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132 Chapter

Swish

A fierce wind surrounded me. Maybe it was due to the explosion being directly exposed, but I couldn’t even hear the storming wind properly as it hummed. The sensation of falling from a great height without protective gear made my hair stand on end and sent chills down my spine.

‘It’s over.’

Before the pain, a sense of relief washed over me.

Relief that the explosion hadn’t harmed anyone else but me.

With my body in tatters, I gasped out a sigh of relief, contrary to the situation of plunging vertically from the sky.

“If it weren’t for me but Reiner, it would have been disastrous,” I sighed deeply.

The power of the bomb was stronger than expected. Even though I had protected my body with mana, I was still wounded all over from the blast’s impact. If it had been Reiner, it would have truly been dangerous.

With difficulty, I pried my eyes open against the wind to assess my surroundings.

‘It hurts…’

Even moving my body slightly was a challenge.

Gritting my teeth against the pain overwhelming my body, I looked down at my hands. The black gloves I wore were torn like rags, and the skin that the fabric couldn’t cover was stained bright red.

No matter how abnormally high my mana pool was today, the amount of mana I was leaking made it nearly non-existent, and it would take time for it to recover.

‘At least that’s a relief.’

The situation was the worst, yet I absurdly felt grateful for being alive.

Having navigated countless life-and-death situations as a mercenary, I wasn’t particularly moved. But today, the fact that I was alive left me breathless.

I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath.

‘Just before hitting the ground, I’ll activate the teleport artifact.’

I had prepared several teleport artifacts in case of such situations.

Falling from this height without any protection, it was obvious I wouldn’t come out unscathed. But right now, I had little mana left and didn’t even have the energy to create a shield.

Using teleportation from this height would mean I would teleport too high and begin falling from that new height. So I thought of a little trick to teleport just before hitting the ground, allowing me to fall from a much lower height.

Like a struggling insect, I wriggled and fumbled for a teleport artifact in my pocket. Crimson blood stained the artifact.

‘I’ll chant the activation phrase in five seconds.’

I gauged the distance to the ground and made my decision. Closing my eyes against the biting cold wind, I slowly parted my lips to speak the activation phrase.

Whoosh!

Someone suddenly appeared from the air and caught my body.

Startled, I blinked wide open eyes, shocked that I had failed to notice their approach, realizing they had teleported here.

Solid arms held me securely.

They felt oddly familiar yet too strange, emanating a chilly and unsettling magic. And there was the wretched scent of winter that dulled my sense of smell.

“……Zigmund?”

I widened my eyes, struggling to comprehend as I muttered the name that resonated with the most complex and intense emotions I held for people.

Thud.

Zigmund landed us in an empty alleyway as if he had caught me effortlessly. He looked down at me.

His eyes, both beautiful like jeweled glaze yet cold as if eternally in winter, burned with an intensity I had never seen before.

“Well. You seem completely insane. To consider bringing a bomb just about to explode. Were you thinking of dying while holding a bomb with the spirit of a saint? You’re as foolish as you were back then. Is there no growth from that reckless mentality? You must have wanted to hasten your death, huh?”

His low voice, frozen like a glacier, harshly criticized me.

I felt a surge of anger, wanting to retort like I did when we fought as children, but a sudden thought halted my words.

‘Isn’t this just a sign of concern?’

Concern—a word utterly discordant between Zigmund and me when it reached extremes, but his face, seemingly angry, carried an oddly urgent undertone that unmistakably felt like worry.

‘This bastard? Me? Why?’

Surely Zigmund wouldn’t care whether I lived or died; he would probably celebrate and throw a festival at my demise.

I muttered absently, not understanding his reaction.

“It’s not your business whether I’m hastening my death or not, right?”

Zigmund halted, surprised by my sharp words. He was usually skilled at concealing his emotions, so to others, he appeared expressionless, but I could see it—Zigmund was greatly disturbed.

‘What’s up with this guy?’

His unexpected behaviors and words threw me off balance, and I became flustered as well.

From helping to disarm the bomb to catching my falling self, combined with his apparent undertone of concern, none of it felt like him, leaving me half-dazed, blinking.

“……Right.”

Zigmund, who had been quietly lost in thought, affirmed softly. His oddly crumbling expression had been concealed, but his pupils were still faintly swirling with confusion.

“What… are you thinking?”

His intention seemed to be to become the worst bastard in my life, yet he acted ambiguously, leaving me bewildered. I looked at him with confusion, but he only slowly closed and opened his eyes without an answer.

“……True.”

Though I asked for an answer, all I received was a murmur of uncertainty.

An odd nausea rolled in my stomach as I frowned slightly.

‘Come to think of it, Zigmund has never directly shown malice towards me.’

Throughout our three encounters, he had never once expressed malice or intent to harm me.

In our first meeting, he did throw a dagger at me, but considering our previous enmity, it was more of a playful act than a sincere attempt to hurt me.

Even when we fought initially, Zigmund hadn’t been genuinely trying, as he hadn’t even displayed an aura.

In our second encounter, we had fought over Reisha’s belongings, and that had been unavoidable. Though his words drove people mad, that too was merely verbal.

I couldn’t decipher his thoughts. Zigmund was the ultimate enigma.

“……This is maddening.”

Zigmund sighed heavily.

He looked troubled, as if he wanted to avoid my gaze, yet his arms tightened around me beyond reason.

Zigmund’s head tilted slightly, his silky black hair brushed across my face, tickling me gently. An overpowering scent—perhaps winter from afar—surrounded his flowing hair.

His breathtaking violet eyes focused intently on me. There was a strange flicker in those eyes that had glimpses of complex emotions such as confusion, self-loathing, and pain.

‘…Damn it.’

I bit my lips.

Was it that I had let my guard down because he had helped me once, or was my body in pain, and my mind so hazy that I relaxed? Whatever the reason, I found Zigmund’s gaze not as unpleasant as before.

Watching him stare at me for a while, he suddenly let out a quiet chuckle.

“Given it’s reached this point… I suppose I can’t simply hate you. What exactly should I do?”

“……What?”

I doubted my ears. It was such a faint sound I thought I had misheard, and just as I was about to question it, thud.

Zigmund released the arm that held me, and I dropped to the ground with a dull thump. My body was already exhausted and sore; the sudden impact caught me completely off guard, and I fell unceremoniously to the ground with a gasp.

“This bastard…!”

“Let’s just say it was a whim that I caught you falling.”

Zigmund, with an expression as expressionless as ever, waved his hand, manifesting a magic circle. My gaze diverted for merely a moment in awe of his astonishing magic deployment speed, and he muttered softly.

“Or else it’d be really troublesome…”

Poof!

Then, like when he appeared, Zigmund disappeared quietly and swiftly. Only the chilling magic he left behind remained as evidence of his presence.

‘What the… is going on?’

My body and mind were already battered, and it felt like an enormous stone had been added to my already weary spirit.

I struggled to right my blurry vision while getting to my feet.

‘First, I need to get to a safe place.’

With Zigmund and everything else, my overwhelming fatigue took the reins of my thoughts, and I only wanted to find somewhere to rest. Leaning against a wall, I took wobbly steps.

And it was the dumbest thing I could do.

“Hey, that’s Mir!”

I should have just used the teleport artifact immediately, but in my dazed state, I walked out into the square and faced the crowd.

Countless eyes fixed on me. Feeling utterly exposed, I took a step back in surprise.

Fear and awe, suspicion and longing. Many people looked at me with varied emotions, yet I felt only like a monkey on display.

“Mir! What just happened!”

The crowd who had only whispered among themselves began bombarding me with questions from a courageous one.

“That was a bomb explosion, right? Did you save us from it?”

“Who was behind the bomb?”

Questions erupted simultaneously in a cacophony that churned my stomach.

They had not even approached me, yet their distant questions felt like a barrage of violence.

‘I’m so tired.’

I heard people calling me a hero, and suspicious murmurs rang in my ears. I didn’t want to care about any of it. As I realized I was still holding the teleport artifact, I chanted the activation phrase without hesitation.

“Teleport.”

Whoosh!

With a fierce gale of mana, my stomach lurched, and my vision flipped.

Unlike the square before, I found myself in a place starkly hushed and peaceful, filled with the scent of herbs and gentle sunlight—my sanctuary, the forest cabin where I had once toiled to make Aria’s medicines, and where Leo and Diego had stayed.

Lacking strength in my legs, I half-collapsed onto a cot and laid down.

Some of the mansion staff might not know I was Mir, and with my current state, rumors might spread that I was unrecognizable upon returning to the mansion.

‘I need to contact my family…’

As soon as I lay down, fatigue overwhelmed me, but I managed to gather my wits and pulled out the comms device from my pocket. Sending a brief message to Aria to inform her I was at the cabin, I soon lost my grip on the device, letting it drop.

‘Now, let’s rest.’

I closed my eyes, momentarily setting aside all my problems. A deep, calming slumber enveloped me.

 

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