HPV 62

The High Priest paced back and forth like a tiny boat tossed by a storm.

His face was a mixture of confusion, regret, and anxiety.

“I was foolish. I must fix this immediately. We need to separate their rooms.”

“Calm down.”

Penzey placed a hand on Yurichen’s shoulder.

Yurichen immediately shook it off.

“You were the one who told us to treat him as a human and comrade. So what if he kissed—”

“It’s not because Banwes is a half-monster that this is a problem.”

For a moment, it felt like Penzey’s purple eyes had turned black.m as he quietly stared into the High Priest’s gaze.

“Ria wasn’t assaulted.”

“Banwes has enough strength to overpower Riarun anytime he wants.”

“If this was assault, I’ll personally apologize to Ria, come crawling to you, get baptized, and become a priest.”

The mage was someone who joked around constantly, but this time, he wasn’t joking.

Yurichen’s eyelids quivered slightly.

Penzey could read the worry and fear hidden deep in Yurichen’s eyes.

He found it curious that this usually haughty High Priest could be so deeply invested in a single individual.

He moved his lips, speaking calmly:

“He’s not that kind of guy.”

When the High Priest blinked, the fading gold in his eyes returned to a bright light.

He let out a small sigh, gathering his frayed divine power.

It was a sign that his reason had returned.

Truthfully, Penzey wasn’t particularly interested in the fight between Riarun and Banwes.

He figured they could sort it out themselves—after all, it was a lovers’ quarrel, and he thought it best not to interfere.

He was simply intrigued by how the situation was unfolding.

Normally, the Yurichen he knew would have immediately denounced them both for letting personal emotions disrupt the journey, not caring at all about their feelings or actions.

“Bzhan, don’t you know anything? You’re always sneaking around; you must’ve heard something.”

Paronai asked weakly, glancing back. Only then did focus return to the boy’s eyes.

Soon, Bzhan twisted his face in a sneer.

“That’s a perverted thought.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

At that moment, the commotion abruptly stopped.

The artifact’s effect was lifted, and the sounds of Riarun and Banwes returning reached them.

The two walked back with a slight distance between them—Riarun ahead, Banwes a few steps behind.

“Apologies for delaying the group.”

Altogether, the entire disturbance hadn’t even taken twenty minutes—shorter than a typical rest break.

Riarun offered a polite apology, then glared sharply at Banwes behind him.

“You apologize too.”

Banwes didn’t actually apologize, but at least he didn’t snap back with something like, “Why should I?”

That was about as polite as he got.

Paronai craned his neck, hoping for some kind of explanation, but Riarun said nothing more.

Since there was still a long journey ahead, the group started moving again.

Paronai kept sneaking glances at Riarun and Banwes (very obviously), and the conclusion he came to was deeply bewildering.

‘There’s absolutely no change…?’

He hadn’t exactly been expecting anything—or so he told himself—but wasn’t it strange for things to be this normal?

“Carry me.”

Same as always.

“Give me a piggyback ride.”

Still the same.

Banwes bent down without resistance, letting Riarun climb onto his back.

He supported Riarun’s lower body with his arms, just like he always did.

It was all done so plainly, without any awkwardness.

‘Acceptance? Rejection? …Or maybe… postponed?’

It was hard to believe that one of them had just confessed their love.

It was more believable that the entire group had hallucinated the whole incident.

If they had at least exchanged a few words, he might’ve picked up some clue, but there was no idle talk at all.

Then again, they had always been the silent types.

In fact, since the only time they usually spoke was to argue, this current silence actually made them seem closer than before.

‘Maybe their relationship has improved because they actually talked?’

At the moment, the group had made camp and was eating lunch.

Riarun, with his usual clumsy eating habits, tore off a large chunk of bread and handed it to Banwes.

“Dip it in the stew.”

Then he passed the stew bowl over as well, which Banwes accepted without a word.

It was a normal, everyday scene.

Unable to find a single hint, Paronai finally turned his head away.

If he stared any harder, it would just be rude.

Riarun, who usually ate diligently even if not in large quantities, only picked at his food and soon finished.

He hugged his knees and quietly waited for the others to finish their meal.

Though he kept a calm expression, staring blankly as if resting, in truth, his mind was busy with thoughts.

‘He told me to think only of myself and choose what’s best for me…’

Should he join the black dragon subjugation and survive the threat?

Or stay behind and face the risk that a demon might take possession of him?

When Banwes said not to think about anyone else, he had included himself in that, too.

A man who had always cared only for his own survival and safety was now saying that his own actions would change depending on Riarun’s choice.

There had been no other words added—no sneering remarks like, “You’re so weak, just worry about yourself and stop concerning yourself with others.”

When they talked about the kiss, it had only been awkward.

At the time, Riarun had been so on edge with suspicion—What is he scheming?—that he hadn’t been able to grasp the real essence of it.

Now, the group fully believed that he and Banwes had kissed.

Since they couldn’t imagine there had been some special, unavoidable reason behind it, they naturally assumed the kiss carried its most common symbolic meaning.

Because Riarun’s cheeks had flushed too late, ironically, it only made the group less suspicious.

Riarun wanted to punch the ground—or smack the chest behind him with all his strength.

‘I’m bad at talking with people too, so I don’t want to criticize you, but seriously, was there no better way?’

But spilled water can’t be gathered again.

He could only endure and move forward.

That night, Banwes couldn’t sleep and kept tossing and turning.

He covered his mouth with his palm, a gesture of deep contemplation.

’…So, in everyone else’s eyes, I’m just a guy who lusted after Riarun and kissed him, huh?’

It was a horrifying image.

Yet it was one he had brought upon himself.

He couldn’t accept it outright, but he also couldn’t bring himself to call it a misunderstanding.

Yes, he wasn’t innocent.

The very act of insisting “It wasn’t out of lust” made him look all the more suspicious—though he was oblivious to that.

Still, the answer had been clear to him for a long time: he could not feel lust toward humans.

His biological father, a monster, had toyed with his mother’s body and ultimately killed her.

No matter how hard he tried all his life, he could never shake free of that inherited sin, always wandering in the same darkness.

***

They were climbing a massive mountain too large to go around, and the temperature kept falling.

Before long, the rain froze into hailstones. The sharp tadak tadak of hail pelting the ground pinned the group in place.

But I wasn’t hit by a single stone—because Banwes used one arm and his back to shield my head, taking the hail himself.

“I wanna get hit by at least one piece of hail,” I grumbled, pressing the back of my head against his chest.

He gave no response.

Left with no choice, I picked a hailstone off his shoulder and popped it into my mouth to taste it.

“Why is the weather like this? It was summer back in the capital! This isn’t fair!”

“This is strange. Even for the north, it shouldn’t be snowing yet.”

The hail kept pouring down like rain with no sign of letting up.

The group huddled under a thick, leafy tree to avoid the worst of it.

“What if we tried moving like this?”

I conjured a blue protective barrier to shield the group from the hail.

“It’ll help temporarily, but you can’t maintain it forever. Let’s look for shelter,”

Yurichen said, shielding his face with his gloved hand.

Bzhan ran ahead, saying he’d scout for a cave—and before long, he returned faster than the wind, bringing surprising news.

“There’s a settlement up here?”

Following his lead up the mountain, we indeed found a cluster of huts nestled along the ridge.

About ten sturdily built huts, their roofs tightly woven with straw to withstand heavy snow.

“This place isn’t on the map.”

Yurichen, who had practically memorized the continent’s maps over the past few months, spoke with certainty.

It wasn’t unheard of for small villages, especially in the north where monster attacks forced constant relocation, to be missing from maps.

It was too early to be suspicious.

Sensing the presence of people, someone emerged from the largest hut.

“Travelers! Welcome!”

He was a middle-aged man, his entire body wrapped tightly in a white fur cloak.

The crow’s feet around his eyes were deep and dignified, giving him an impressive air.

He must have been showered with admiration in his youth, given how striking he still was.

And so, I witnessed the beginning of Banwes’s story arc.

It was here that Banwes would even contemplate taking his own life.