“Ahem!”

“Jepeto?”

Ren was quietly leaning against Luman’s chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, when the tent slid open and Jepeto came in.

He looked briefly startled at how close the two of them were, then hesitantly approached.

“Oh, Jepeto. Your eyes have become quite impressively swollen. Heh.”

Luman burst out laughing without even trying to hide it.

“Please don’t tease me!”

Jepeto’s entire face turned red.

“Luman! Stop laughing.”

Ren narrowed his eyes into triangles and poked Luman in the side.

With a strange little shriek, Luman jerked as though it tickled.

Ren pulled away from him and looked at Jepeto.

Honestly, it was hard not to laugh!

‘They really are swollen!’

He must have cried his eyes out outside!

Jepeto, who had somehow managed to make his eyes puffy in that short time and return, came up to Ren.

Ren felt like he was going to laugh, so he slowly avoided his eyes.

Jepeto looked devastated, and his shoulders drooped gloomily.

“It’s all right, Ren. Laugh if you want. Avoiding me like that hurts more.......”

His gloomy voice made Ren feel bad. Then the moment ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) Ren lifted his head—

“Ehehe.......”

A silly laugh slipped out.

Seeing Ren’s face loosen into a wide grin, Jepeto decided all was well that ended well and sat down in front of them again.

As they talked about this and that, Jepeto thanked him for what he had said earlier. Then he quickly changed the subject and began talking about the Tempesto Festival, confessing how sad and hurt he had been when Luman and Ren left without a word.

Only after he had been talking for a long while, and Ren began nodding off, did Jepeto finally seem to relax a little.

Jepeto hesitated, then called Ren’s name with a face as if he had made up his mind.

“Yes....”

Ren answered, blinking sleepily.

“Ren. If there is anything you want to say, anything at all, say it whenever you like. Understood?”

“Okay.”

His voice was thick with sleep.

“And...... no. This can wait.”

Jepeto swallowed the words he had wanted to say.

Because for the current him, it was a field he could not yet speak about, one he did not understand well enough.

Luman was curious, but he did not press him. With the tip of his nose stinging again, Jepeto told the two of them to rest and left the tent.

After that, people came in and out of the tent often.

Seka and Cedric, Beta, and Kenta all came by to see Ren, and Peruan, apparently busy handling the aftermath, only stopped in briefly at night.

“I’m sorry for what happened then, and thank you.”

After sending the others out, Luman calmly apologized to Seka.

“I don’t think I was in my right mind.”

From the moment they left Loroe Territory, Luman had not been in his right mind.

He should have handled it rationally. That was what he thought.

But even if he returned to that moment, he doubted he could possibly think rationally.

“My thanks are late as well. Thank you, Hero.”

“.......”

“Thanks to you, I was able to find my brother.”

“That’s fortunate. Is your body all right? I asked Doctor Jepeto to check on you regularly. Once I recover as well, I’ll take a look at your condition.”

“Yes.”

Aside from a few shallow cuts, Seka had no particular discomfort. What Luman was referring to was likely the aftereffects of spatial movement through a Hero’s power. Fortunately, Seka was fine for now, but they still could not be sure what symptoms might appear later. At least several days would have to pass.

“Thank you for apologizing. And I mean my thanks sincerely.”

“I never said it was a lie, but the emphasis makes it suspicious.”

Luman laughed lightly.

But to Seka’s eyes, that smile did not look light at all.

How much of himself had he revealed in order to make that smile?

Knowing that countless emotions had been diluted into that light laugh, Seka could not see Luman’s languid, relaxed appearance as light either.

Looking at the red eyes meeting his, as if they had something to say, Luman voiced the question that suddenly came to mind.

“I must be a pathetic Hero. I abandoned the greater cause and tried to act only for the sake of one person precious to me.”

Good grief, what answer am I hoping to hear?

After speaking, Luman had to fully savor the feeling of how pathetic he had become. He should have kept it inside. He could have helped with the remaining work and shaken off the discomfort that way. Why had he bothered voicing such an awkward question?

Flustered, Luman simply hoped Seka would pretend not to have heard and leave.

Perhaps because someone clumsy and honest was beside him, his own honest feelings occasionally slipped out like this.

‘I said unnecessary things to Temar too. About trying to understand the wounds caused by our powers and the hearts of ordinary people.’

All I got was the sharp and perfectly appropriate advice to live the way I always had.

Besides, haven’t I become awfully weak?

Asking if I’m pathetic.

Isn’t this similar to what Ren said to Temar the day we first met at the shack?

‘A Hero. A Hero, huh.......’

Ah. Is that it?

Ren hates Heroes, but he wants his brother to be an honorable Hero.

Rather than treating the label that followed him even after retirement as a nuisance, perhaps he should simply return to his post. If he carried out those duties and became the honorable Hero Ren wanted—

then perhaps he could rebuild his relationship with Ren from zero.

His thoughts stretched on without end.

Luman found both a hollow laugh and a sneer rising at his own assumptions, but the strange expectation and hope laid over them made his chest stir.

Then he soon went pale.

‘I’m doomed. Now that I think about it, I used my power on my own.’

There would be extenuating circumstances, but he would certainly be tormented by Giselle for a while, along with an enormous written report. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Perhaps he would receive a punishment worse than that.

Only after being lost in thought did Luman realize Seka had neither answered nor left.

“That was a useless question. You must be tired, so rest.”

“I don’t know.”

“Ah. You don’t have to answer.”

Seka seemed to be thinking over the answer to the question.

But after a long while, the answer he produced was that he did not know.

For some reason, Luman felt both empty and as if a little of the heaviness in his chest had eased.

‘A Hero like this really is pathetic.’

His assessment of himself had not changed, though.

“I don’t know much about Heroes.”

Luman was about to cut him off, then stopped. Seka’s eyes were wavering with deep thought. It seemed like a concern older than Luman had expected.

As if someone had asked him this question before. As if he had thought about it for a very long time.

“I think only they themselves can know what is most precious to them, and what should be precious. I...... believe the judgment you made was right.”

“You believe it? What do you mean?”

“Isn’t it an ability granted by God? Then perhaps it was given to someone qualified, someone who would make the right choice. I think saving that boy must also have been an important mission.”

It was an unexpected answer.

Continuing in his gentle way, Seka looked at Ren’s sleeping face.

“So who would think you pathetic, Hero?”

“.......”

Perhaps he interpreted Luman’s silence in some way, because after hesitating, Seka added more. His voice was a little softer, a little kinder.

And yet the words Seka left behind somehow sounded cruel to Luman.

“In the end, didn’t it align with the greater cause?”

After Seka left, Luman carefully laid Ren down and stepped out of the tent.

And then.

Ren’s eyes, which they had thought were asleep, slowly opened.

Inside the tent, lit by a single candle, green eyes filled with complicated emotion roamed the interior.

While he clutched the blanket tightly.

***

The next day dawned.

Time moved quickly. The search of the interior was still set to continue, and though the owner of the slave caravan had already vanished, they had caught his trail and were pursuing him.

Peruan and Tom rushed about creating documents to report to the king, while Temar and Geloman struggled to identify “that.”

“That” was an anti-Hero weapon.

What would have appeared if the pattern had been completed?

Perhaps because the weapon had shattered into pieces, there was no difficulty using a Hero’s power inside the bunker. A faint resistance could be felt, but it was literally only faint.

That was likely because Ren had succeeded in breaking the pattern.

Jepeto entered the tent to bring Ren his meal, and Luman came outside and descended into the bunker.

Reaching the underground like lightning, he stood still and looked around.

The underground bunker had been emptied of people. The reek of blood still lingered sickeningly.

“It feels like I’ve come to a tomb.”

“It isn’t much different.”

There was someone who had arrived before him in the bunker.

Brown eyes, a cold gaze with no warmth left in it, stared at Luman.