HPV 66

Several hours had passed.
Riarun slowly woke up.

First, he was startled by the tight muscles where he had rested his head, and second, by the fact that he was curled up, half-naked, in the man’s embrace. But he soon came to his senses.

The inside of the cave was still as cold as winter itself.
Riarun, abandoning all sense of propriety, burrowed deeper into Banwes’ arms.

At least the clothes Banwes had been sitting on had dried considerably.
Perhaps they would be wearable soon — but even then, would the rescue party still be far away?

When are they coming for us?

Though he had managed to get a bit of sleep, Banwes must have been exhausted. How many hours had he been sitting upright, motionless, in the dark?

“Are you not tired?”

He asked gently.
Banwes looked at him, furrowing one brow as if wondering why he would even ask such a thing. A small crease appeared beneath his eye.

Riarun was momentarily lost in complicated thoughts, recalling the face of the man from outside the pit as he studied Banwes’ features.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he placed his slightly chilled hand on Banwes’ warm abdomen.

He felt sorry, having been held like this for hours without moving.
But if he hadn’t fallen together with Banwes in the first place, he would have been lying on the ground alone, unable to heal from his critical injuries.

This warm body would have turned cold by now.

So, at least this time, he wished his existence had been helpful—
Just as he thought that, another idea struck him sharply.
Riarun abruptly lifted his head.

“Haven’t you been carrying the demon for too long?”

The man flinched noticeably.

There was no way Riarun could have known about what happened during the night.
It was a mere coincidence.
Unaware that Banwes had stiffened for a moment, Riarun raised his upper body even higher.

Their faces drew close.
Close enough that the tips of their noses nearly touched, and Riarun’s soft breath brushed against Banwes’ lips.

“No one’s watching… so let’s do it now.”

He had meant to say let’s kiss, just like yesterday, but he found himself momentarily tongue-tied.
Riarun’s face flushed slightly as he stumbled over the words.

Banwes carefully took in the sight of the pale body before him.

Even after holding him close to keep him from freezing, Riarun’s straight shoulders had taken on a bluish tint.
With no clothes to shield him, his slender arms, thin waist, and pinkish chest all looked far too… delicate.

“I’m still fine,”

Banwes said quickly, almost without breathing.

“Fine? If you keep delaying, the demon will end up hurting the host.”

But once Riarun decided something was right, he never backed down.
Moreover, given how rough Banwes had been before, Riarun had developed some bad habits himself.

His delicate hand boldly pressed against Banwes’ chest, drawing closer.
With his other hand, he cupped the back of Banwes’ head and pressed their lips together.

The kiss deepened.
Their tongues intertwined, saliva mixing between them.
Riarun, practiced now, tilted his head to suck eagerly at Banwes’ lips and tongue.
His tongue slipped deep inside, grazing along the damp inner walls.

Banwes forgot to breathe under the overwhelming sensation of the demon being drawn out.

At last, he exhaled slowly, taking long breaths.
He desperately fought to calm the growing reaction in his lower body.

He had been aroused for so long that, despite the freezing cold, sweat beaded on his skin.
He hadn’t even touched himself.

“Haah…”

Riarun pulled away, breathing lightly against Banwes’ face.
Just then, a low voice filled his ears.

“Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”

Startled, Riarun instinctively lowered his head — and then he saw it.

The cave was pitch-black, and yet, for some reason, this particular outline was visible.

He stared, dazed, at the bulge at Banwes’ center — and at that moment, it twitched, like a snake stirring.
The explicit sight made Riarun flinch.

“You’re perverted,” he muttered, quickly turning his head away in embarrassment.

“See? I told you… physiological reactions happen because of the demon…”
But the joke never made it past his lips.
He didn’t know why. His face burned so hot he fanned himself instinctively — wait, in this freezing place?

“B-but, didn’t it end really quickly just now? When you took the demon from me before, it felt like it took at least twenty minutes…”

“I wasn’t dragging it out on purpose back then.”

“Huh?”

Riarun responded foolishly.

Whether he understood or not, Banwes himself seemed unaware of what he had just said.
His mind was a mess — partly because of what was happening below, but mostly for another reason.

The demon’s dominance had grown.

As time passed and the demon matured, its grip on this fragile being grew stronger.
And it now rejected Banwes.

The demon, delighted to return to Riarun, might not be so easily separated from him again.
Not by the same method.

Banwes grimly considered the dark future that might be just ahead.

***

The only thing left at the scene was a deep pit whose bottom could not be seen.
The mage peered into its depths.

“I was once a man who extracted magic from the soil of graves. Finding something in a mess like this is child’s play.”

This pit had been artificially made.
Someone had sought out every alchemist on the continent, bought up all their explosive potions, and mixed them together to hide the materials used.

Muffled sounds came from those who had been gagged.
Paronai led the effort, binding the ones who had deceived their party.
He approached the mage and asked when they might find Riarun and Banwes.

“It’ll take a while. You’re basically asking me to beat every alchemist on the continent. It’ll take hours just to run the calculations.”

Bzhan stomped his foot on the ground in frustration. Even as he did so, hardly a sound was made.

“I’ll go search around myself.”

“No, Bzhan. You must not isolate yourself. We don’t know what else might be in these mountains. Could you watch over the prisoners instead?”

At the High Priest’s earnest persuasion, Bzhan halted, though he had been ready to leap away at once.
Though hidden from sight, a faint sigh was heard.

Yurichen moved toward the leader among the captives—a middle-aged man, Banwes’ uncle.
Penzey seized Yurichen’s shoulder with a grave expression.

“It’s all right.”

Yurichen urged him to focus back on the calculations, and continued toward the middle-aged man.
His dry gaze swept over him.

“You know, don’t you? That you had committed an unforgivable sin. You tried to kill your own blood.”

The man possessed holy power, but he was not truly devout—he hadn’t been able to recognize the signs.

He hadn’t realized that the one he so hated had been embraced by Gaoih’s will through an oracle.

“Enough. You have taken more than enough vengeance upon your family.
He will live in agony for the rest of his life, denying himself… now that he knows about you, his mother’s brother.”

Whether he heard or not, the man writhed on the ground in torment.
It must have been the pain of his body rotting away.

The man had been struck by divine punishment—for the sin of using holy power for evil deeds.

As he twisted and convulsed in his broken body, he suddenly sprang up and glared at Yurichen as if he would kill him.

“Why didn’t you protect my sister?!”

Yurichen stared back at the wailing man, completely devoid of emotion.

“If you were a god, you should have!
You shouldn’t have let my sister be ravaged by a monster!”

Before replying, Yurichen allowed a moment of silence.

“There were originally twenty-two High Priests across the continent.
Now there are seventeen, including myself.”

The man’s eyes widened.
Only now did he realize that the one before him was a High Priest.

“Six returned to the gods during the campaign against the Demon King.”

The monster who had annihilated the man’s hometown and violated his sister was the very being known as the Demon King — the Orc King who had united the warlike orcs and led an assault against the human kingdoms.
It had been a war nearly as devastating as the Demon War.

Yurichen had been born a year after the Orc King was defeated.
He had only heard about it through others—how the Temple had sworn by Gaoih’s name to slay the Orc King who had mocked mankind.

“I shall pray for the dead. So that you may wound no more of our comrades.”

The middle-aged man was told to descend the mountain and never again show himself before Banwes.
He refused to accept it and thrashed about furiously.

“God acknowledged the righteousness of my revenge! That’s why I received holy power when I was baptized!”

The man had sought baptism solely to gain the power to kill Banwes.
He had served god out of vengeance.

Yurichen gazed at him, as though looking at someone who still did not understand anything.

“God granted you holy power…”

His tone was neither pitying nor scornful, but infinitely soft.
It almost sounded as if he were recalling someone dear to him.

“…and granted Riarun to him.”

Meanwhile, the mage activated a wide-area tracking spell over the entire mountain, locating a crevice connected to the cave where the two were trapped.

The party rushed toward it, and finally, they came upon the two who had been confined for so long—and witnessed how they had managed to endure.