HPV 75

Days passed within the fortress.

As the date of the Black Dragon’s awakening drew closer, the number and ferocity of the monsters increased.

When soldiers finally began to fall outside the walls, the commanders, grim-faced, proposed the next strategy.

The following day, a group of middle-aged men clad in tattered blankets arrived at the fortress.

“Whoo… The stench of corpses is strong,” one of them, seemingly their leader, said as he brazenly surveyed the fortress inside and out.

At a glance, they looked like burly blacksmiths, their jaws and shoulders broad.

But unlike ordinary craftsmen, they were mages at their core — though not scholars of the Mage Tower, so Penzey was unfamiliar with them.

With a proud look, the leader slung the enormous weapon off his back and revealed it.

It was a kind of artifact, but far from a mere tool for daily use — a magical device made solely for war.

“This bad boy even saw action during the Demon King Subjugation! It was thanks to this that I became the top engineer of the Kingdom of Echinea!”

Several old knights gazed at the weapon as if seeing an old friend, while the younger commanders, unfamiliar with such weapons, looked on in awe and asked what it could do.

“You kids these days can’t even imagine it, but once upon a time, orcs were high-grade magical beasts, intelligent and organized. They served kings and built legions. This device shatters their minds, reducing them to nothing but savage beasts.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” someone asked.

“Not at all. Once it starts resonating, they’ll tear into each other, biting and devouring their own kind alive!”

In the desperate days when orc legions swelled like black rivers over the hills, this resonator shattered the cohesion of their ranks by shaking their very magical cores.

Even knights who normally despised magical devices could not deny that this resonator had dealt a massive blow to the Demon King’s forces.

“When this thing gets going, the orcs’ brains rot to less than that of maggots. They can’t recognize their own children or mates — they’ll gorge themselves on their kin until their bellies burst. Wouldn’t surprise me if they started violating their own kind, unable to tell male from comrade, and then — pardon my language — started defiling the battlefield itself! Hah!”

The engineer was laughing heartily when the atmosphere abruptly changed.

He fell silent, sensing the shift. The people’s eyes were all directed behind him. Puzzled, the man cautiously turned around.

And saw it — a massive figure, large enough to fill the gate, turning its back on him.

“Wait.”

A young man, trailing the giant, gave off an aura like fresh grass as he hurried after him.

Later, stunned voices leaked out from the war room:

“Could it be true? Is there really such a thing as an orc half-blood?”

***

Banwes had come outside to check on the new reinforcements and thus learned of the weapon used in the Demon King Subjugation.

Without a word, he slipped away.

His face was hidden behind a mask, so no one could read his expression.

I followed after him.

I had known something like this would happen, but seeing it with my own eyes made my heart plummet.

“Wait.”

I called out to stop him, but at the same time, I wondered — would Banwes even listen to anything I had to say?

“Don’t worry about that weapon. You’ll be fine.”

Strictly speaking, the one that weapon had crushed was Banwes’s biological father, the one who had given him orc blood.

But Banwes had no attachment to the downfall of the Demon King.

If anything, he welcomed it.

It was a grand invention, one that had allowed humans to defeat wicked beasts and take dominion over this land.

Yet among those humans, Banwes himself was not counted.

The resonator would affect exactly one person within this fortress.

A starving monster roamed within Gerenique Fortress, seeking to kill and devour its fellow kin — humans.

The many knights within these walls would not hesitate to raise their swords against it.

Banwes turned to look at me.

Our eyes met — and unexpectedly, I felt a crushing sense of helplessness.

Even though I stood right in front of him, Banwes could not think of me as the same as himself.

The feeling of being utterly alone in this world. I knew it well, yet no matter how much you understand it, it’s not something one can ever fully master.

Shaking off the useless thoughts, I spoke again, firmly.

“You’ll be fine even if the weapon is activated. You might not feel great, but you’ll endure it.”

“Can you promise me that?”

“Yeah. I promise.”

I answered with such certainty that it sounded like I could summon conviction out of thin air.

Banwes’s gaze wavered, tinted like a blazing red sunset.

It was as if he found me unfamiliar.

But it was not I who determined Banwes’s course of action — not now, not while we were at war.

“There’s a pit outside the fortress. Stay there until the signal is given.”

The Lord of the fortress came personally to speak to Banwes.

It was about the abandoned outpost on the southern wall — until now, a place where reinforcements could briefly shelter from the blizzards on their way to the fortress.

But with no more allies expected, it would soon stand empty.

It was still a safe zone.

The monsters would only surge south once the fortress itself fell. And yet—

‘He’s going to resist.’

I remembered what words Yurichen had used to persuade him to come along in the first place.

That he would be treated as a human, given land and a home.

Swayed by such kind promises, he had come all the way north — only to now be treated, politely but unmistakably, as a monster.

Even the rest of us judged that it couldn’t be helped. The knights were not particularly devout men.

They allowed a fledgling hero to head toward a dragon’s nest with only a handful of companions, not because they believed an oracle, but because they understood the nature of dragons.

Likewise, Yurichen was not excluding Banwes out of prejudice but was separating him from the knights for his protection, before the weapon was activated.

‘In the original game, he’s supposed to be furious here.’

But there was no need to think back to the game — the Banwes I knew would definitely be angry.

Even if there was the difference that I was here now, it would only add to his fury, not temper it.

‘You said you would stay where I am.’

He stared at me, and through the slits of his mask, a fragment of his red eye was visible.

Then, he gave a single, small nod toward the Lord of the fortress.

‘…Wait, he nodded?’

Already? That fast?

Even though Banwes himself had decided to leave the fortress, something about it still felt wrong.

As always, the root of most of his troubles was me. This time was no different.

He looked around at the group one by one.

He exhaled heavily — so heavily it felt as if he had carved a hollow into the ground.

‘Do you not trust a single person here to take care of me?’

Speechless at the thought, I stepped forward.

“You keep forgetting what kind of person I am… Did you forget how sly and devious I can be? I’ll cling like a leech to anyone who’ll protect me.”

Yurichen had the status to guarantee my safety.

Paronai would roll up his sleeves and step forward if I were in danger.

Penzey wouldn’t stand by idly either.

As for a certain boy, he might just follow me around entirely.

I gently tugged at Banwes and pulled him aside so we could talk alone.

“This is a rehearsal, right? I’ll use this chance to prove it — that I can take care of myself.”

It was a rehearsal for the time after he left to kill the Black Dragon.

He wanted to watch over me, but just this once, he had to keep his distance — because he himself might be the most dangerous.

I had to prove it to him. If I could reassure him now, everything after would be easier.

Thankfully, for now, the demon was still a blessing to me.

While the weapon was active, it shouldn’t affect Banwes—

“There’s a condition. Hand the demon over to me.”

As if he had read my mind, Banwes demanded it. He leaned down and whispered into my ear, at the same time pressing the inside of his thigh lightly between my legs.

The reckless, aggressive touch shocked me more than the weight of his words.

“Wait, wait a second.”

He wanted the demon because he was uneasy…?

No — that sounded an awful lot like he was asking to sleep with me right this instant!

If his expression hadn’t been so terribly serious, I might have cursed him out on the spot.

Instead, I gathered all the calm within me to persuade him.

“Listen. We just kissed yesterday.”

He had handed me the demon only yesterday.

Just yesterday, he had handed it over so easily that when it ended quickly, he looked a little regretfully at my lips!

Anyway, it had only been a single day. I was still completely fine.

As long as no extreme accident occurred, there was no issue at all.

“Nothing bad happens in just one day. So mind your own health.”

I gave him a sharp poke, trying to reassert some discipline.

But seeing him frown slightly, my resolve weakened again.

I clasped my hands together inside my sleeves and said,

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Banwes narrowed his eyes in puzzlement, as if he didn’t understand.

I had seen it before — in the game.

How, when the resonance waves became unbearable, he would stab his own arm with a sword just to stay conscious.

Even imagining it made my stomach churn and my chest tighten.