Chapter One Hundred and Ninety: Drunkards
“Karen!”
Reporting to Boromias was the final part of Karen’s job. When Julius, who had waited patiently for her to finish, finally called her name, Karen flinched.
She wanted to run away. She had been reckless because she thought she might die, but looking back now, even if it was to extract information, she had been a pervert approaching him naked.
She had desperately wanted to hear Julius’s story before dying, and couldn’t afford to be choosy about her methods. Still, thinking back on it now made her face feel like it would burst into flames.
There were also the words Julius had spoken just before they parted. What did those words truly mean?
At the time, she had felt happy, yet she had also wondered if they were nothing more than empty words meant to keep her from leaving. She hadn’t really reached a conclusion.
Regardless of the truth, it had been sufficient for Karen when she thought her life might end. But now that she had survived and returned, things were different. If she didn’t confirm what Julius meant by those words "I love you," she surely wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. Still, she was certain she would be scolded.
She desperately wanted to escape—but Karen couldn’t run away. Karen had forcibly drawn out the secret Julius had kept hidden in his heart. She already knew the reason Julius believed he would surely make people fear him. If she ran away now, Julius would surely misunderstand and think Karen was afraid of him.
Now that Karen knew everything, she could no longer run away. Karen planted her feet firmly on the spot and resolutely looked at Julius. He had a deeply troubled expression, and Karen’s heart ached. As he placed his hand against Karen’s cheek, Julius suddenly pulled her toward him.
“Eek!”
“I was very worried, Karen.”
“I-I’m sorry.”
“…No, it’s not something you should apologize for. I’m the one who should apologize for trying to stop your progress again. I said I would support you, yet I’m sorry.”
Normally, if someone said such things and headed toward a dangerous place, anyone would want to stop them, even if they weren’t lovers.
Yet Julius apologized to Karen. Karen had been sure she would be scolded, so she stared up at Julius blankly.
“If I were so worried, I should have gone with you.”
“But, that’s…”
People with magical power couldn’t enter that place of their own will.
To bring Julius along, she would have had to knock him unconscious and carry him. But Karen, when she had no magical power, was so weak she couldn’t even drag Julius.
Even if she could have brought him by another method, a person with magical power probably wouldn’t have been able to move properly. Even Julius, though he had managed to walk on his own, looked pained and breathless—in that condition, he would have been helpless against multiple men, even if no one used magic.
In that place, it was Waltride—who had been more energetic than usual—who was the true anomaly. And Karen herself was the strange one for being able to move without any magical power.
Karen didn’t know what to say to Julius, who began saying he should have made the impossible possible.
She thought he was in despair.
But Julius wasn’t in despair at all.
“If I were worried about you, rather than holding you back, I should have followed you by any means necessary. If an elder treant and a pegasus could cross the dungeon boundary, why couldn’t I do the same?”
That was because the elder treant and pegasus had been broken. But unable to say that, Karen’s mouth opened and closed helplessly.
“Even if monsters can’t cross unless the dungeon is broken, what about humans? Just as intelligent humans can confront and defeat incredibly powerful monsters using magical tools and magic—there must be something I can do.”
Karen’s entire body broke out in goosebumps. She felt the color of the magical power composing the interior of the dungeon change. Julius, still looking down into the sky in Karen’s eyes, widened his eyes as if he had found something there.
“If something must be broken to cross the goddess’s boundary, then even if I must break myself—ah, I see. Is that it?”
Julius’s eyes shimmered with rainbow colors, and that brilliance reflected in Karen’s eyes as she looked up at him.
From the sky looming close, particles of rainbow light rained down on Julius.
Karen was bathed in those particles of light too.
Karen had noticed that the elder treant and the pegasus had been willing to sacrifice themselves to save their children, yet she had not truly understood it until this very moment. In other words, even if the dungeon itself wasn’t broken—one could cross its boundary by breaking oneself. As long as they paid the price, monsters could leave the dungeon of their own will at any time.
It wasn’t defying the goddess’s providence. This was rather within the scope of the goddess’s providence. Only humans thought that monsters couldn’t leave dungeons and couldn’t cross boundaries. As long as they paid the price, both monsters and humans—everyone had the right to use this back door.
—Julius, who had realized this truth on his own, was ascending the steps.
Karen, receiving the spillover and ascending the steps slightly herself, swallowed hard. From now on, surely Julius would follow her no matter how dangerous a place she headed toward. For Karen’s sake, even if he had to pay the price.
The moment she thought that, tears overflowed from both of Karen’s eyes. Seeing Karen like that, Julius narrowed his eyes and said:
“Karen, I don’t want you to feel bad for me. Just as you live for your desires, I’m simply living for mine.”
At Julius’s words, Karen shook her head from side to side while crying.
“That’s not it. Actually, I was a little scared. This time, quite… I thought I had to pretend to be fine in front of Lady Waltride, so I was trying hard, but…”
She had been fairly serious in thinking she might die. That was why she regretted not being kissed one last time.
“Even though a price is necessary, even though I feel sorry about it, when I thought that from now on you would be with me, it felt so reassuring—”
Julius’s face drew closer, and Karen just barely slapped her hand over his mouth to prevent the kiss.
With his mouth covered, Julius frowned in displeasure.
“Why are you stopping me? Karen.”
“Because I have to make the panacea for everyone now! It would be troublesome if you sucked out all my magical power! You definitely won’t be able to restrain yourself, will you!?”
Julius’s eyes were swaying with rainbow colors. He was completely drunk on magical power.
In this situation, there was no way he could restrain himself from the act he had said he couldn’t restrain himself from even after drinking a magical power recovery potion in a stable state.
—Looking down at Karen, who was turning bright red from embarrassment at what she was saying, Julius tilted his head with his mouth still covered.
“Indeed, I don’t feel like I can hold back.”
“What do you mean hold ba—Kyaa!?”
Her palm was licked, and Karen screamed and pulled her hand away from Julius’s mouth.
As Karen looked up at him, her face blazing red, Julius smiled at her. It wasn’t his usual gentle smile, but one that felt somehow cruel, and Karen caught her breath.
“I’m dying to teach you right now just how much I’ve been holding back with you until now. Won’t you please accept me? Karen. I don’t want to force a kiss on you either.”
As he spoke, Julius captured Karen’s arms.
He left Karen with no way to escape and leaned his face closer. He seemed unable to restrain himself. Even so, the fact that he tried to obtain her consent despite his impatience was very much like Julius.
Karen knew well that when drunk on magical power, self-control became ineffective. No brakes at full throttle. Becoming an unstoppable force. So Karen, half-resigned, muttered with a sulky face:
“I was hoping you’d kiss me once you weren’t driven by hunger anymore.”
At Karen’s grumbling, Julius stopped moving abruptly.
While glaring at Julius with a red face, Karen threw a small tantrum in her slightly tipsy state from ascending the steps, however little.
“I wanted a life where you’d give me an amazing kiss with one hundred percent pure desire from you, Mr. Julius, with no holding back!”
“—I see.”
“What do you mean ‘I see’!? Do you understand how I’d feel getting so deflated thinking that even if you kissed me so intensely, it might just be because you’re hungry!?”
“Indeed, it would be vexing to be thought of as desiring you due to being affected by poison.”
Julius’s face moved away from Karen.
“I’ll endure it this time. But Karen, in exchange, I want you to come to my tent tonight.”
“Um… tonight, meaning…”
“I mean, I want you to visit me with full resolve for everything, Karen. If you promise me, I’ll release you for now.”
While acutely sensing danger, Karen swallowed with a not-entirely-displeased expression.
“I-I understand!”
“Then I’ll release you. If you want to run away, even by breaking your promise, go ahead, but be prepared when you’re caught. The real me isn’t patient, isn’t kind—I’m a cruel and greedy person.”
Julius displayed a cold smile that he had never shown Karen before.
“No matter where you try to run from now on, I can follow you. Please understand that I have no intention of ever letting you escape.”
It seemed Julius was quite angry after all that Karen had reported that she was going to a deadly place from somewhere completely beyond his reach, and then fled.
Looking up at Julius, who looked down at her with golden eyes that were cold yet harbored heat in their depths, Karen thought with her drunken head that this wasn’t bad at all…
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