Dangerous Hero
Perhaps because of their earlier conversation, Temarr and Ruman were clearing through the forest path without much dialogue.
“We’ll be late.”
Only now seeming worried about the return time to the capital, Temarr muttered.
“What, are you going to leave Ren behind?”
“As if.”
Ruman, who had been about to say he’d go instead, deflated and just chuckled. He didn’t know how long they’d been racing. The forest paths all looked similar, so the two didn’t try to think much and focused on driving the horses.
But then, a grating sound reached their ears.
Someone’s ragged breathing. Before they could even recognize it and stop the carriage, the carriage ceiling rang with thump thump thump thump, and Gepetto’s urgent voice was heard.
Temarr threw open the window of the still-running carriage.
In Temarr’s eyes was captured the sight of Ren trembling all over as if having a seizure.
With a face pale as death, tracing some memory, his beautifully vivid green eyes were filled with terrible sadness and fear. His trembling lips and fingertips, his rough breathing seemed to squeeze Temarr’s heart.
“Stop.”
Neeeeiiiigh!
From stopping so abruptly, the horse’s front legs shot high into the air. Temarr, who had leaped from the running horse, caught the carriage with his shoulder as it lurched and shot upward as if about to overturn, and a halo of light spreading from Ruman’s body enveloped the horse. The horse that Temarr had leaped from ran far away, then slowly returned drawn by Ruman’s light. The excited horse’s breathing echoed through the forest.
Before Ruman could hurriedly jump down and the horse could regain its composure, Temarr set down the carriage as if throwing it. Boom! The carriage was mercilessly driven deep into the ground. Smoke rose from the earth. Temarr opened the carriage door as if to break it and crammed his large body inside.
“Ren.”
“What’s happening!”
Ruman urgently bent down to look into the carriage.
Ren was… collapsed.
As if struggling to breathe, he was clutching and squeezing his own neck and chest. His ragged breathing seemed about to stop at any moment. Ren’s pupils shook. At his gaze that didn’t know where to look, Temarr was seized with fear.
“Why is this happening!”
“I don’t know either. Suddenly…”
Inside the carriage was a mess. Ren’s belongings and Gepetto’s medicine bottles, notebooks, etc. were scattered on the floor, and the flowerpot that Ren had looked at whenever he had time was shattered to pieces. Soil was sporadically scattered on the carriage floor.
“Ren. Pull yourself together, Ren!”
“D-don’t shake him! Hero-nim!”
Gepetto, who had been startled by Ren’s sudden collapse and the carriage’s abrupt stop, regained his reason. He grabbed at Temarr’s arm as he shook Ren indiscriminately. But it was futile.
“Temarr!”
“Hero-nim!”
“Ren!”
Temarr lost his reason.
He grabbed the arm of Gepetto who was trying to stop him and threw him against the carriage wall.
“Ugh!”
Gepetto hugged his struck shoulder and curled his body. From how hard he’d hit, powder fell from the wall. Gepetto barely suppressed the urge to vomit.
Even holding back, he was a Hero. Someone who could kill a person with brute strength alone.
He covered his mouth with his palm against the nausea surging up, and now that he looked, it was blood.
Temarr pulled Ren onto his thighs and patted his cheeks.
Smack. Smaack.
Ren’s head turned limply. Vivid handprints remained on his pale cheeks.
“You crazy bastard! Stop it. Do you want to see your younger brother die?”
Ruman growled and grabbed Temarr’s forearm as if tearing it.
But Temarr didn’t budge at all.
Hanging onto Ruman’s arm, he just silently continued what he was doing.
He patted the cheeks of Ren who lay sprawled unable to breathe properly and grabbed his shoulders to shake him. As if believing that would wake Ren up. Madness appeared in Temarr’s eyes. A presence rose that made it difficult to breathe. Even Ruman felt the pressure, so for Gepetto it was difficult to breathe. Gepetto scratched at the floor gasping for breath. Blood dripped from his mouth.
Aah, it’s such a terribly tiresome ability that I want to part ways.
But the situation won’t help. A flash of bright light appeared in Ruman’s golden eyes. Contrary to his thoughts, his body moved. The moment he tried to grab Temarr’s shoulder.
The fading energy he’d felt when passing through light with Ren came to mind and blocked Ruman’s breath.
“Hueok.”
Ruman clutched his heart and bent his knees.
Ah, how many pages of a written explanation would a Hero who said he’d retire have to write for using abilities so recklessly? Ruman deliberately thought lightly and suppressed the memory.
A hundred pages, or two hundred pages…
Ruman caught his breath, stood up, and drew up his energy. The authority he summoned emitted bright light and enveloped his own body and Gepetto’s body as if protecting them.
“Temarr.”
Already who knows how many times, unauthorized authority.
Even if he hated it, could he not escape?
Ruman held authority in his hand and gripped Temarr’s forearm so fiercely as to tear it. His capillaries burst and his skin flushed red, his skin tore, yet Temarr only shook Ren.
Ren swayed limply in Temarr’s hands.
His mad eyes glowed blue.
If Ren dies…
The single assumption that came to mind at that moment struck Temarr’s head like lightning.
A fragile human who could always die.
Ruman’s warning to be careful.
The anti-Hero war weapon that had exploded in the carriage.
His own arms and legs and blood that had burst and flown up, soaring into the air. The terrible pain of severed nerves and muscles. Ren throwing his body off the cliff… The blood-red naked sword that had pierced long into his chest.
When he’d willingly covered himself in blood and gone to save Ren with a heart desperately boiling like hell, Ren’s already injured appearance…
Ren’s face, smiling while saying he was okay.
And now.
Ren’s face, sprawled on the carriage floor, suffering.
In those eyes, he himself wasn’t there.
That couldn’t be.
“Ren. Pull yourself together. Ren.”
A voice both affectionate and indifferent echoed eerily inside the carriage.
Unlike the urgency from before, it was Temarr gently waking Ren as if denying the situation.
But Ren was…
Ruman couldn’t defeat Temarr with this strength and brute force.
‘Luvien.’
It was certain that leaving Ren like that was dangerous.
Without hesitation, Ruman summoned Rante.
A pure white fox with long ears and snout appeared treading on air. It looked like dried bones, its injuries from last time not yet healed. However, the light the fox emitted was brighter than before.
Wooong.
The blue energy and golden energy enveloping its whole body surged and clashed in midair.
The fox seemed to circle once in the air, then leaving only an afterimage, rushed at Temarr. Just before Temarr’s hand grabbed Rante’s neck to burst it, Ruman’s light blazed up and swallowed Temarr whole.
Forcibly subdued, Temarr’s blue energy churned. The ferocious energy befitting the King’s Seventh Star surged as if to swallow life and writhed as if ready to roar brilliantly. Facing Temarr’s great energy that seemed ready to explode at any moment, Ruman had no choice but to burn his own light of life. He pressured him as if to break through the spirit of the pitiful Hero Temarr who couldn’t hear anything. The moment he failed to subdue what had been overwhelmed once, ultimately by Ruman’s power, Hero Temarr’s eyes rolled back white.
Boom. Temarr’s massive frame was driven into the carriage floor. Broken fragments flew everywhere, scratching their bodies.
“Hueoeoek…”
Gepetto exhaled the breath that had been blocked and gathered his dizzy mind.
The emaciated Rante scattered into light and Ruman bent his knees and sat.
He carefully embraced Ren.
A body with residual spasms. His eyes were still groping somewhere in the air.
“Physician Gepetto. I’m sorry, but please look at Ren first.”
“Yees…”
Both Gepetto’s voice and Ruman’s voice as he spoke calmly were hoarse.
Gepetto crawled along the floor to approach Ren.
He carefully examined Ren’s symptoms. He felt his pulse and kneaded his limbs. Gepetto, who had put his ear to his heart and pondered, opened his medicine bag. With trembling hands, he combined several things and roughly clumped them together, then tried to wake Ren. But Ren was unconscious. His jaw and fingertips, his limbs just continued to convulse.
“The, the medicine needs to be given…”
Ruman took the clumped herbs from Gepetto’s hand. He chewed them without hesitation, then carefully gripped Ren’s cheek and earnestly passed it through the gap in his small lips. When he lightly bit Ren’s unresponsive lips, Ren slowly swallowed the medicine.
Ren’s convulsing body subsided, and his stiffly extended trembling limbs went slack.
Ruman smiled with a tired face.
“He’s asleep, right? Can I be relieved?”
“Yes… Looking at the symptoms, it seems like a panic attack.”
Physician Gepetto nodded with a tired face.
“What’s a panic attack?”
“…It’s a mental symptom. It’s one of the conditions that often occurs after experiencing shocking events—they can be unable to breathe and have convulsions like this.”
“Then what should we do? Is there a possibility this will happen again in the future?”
“Yes… I think we’ll have to watch him. This is, a psychological problem…”
Gepetto swallowed his words.
Seeing the boy convulsing while pale as death was painful for him too.
“……”
Was it because of what happened then?
The sheer cliff and precipice appeared in Ruman’s mind like a hallucination. Ruman shook his head, swallowing the memory.
“Um… I’ll also examine you, Hero-nim.”
He seemed to be a physician after all.
Still having difficulty standing on his own two legs, Gepetto said to Ruman.
Ruman shook his head. Instead, he took out a blanket, laid it on the carriage seat, and carefully positioned Ren in a sitting posture with his head leaning against the carriage’s inner wall.
“Please watch over him.”
“What about Hero-nim…?”
Gepetto’s gaze turned to Temarr, driven into the carriage floor. How great must the impact have been for the carriage floor to be sunken. Blood was flowing from Temarr’s face, pierced by a protruding wooden plank.
“Don’t worry and rest. I’ll be nearby, so call me when Ren wakes up. Ah, you should also wipe up the blood.”
Ruman smiled lightly, then grabbed Temarr’s arm with one hand, ruthlessly dragged him outside, and slung that massive frame upside down over his shoulder. Gepetto made a surprised expression.
No matter how glamorous the exterior, a Hero is a Hero after all.
To lift that massive Temarr with one hand in one go without effort!
Ruman headed toward the forest with Temarr slung over his shoulder. The light Ruman left behind quietly restored the carriage to before it was broken, as if nothing had happened.
Ruman, who had mercilessly set Temarr down as if throwing him to the ground, panted for breath. Fresh blood flowed from his mouth.
Ruman raised his hand and rubbed his damp mouth. Bright red blood soaked abundantly onto his hand.
Ruman smiled as if unsurprised and spat out blood. The dirt ground turned dark red.
“Hoo.”
He raised his head and looked at the sky. Sweat-soaked hair stuck to his forehead.
Between the tall trees, the bright blue sky reflected small like a spring seemed to be frozen brightly.
Suddenly it felt like air sharp enough to pierce deeply into his skin was seeping in.
A cold he’d never felt in his life stabbed sharply into his lungs.
Ruman’s golden eyes opened wide.
“Hueok…”
It was an unfamiliar sensation.
The moment the startled Ruman forgot to breathe, in an instant the cold disappeared.
His skin was still solid like metal and sturdy like rock. Nowhere on his body could winter’s cold wind seep in.
But just now, what was that cold?
Creepiness wrapped around his whole body.
Watching the tree bending its branches as if broken by the wind, Ruman felt the season for the first time.
Ruman’s blank gaze traced the small visible sky. Like that day when he first awakened the Hero’s authority. As if searching for a god.
