HPV 45

The message Yurichen sent through the artifact asked if he had seen Riarun. Penzey let out a bitter smile.

‘If I had seen Riarun, that would be a whole other disaster. If Riarun were here, I mean.’

They were the ones who had thrown him in front of the temple to block the incoming demon forces during the purification ritual.

Among them were even the worst of the worst — traitorous mutants who had injected themselves with the blood of monsters. With physical abilities surpassing humans, they killed soldiers and tried to break through the temple gates.

However, in the end, fakes could never surpass the true strength of a real hybrid.

Penzey had no interest in the fakes. He felt no urge to study them, so he mercilessly exploded their bodies with magic.

“……!”

Maybe he had underestimated them for being fakes — one of the mutants, using its grotesquely bulky arm, forced its way through Penzey’s magic. The mage’s body was thrown aside.

The mutant pressed down on him without a second thought. Mages, after all, were not meant to fight physically. If he pinned the mage down, sealed his hands, and covered his mouth, that pride would be shattered and he’d end up sobbing and begging in the dirt.

But that arrogant thought broke apart with a sharp, bone-rattling scream.

The mage’s knee drove fiercely into the mutant’s midsection, flipping them both over. Like a thug from the back alleys, Penzey crushed the mutant’s twisted body and jumped straight into close combat.

“You bastard. If I don’t kill you right here, what would happen to Yurichen’s reputation?”

He hadn’t trained formally with daggers or anything, so his skills were just a bit better than an average person’s. But his sharp eye more than made up for it. Penzey yanked on the necklace the mutant was wearing, choking it, and stabbed a dagger into its side.

A lot of people would die today in this duchy.

The Duke had several mages serving him, and they had all fought to hold back the demon forces.

Exhausted from magic depletion and minor injuries, they barely glanced at Penzey, not recognizing who he was.

Those who had reached the fourth floor of the Tower and achieved Fourth Circle before leaving — they should have been able to recognize a genius who had reached even greater heights, but they didn’t.

At that moment, a cautious yet imposing presence approached Penzey from behind. Penzey didn’t turn around; he kept his stance steady.

His name was Daamil, a High Priest on equal footing with Yurichen.

In other words, he was quite old.

“Penzey Ikaran, the mage of lies and deceit.”

So he remembered that name.

Penzey regretted not either staying away from here or switching zones with Paronai. He didn’t want to look at the other’s face. Looking at the High Priest’s face would mean revealing his own.

“How strange, for you to be helping the temple.”

The old man kept talking, more than Penzey found necessary.

“Shut it, old man. It’s your incompetence that’s the problem.”

“Still hiding behind your mask, I see.”

The old man pretended not to hear Penzey’s insult at all, smiling serenely and speaking in a leisurely tone that made Penzey’s skin crawl.

This was why he hated clerics. Some treated people like bugs, while others treated them like children.

“If you never take off the mask, someday you’ll find yourself suffocating.”

One thing was for sure: if this temple bastard didn’t shut up soon, he was going to find out what real suffocation felt like.

A soft swish — a white figure appeared before Penzey. The mage’s vicious expression melted away like snow.

It was Yurichen.

Seeing Penzey filthy from fighting and practically one with the dirt, Yurichen spoke immediately:

“Go take a bath. Right now.”

He passed by Penzey to speak with Daamil. As the silver hair disappeared from view, a small voice lingered in Penzey’s ear.

“Good work.”

Penzey, still looking like a mess, headed back to the isolated lodgings and ran into Paronai. The other was soaked, as if he had caught a full blast of holy water meant for demons during the battle.

Their eyes met. Penzey shrugged; Paronai let out a cackling laugh.

Most of their group had killed people today.

But it was something that had to be done. If they hadn’t, innocent civilians would have died instead.

And anyone who had accepted a demon into their body or been involved with them had to be killed by any means necessary.

By the numbers, the one who had killed the most was Bzhan.

Paronai still believed he was just a thirteen-year-old kid.

Because of that, he genuinely worried that Bzhan must have been traumatized after killing people.

Of course, a few moments later, he realized it was better to worry about his own uncontrollable hand tremors. And that what moved him more than Bzhan’s calmness was the fact that Bzhan had come back to the lodgings on his own two feet.

“I want to pick Bzhan up and throw him high into the sky and catch him again.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

The black-haired boy was a total mess, covered in both his own blood and others’. Yurichen crouched down, bending his knees to examine the boy’s injuries.

Smack.

A sharp sound rang out. Buzan shook off y hand and stormed past him.

Then, he planted himself firmly in front of Riarun, who was sitting on the stairs with a dazed face. Naturally, he sat right down on Riarun’s lap.

Riarun was so startled that his eyelashes trembled. Bzhan’s gaze, demanding healing, was close — and very assertive.

“Wow, you really are a cat.”

Everyone there could clearly see that the cat had found its owner.

After all, wasn’t Riarun the very reason Bzhan had picked up his bow in the first place?

“Maybe all elves are actually cats?”

“On what grounds are you changing the species classification?”

“They’re fussy, they’re slim, and they climb trees.”

From Riarun’s hand, a soft green light formed into a rounded droplet. It rolled gently out visit our siteand washed away the boy’s wounds as if erasing them.

While a servant was boiling bathwater, Penzey stripped off his mud-caked outerwear and, in only his undergarments, whistled in the front yard.

Standing far away, Yurichen looked at him like he was some kind of wild animal. When Penzey suddenly started approaching him, he instinctively backed away.

But eventually, Yurichen’s back hit the courtyard wall, leaving him nowhere else to go.

No matter how filthy Penzey looked, they were still comrades — it wasn’t enough of a reason to jump the wall to escape.

Penzey leaned in and whispered conspiratorially,

“Did the monster come home?”

So that’s why he was half-naked, roaming the front yard — he was looking for someone he couldn’t see. Yurichen’s usually sharp gaze softened slightly.

“Please call him by his proper name — Banwes. Otherwise, it’ll sow discord among us.”

“So, where is he?”

“Somewhere in the house, I assume.”

“No way. Did you properly check with the artifact? There’s a high chance he’s not here.”

Penzey glanced toward the stairs. Riarun, after sending Bzhan off, was staring up at the sky with a gloomy face. Alone.

“Track him with the artifact.”

“…It’s broken.”

“What? Why?”

While the two oldest members of the group huddled together whispering, another man, also an elder but clumsy in all things, sat in the backyard shed.

He couldn’t bring himself to face Riarun.

Ever since he had seen that one glittering tear well up in Riarun’s eyes.

Yet as if it had all been a misunderstanding, Riarun had acted completely normal, treating him the same as ever.

— Hand the demon over now. I’ll take care of it within the purification field.

Without even giving him time to understand, Riarun had pressed their lips together, hungrily sucking.

— If my plan succeeds, we won’t have to do this anymore. It’ll be nice to get rid of this annoying mess, right?

Again, without giving him any time to respond, he decided everything on his own and poured out harsh words.

Told him not to even think about following him with that monster’s blood in his veins.

Banwes had followed him, worried he might collapse somewhere — and sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Riarun had ended up being forcibly kissed by a stranger.

Crack.

A rock shattered in Banwes’s clenched fist.

As he took a deep breath and calmed his fury, dust spilled out from his loosened grip.

After being rescued and returning home, Riarun spoke less.

Even when Paronai or Penzey asked stolen content if he was okay, he just turned his gaze away, saying he was tired.

But he had never looked so pale, even when exhausted.

‘…His plan must have failed.’

Strangely, there was no satisfaction in that thought.

Even when he tried to force himself to feel smug, it just didn’t happen.

He didn’t know what this feeling was. Pity, maybe?

But it wasn’t like Riarun was the first fragile, delicate thing he’d ever seen.

The small creatures in the forest he’d lived in were like that.

And the human children who wandered in by mistake were like that too.

Whenever he found such small creatures in the woods, he had killed them.

Because predators would come to eat the small ones, and stronger predators Read on would come to eat the predators. To survive, he had to kill.

He had even eaten raw flesh to avoid starving to death.

When he found human children, he ignored their wailing cries and ran away as fast as he could.

Whether they lived or died, it didn’t matter.

If he tried to help them and ended up getting exposed to humans, it could cost him his life instead.

That was why, having only that kind of experience, Banwes couldn’t bring himself to speak to Riarun now.

He was afraid — afraid he might hurt him, instinctively.

‘Maybe… maybe when I kissed Riarun, I was just about to accidentally eat him.’

He didn’t know how to handle something fragile with care.