“What happened?”
Temar asked it without preamble.
“Whoa, whoa. You really do know how to be impatient.”
Luman lightly raised a hand, but Temar did not so much as blink.
“I asked what happened.”
Before Luman knew it, Temar was standing right beside him. Dust rose at his feet.
Even with Temar suddenly that close, Luman did not startle. In the end, he had no choice but to wipe the smile from his face.
“Temar. Didn’t I tell you?”
“.......”
“When you speak, don’t cut off the front and back. Be precise. That’s how people avoid misunderstanding each other.”
It was the advice Luman had given Temar the day before he left, while they were walking through the festival streets together.
Seeing him now, it seemed that advice had not helped much.
“You should ask properly. What exactly are you asking happened?”
Luman was glad to see his old friend after so long, and grateful that he had arrived in time with the signal flare. Yet for some reason, once they were face-to-face, anger boiled up in him. Hadn’t this anger settled peacefully after he saw Ren?
Ordinarily, he would have understood what Temar meant and gone on talking even about things he had not asked. But right now, he did not want to.
Temar noticed that too. His brows twitched frighteningly.
A taut tension wrapped around the two of them.
“Fine.”
Temar answered.
“I’ll do it the way you want. In return, you’d better answer properly.”
Shrrring.
The sword at his waist gave a vicious sound as half its body slid free. Looking at the perfectly sharpened blade, undamaged in the slightest, Luman gave a faint laugh.
“If you ask properly, of course I’ll answer properly. Have you ever seen me lie?”
Luman said it with perfect shamelessness. At the brazen lie, Temar could not even laugh.
“What happened here? No, here.......”
Temar’s thick lips twitched, swallowing the words before spitting them out again.
“What did Ren do?”
“.......”
“Don’t even think about making excuses.”
“Is the blunt Hero going to swing a sword over his younger brother? At an old friend, no less?”
“If I have to.”
“Haha. Now that’s something. Temar, at times like this—”
Click!
With a nimble hand, Luman slid Temar’s sword back into its sheath.
“You should ask. Not threaten.”
“.......”
“Am I wrong?”
Amber eyes stared straight at Temar. Temar clenched his jaw, as if chewing down and swallowing his own frustration.
Yes. Temar was angry too.
There were probably many reasons for that.
Likely not so different in nature from Luman’s anger.
Anger that he had failed to protect Ren properly, in time.
And anger that Ren had been dragged into something far from ordinary.
Luman patted Temar’s shoulder.
Then he walked toward the place where Ren had broken the pattern. The bunker’s ceiling had collapsed, leaving no part of it intact. Fragments of stone, bloodstains that still could not be erased, and nail # Nоvеlight # marks remained on the floor.
There were no markings there anymore, but Luman remembered.
Temar silently watched Luman walk.
At last, Luman approached the place where Ren had stood.
The place where Ren had stood and looked at him.
The place where he had taken Luman’s spear and driven the golden spear down.
Now, no trace of any energy could be felt there.
Everything had vanished cleanly.
Luman knelt and placed his hand on the floor, murmuring something.
Light flowed from his fingertips and covered the entire floor of the bunker. It glowed faintly, then vanished in an instant, and Luman stood, dusting off his hands.
“The pattern the masked figures tried to complete still hasn’t been identified, but you can guess too, can’t you, Temar?”
Looking at Temar, who did not answer, Luman continued.
“What they were trying to complete wasn’t a half-finished weapon, but a perfect one. If it had been completed, every Hero here would have died.”
Luman spoke of death in a tone that made it sound like nothing.
“Originally, I stepped in to stop it.”
“Ren stopped it?”
Temar said aloud what he had already guessed. His voice was trembling.
Luman glanced at him. Temar, shaking, came into view.
His lips, which had spoken as if forcing out something he did not want to imagine, were pressed tightly shut.
Looking at those dry, cracked lips, Luman’s face twisted.
“Yes. I saw it.”
Luman could not bring himself to speak about this.
Two nights had passed since then, but Luman still did not even want to recall that scene.
It had felt sacred and holy, even beautiful, yet Luman’s heart had frozen cold.
Because Luman knew.
If he had driven the golden spear down with all his strength and broken that pattern, he would have shattered to pieces and gone to the river of death.
Then would Ren, who had done it in his place, truly be safe?
To the end?
Even if he was safe, would he be able to live an ordinary life?
Now that he had become entangled like this, Ren would have to go to the royal castle.
Putting the king aside, Giselle—his strategist, the head of the Seven Stars—would not let Ren go. Not until he found out everything he wanted to know.
‘Why is Ren safe?’
Ren, whose aras was clear.
Priest Kirky had said so, and so had Seka.
Was that truly why?
Or else.......
‘Isn’t it an ability granted by God? Then perhaps it was given to someone qualified, someone who would make the right choice. I think saving that boy must also have been an important mission.’
Luman abruptly stopped thinking.
If he reached the end of that thought, Luman felt he would not be able to endure it.
He would end up taking Ren and running away.
No, wasn’t that what he should do?
“Luman.”
“......Let go. I’m fine. You startled me.”
Luman exaggeratedly laughed as he pulled away Temar’s thick hand, which was gripping him.
Temar had his face thrust right in front of Luman’s, his hands holding Luman by the shoulders.
It seemed Luman had sunk too deep into thought.
He shook off his thoughts.
“Your hands are as hot as ever. Still the same, still the same.”
Luman shook his head. His hair fell messily over his forehead. The long-grown strands pricked at his eyes. He pushed them back with an irritated hand and looked at Temar.
Inside the dark brown eyes that looked so heartless, he could see a faint trace of warmth.
It seemed some small fragment of friendship toward an old friend still remained.
Just as it did in Luman.
If not for Ren, he would not even have seen this much.
Luman gave a faint laugh.
‘Ah, Ren.’
How cruel of you. I never wanted to change like this.
“If you’re all right, I’d like to hear the rest.”
“Fine. What I saw was.......”
Luman had just managed to open his mouth to explain.
Boom.
For a moment, it seemed as if a boulder had fallen from the sky, but it was Geloman.
With his enormous body, he landed beside Luman and Temar with a great crash. Dust rose thickly.
—I think I should hear that story as well.
“......Giselle.”
Geloman was holding a crystal orb in his hand.
A familiar voice flowed from within it.
Seeing that, Luman pulled up the corners of his mouth.
“So you ignore communications when you’re needed, but appear only when there’s something you’re curious about? Strategist Giselle.”
His gentle tone held a blade.
***
“Ren!”
Ren was walking near the tents, partly as a stroll.
It was neither the time nor place for a stroll, but after lying in bed all this time, he had been getting so restless he thought he would die. Ren had only come out to walk a short distance in front of the tent, but the moment he did, someone called him.
Ren, whose long-awaited freedom had been interrupted, frowned and turned his head.
“Ren! Where are you going alone?”
The one who rushed up in front of Ren in a single breath was Peruan, exhaling hard.
Perhaps he had suffered a great deal in the meantime, because his face looked rough.
Looking at Ren, who wore the expression of a cat whose nap had been disturbed, Peruan swallowed a laugh.
“I felt stuffy, so I was going to walk for a bit.”
“Might I join you?”
“I want to be alone.”
“Then how about coming to my tent for tea and refreshments? Ah, I have some of the tea Ren likes as well.”
“.......”
Peruan winked. As if he were sending some kind of signal.
Ren narrowed his eyes.
What is this man doing now?
Saying he loved him, calling him his baby bird, or winking at him were all things Peruan did whenever he found the chance, so there was no need to think too hard about it. Ren was about to brush it off as nothing, but for Peruan, who was looking at him with desperate eyes, he decided to think for just a little while.
‘Let’s think for ten seconds. Why is he winking at me... because Peruan is insane. Ah.’
Ren shook his head.
“I want to be alone.”
At the answer, no different from before, Peruan’s shoulders drooped.
“I have good tea, Ren. Please, why don’t you just have one, juust one sip?”
“Young master. You really are pitiful.......”
Tom, who had spent the whole night organizing account books and had stepped out briefly for some air, cut in.
He had not meant to listen, but what reached his ears was simply too pitiful.
