HPV 65

The man briefly lost consciousness from the impact with the ground.
Not long after, he opened his eyes and felt a dull, aching pain spread throughout his body, especially his back. It seemed his leg was dislocated and several of his ribs were cracked.

However, since his spine remained uninjured, he was still able to move.
Even as his mind cursed him and screamed for him to just die already.
He stood up, counted the number of wolves swarming from all directions, and, with his body broken and battered, strangled the wolves one by one.

For the sake of the small, trembling creature cradled in his arms, breathing quick and shallow breaths.
The moment his body moved to protect Riarun from the fall, even while still trapped under brainwashing.

—The moment he thought, Even if I get hurt, it’s better if you don’t.

He was finished. He could no longer return to how he once was.
Banwes looked at his former self, now separated from him. The other version of him was terribly small and drenched in blood.

Behind him, his birth mother took her own life, but Banwes could not turn back to look. He crawled and crawled, desperate to survive.

The orcs were exterminated, yet the half-blood lived on, carrying that filthy blood. He had torn his way out of his mother’s womb. They said he was possessed by a demon. Every kind of filth clung to his soles, refusing to let go.

Even so, that stubborn, wretched life survived…
And he would spend it all for Riarun. He would betray the entire world, a world that wished for his death.

—Even if I am someone who should not remain alive, I will live and do all that I could not before.

The walls that had protected and imprisoned him shattered with a violent ripple.

He had experienced the very bottom. Yet when he overturned it, the bottom became the sky. It became a brilliant light.
Where they had fallen was less a pit and more a cave, so deep it defied description.

That middle-aged man must have spent a very long time creating such a place. And that was not all. He had summoned monsters from the snowy mountains, crafting a temperature that was hostile to survival. He had even unleashed the monsters within.

On top of that, it seemed he had set up a trap where water was splashed onto them during their fall. The two of them were soaked from head to toe.

“Mm, uh…”

Riarun, whose lips had turned blue and who was trembling uncontrollably, opened his eyes.

“Ah…”

His dazed eyes scanned his surroundings, trying to grasp the situation. Meanwhile, Banwes quickly stripped off all of Riarun’s wet clothing.
Though startled, Riarun did not resist.

Banwes then hastily stripped himself as well, leaving only his undergarments.
He laid their clothes on the ground and sat down upon them, pulling Riarun’s frail, icy body tightly into his embrace. His burning body heat clung to his in the most primal form of warmth.

“Hey… isn’t your butt cold?”

As soon as he had regained enough warmth to stop his teeth from chattering, that was the first thing Riarun said.

“Then should I lay you down and let both of us freeze?”

Though Banwes’s voice, accustomed to enduring the icy cave’s walls and floor, still wasn’t exactly tender, there was no harshness in it either.

“Well, you have a point.”
Riarun agreed.

Even while holding Riarun, Banwes clenched his teeth and set his dislocated leg back into place himself.
Once Riarun regained his senses, he healed his injuries. The cracks in his ribs were neatly mended as well.

“There’s no exit.”

“Yeah… We’ll just have to wait for someone to come rescue us.”

In the pitch-dark cave where not a single beam of light reached, only the sounds of each other’s heartbeats and breathing could be felt.

And the raw sensation of bare skin pressed together.

Though all kind of things happen during travel, never had they clung together like this, stark naked.

Riarun’s face flushed red. Even as he could not lift his head, Banwes lightly felt along his body, searching for parts that hadn’t yet absorbed his warmth.
Soon, he found his feet, frozen solid.
His large hands wrapped around his soles. His hands were so big that his feet slipped into them as if they were shoes.

“The smell of blood is awful.”

As time passed, a stench rose from the corpses of the monsters Banwes had slain.
Riarun wrinkled his nose, unable to adapt to the smell. he hadn’t said it expecting a solution, yet Banwes offered a strange one.

“If the smell of my sweat doesn’t bother you, then bury your face in me.”

Riarun frowned even more. his cheeks seemed to flush even deeper.
But the stench of blood was overwhelming, and seeing as they were already clinging to each other, he surrendered to the inevitable.

Banwes, despite being the one to suggest it, flinched slightly when his soft forehead, prominent nose, and tender lips brushed against his neck.

“It’s a little better now.”

A moment later, Riarun hesitantly said that he, too, could bury his face in his.
Banwes conveyed his refusal through silence.
His sense of smell was particularly sensitive.

The scent of Riarun’s bare skin and hair wafted up to him, making him feel intoxicated even without needing to press his nose against his. He closed his eyes in comfort.

“You knew… about me…”

He suddenly muttered.

Riarun realized then: he had heard everything he said. That it wasn’t his fault his mother had died.
Yet surely, he still loathed the half of his blood that came from his.

“How thick-skinned must you be to know everything about me and still yell and scold me?”

His tone carried a hint of mockery, making him sound almost like his usual self.
Riarun, though not particularly offended, retorted anyway.

“You’re one to talk. How could you so casually scold someone possessed by a demon? If you thought I was filthy, you shouldn’t have kissed me either.”

Kissed.

When had he first kissed Riarun? Banwes chased his memories, recalling the very beginning.

He had started with the thought that he needed to keep him alive in order to survive in human society.

“It took me twenty years to learn human speech.”

Holding the warm, fragile body in his arms, he let the rising monologue spill from his lips, as if the lock had been broken.

“I don’t want to die. I want to live, even if it’s like this. I don’t know what I’ll do with my life once I survive, but…”

Suddenly, a droplet of water fell from the ceiling onto Riarun’s shoulder.

It was so cold that he let out a sharp cry. Riarun flinched and shivered violently. Vanwes quickly shifted to the side, wiped Riarun’s shoulder dry, and rested his chin there to warm him up again.

Even though their eyes had adjusted to the dark, they could still only make out each other’s outlines.

Instead, there was warmth.

They spoke, breathed, and existed through the same warmth.

Drowsiness set in, and like the man, Riarun began to whisper without much coherence.

“Are you really… going to stay by my side?”

Banwes answered with his chin still resting on Riarun’s shoulder, making his pronunciation slightly slurred.

“Didn’t I say? I’ll stay until the demon is gone.”

“How am I supposed to believe that?”

Riarun asked sharply. Banwes replied a bit roughly,

“What’s the point of saying it if you won’t believe it?”

But on second thought, it wasn’t Riarun’s fault. If anything, it was the opposite.

He had spent all this time giving Riarun nothing but curt words and only once had spoken sincerely.

Then he had the nerve to get angry when Riarun didn’t recognize it — even a child would know better.

Maybe he really was still a child. After all, it had taken him until he was twenty to learn enough language to talk with humans.

“You don’t even like me,”

Riarun responded lightly.

Come to think of it, Riarun had always been genuine.

He didn’t pity Vanwes, but treated him like a human being.

Even now, facing him with earnest, sharp eyes, engaging in quarrels without hesitation.

“In your eyes, I’m nothing but a burdensome, frail freeloader who eats too much, a weakling whose healing powers can’t even begin to make up for all my flaws.”

Banwes opened his eyes.

The cave was so dark that he couldn’t even see Riarun’s face or body. He closed his eyes again without gaining anything and recalled Riarun’s face from memory.

“A freeloader, a weakling, a burden,”

As Riarun’s gaze sharpened, his long lashes pricked at Vanwes’ heart.

But then, Banwes rephrased the words he had mumbled earlier.

“Eats heartily, has soft, graceful lines, tries hard despite a frail body.”

The man lifted Riarun’s chin and lightly pressed their foreheads together. Then he could barely make out the olive-colored eyes.

“If you must die, then die in front of me.”

Riarun’s irises trembled. He stared blankly at Banwes’ crimson stone-like eyes and his pitch-black pupils.

“If you are going to die because of the demon, let me see it with my own eyes. At least, don’t die somewhere I can’t see, in a way I don’t know about.”

He drove the wedge in a second time.

Since Riarun hadn’t understood the first time, he said it again, and he was prepared to repeat it as many times as it took.

The exposed part of Riarun’s face turned cold. He buried his face between Banwes’ collarbone and chest.

“I’ve decided. I’ll wait nearby until you return after slaying the black dragon.”

In return, he had to give a promise.

If Banwes had promised not to leave him, Riarun had to offer something back.

And Riarun knew exactly what that was.

“I won’t die. I won’t make your promise worthless. Whether it’s from demons or any other threat, I’ll survive.”

That night.

While cradling the sleeping Riarun and bearing the heavy darkness, Banwes’ body suddenly convulsed.

The pain was so brutal — as if his intestines were tearing apart, as if his lungs and heart were on fire — that for the first time, he had to urgently cover his mouth to stifle any sound.

He succeeded in not waking Riarun.

After a long bout of gasping, he gradually adapted to it, and the pain slowly subsided.

Still, the rough, uneven breathing continued for a long while.

This must be the demon’s agony Riarun had been enduring alone before Banwes came into his life.

Banwes had been carrying the demon for far too long.

If it had been earlier in their journey, he would have handed it over to Riarun before it progressed to this extent.

There had even been a time when he constantly badgered Riarun, asking if he had forgotten anything.

Things were different now.

He adjusted Riarun more securely in his arms so that his body wouldn’t slide and touch the cold ground.

And once again, he fell silent.