HPV 73

Even if it was his own situation, was Banwes truly alright?

Just like me, Banwes had reached thirty without ever sharing his body with another.

Moreover, due to the curse he was born with, Banwes had an extreme aversion to sexual desire itself.

Now that the immediate crisis had passed, worry belatedly rose in my heart.

Had I forced too much upon Banwes, all for the sake of my own survival…?

“I’m not unaffected,” Banwes said.

I waited for him to elaborate.

But Banwes said nothing.

A long silence fell, as if he were struggling to find the right words.

The longer the silence stretched, the more my heart pounded, my chest aching as though something were pressing sharply against it. My eyes twitched involuntarily.

In just a single night, I had come to sense so many things I had never understood before.

“I don’t know how to put it,” Banwes finally said. “Maybe I should say it’s alright because it was to save your life… or maybe because it felt good.”

I gritted his teeth hard under the blanket.

Hearing those words sent me into a fluster, my heart growing dangerously unsteady.

Was Banwes really the kind of man to speak so honestly?

Truthfully, last night, anyone could see the pleasure written on his face.

But hearing him admit it so plainly was an entirely different matter.

It became a question of whether I could handle it or not.

I could no longer pretend it had been just kissing. Not anymore.

I remembered the pleasure.

The satisfaction I had felt when Banwes had touched me all over, holding me so tightly it almost hurt.

The second time, I had willingly spread my legs, longing for that feeling again.

It was too much to simply blame it on the demon’s trickery.

It had been good because it was Banwes.

Because it was him—not anyone else—it had been bearable, even joyful.

I was glad it had been Banwes, and at the same time, it was because it was Banwes that everything now felt like a disaster.

I didn’t know how to settle these conflicting emotions.

Curling up tighter, I closed his eyes.

“Are you asleep?”

I didn’t want to hear Banwes’s voice right now, but Banwes had no way of knowing that.

Then again, when had we ever truly understood each other?

I considered pretending to be asleep but gave up.

“No… I’m not asleep.”

Wriggling my toes, I hugged himself tightly with his arms.

Banwes kept speaking.

“Do you have to curl up like that?”

“I’m cold, that’s all.”

In truth, thanks to the warming artifact Penzey had given me, the inside of the blanket was pleasantly warm.

The real reason I kept curling up was tension, I he didn’t want to admit it.

Only the dry sound of wind rustling the branches could be heard.

Banwes was a man who rarely made any noise.

When facing him, his sheer size made it impossible to think of him as quiet—something I had felt acutely when being held by him last night.

Yet, if I wasn’t looking directly at him, I couldn’t even sense Banwes’s presence.

A sudden thought crossed my mind: Someday, if nothing else, he wanted to become someone who could always sense Banwes’s presence.

“You still curl up when you sleep,” Banwes said. “I’ve failed to fix your sleeping posture after all.”

Startled by the comment, I twitched and rustled the blanket noisily—Banwes surely heard it.

“Fix…?”

“I tried various ways to stop you from curling up like that when you sleep.”

We had traveled together for months, yet this was the first time I heard about it.

We had often shared a room.

Although I was sensitive from his days at the order, my physical senses were notoriously dull.

If Banwes had deliberately tried something while I was asleep, I would have been completely unaware.

‘Why would he bother fixing that?’

Leaving aside everything else, the absurdity hit me first. Of all sleeping habits, what was so wrong about curling up?

It wasn’t like I snored or thrashed about.

Piecing everything together, a memory suddenly struck me, and I shot upright.

“You… that time, is that why you said you mistook the bed?”

It came back to him vividly.

There had been one other time when we woke up in the same bed.

I stuck my head out from under the blanket.

Yet I didn’t feel the biting chill of the air—because Banwes had leaned down, bringing his face closer as if he had been waiting for me to look up.

‘I did wonder if he was lying when he said he got confused.’

Back then, without any other plausible reason, I had let it go. But thinking about it now, everything lined up perfectly.

If it was the Banwes I knew…

—Can’t you understand with one explanation? I told you I got confused.

He would have snapped, insisting on it with anger. But instead—

“Curling up while sleeping doesn’t look good,” Banwes said.

“Why is it bad?”

I was getting annoyed now.

I wished Banwes would act like usual, getting irritated or brushing me off.

But Banwes carefully sidestepped my expectations, again and again.

“You look like a pitiful, weak little animal. It’s hard to just stand by and watch.”

“And so… hugging me was your solution?”

In the end, I could only feel miserable.

I had lifted my face boldly, but as soon as my eyes met Banwes’s deep crimson ones, I buried his face back down again.

“Even when I gave you a pillow to hold, you still curled up. What else could I do?”

I had never even imagined such a thing.

After leaving the Order, it took me time to accept that I no longer needed to fall asleep curled up.

A bad temper, the habit of shrinking away, a frail body, and the blood of a demon. I thought I’d brought nothing but bad things with me, and that everything would only get in the way…

But at the very least, if I curled up while sleeping, it meant someone had cared enough to notice.

“Can’t we just talk like usual?”

I deliberately changed the subject.

“It’s awkward… I’m sure you’ve already noticed everything.”

There was no need for him to be kind to me just because we spent the night together. No, it was from even earlier than that. Maybe from when we briefly talked about his mother in the cave?

And then, I realized something fundamental.

The only thing that had changed was the way he spoke; in truth, Banwes had been looking after me from the beginning.

“I’ve always done as I pleased, as usual.”

It was strange. In our arguments, I always won, but today, I was losing at every turn.

“It’s just that now I’m learning how to speak properly.”

While he said a few more words, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything in return. I was thrown off at every moment.

***

The blizzard raged fiercely.

The seasons had changed since we left the capital.

Now, the heavy white snow blanketed the world, and I could finally feel the passage of time.

Soon, monster blood and human blood alike would stain the pristine snow.

When the blinding snow cleared, the most formidable stone walls I knew revealed themselves beneath the gray sky, overwhelming in their scale and majesty.

An impregnable fortress, built right in front of the Black Dragon’s Nest to showcase human resilience.

The lord of the castle personally came out to greet us.

A descendant of war who had spent his whole life wielding a spear and donning armor, he offered a stoic greeting to the warrior and his companions.

“Welcome to Gerenique Castle.”

The gates opened with a deafening rumble, like the vibrations of a monster horde crashing in.

I peered out just a little from the hood as I was carried on Banwes’s back.

The prophesied warrior, and his companions.

Most of the people here looked at us with skepticism.

The trained warriors’ gazes scanned us openly, and I trembled with tension I had never felt before.

Here gathered the finest swordsmen, hunters, mercenaries, and knights representing entire noble houses from across the kingdom.

‘How would this young, green warrior look in their eyes?’

Even these mighty fighters merely held the defensive lines at this fortress—yet they said only Paronai Mordehan would advance toward the Nest.

“The prophesied warrior seems far too young,” the castle lord muttered, not with malice, but thoughtlessly, before candidly offering a handshake to Paronai.

But dozens, even hundreds of eyes immediately fell on us, like crows clustering atop the castle walls, watching intently.

‘Paronai… is he nervous?’

If this were the Paronai from a few months ago, he would have stammered.

But the Paronai standing here now held himself straight and tall. Though tense, he faced the lord boldly.

“This is not a mission I can accomplish alone. I was not named the continent’s greatest swordsman. Compared to the pieces you all have, the pieces my companions and I carry may seem small.”

His words were plain and without embellishment, but that made his spirit all the purer.

“Even if it’s just one small piece, I will bring down the Black Dragon.”

That bold face, trusting himself even in his insignificance, looked every inch a true hero.

Though unpolished, the noble spirit in him was palpable.

The gathered warriors were, for the most part, favorable toward him—but amidst those gazes, I caught something sharper, more inhuman.

Among these knights were many with old grudges against Banwes.

There were hunters who made their living tracking fugitives.

Even if the prophecy had lifted him to the rank of human now,

‘Monster half-blood.’

‘Was his bounty even rescinded?’

‘If he is the prophesied one, does that mean the gods allowed him to slip away all those times before?’

If even I could feel their eyes, Banwes must have sensed their threat directly.

Yet he stood calmly with me on his back, without even the tension of a growl.

“Are you alright?”

Had the cold dulled his danger instincts? I asked, worried.

But like me, he answered as if puzzled.

“There’s no one aiming for you.”

…As if I would be worried someone would target me?