Shoving that annoyingly handsome face closer, Luman slowly opened his mouth.

“Ren, do you not know your brother? A man who lives by a hero’s duty could never quit.”

Luman’s teasing whisper stabbed straight into my chest.

A man who lives by a hero’s duty.

It wasn’t wrong.

More than being my brother, he was this country’s hero.

My breathing—my chest—felt tight.

“The law of the realm is absolute. Accept the order.”

“...I accept the king’s command.”

My brother, who’d stayed silent through all my shouting, dropped to his knees on the cold ground the moment Luman spoke.

As he bowed his head and held out his hands, the reddish-brown envelope stamped with the royal seal was placed over them.

My brother stood with the letter in hand, and Luman opened his mouth again.

“‘The Seventh Hero, Temar, is to return to the royal capital immediately upon receiving the king’s command!’”

His voice rang out like thunder.

Luman’s low voice echoed grandly over the hill.

From this pathetic little village, from the only tiny nest I had in it, they were officially ordering me to hand over the person I loved most—my brother—again.

Only then did I finally see them.

The emblems displayed proudly on Luman’s jacket.

One marked him as tied to the heroes, and another marked him as an executor—someone who carried out the king’s orders in his place.

It’s over... they’re taking my brother away again.

“Ss... hic... hic....”

I couldn’t hold it in. Ragged breaths kept slipping out.

More than I can’t collapse, I can’t, what filled my head was—

“Ren?”

My brother’s startled voice,

and

“What is ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) it?”

Luman’s face turning toward me at the sound.

“F-fuck......”

Again...! They’re taking him again!

That sense of loss—of having my brother stolen from me again.

Shaking with helpless fury, I pitched forward and crashed straight to the ground.

“Ren!”

The last thing I heard was Temar shouting my name.

***

“Ren!”

Temar hurriedly scooped Ren up.

The sight of Ren dropping like a paper doll made his heart feel like it had fallen out of his chest.

Temar was breathing hard too. Sweat beaded across his forehead.

Luman watched that with open curiosity.

Temar, actually sweating.

Luman withdrew the hand he’d started to reach out with to help and followed Temar inside.

The brothers’ shack was plain to the point of absurdity.

“Plain” was the nice word for it. In reality, it was miserable.

“So where’d all your money go, if you’re living in this kind of poverty?”

Temar ignored Luman, who was opening cupboards and flipping through things around the shack without permission, and laid Ren down on the hard old bed. He pulled the blanket over him and placed a hand against his forehead to check for fever.

“......”

“Looks like he passed out from getting worked up.”

Leaning against the doorway, Luman said it like it was no big deal, and only then did Temar turn to look at him.

A handsome man who didn’t belong in a rural village.

His face was far too striking to call merely knightly.

Unlike his platinum hair, faded by sunlight, Luman’s golden eyes still gleamed as sharply as they had on the first day.

“Why do you provoke him?”

His tone was full of sighs.

It didn’t sound openly accusatory, but it was unmistakably a rebuke.

Luman shrugged.

“He was the one who headbutted me first. Temar, favoritism is bad.”

Wearing a solemn expression, Luman pointed at Temar and gave his finger a little wag.

“He’s not actually sick, is he?”

“He just got too worked up. It’s natural for him to have worse stamina than heroes like us.”

At that careless answer, Temar looked down at Ren’s face for a moment, then led Luman to the table and sat him down.

Creak.

The chair sounded like it might break apart.

“Whew. Temar. Want me to buy you a house?”

“You?”

Temar asked it back with a calm little smile.

Luman merely sniffed the cheap tea set in front of him and shook his head.

Luman, who always put profit first, would never do something like that unless there was something in it for him.

They had known each other far too long not to understand that.

“So where did you stash your money? Buried it in the ground?”

“Forget that. More importantly... why the sudden order to come back to the royal capital?”

“Oh? Temar. Are you going to hear the reason and then decide?”

Luman flicked the rim of the cup with his finger.

That tiny movement sent the tea splashing all over.

He’d put strength into it.

“No.”

At Temar’s answer, without the slightest hesitation, Luman grinned.

“Right! That’s the Temar I know. Your little brother’s the one I feel sorry for.”

But Luman’s face didn’t look sorry in the slightest.

“Buy some decent tea, would you? What is this?”

Clicking his tongue, Luman shook his head.

He swept a hand through his hair and slowly looked around the shack.

“No matter how I look at it, this is seriously awful.”

“Is it?”

Most people would’ve been offended, but Temar only followed Luman’s gaze around the shack with no change in expression.

The place was old and peeling in spots, but there wasn’t a speck of dust or a single cobweb anywhere. For what it was, wasn’t it a good house?

“It’s still a lot better than when we used to drift from street to street.”

“And you’re still talking about something that old?”

Luman frowned.

“You’re really comparing living on missions to living in an actual home?”

At Luman, who was looking at him like he’d had enough, Temar shook his head.

“When I was young.”

“When you were young?”

Something unexpected flashed through Luman’s eyes.

Temar almost never talked about himself.

No—that was true of most heroes chosen by the royal palace and praised by everyone.

After that person died on their first mission... they all avoided talking about their pasts. If they shared too much, the wounds left by loss only cut deeper.

To hide the darkening look on his face, Luman downed the cheap tea in one gulp.

“Ugh.”

It tasted so strong his eyes flew open.

This was less tea and more... medicine.

“Is it that bad?”

Temar, having let the subject of the past drop, showed interest in the tea instead.

“You haven’t actually tried it just now?”

“I don’t drink tea.”

“Then what is this?”

“Ren drinks it.”

“Is there something wrong with your brother’s taste?”

Luman twisted his face mercilessly and glared toward the bedroom where Ren was lying.

“No matter what, what kind of tea do you serve a guest if this is what you’ve got?!”

“Is it really that bad?”

“I should’ve figured something was off when you didn’t drink it.”

“I told you, I don’t usually drink tea.”

“I didn’t need to know that.”

The tail end of Luman’s sentence sounded strangely bitter.

Shuddering as he tried to shake off the taste, Luman looked out at the darkening sky.

“We leave tonight.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know either.”

Luman shrugged.

His golden eyes sparkled, playful again.

“There’s no way you’d be assigned a mission you weren’t told about.”

“Hm. Should I tell you, and only you?”

Temar stared at him like he was asking what game he was playing, and Luman shook his head. His thin hair swayed with the motion. The sharp evening sunlight streaming through the open window tinted it red.

Like that time, long ago, on the battlefield.

Temar lowered his eyes, then looked back at Luman.

The afterimage of the battlefield vanished quickly.

But because it vanished so quickly, it would surface again just as fast.

Right now, he was by Ren’s side. But someday, he wouldn’t be.

Seeing the bitter smile that caught at Temar’s mouth, Luman tapped the old wooden table with his fingers.

“Hey. Did you hear what I said? You really don’t care about me at all, huh?”

“Aren’t you the one who cares least about other people out of all of us?”

“Temar! Hearing you say ‘us’ is touching, I’ll admit that! But you’re the least human one here. Do you know how sentimental I am?”

Luman looked genuinely wronged.

When Temar laughed, Luman let out a sigh.

“This mission is my last one.”

“It’s that important?”

Temar’s expression changed. His face became that of a hero clad in steel.

Luman was almost more used to that one. Ordinarily, Temar looked numb, and there was something unsettling about him because of it. When he was with his younger brother, at least he looked more human, though there was still something oddly lacking.

Heroes really don’t have much humanity, do they.

Thinking something that amounted to spitting in his own face, Luman grinned.

“It’s very important.”

Luman suddenly leaned in.

“Because I’m escorting a hero.”

“?”

“Delivering the royal command to you is my final mission.”

“......”

“When you said a year ago that you were quitting being a hero, I thought someday I’d do the same.”

The cheers that used to pour into his ears every time they carved through battlefields soaked in blood, every time they returned victorious, came back to him.

“Being a hero’s seasonal work. You make one big haul, then get out. You know your lifeline only gets shakier the more famous you get, right?”

“Our king isn’t like that.”

“Oh, please. You almost make me want to hit you. Of course not. That kid is our friend. But can you trust the people around him? People change, Temar. Be careful. Someone like you is the easiest kind to use.”

“Like what happened to you?”

At Temar’s words, Luman made a face like he’d been jabbed. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

“Let’s drop the small talk. We’re leaving tonight, so get ready.”

At Luman’s snide remark, Temar let out a sigh and made a full round through the shack.

He opened the kitchen cupboards, checked the drawers, looked through the wardrobe that was on the verge of falling apart, but the only thing he found to take with him was a childhood portrait of the two of them that he and Ren had once drawn together.

Everywhere he looked, the only things there were Ren’s.

A small rabbit doll and a storybook. A chipped bowl. A cracked plate and a dishcloth. A flowerpot Ren was raising.

There wasn’t a single thing that belonged to Temar.

And yet he had always come back after finishing his missions. For the past year, he hadn’t gone anywhere at all; he’d stayed here with Ren. To realize he had so little of himself in this place left Temar standing there in a daze.

He had been born and raised here. Ren’s belongings amounted to only a handful of things, and he himself didn’t even have that much. It was a feeling he couldn’t put into words.

“Temar. You’ve got your crystal orb, right? This is my last mission anyway, and I left mine behind on purpose because I couldn’t be bothered turning it back in later. So use that to tell the king...”