MTM 2

Harto froze in shock. The man stared straight at him and said nothing.

“Uh… that’s, that’s not what I…”

Harto stammered as cold sweat trickled down his face, and he slowly turned away from the bag.

“Where are you going?”

Flinch. The man noticed it and asked in a low voice. His tone sounded cold. It wouldn’t have been strange if frost came out of his mouth. He didn’t look like the same person who had been coughing blood in pain just a while ago, but Harto was too nervous to notice.

“Uh… I’m not, going anywhere…”

When Harto fumbled and couldn’t answer properly, the man’s eyes narrowed.

“How old are you?”

“I’m twenty this year.”

“Twenty?”

The man’s gaze was filled with suspicion. Harto’s appearance didn’t look twenty at all, not even eighteen. He looked very young. His clothes were made of shabby fabric, and his loose pants made him look even shorter than he was.

“Your affiliation?”

“A-affiliation?”

“I’m asking whether you’re an enemy or an ally.”

“Ah…”

Harto hesitated. In the novel’s story, he was the villain who would destroy the world, so technically he was an enemy. He couldn’t say that. But he couldn’t lie and say he was an ally either, since he had just met the man today.

And above all else…

“I saved you…”

Harto clutched his collar with both hands and showed his frustration.

“I saved you in the cave, and I even gave you the medicine… your hands were burning… I put out the fire… I brought you all the way here. But I was hungry, so…”

Harto’s eyes turned toward the man’s bag. The man looked at it too, and his face showed a brief sign of thought.

“…An ally.”

Slide. The man thought for a moment and came to a conclusion. He only said two word, then closed his eyes again.

Crackle, crackle. The quiet cabin was filled with the sound of the burning firewood.

“Huh…?”

Harto blankly stood there, he then realized that the man had fallen asleep again, and he jumped.

“W-what? Huh? What is this?”

He loudly shouted, then carefully asked again, but the man did not reply. Gathering his courage, Harto approached him and poked the man’s hard arm. He still did not react. L

“Was he seep-talking?”

That was the only explanation. He wondered if someone could talk so clearly with eyes open like that, but the question soon disappeared from his mind.

His stomach growled again.

“Bread… I’ll ask again tomorrow.”

Harto decided to wait until the man woke up and eat the stew with the berries and flowers he had brought.

“Mm…”

While Harto stirred the thin stew that was boiling in a small pot, he suddenly turned his head.

“When I saw him in the cave, his eyes were golden.”

When they talked just now, the man’s eyes were black. Harto stared at the man’s face lit by the fire and then stopped thinking when another rumble came from his stomach.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Splash, splash.

“Ugh, it’s cold…”

Three days later, Harto came back empty-handed after walking through the rain.

There would be no proper meal again today. He regretted not saving some of the stew from the morning and locked the door with the latch.

Whoosh.

He threw more logs into the fireplace to relight the fire that had gone out while he was away. Harto looked at the burning flames and let out a deep sigh.

“It’s a relief there are many trees around…”

He said that, but having only trees and bushes around was actually a problem. If he went down to the village, he might be able to get food. But he couldn’t risk being discovered, and more than that, Harto found it hard to deal with people.

Maybe that was because he had spent almost his whole life in a hospital. The medical staff and the people who cared for him had all been kind, but that was it. His family avoided visiting, and he had very few people he was close to.

Maybe no one had mourned his death.

Even so, Harto didn’t feel much attachment to his past life.

Rustle.

“But I found this.”

Harto, who had been quietly warming himself by the fire, reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a long, violet-tinted leaf. It was a mysterious plant that changed color when it rained, and a wanderer who once stopped by the cabin had told him it could be used as an herb.

Harto planned to crush it with a stone and apply it to the injured man’s hands.

When his body warmed enough, Harto decided to check the man’s condition. The man hadn’t moved at all and still lay on the sofa just like three days ago.

Flash.

The moment Harto went near, the man opened his eyes.

“Ah. It started!”

When their eyes met, Harto shouted in a cheerful voice.

“Who are you?”

“I’m your ally! I’m the same age as you. Twenty!”

“Ally… twenty?”

The man’s eyes were filled with suspicion. His look was the same as yesterday and the day before, and Harto grinned.

“You asked yesterday too, don’t you really remember? I even know your name.”

“What is it?”

“Zed Shaden. You’re the vice leader of the Night Rage Mercenary Corps.”

“……”

Zed stared at Harto’s face. He looked thoughtful, like he was deciding whether to give away bread from his bag.

Zed talked in his sleep every night. When Harto approached him, he opened his eyes as if someone pressed a switch and asked his affiliation and his age. At first, Harto thought he was joking, because it never looked like sleep-talking.

But even when he got the same answers, Zed never remembered them. So Harto understood that Zed suffered from serious sleep-talking.

“I see.”

Zed spoke that one short line like before and closed his eyes again.

“Huh…? You’re not going to ask my name?”

Harto grabbed Zed’s shoulder and shook it, but Zed didn’t react at all, as if he had never opened his eyes.

“I couldn’t tell him my name again…”

Harto gave up and muttered to himself in disappointment.

“Right. I should treat his hands.”

Then Harto remembered the herb and looked at Zed’s hands. He carefully removed the rough cloth that was wrapped around them, and his eyes widened.

“Huh…? They’re… healed?”

He couldn’t help but be startled. Back in the cave, black flames had been burning fiercely, and the wounds had been terrible. But now, his skin had healed without a single burn mark.

“Phew, that’s a relief. I was worried he might not be able to use his hands anymore.”

Even though the rain-soaked search for herbs in the morning ended up useless, Harto still was glad.

It must have been because of that medicine Zed had asked him to feed him, and Harto thought this was something possible only in a fantasy world, so he was relieved.

“But what should I do today… am I going to starve again?”

Because he went looking for herbs, he had failed to find food, so he would have to go hungry again today. Since he possessed the monster, he had experienced many days of hunger, but days like this, when he used a lot of energy, were the hardest.

He hadn’t touched Zed’s bag since that day. He thought if Zed suddenly opened his eyes again and got angry, saying, “You’re the enemy!” he would feel very sad.

In the end, Harto filled his stomach by gulping water like it was rice, let a bit drip into Zed’s mouth, and decided to sleep early.

“Ah.”

Then he spotted a berry rolling on the floor. It must have dropped when he added them to the stew two days ago.

Harto put the berry in his mouth and chewed it without hesitation. The sour taste spread across his tongue, but because he was too hungry, it felt sweet.

“…Ugh!”

But soon Harto’s mouth went numb, and his hands and feet trembled. He realized too late that he had eaten it raw instead of cooking it.

“Ugh…”

Harto shivered and crawled on the floor until he reached the fire. He crouched in front of it, but he was still feeling cold. The warm flames no longer felt warm, but painful, and cold sweat ran down as he dragged himself toward the sofa.

“J-just… ngh, just a little…”

I saved him… I even gave him a bed… I took care of him all this time…

Harto repeated those thoughts as he snuggled up behind Zed’s back. Then he curled his body and wrapped his trembling arms around him to share his warmth. Maybe it was because Zed was large. Soon, he felt warmth of the human body, and his trembling gradually stopped.

‘Ah… it’s warm…’

Even at the hospital, he had never felt this warm.

Harto, whose past life came to mind, close d his eyes tightly, as it he was about to cry.

He tossed and turned for a while until the sound of the rain died down, and then he fell asleep.