Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Nine: An Unnatural Hunger
How much time had passed?
The long, rough kissing ended, and Julius pulled away.
Karen remained dazed for a while.
Though there were moments when she thought she might die from lack of air, the time spent in pleasant intoxication was longer, and her head felt hazy with the afterglow.
However, Julius’s leg entered the edge of her vision, and she remembered what kind of place this was.
Collecting her melted thoughts, Karen proceeded with the conversation while breathing heavily on her shoulders, still in her pinned-down position.
“Mr. Julius. Do you believe my feelings now?”
“…I ask nothing of you.”
At Julius’s words in a low voice, tears spilled from Karen’s eyes. Though she normally wouldn’t cry over something like this, she was already shedding tears from oxygen deprivation due to the intense kiss that seemed to test her. Moreover, because she’d been thinking the entire time about what kissing meant to Julius while receiving his kisses, the fact that she wasn’t desired by Julius was hard for Karen to bear right now.
“Karen, please don’t cry… I mean that I’m alright now.”
“You’re alright?”
“Yes, while I was exchanging kisses with you, the hunger subsided a bit, so—”
“Hunger?”
When Karen repeated it with puzzlement, Julius gasped and covered his own mouth with his hand.
The pale-faced Julius eventually removed his hand from his mouth as if giving up.
“—There is no point in hiding it from you any longer.”
Julius wore a bitter, bitter smile.
With that dark smile, he looked down at Karen, who still lay there powerlessly.
“Yes. I was feeling hunger due to a magical power deficiency. Until now, I’d never experienced such a sensation even when my magical power ran low, but it seems I’ve finally begun to go mad.”
Julius twisted his face in anguish.
Tearing at his hair, his frightened-looking eyes stared into space, seeing nothing.
He was deliberately avoiding looking at Karen.
Karen placed her hands on the rock, sat up, and peered into Julius’s face.
“When you appeared, I was tormented by an intense urge to devour you. I had the intuition that if I just consumed you, my magical power would recover, and I’m experiencing the impulse to bite into your neck—even now that urge hasn’t completely subsided.”
“Um, well. If it weren’t in a place like this…!”
“It’s probably not in the sense you’re imagining. I meant it purely as appetite.”
Julius awkwardly corrected Karen, who had spoken while fidgeting.
Having her misunderstanding pointed out, Karen turned bright red with embarrassment and gave a vague response of "Ah, right!?" to cover her shame, and then froze in shock.
“Wait, appetite!?”
“Run away from me, Karen. …It’s rather fortunate that my leg is like this.”
Julius muttered while looking at his crushed knee.
Understanding the meaning of why Horst had let Karen go so easily, Karen felt a chill. If things had gone according to Horst’s intentions, Karen might have been devoured by Julius—in the most literal, hunger-driven sense.
Then Karen made a puzzled face.
“Mr. Julius, that dangerous urge has calmed down now, right? Then why are you so depressed? Probably the reason that urge is welling up is because of Earl Brahm, right? In that case, it can’t be helped. Let’s find a way to deal with that urge when we get back.”
“It’s true that man made me drink something, but… isn’t this a desire welling up from within me?”
“Why would you think that way when you were clearly made to drink something suspicious?”
Karen took out a potion from her pouch while exasperated. It was a medium healing potion.
A medium healing potion couldn’t heal missing parts, but if it was something like a severed arm, it could sometimes reattach if the cut was clean. Whether a severed head would reattach was a gamble, so a major healing potion was recommended.
Karen looked at Julius’s knee and felt relieved at the same time as thinking it was gruesome. Thanks to Horst focusing on the misfortune that had befallen himself, Julius’s knee had only been crushed, not severed. All the crushed bones were there, not scattered about. It was an injury that could be sufficiently healed with a medium healing potion.
However, when Julius grabbed and stopped Karen’s arm as she tried to pour the potion on his knee, Karen said:
“After you disappeared, Mr. Julius, Thor told me about it, and I went to Earl Brahm to ask questions. And then it was strange. Rather than completely playing dumb, he gave quite a few hints while suggesting his own crime. As if he wanted to lead me to where you were, Mr. Julius. Maybe he knew it would turn out even worse that way.”
“So he knew that I would want to devour you.”
“I think he engineered it that way. Otherwise, I can’t understand why I was able to come here so smoothly… so if we just detoxify you, you’ll return to normal. Let’s heal you quickly and go back to try detox potions, okay?”
Julius, who had been refusing treatment by grabbing Karen’s arm holding the potion, released his hand. Karen poured half the medium healing potion on Julius’s knee and had him drink the other half. After confirming his injury had healed, Karen said:
“Now, let’s get out of here quick! This is still enemy territory!”
“Yes—”
“Still, there are poisons like that too. How fascinating!”
Julius stood up after his injury was healed and gave Karen an exasperated look.
“Don’t make such a happy face when it’s a poison that could harm you.”
“Ehehe. It’s what they call professional curiosity!”
Just as he was looking down at Karen, who wore an embarrassed smile, Julius suddenly brought his face close.
He grabbed Karen’s chin, covered her cheek with his large hand, and stopped there.
Seeing Julius begin to sweat as if enduring something while looking at Karen with unfocused eyes, Karen closed her eyes and went to kiss Julius herself.
When their lips overlapped, Julius forced his tongue into Karen’s mouth.
After a while, Julius sucked on Karen’s tongue and pulled away.
“…Did it ease the hunger?”
“I’m sorry… for exposing you to such an abhorrent desire, I’m truly sorry.”
“Please don’t worry about it. We’re lovers, so kissing is fine, isn’t it? It’s not even our first kiss.”
Karen was dejected, but she responded with a smile so as not to show it.
The reason for her disappointment wasn’t because Julius had directed hunger toward her. It was because she’d been confronted with the fact that his devouring kisses earlier were purely for hunger. However, she couldn’t let her romantic brain explode at a time and place like this.
Karen collected herself and said:
“In this place, people with magical power are likely to get lost, so let’s hold hands, Mr. Julius.”
“Yes—I’m causing you trouble.”
To the dark-faced Julius, Karen deliberately showed a bright smile.
“Now, let’s escape!”
Julius, being pulled by the hand by Karen, who was forcing cheerfulness, stared at Karen’s back while clenching his other fist.
On the way back, there was still no sign of people, but after leaving the prison, both Karen and Julius kept their mouths shut, stayed on high alert, and left the settlement while hiding themselves.
Fortunately, they didn’t get separated this time.
It seemed that when moving from a place without magical power to a place with it, they didn’t lose sight of their destination.
After escaping the blank zone and temporarily escaping danger, Karen asked Julius:
“What did Earl Brahm do to you, Mr. Julius? Did he bring a large group with him and surround you?”
“No—he threw some kind of powder at me. Black powder.”
“Black powder?”
What came to Karen’s mind was the gravel-like black sand that had surrounded the settlement.
“I called out Earl Brahm, saying I wanted to talk, and confronted him in a deserted place. When I questioned him about Isaac’s matter, Earl Brahm became indignant and threw it at me. At that moment, magical power and strength drained from my entire body. I couldn’t even stand—and when I came to, my knee had been crushed, and I was imprisoned in that place.”
“Was there a way to deal with it?”
“To think of it as an attack and properly avoid it, rather than dismissing it as some harmless retaliatory sand or something. It’s a pathetic story, but I was off guard toward Earl Brahm, who was venting his years of resentment at me. I could have avoided it if I’d tried, but I didn’t. I didn’t think for a moment that man could do anything, and I arrogantly accepted it willingly.”
It seemed Horst had also unleashed that resentment and bitterness on Julius. By being one-sided, unreasonable, and exposing his pitifully pathetic appearance, Horst had made Julius let his guard down.
Karen and Boromias’ group had also witnessed the foolishly talkative Horst’s small, pathetic figure as he boasted of his achievements as if confessing his own crimes.
Could they say they hadn’t let their guard down around such a Horst?
—Karen gulped.
“Mr. Julius, let’s hurry. I have a bad feeling.”
Julius nodded and quickened his pace as Karen urged him.
Even before the campsite came into view, shouts of rage and cries of despair echoed from its direction.
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