“......”

“Do you understand?”

“...I’ll keep that in mind.”

Luman said it with a face that was polite, but not kind in the slightest. Jepeto pressed his lips shut and quietly backed down.

Luman must’ve had a reason for saying it like that... but it was unfamiliar enough to be scary. So I took his words to heart. Don’t try to know too much!

“You should get dressed, Ren. Ah...”

Luman looked at the ripped shirt and seemed to realize it would take a while to sew it back together. Jepeto, catching Luman’s look, jumped in surprise and hurriedly fumbled out a needle and thread. But his hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t even get the thread through the eye properly.

Doctor Jepeto... for some reason, I suddenly felt bad for him.

“Give it here.”

Before he could hand it over, I snatched it and slid the thread right through the hole.

“Here.”

“Th-thank you, Ren.”

“You’re a good boy, Ren.”

“Why do you keep saying that over something like this?”

Seriously! That does things to a person!!

“At least put this on for now.”

“It’s fine. You don’t have anything to wear either, Luman.”

“Heroes don’t get cold.”

“There’s no such thing! Heroes are people too, don’t say stupid—”

When I snapped at him, Luman laughed again.

No, really, was he always this quick to laugh?! At this point, doesn’t he just laugh every time he looks at me?

“Look, Ren. Goosebumps on your arm. Me, I’m perfectly fine, right?”

“...Must be nice, not getting goosebumps.”

“Put it on. We’re leaving.”

“...I’ll wear it.”

Even though I said it in a sulky voice, Luman grinned like he was absurdly pleased about something and hopped right down from the carriage.

After helping me into my shirt, that is.

He really shouldn’t be like this.

I’m going to get spoiled....

What if I start hating the idea of saying goodbye?

***

Luman felt like putting a cigar in his mouth.

Seeing the bluish bruise rising over that white shoulder left him feeling wretched.

Maybe it was because of the memory from back then.

Or maybe because he knew what had caused that wound.

As Luman stepped out of the carriage, his eyes met Temar’s. Temar was still far from the carriage, but Luman knew. He had heard everything. He had probably already seen the bruise on Ren’s shoulder too.

Temar rode closer on horseback. The other two still didn’t seem ready to leave.

Temar looked at Luman without a word.

“You look surprised.”

“Am I...?”

“Don’t you remember? Or do you just not want to?”

Luman spoke with a sneer.

“I don’t know. Which one it is.”

That honest answer left Luman speechless for a moment.

“Will it last a long time?”

“What will?”

“The wound.”

“What wound are you talking about?”

Temar looked like he genuinely didn’t understand.

“You can only think of the one on his shoulder, can’t you.”

“Then you’re saying there’s another one?”

The knuckles of the hand gripping Temar’s reins stood out white. Watching his trembling lips, Luman thought Temar still had a long way to go.

“Calm down. I mean the wound in his heart.”

Luman’s lips moved awkwardly around the words wound in his heart.

You really do live long enough to see everything. To think he’d ever say something like that out loud.

Temar looked even more confused than before. Like he couldn’t see what that had to do with anything.

“You saw Doctor Jepeto earlier, didn’t you?”

“What about Doctor Jepeto?”

“When we were talking about the remnants we took care of. He went completely pale.”

“......”

Temar still looked like he didn’t understand at all.

Luman clicked his tongue.

“Are you actually an idiot?”

“You looking to start a fight?”

The muscle in Temar’s jaw flexed hard.

Poor Ren.

Luman clicked his tongue inwardly.

“To ordinary people, talk like killing someone, taking care of someone, even just hearing words like that is frightening.”

Truthfully, Luman didn’t know whether that was true or not.

He was only saying it based on what he’d seen from Doctor Jepeto. But he figured maybe if he put it in terms of ordinary people like this, this monstrous, communication-impaired Hero might finally manage to have an actual conversation with Ren.

“So? Say what you want to say. Don’t circle around it.”

Temar furrowed his brow, looking sincerely annoyed. Luman swallowed down the urge to smack that wrinkled forehead flat and opened his mouth.

“Fine. What I’m saying is, if even that much—not even talking directly about that day, not even saying outright that someone was killed—if even something only related to it is enough to stress him out and wear him down, then what do you think young Ren feels? Wouldn’t it be hard on him too?”

Before, he’d brushed it off as a joke, saying Temar was worse than Ren.

But thinking back on it now, it bothered him. And left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Ren was still just a kid, wasn’t he? Not even an adult yet.

“I doubt it. Ren’s not that weak. It’s not even worth discussing.”

“Why are you, his brother, so indifferent to your own little brother?”

“And why are you so concerned with someone else’s... little brother?”

“Why are you tripping over your words?”

Whenever Temar said the words little brother, he stumbled over them strangely, as if hesitating.

“Luman.”

“What.”

Temar said his name, then paused briefly to think. With those dark eyes beneath his dark brows fixed squarely on Luman, he finally opened his thick lips.

“Stop talking like you understand things you don’t understand either.”

“......”

That one landed.

Luman had nothing to say.

Yeah, he’d been talking like he knew everything, talking down from above about this and that, but Luman was a Hero too.

A life too far removed from ordinary people. As if he’d know anything about wounds of the heart and all the rest. If he really had known, wouldn’t he have gone mad after the seven-year war ended?

That was what Heroes were like, after all.

Ren might be similar to them too.

There was nothing ordinary about him, and he was a Hero’s younger brother. Maybe he really had nothing to do with that sort of thing at all.

And yet... shouldn’t someone at least try thinking about it once with the heart of an ordinary person?

Luman thought it was strange that he was having thoughts like this.

That was probably why Temar was looking at him like he was seeing something strange too.

But why was it? Why did it feel strange, and why did he know it was strange, and yet not hate it?

That answer, he still didn’t know.

“So. What about the shoulder? In your opinion.”

Temar pressed at his eyelids as though tired.

Going back to the place where there had been a battle was not a pleasant thought. Luman looked over the road they would have to take.

It was a familiar road. It should’ve been comforting.

Ah, no need to sink into useless sentiment. Luman shook his head and thought of Ren’s shoulder. The dark blue bruises surfacing over the pale roundness of it.

“...It’s strange. It makes me wonder if every wound left by a Hero has always been like this.”

Just as he’d said, Luman found himself seized by a strange feeling. He knew that wasn’t the answer Temar wanted. But once his thoughts turned in that direction, he couldn’t stop them from flowing. As if he’d had these thoughts before, at some point, and only now remembered them.

A wound left by a Hero. It was called an indelible scar, something even holy power could not heal.

That was their power—something that clung all the way down to the soul and tormented it relentlessly.

A mark that lingered for a long, long time, fading only little by little... like a brand seared into the soul.

A wound left behind just from gripping a shoulder for a moment.

If that was the case, then what had become of those who had fought Heroes in battle? Rumors said they went mad, but Luman had thought that came from the Heroes’ valor. He had thought they were simply frightened out of their wits.

But what if that wasn’t it?

What if the Heroes’ abilities were simply, horribly optimized for destroying human beings?

What if it was only that their power to shatter the human soul was extraordinary?

What if, functioning as a single kind of monster, they were all nothing but tools, whipped about beneath the authority of the Hero, regardless of their own will or ability?

Luman thought that perhaps he had never understood at all what a Hero was, what kind of things Heroes had done, or what they were supposed to do from now on.

The color drained from Luman’s face.

“Luman.”

After Luman had gone silent for a long while, Temar called to him and offered a serious piece of advice. Just as Luman could never tell what Temar was thinking, Temar felt the same way about Luman. That pale face, those mysteriously shining amber eyes, always carrying a faint smile and a trace of mockery—it was hard to guess what he was thinking.

But looking at that whitened face, Temar felt he understood at least one thing.

That Luman was, right now, thinking useless thoughts.

Looking down at him, Temar spoke with an unusual cynicism.

“Live the way you’ve been living.”

“...What’s that supposed to mean?”

“As Heroes, we never had the chance to sit around thinking about all this. ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) And if you start now, what will change? All you’ll do is torture that heart you keep talking about. Better to stick to what you’re good at. Keep weighing advantages and doing your calculations. That suits you.”

“......”

Cold, harsh, cutting words.

Luman knew that too.

He knew these thoughts, these belated reflections, were nothing but an act of digging up and carving apart the past. He knew they might gnaw away at what little sanity he had left and destroy that too in the end.

“Is that so.”

But if he didn’t think like this... would he ever be able to understand the heart of someone who wasn’t a Hero?

And in this moment, absurdly enough, Ren came to Luman’s mind.

Why?

That couldn’t be it. Not just because he liked him.

Someone as selfish as Luman would never truly want to understand another person’s heart.

Luman thought he should.

With the wind stirring his hair, Temar’s face stood out with painful clarity. Those dark eyes searched Luman’s face. Luman did the same.

Then Luman let out a short laugh, and unlike before, spoke in a light tone as if he’d forgotten all those thoughts.

“You really don’t feel anything?”

Luman thought it was strange, and unnatural, the way he was thinking like this and saying things like this. So why couldn’t he stop? Thoughts he had kept buried were circling back again and again, like a refrain repeating itself.

Things like hearts and feelings shouldn’t exist in a Hero. He believed they shouldn’t. So why was he saying this now, thinking this now? And even so, why did he insist on asking Temar anyway?

After a brief silence, Temar opened his tightly shut mouth.

The words that came out of that blunt, rigid face were simple.

“All I care about is Ren’s shoulder.”

“Ha.”