* * *

“Go away.”

The first thing he heard along with his suddenly awakened consciousness was a single curse full of annoyance. Cadel tried to find the owner of the voice through his strangely awkward vision, but his body couldn’t move at will.

Instead, he saw a slender, dusty forearm holding a branch and stirring a bonfire. Judging by the angle and position of the forearm, it must be his own, Cadel thought.

‘Could it be that I entered the body of the protagonist in the past? Then, the story was told from the protagonist’s point of view.……. Well, it’s good that it wouldn’t be a bother to move around.

He quickly grasped the situation and relaxed comfortably. He decided to treat this place roughly as a 4D theater. Cadel’s arm silently lit the fire, and a sharp voice continued to be heard from behind him.

“Could it be that your ear canal is blocked? If so, I’ll cut out the whole useless piece of flesh.”

“Umm, how? I don’t think it’s possible.”

“Don’t pretend to be my superior just because you saved me. Do you want to die?”

“So, that would be impossible. I don’t understand why you are so angry.”

Despite the one-sided hostility, Cadel remained calm. Rather, he even giggled as if he was teasing his opponent.

However, Cadel could not laugh at all when he heard the conversation, because the angry voice he heard was quite familiar.

‘Eyy……. Eyy, probably not. How can he talk like that? The other party is me, not anyone else.’

There was no way our puppy would be like that. Cadel didn’t know anyone else, but he was a guy who never bit the owner.

As if to ridicule such an idea, the view that had been fixed on the bonfire slowly turned to the back. It was a common corner where a man was lying with a deadly glare.

As if stretching, his body stretched out his arms and headed toward the man with a leisurely walk. The man’s face began to be clearly visible along the approaching distance. And at the moment that perfectly captures the man’s face, Cadel felt as if he had been hit back and forth in the head by the unbelievable reality.

‘Van……? Is this for real?’

No matter how he looked at it, it was Van.

Of course, it was Van’s story, so Van would appear, but Cadel came right after seeing his pathetic subordinate who had been crouching for so long that he couldn’t straighten his legs to wait for him. It was hard for Cadel to accept that the man in front of him with the ferocious eyes and his puppy were the same person.

“Stop staring at me. Fire will come out of your eyes.”

“Don’t touch my body, you aristocrat!”

“Are you going to treat a person who changes bandages like this? It’s unfair! And I’m not even an aristocrat?”

After the shock had subsided a little, Van’s miserable face came into view belatedly. It was as if he was seeing the dying Van from the first tutorial quest again. The bandage wrapped around the exposed upper body was reddish with blood leaking little by little.

When he tried to put his hand on it, Van resisted violently and put his palm on the uneven ground. It seemed like an attempt to get his body up but it soon froze in an awkward posture as if excruciating pain had come. Cadel sighed pitifully and crouched down in front of him.

“Don’t you think that you would die if I didn’t save you from the ‘Red Wyvern’? Don’t you want to live? Why are you making such a fuss when I say I’ll treat you?”

“If you hadn’t saved me, I’d have survived on my own. Don’t be intoxicated by the good intentions you have given. You’re so full of yourself.”

“Ha! Survive well? That’s funny. If you really think so, you’re either totally incapable of judging the situation, or you’re just a guy whose life is today and tomorrow.”

Van bit his lips so hard that he could feel pain just by looking at them. After glaring for a long time as if to kill, he slowly found his place and lay down, breathing out in anger.

Cadel then took a dagger out of his bag and gently cut off the blood-soaked bandage. The wounds that followed were truly horrific, and his chest and abdomen were torn along three thick lines. The open flesh dangled and vomited dark red blood. It seemed to be the traces of a monster called ‘Red Wyvern’. The wounds exposed to the cold wind coming through the cavity must have been painful, and Van’s chest rose and fell greatly.

“The smell of blood is terrible. If you’re unlucky, monsters might be driven this way.”

“……Then you can stop doing this now and get out of here.”

“You want me to let the guy I saved die? No, I like efficiency.”

Van gritted his teeth at the disinfectant pouring over his wounds. His bloodshot eyes opened wide, and Cadel, reflected in them, grinned like a pervert enjoying the pain of others.

‘No, with a relationship like this, how on earth did I manage to recruit him? Even though I saved Lumen’s life, I was betrayed.’

Around the time when he felt puzzled by the atmosphere that was worse than expected, a sudden dizziness overtook him, and the vision they had shared so far was rapidly blurring. Severe motion sickness came as the background quickly changed. For about 2 minutes, he did not know what to do with the feeling of nausea that he could not discharge.

When he finally came to his senses, he was facing a giant monster ‘Armor Ogre’.

A height and width were likely to be five times that of an adult male. A disgustingly monstrous combination of features and a sloppy body covered in mucus and saliva. Even the bark-colored minerals wrapped around it all like hard armor.

The identity of the monster that filled his vision was definitely ‘Amor Ogre’.

‘What? Why did the monster suddenly……. Ah, it’s getting dark. Was the time skipped?’

It seemed that the extreme dizziness was a side effect of turning the time fast. As soon as he realized that fact, he heard rough breathing from the side. Cadel, who identified the owner of the breathing sound with his eyes moving, screamed inwardly.

“Damn it……. One after another, and now, even the armor ogre? Did someone put honey on your blood?”

It was Cadel! Cadel, who he was supposed to possess, was standing right next to him, and he was watching him like a man experiencing an out-of-body experience.

However, what stood out even more than this strange situation was Cadel’s terrible appearance.

Drops of blood dripped down the right hand and forearm that he had lifted to cast the spell. One of his bloodstained eyelids was swollen and closed as if it had been hit somewhere, his dangling left arm was dislocated, and his shoulder was hanging down.

‘What’s wrong with my body!’

In shock, he scanned himself busily. The tired voice that followed let him know whose vision he was currently borrowing.

“Run away.”

It was clearly Van’s voice. Now he was watching the past through Van’s perspective, not the protagonist’s.

Van extended his greatsword toward Cadel instead of the monster. Cadel stared blankly at the greatsword blocking his way, then pushed it away.

“Promise me one thing.”

“Stop talking nonsense―”

“If you get out of here alive, fix that nasty tone. In commemoration of being reborn.”

“……What?”

“I mean, be a little kinder. Let me know that saving you is worthwhile.”

As if losing for words, Van’s mouth opened. Cadel ignored him and fired the ball of fire that had gathered in his hand. The fireball hit the armor ogre’s head but failed to penetrate the mineral that wrapped around its head like a helmet.

Being upset by the heat, the movement of the monster became rough.

Kkuooooh!

The armor ogre began to advance, mercilessly brandishing the heavy wooden club it was holding. A strong wind driving with a heavy swing. The ripping sound of the swing made him guess the bloody power.

In the end, Van stopped blocking Cadel and straightened his greatsword, and Cadel immediately resumed his second attack.

‘Armor ogre is blocked from most attacks because of its armor-like minerals. The best thing to do is create a gap with a debuff skill like [Armor Destruction] to temporarily lower its defense…….’

Unfortunately, it was highly likely that this Cadel did not have that ability. His best trick, which would have been weaker than his current self, was to blur the opponent’s view and run away. That was probably it.

But this was Van’s recruitment story. It was just showing the story of the past, so in the end, it could be said that these two survived the difficulties in front of them without dying.

How the hell did they defeat the armor ogre? Even in such a worst condition.

Cadel, who suddenly felt like watching a strategic video, watched the battle between the two with excitement.

―However.

“Magician!”

The blossoming of outstanding coping skills and the brilliant strategic battles he had hoped for did not happen. Instead, Cadel, who continued to stimulate the monster with hot balls of fire, finally caught its attention, and boasting the desperate physical unique to a magician, he was unable to avoid the trajectory of the club, resulting in an unfortunate accident.

Cadel flew away with a chilling sound of a few broken bones. The armor ogre strode toward the fallen Cadel as if he was still not satisfied.

“Magician! Get yourself together!”

Cadel didn’t budge. At first glance, it was like an instantaneous death. Then, Van could use the body as bait and run away while the armor ogre’s mind was exhausted. There was no more sure way to survive than that.

But instead of abandoning Cadel and running away, Van chose to run to him. The sluggish armor ogre couldn’t keep up with the swift speed of Van. Without thinking, Van picked up Cadel and immediately ran along the mountain road on the other side.

“Heoheok, heok…….”

The mountain path was downhill, but the slope was steep. The untrimmed path was filled with tree roots and boulders sticking out. It was a dark night, so it was difficult to identify obstacles one by one. Van stumbled several times, but never let go of Cadel, and forced himself to speed up, conscious of the heavy footsteps chasing them.

‘Van……. Yeah, he’s not a bad guy by nature. How gentle he is! Look now, he can just leave a person at death’s door and run away, he doesn’t have to take care of me…….’

Cadel’s heart, watching Van’s struggle, was somehow moved. Of course, he felt frustrated that if he had been in this position, he would have been a little less stupid, but that was a thing of the past.

After running for a long time, Van chose a safe zone in a narrow tunnel. A gap created by the protruding roots of a giant tree. There was a sloppy feeling due to the wide distance between the roots, but it was not a bad place to hide.

The armor ogre’s speed was slow, but it was still chasing the two, and as long as the blood didn’t stop, there was a chance it would follow the smell. First, they needed a place to hide. Even though he was in a hurry, Van pushed the unconscious Cadel’s body into the entrance first. He was next.

The damp tunnel was as narrow as it looked, with high humidity and low temperature. It was the worst environment for two injured people to be tangled.

“Oy, pull yourself together. You’re not dead, are you?”

Van’s breathing was rough due to the long run, and his whole body was covered with sweat and blood. The wounds that were barely healing were also bursting and widening, making a mess. Even so, Van hastily confirmed Cadel’s condition first.

Van put his hand under his nose and ears on his chest. After checking it over and over again, he was convinced that Cadel had a ray of consciousness.

“Damn it……. So why, why are you being useless and stubborn! If you had left me like I said, this wouldn’t have happened to you!”

Van’s voice trembled in an awkward way. He stared at Cadel’s miserable face, biting his lip, then turned his gaze away with a stern expression. The action that followed was very appropriate to bring out the scream of Cadel inside him.

‘Where are you going! Where are you going! It was the same back then that this child was crazy because he wanted to die!’

Van left the cave alone.

As soon as he came out of the small cave, he felt the ground rumble coming closer and closer. It was proof that the armor ogre was smelling blood. Van’s gaze moved slowly. His right hand tremblingly clenched the greatsword, which blade had become blunt from the long battle, and the tunnel in which Cadel was lying. He took a look one after another with sincerity.

“……It didn’t matter if I died anyway.”

It was a breathtaking voice that left the listener’s heart empty. Van, who spoke as if admonishing himself, began to return along the mountain road he had taken off for a while. The more he went back the way he came, the stronger the echo of the ground.

Kkeuhooooh!

Perhaps recognizing the thick smell of blood, the armor ogre’s roar echoed through the mountains accompanied by a heavy reverberation. And it wouldn’t be long before Van confronted the armor ogre.

“All I have to do is stay away. To the point where the smell of my blood covers the smell of the magician’s blood. I only have to earn that distance.”

Van continued to mutter as if casting a spell on himself. He really wanted to die. Cadel was so startled that he reflexively almost punched him in the back of the head but failed because he had no physical body.

‘Is being a live bait a hobby? When I go back, I’ll have to beat him on the butt to make him come to his senses.’

In the tutorial, and then in the main quest, Van always tended to take his life lightly. At the time, Cadel thought he was motivated because he valued Cadel so much as the commander, however…… Seeing that he was in this state even before joining, he thought it was a congenital problem.

While Cadel felt mixed, the armor ogre gradually narrowed the distance, bouncing Van’s flying sword energy with its armor.

Along with the weakened Van, the weakened sword energy could not inflict even the slightest damage to the armor ogre. His greatsword had enough blood, but his battered body couldn’t draw out the aura to use the berserker’s power. Berserkers who failed to wake up were just sponges absorbing blood. The insignificant clanging noise repeated.

Van gnashed his teeth as if he was fed up with his powerlessness. Thick blood flowed from her torn lips.

“Come!”

With an angry cry, Van retreated little by little. At the same time, the armor ogre, who had secured the hitting point, fiercely raised its club.

Cadel thought, looking through Van’s view at the club threatening to hit him at any moment.

‘How the hell do you live after this……?’