank directly into my skin, making me instinctively shrink.

From somewhere out of sight, Banwes moved. I felt a hand adjust the blanket, as if to cover the exposed ankle.

But then, silence stretched between us.

Curious, I slowly poked my head out from under the blanket.

Banwes was staring dazedly at my pale ankle, his hand suspended mid-air.

Even for someone like Banwes, it was natural to feel something upon seeing the bare skin of the person he had embraced so fiercely the night before.

Snapping back to his senses, Banwes finally covered the ankle with the blanket.

For a while, neither of us said a word.

Most likely, we were both thinking the same thing—because it was impossible not to.

Last night’s events had been far too intense to simply forget.

I curled up tighter under the blanket, trying to make myself as small as possible, wishing I could disappear from sight.

‘Seriously… I’m insane.’

Yesterday, driven by something I couldn’t even name—fear from the pain or some deep-seated instinct—I had recklessly surrendered himself.

It must have been a pure impulse.

But was it really alright to do such a thing with someone I wasn’t even married to?

Could these impulses also be blamed on the demon within me?

I would be different if I hated it—but the fact that I had enjoyed it so much—was that pleasure something the demon had given me?

Then if, someday, I managed to find a way to purge the demon, what would become of me and Banwes?

Until the demon was gone, I couldn’t define anything—not even my own feelings.

I couldn’t possibly share these shameful, indecisive, and chaotic thoughts with Banwes.

“…Someday, we have to do it again, right?”

The real problem was that last night wasn’t the end.

That overwhelming act had only been a method to transfer the demon.

Which meant there would be a next time.

“Yes.”

As if he had been expecting the question, Banwes answered immediately, without a hint of surprise.

The firm, affirmative reply sent a rush of heat to my ears.

That “someday” was likely…

“Probably right before we part ways in front of the Black Dragon’s nest… we’ll have to do it again, to put your body in peak condition.”

“If either of our conditions worsen before that, and a transfer becomes necessary, we may need to do it more.”

I felt like fainting.

I had steeled myself to expect “just once more,” but Banwes casually spoke of the possibility of even more without hesitation.

“You lost your… purity because of me, without even being married, and you’re really okay with that?”