* * *

To his subordinates, who were curious about his encounter with the Scarlet Dragon, Cadel spun an impromptu tale. He told them the unimportant facts that the Scarlet Dragon’s name was Kunra and that he’d seen him in humanoid form, but he didn’t mention anything about the body containing two souls.

He simply made up a lie that Kunra was interested in a human who was a multi-attribute magician and had ties to the Fairy King Hesonia.

He felt more awkward around his subordinates than guilty about it. The fact that someone else’s will had been mixed with the emotions that he had believed to be his own until now was something that no one who had not experienced it could know. It made you doubt yourself, not anyone else. It was a situation where the person you had always believed you liked and trusted could become an insignificant figure in an instant.

Perhaps he saw his subordinates as mere workers to help him along his journey, and as terrible as it was to think that, it was also terrible to think that the naïve Cadel Lytos had influenced the calculating Shin Yeohwan’s thinking.

‘I’d rather give this body back to him.’

Cadel felt himself crumbling with every passing minute, and he was becoming increasingly fearful of the bond he so desperately wanted with his members.

“I’ll be the first to stand guard today. I’m sure you’re all tired, so get some sleep.”

They had been harassed by Kunra since early evening, so it was already midnight when they found the camping site. Cadel looked around at his lightly fed subordinates and prepared to stand guard. Everyone tried to dissuade Cadel, saying it was not necessary, but they could not overcome his stubbornness.

“Don’t worry, I won’t overdo it. It hurts my pride to be worried like this because I sleep a few hours less.”

“But darling, don’t you think you’ll just collapse if you don’t get enough sleep?”

“You’re next, Lydon. I heard that you didn’t wake up yesterday and Lumen stayed up all night.”

“Hey, I’m just a poor fairy.”

“Look at your size and say that again.”

Cadel sat at the campfire, alternating between Lydon’s boisterous laughter and Lumen’s irritated glare. At Cadel’s stern demeanor, his subordinates settled down nearby, one by one.

The night breeze was cool on the hard ground, but the encounter with the Scarlet Dragon had been quite an exhausting one, even for them. When it was quiet enough, Cadel put down the twig that had been stoking the fire and rubbed his cheek.

His chest tightened and he took a deep breath, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was squeezing his heart.

“You want to stay in this world, right? You found someone you love. I just gave you a reason to justify your greed. No matter what you choose, the soul will die, but if you don’t stay, the human body dies as well. Think of it simply.”

‘……Justification.’

He didn’t know if that might have been the case. Had he not known that Cadel Lytos was influencing him, he might have taken his place shamelessly, pretending he had no choice but to lean on the justification.

“I can’t live without Cadel, but Cadel can live without me. You can abandon me, Cadel.”

He didn’t want to abandon his subordinates. He didn’t want to leave them behind and run back to his original world. He thought he did. He thought so.

Was that really how he felt?

‘If I don’t mean it, I…….’

If all this affection belonged to Cadel Lytos, and he, the dead shell, no longer loved his subordinates. If he regretted his choice to stay here, missed his original world, and eventually resented them for being the cause of his false choice.

If he resented these blind people who had given up their normal lives for him.

Just the thought of it sent shivers down his spine. He was so pathetic in his own behavior that he wasn’t even sure about his emotions, he was on the verge of going crazy.

It would be easier to judge them if they were nothing to him, and he hated being treated like that more than dying.

Rubbing his face roughly, he looked back at the faces of his sleeping subordinates. Their faces, always so reassuring, were suddenly unbearably frightening.

With a sharp intake of breath, Cadel pushed himself to his feet. Slowly, he backpedaled, then broke into a brisk walk away from them. His legs picked up speed, and he ran, desperately as if he was truly running away.

He ran and ran, but the landscape never changed, like a nightmare. It was a sign that he would never escape this place.

Suddenly, his body tilted against the stone beak, and he reflexively reached for the ground as his center of gravity tilted forward.

“Where are you going?”

With a familiar voice, a firm hand gripped his arm.

“At this late hour, instead of standing guard……. Are you going to see the Scarlet Dragon, Leader?”

It was Lumen, and he looked as bewildered as Cadel at his sudden capture. His usually neat appearance was disheveled as if he had been rushed.

For a moment, only ragged breathing hovered between the two men. Cadel couldn’t bring himself to speak, even as he met Lumen’s blue eyes demanding answers.

‘I…… why did I run away……?’

A vague sense of fear washed over him, like a wave that had suddenly swelled to full size. He was running from something, but he couldn’t tell what. Cadel wondered what Lumen would look like if he told him that the sight of the members sleeping soundly felt like an iron cage imprisoning him

When Cadel didn’t answer, Lumen slowly released the grip on his arm.

“You’ve been acting like a jerk ever since you went to the Scarlet Dragon. If there is anything more that happened than what you told us, please tell us. Don’t try to handle it alone.”

He tried not to let it show, but Lumen seemed to see through it all. Cadel tried to avoid eye contact and evade the question, but Lumen lifted the tip of his chin and forced him to meet his gaze.

A face came closer, filling Cadel’s field of vision with no chance of escape.

“If you don’t trust your comrades, who will you trust, right?”

Lumen tried to get Cadel to talk, half-urging, half-soothing, and in his eyes, Cadel was as precarious as a man crossing a river from which he would never return.

He’d seen Cadel unsteady before, but never as close as now, and that made Lumen uneasy, impatient. He felt as if his leader would evaporate like an illusion at any moment.

Cadel swept a hand through Lumen’s unruly hair as he fidgeted. Cadel looked so exhausted he could barely stand, and he stroked Lumen’s hair with a languid hand. Then he spoke in a hollow voice Lumen had never heard before.

“I want to love you.”

Cadel’s words had none of the desperation or shyness of a confessor of love. They were simply thrown out like the last words of an arid life.

While Lumen hesitated, unsure of what to make of his confession, Cadel’s expression twisted slightly, and he reached down to cupped Lumen’s cheek.

“I want to love you so much that I would give up the world for you. That my life is enough with your presence. I want to be sure of my love, without any doubts.”

Following Cadel’s increasingly trembling voice, Lumen also felt something inside him reacting. It felt like anger, it felt like resentment, and it also felt like extreme love.

He remained still, accepting Cadel’s touch, and tried to keep his voice as calm as possible.

“You’re already doing it. You love me, you.”

Cadel dropped his arm in response. Lumen reached out as if to grasp at the warmth that had been taken from him, but Cadel’s hollow laugh cut him off.

“Do you think so?”

“Do I seem needy enough to cling to a man who doesn’t even love me?”

Cadel’s weary gaze swept over Lumen’s face. As handsome as ever, without a single ugly spot. A steady gaze that never wavered in confidence. He seemed to have no reason to lie and make things up, so whatever he said, Cadel had no choice but to believe.

When Cadel shook his head in response, Lumen’s hand paused for a moment, then gripped Cadel’s shoulder. He gently pulled Cadel toward him.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. But no matter what you hear, at least…… don’t doubt it, Leader.”

Lumen murmured softly, burying his lips in the top of Cadel’s head, who was in his arms without protest.

“Because you are the person I love.”

It was a transparent feeling, with no lies, no doubts. Cadel gently closed his eyes. He wrapped his arms around Lumen’s waist and hugged him tightly.

What kind of person is the person you love? What side of him do you love? He wanted to pry and prod, to find out whether the man Lumen had given his heart to was Cadel Lytos or Shin Yeohwan.

No matter what answer he got, he’d end up in denial. So Cadel decided to stop prying and just accept Lumen’s sincerity.

His own feelings may be fake, but those of his comrades were not. Their feelings were true and pure from beginning to end. There was no doubt about that either.

That was all that was left for Cadel, and for Shin Yeohwan.