“Ren. Your color is terrible. This man can barely stand on his own, so let someone else support him. Ren. Lean on me.”
Peruan gently drew Ren toward him with a soft touch. Luman smiled and frowned.
How had someone like that ended up beside him while he wasn’t looking?
But the situation was not good enough for interrogation, or for satisfying his curiosity.
Ren, who had seemed to be getting pulled along by him, pushed Peruan’s hand away.
Peruan looked at his hand, left floating in the air, and hid the complicated feeling inside him.
Ren was still staring at Luman.
“Young count.”
Tom returned.
“It’s the same. The entrance is still blocked.”
His gaze touched the demonstone, glowing dimly without a single scratch.
“S-so! Are you saying we can get out or not!”
“We can get out, right? Please......”
Once one person blurted that out, the others who had still been fearfully cutting at empty air even after seeing the masked figures stop began opening their mouths one by one, stammering.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The people who had swung their swords with all their strength in order to survive threw them down onto the floor as if casting away something disgusting. The blades struck together with sharp sounds.
Seka and Cedric stepped forward, telling them to calm down, but an excited crowd was a frightening thing. They looked ready to rush Luman at any moment.
“Shut up! All of you! You were going to die anyway! Don’t yell at the person who came to save us, just wait quietly—!”
The one who shouted was Kenta. Beta reached out to stop him, then looked at Luman with an anxious face. Luman smiled reflexively at the girl’s gaze, but before he could resist the pain surging through him, the corners of his eyes tightened faintly. Beta withdrew the hand she had reached out to stop Kenta and sucked in a breath.
Then—
She suddenly let out a scream as high as a dolphin’s cry.
It sounded like someone blowing a whistle, or like the high mechanical tone that rang out when a magical device reported a malfunction. The people who had been trying to push closer to Luman through the numbing pain in their ears flinched and clapped their hands over their ears.
“If it weren’t for him, we’d all be dead! Wait quietly! I’m sure, I’m sure he’ll find some way......”
Unlike the force of her shout, Beta’s voice was trembling. The last words sounded almost like a plea. So there was no way it could properly persuade them. Still, that hope—that he would find some way—was their hope too.
Bodies that had been dragged around and abused for a long time. Skin gone grimy from not being able to rest or wash properly. The reason they had endured even while eating food fit for dogs was because they had the will to live.
Only, no one knew how long their patience would last.
“S-save us!”
“Please save us!”
“Please, please save us......”
The voices that had been screaming and spitting anger now began changing into pleas. Kenta, who had been looking at the frozen masked figures and the people gathered with faces of horror, gripped Beta’s hand tightly and rushed over to Ren.
Peruan, who reflexively blocked him when he came close, tilted his head.
“Do you have something to say to Ren? Boy, girl.”
Kenta flinched under Peruan’s gaze and tried to shove aside the hand blocking him, but Peruan did not move at all.
“Move! I said move—!”
“Ren is not well. If you have something to say, surely you can say it from there.”
That was true. Kenta had only wanted to smack the back of his head.
In truth, he did not have anything particular to say. What was he supposed to expect from that frail little boy?
But for some reason, Kenta kept remembering the way Ren had first thrashed and raised hell.
“Hey!!”
So first, Kenta called Ren.
“Ren!”
“......?”
Ren, who had been holding Luman’s arm, slowly turned his head. When his eyes reached Kenta, who had called him, Kenta shouted at him.
“Get it together! How long are you going to stand there like that!”
“.......”
“I said get it together, you idiot!”
When Kenta saw irritation «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» enter Ren’s eyes, he needled him a little more, then slipped over beside Seka. From what he could tell, Seka was the most reliable one here.
Seka and Cedric were worried about Ren and Luman, but they could not easily approach. Too many people were clinging around them. If they moved carelessly, the people desperately trying to stay beside them would tangle together and fall.
Seka gripped his sword tightly and tilted his head back.
What he looked at was the hole in the air-raid shelter through which he and Luman had fallen.
“Brother, what are you looking at?”
Cedric tilted his own head all the way back after him and looked puzzled.
“Cedric. Don’t leave my side.”
“Okay.”
At that worried voice, Cedric nodded.
“Cedric. Can you keep time?”
“Yeah. I can.”
“Three minutes and thirty seconds.”
“Got it!”
Seka told his brother to count the time, caught his breath, and then began cutting through the chains wrapped around the ankles of the people captured as slaves.
Cedric counted the time, but still kept glancing at Ren.
Ren came back to himself at the sound of chains being cut and looked slowly around. His hand was still gripping Luman’s arm. He could feel the sticky flow of blood. The damp, hot air too, and Luman’s burning breath.
Why do you always get hurt?
Irritation suddenly rose in him, but he could not be angry at Luman when Luman was not the one at fault.
“Luman.”
“Yes?”
Luman answered easily.
If one looked only at his calm face, they could believe he had come out on a picnic somewhere.
If not for the blood soaking him, the act would have been perfect.
Peruan, who had been about to ask whether there was a way to break the demonstone, showed curiosity.
What would Ren say?
“Do you have a way out of here?”
Was that why Luman was calm?
Ren, who had been startled by his injury, looked around and could roughly guess.
He could “hear” Luman’s spell and “feel” it.
But ordinary people could not.
Had he not heard the spell that had summoned Lante before too?
“Ha ha. You caught me.”
“Tell me, Luman.”
That way, he could think of another method too.
“......I sent a signal. Even if they notice it, they may be late on their end.”
“Ah.”
Then did that mean, after telling Ren to close his eyes, he had sent a signal?
Then there had been no need for him to close his eyes, had there? Was there any reason Luman had to get hurt like that just to send a signal?
For some reason, Ren felt bad. As if he were missing something......
“Can you break the demonstone?”
Luman shook his head.
“We need to break that in order to get out, so this is quite troublesome. We can’t simply wait forever, but neither can we deal with this many people by......”
Cleaning them all up.
Peruan swallowed the words.
“Ren. If you want to ask, you may.”
Considering how much blood he had lost, Luman looked peaceful.
“Ask what?”
Ren was thinking about the necklace the old apothecary had given him.
That had definitely been—magic. It had to be magic. Because he had felt water that was not here. Because he had seen it. Because thanks to it... he had survived.
Could it be impossible to escape with the power of this necklace?
Time was steadily passing.
Once the five minutes Luman had bought them passed, they would have to fight those people off while waiting for help whose arrival time they did not know.
‘We have to do something before then.’
“......Never mind.”
Ren looked around with a serious expression.
The words Luman had swallowed were about Temar.
He had swallowed the fact that he had sent the signal to Temar because he wondered whether Ren was curious, and because he did not want to plant useless hope in him and then hurt him.
He did not know if Temar could come at once.
And the current situation was different from normal.
An anti-Hero weapon.
That was here right now.
Only five minutes of unconsciousness.
Feeling the pressure of the anti-Hero weapon, he had used his strength to the most suitable degree that would let him avoid losing consciousness. Of course, he had also left enough power to take only Ren and escape.
Luman looked closely at the scratchlike scars covering the walls of the air-raid shelter.
It was unfortunate, but it could not be helped.
Because in a situation where he could not save everyone, Luman absolutely wanted to save Ren alone.
“Is support coming?”
Seka asked.
“It would be better not to expect too much. Though everyone already looks like they are expecting it.”
Luman laughed softly.
Ren clenched the things he had put in his pockets.
In one hand was the necklace the old apothecary had given him. In the other was the artifact Lady Gannion had given him.
What was the effect of this artifact?
Since Coco had given it to him, it could not be ordinary. And she had always worried about his safety.
So maybe there was a way to escape in a situation like this.
Ren kept thinking and fidgeted with the necklace.
‘...Could this necklace help again?’
The artifact Coco had given him was completely silent, so perhaps it would be better to think about the necklace’s magic, which had already activated once.
Let’s try. How had the magic activated earlier?
At some point, light had simply spread out......
No matter how much he recalled it and thought it over, he could not figure out the activation condition.
The only thing Ren knew was that when he had made himself bleed, the necklace’s magic had stopped.
‘Should I make myself bleed?’
Since that was the only thing he knew, Ren thought he should try making himself bleed.
‘Everyone is looking this way right now, so when I get a chance......’
Luman or Peruan would stop him, so the key was doing it secretly.
“What are you plotting?”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“You finally looked at me.”
Peruan, who trembled at the gaze touching him, put on a sorrowful face.
