Chapter 250 - Will It Mean Anything? (4)

The promised third day arrived, but I was still unwell. The muscle aches had eased somewhat, yet my fever simply refused to break.

“Hh.”

But I could move. Yes, I could get out of bed now. That was enough.

I rose to leave the Great Forest.

[Sir Knight, are you leaving?]

“The time has come...”

[You’re really leaving?]

My attempt was thwarted before it even began. The Mountain Lord, who had been coiled up in the cave, suddenly thrust his head toward me.

[After everything we did to keep you alive, you’re just going to up and leave!?]

His strange behavior did not end there.

His natural rumbling cries mingled with the words only I could hear, reverberating through the cave. The sound overwhelmed even the ringing in my ears, and my mouth slowly fell open.

[Oh, woe, woe is me! I grew medicinal herbs to save you, Sir Knight! Grew fruit with my own efforts! After all the nursing I did! How could you say you’re leaving us like this!? How could you, Sir Knight!?]

... And why was he putting it like that!? He was making me sound like an ungrateful, shameless bastard!

[If only I’d known you were this sort of person. Oh, woe is me.]

I stared, dumbfounded, as the Mountain Lord sobbed, wiping his face with his tail.

W-was this really something to cry about...? Objectively, if you only looked at the surface, I might seem shameless. I might look like a brazen, ungrateful little shit turning his back on everyone.

But if you considered what lay underneath, it wasn’t incomprehensible! And what lay underneath was the important part here! He knew that, so why...!?

“Thunder Snake, what is the matter?”

Perhaps the Mountain Lord’s utterly unexpected behavior had left me a little dazed. I failed to stop the priestesses from rushing over after he woke them, or from surrounding me when they spotted me.

I was well and truly trapped.

“... Let go.”

Noooo, people! I wasn’t doing this because I hated you! I was thinking of you, so why were you acting like this!?

If anyone found out you’d hidden me, you’d be the ones suffering! You’d only just begun dealing with the outside world, which would make things even harder!

Weren’t you, huh? Weren’t you afraid of making an enemy of the Temple, however different your faith might be? Did you think you could simply close your borders again if it became a problem!?

“I bear a curse, yet abandoned the greater good for my own ends.”

I chose my words with a mind that was working briskly again after some rest—briskly compared to three days ago, anyway, not compared to normal.

I had to leave. Having learned over the past three days that their desire to protect me was sincere only strengthened that urge. I didn’t want to repay those who had helped me by bringing harm upon them.

“I am not someone you should protect.”

I didn’t want to ruin this place through my own greed and lose the warmth I had found over the past few days.

[Sir Knight...]

“We do not seek to protect you.”

Before my words could weigh everyone down, however, a clear, distinct voice parted the priestesses into two groups. Between them stood a boy I had met only briefly, but who had left a lasting impression. His increased height and longer limbs were especially noticeable.

“We wish only to be a cradle in which you may rest.”

“... I have no need of one.”

“No. There is no living being in this world that does not need a home.”

“That is merely your opinion.”

“And one that a great many people would agree with.”

It couldn’t have been that long since we parted... Children really did grow fast. I felt oddly disconcerted looking at the child—no, the Great Chief—who seemed to have grown a good five centimeters. Did they normally... grow this fast...?

“Have I overstepped? But, benefactor of the Great Forest, considering the debt this forest owes you, surely this desire of ours is only inevitable.”

No, before that... Had the Great Chief always been able to speak this language?

“... Everything I did in this forest, I did of my own volition. You owe me nothing.”

“Is that so?”

Had he learned the language after what happened back then? But wasn’t he far too fluent? It hadn’t been all that long.

Of course, if he’d already spoken it then, he would have spoken to me directly... Had he really learned it after we parted?

“We wrote to the outside world and welcomed outsiders at your request to repay you, Thunder Snake. Yet it seems there was never any debt for us to repay.”

Suddenly, the Great Chief’s eyes sparkled like stars. Only then, distracted as I had been by admiration for his linguistic skills, did I feel a faint sense of foreboding.

Wait. Was he about to...?

“In that case, may we consider this a debt you owe this forest?”

... This was a scam!

“That is absurd...”

“I trust the mighty Black Thunder Snake would not go back on his word like some petty scoundrel.”

“...”

Once again, I was reminded.

Right. He was the Great Chief. The Mountain Lord might have picked him on a whim and plopped him into the position, but he was still the Great Chief...! Young as he was, he was fulfilling his duties admirably...!

“Lie down.”

I looked at the Mountain Lord grinning broadly behind him, the smiling priestesses, and the Great Chief threatening me with a radiant smile, and felt utterly defeated.

No, I’d expected them to stick with emotional appeals... But this, seizing on something I said midway through...

“... I will leave in three days.”

“Shall we discuss that when the time comes?”

I squeezed my eyes shut at the boy’s sly, mischievous smile. My fever still hadn’t fully broken, and I couldn’t keep wracking my brain to argue.

“And Thunder Snake, give up trying to lie.”

“...?”

“If you had truly abandoned the greater good for your own ends, wouldn’t you have made use of such useful pawns as us long ago?”

Or perhaps... the child’s taunts had simply driven my temperature even higher.

* * *

Perhaps he couldn’t bear not to keep his word. Yukkwi flicked a flipper as he watched the human try to escape again three days later. Had the Mountain Lord and the Great Chief not been lying in wait, he really would have succeeded.

“You again...!”

“I thought the price of this forest acting on your behalf would buy us at least a month...”

“Stop being unreasonable.”

“So that no longer works?”

The next day was no different. The Great Chief had anticipated that the knight would not stop at a single escape attempt and had prepared accordingly. Those preparations caught the human once again. For good measure, the Mountain Lord wrapped his coils tightly around the knight, declaring that he wouldn’t let him escape.

“More importantly, please try some of this. This fruit only grows at this time of year...”

[Hee-hee. I put a little effort into it this year, so it should taste even better.]

And the day after that.

“... Don’t you have work to do?”

“The Priestesses of the swamp have been a great help, so I have little to do these days.”

[Keeping you here is the most important job, isn’t it? Those dimwits can handle the little things just fine.]

The following day was much the same. Though the knight looked ready to lose his mind, he couldn’t dream of escaping with the swamp’s two most powerful figures clinging to him.

In the end, the human rested in the swamp until his feet had healed completely and his fever was gone. More precisely, until the Mountain Lord and the Great Chief let their guard down.

[... Leaving?]

Yukkwi had thought he’d finally given up on leaving, but apparently not. Setting that idle thought aside, he glanced at the human.

Dressing in the dead of night, the human radiated nothing but a cold, sharp presence. Looking at him, one could never imagine that he had spent nearly twenty days groaning in sickness.

“I have stayed long enough.”

Yet beneath that brusque exterior, he was either hopelessly soft or cunning. It had to be one or the other.

Yukkwi narrowed his eyes at the being who could easily have left this place had he insisted forcefully enough.

[Why leave in secret?]

Since he had not left despite being capable of it, Yukkwi had wondered if he intended to exploit this place. In other words, perhaps he had decided to settle in for good once he was certain he could stay safely.

But that theory had now fallen apart. Having verified the trustworthiness of his allies, he should have remained, yet he had chosen to leave once again. There was something too suspicious about that choice to dismiss it as simply the result of his recovery.

[If you tell them you’re leaving because you’ve recovered, they’ll be sad, but they won’t stop you.]

Because there was precisely the reason he had just voiced.

“I know.”

But the knight was not acting this way out of ignorance. After putting on his military boots, then his vest and coat, he slipped his right hand into his gauntlet.

[Then why sneak away like a rat?]

CLINK.

As he flexed his fingers, the metal plates struck one another, each giving off its own sound.

“Were you interested in me?”

[... In the things that fall outside the norm.]

The corners of the knight’s lips turned down at Yukkwi’s answer. He lifted his greatsword with one hand and secured it on his back.

“... If you answer my questions, I will answer yours.”

[A trade. Interesting.]

The human wouldn’t spend too much time on it, mindful that the others might wake, but...

[Fine. Let’s do it.]

Yukkwi decided to accept. He was quite curious about why the human was sneaking away, and also wanted to know what he was so eager to ask even in the middle of escaping.

“Your question.”

[Why you’re sneaking off like a rat.]

“... I judged that if they knew what I was searching for, they might try to stop me again.”

[All right. And yours?]

“How to conceal demonic energy.”

The only problem was that it was rather more unexpected than Yukkwi had anticipated.

[I admire your nerve. I may tolerate you for now, but I am hardly friendly toward things that harbor demonic energy. Or are you asking because you know I’m in no position to kill you?]

“Is that a question for our trade?”

Yukkwi let out a heavy breath at his reply.

True, this human had eluded the other humans for the sake of his own goal—or so he claimed. Since he risked being caught again once he left this place, that question was understandable enough.

[No, so you don’t have to answer. And the answer to your question is...]

That aside, should he answer properly, or feign ignorance? After a little consideration, Yukkwi decided to simply tell him what he knew. None of his knowledge would be of use to this human anyway.

[Sealing is the most common method, isn’t it? Of course, you need sufficient knowledge to create a seal, and there is still the risk of being discovered by those with knowledge of such things.]

“... Methods other than sealing?”

[That counts as a ‘question,’ yes?]

“Do you have something to ask?”

[Your goal. What you fled the humans to search for, without telling these people.]

The knight remained silent for some time at that question. He seemed to be weighing the opportunity to ask one more question against the weight of the answer he would have to give.

“... Home.”

And then.

“A way to return home.”

The former won.

Though the answer was so far outside Yukkwi’s expectations that he thought it might require a little elaboration.

[That’s too brief.]

“... Swear you will tell no one.”

[Does this really require an oath...?]

Still, with that demand added to an already puzzling answer, he grew curious about just how deep this story ran. Besides, an oath wasn’t actually binding, was it? It was merely a promise.

So Yukkwi readily agreed. He made the decision with utter nonchalance, thinking that a mere verbal promise could do him no harm.

“I am not this body’s original soul. I was dragged here because its original owner made a contract with a demon.”

Well, if he’d known that would be the answer, he would never have gotten involved.

Yukkwi recalled his past self, lounging about and insisting that the human’s circumstances were none of his business, whatever they might be. What, none of his business? Damn it! They were absolutely his business!!

He wanted to go back and slit his past self’s throat.

Is It a Problem If the Protagonist Is Obsessed with Staying in Character? (Serial)

Author │ Hae Inseol

Publisher │ Kim Juhyeong

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