Chapter 50

Chapter 50. "What the Dead Feel Toward the Dying." 10

When I came to my senses, I was lying on the ground with my head pillowed on Rene's lap. My head ached.

Hm? When I looked around, I saw Huria moving back and forth, carrying stretchers or helping limping Lizard Men along on their shoulders. I turned my head and looked up.

I saw Rene's face.

She was looking down at me blankly, expressionless. I raised a hand.

Rene did not move. I lightly touched her cheek. As always, it was soft. But she gave no reaction at all. Strange.

Lowering my hand, I looked into her eyes. Against the backdrop of the forest now sinking into twilight, Rene's golden eyes were even more beautiful than usual.

But there was no focus in them. They were vacant eyes, the eyes of someone sunk deep in thought. Mmm, something was strange. I was just about to open my mouth and call her name when I turned my head at a voice coming from nearby.

"Look here. How about we stop this now?"

"Do... not... interfere. So... many... of... my... comrades... were... hurt. And... you... would... have... me... just... let... it... pass?"

Exel, who was sitting roughly on a broken tree, nodded.

"Yes."

At that, Kan frowned and bared his teeth, then turned his head to look at Jeff, who was lying straight on the ground with bandages around his shoulder and leg, and at Kal lying beside him. Looking down at them, Kan bared his teeth and growled.

Come to think of it, Kan too had one arm wrapped in bandages, and a strip of cloth was tied around his neck to keep that arm fixed in place. In the other hand, he was holding a shortsword with one entire edge crushed flat.

...What happened here?

Just then, a Lizard Man with bandages wrapped all around his chest approached him, and seeing him, Kan glanced sideways and asked,

"The... dead?"

That Lizard Man shook his head. Then a Huria with long chestnut hair tied back came over beside him, folded his arms, and spoke.

"None of your brothers are dead. Quite a few were badly hurt, but Lizard Men recover quickly, so they will probably all be fine in a few days. But Kan, what exactly happened here? If it was because of those golems, I could understand, but when we arrived, every one of you was already down. If all of you were brought down by only two golems, perhaps I overestimated you."

At his words, Kan lowered his head and looked at Jeff and Kal lying unconscious on the ground, then slid the shortsword in his hand back into its sheath.

"Consider... yourselves... lucky... humans."

After saying that, he sat down carelessly beside Jeff. Then he let out a sigh, turned his head toward me, and I quickly shut my eyes, pretending I still had not regained consciousness. A moment later, Kan's voice came.

"I... do... not... know... either. That... bastard... suddenly... shouted... and... we... all... fell. When... I... woke... up... the... golems... and... the... woman... were... taking... them... and... running... away. I... chased... them... and... they... dropped... them... and... fled."

"Where?"

At that, I carefully cracked my eyes open. Kan lifted the tail hanging behind him and pointed at a stretch of ground where trees and underbrush had all been knocked over and broken in one direction, as though something had passed through there. The Huria—he looked male—nodded as he looked that way.

"Hmm, I hope they did not get too far."

After saying that, the Huria male slithered off with his snake tail toward the others, who were bandaging the Lizard Men and crushing herbs gathered from the nearby forest to pack into their wounds.

He wore nothing at all on his upper body. So did the others. No, there were a few like Karina who wore clothes on their upper bodies, but not many.

When he went over, they exchanged a few words, and then, except for a handful who stayed behind to tend the wounded, about ten Huria turned toward the place where the trees had been broken and fallen.

I watched them for a moment, then turned back to Rene, who was still looking down at me with those vacant eyes. And as I looked into her eyes, I thought it over carefully.

What did I do?

I clearly remembered shouting at them to stop. But after that... strange. What in the world had I done? I could not remember.

Suddenly, feeling something odd, I tested the sensation in my back just in case, but nothing felt wrong. Mmm, there did not seem to be anything strange there. Then I lowered my eyes to look at my chest, and was startled.

Bandages were wrapped around it.

A few torn remnants of my shirt were still caught in my belt at the waist. My upper body was bare, my chest wrapped round and round in bandages.

And the strange part was, I had not received any wound to my chest. No matter how I retraced my memory, up until the moment I lost consciousness after shouting at them to stop, I had suffered no injury there.

Which meant...

No. It could not be.

Thinking that, I shook my head. Just then, something warm like water fell onto my face. When I turned my eyes, Rene was crying, her mouth slightly parted, her face still blank with shock. My elf wife, Rene Tarsis, was crying.

I promised I would never make her cry.

I made that promise.

If you cry like that,

then it means I have broken my promise.

Dear. Please. Do not cry. All right?

I looked up at Rene, then lowered my eyes to the bandages wrapped around my chest.

Her tears made it certain.

The wall must have cracked.

Rene had realized it, and that was why she was crying with worry.

Because she feared I might once again come to speak my own name backward.

Damn it, why was it only now that that old woman's words came back to me?

"The tattoo carved into your back is very unstable. So do not overdo it. If you use power beyond your limit, your strength will break through the wall and leak out. For a while, it will not matter. But if that happens, the wall will collapse within a few dozen days, and unless you have the mark carved again, you will be forced to keep wearing that thing."

Hoo... there was no helping it. I would have to go see that old woman again before long. No, before that, I had to stop Rene's tears first.

Thinking that, I tried to sit up. I could not hold her like this, after all. This was the first time she had ever cried since we married, so even I had my doubts whether my usual method would work.

To get up, I only had to move my arms, brace myself against the ground, put strength into my arms and waist to lift my upper body, bend my legs, and sit upright.

But I could not do that.

The moment I tried to rise, Rene lifted both hands, caught hold of my head once it had come up a little, and firmly forced it back down onto her lap. (I think she was angry too.)

Urk!

Her lap was soft, but my head hurt so badly that even that slight impact made it pound twice as hard.

Rene put strength into both hands on my forehead, making sure I could not get up again. I looked up at her with slightly startled eyes, and Rene, now frowning as tears streamed down her face, slowly opened her mouth and looked down at me.

"...You promised you would never make me cry."