Chapter 5
While Ion was busy analyzing the situation, the young man continued holding out the potato, tilting his head.
“You’re not eating it?”
“…”
Ion remained silent, staring into the young man’s eyes. Though his mind told him the young man wouldn’t harm him unnecessarily, he worried about what would happen if those eyes suddenly filled with killing intent. His strength was recovering, but he was still weak and injured—if he tried to run, he’d likely be caught immediately.
Whether the young man understood Ion’s thoughts or not, he lightly shook the dirt-covered potato that looked as if it had just been pulled from the damp ground.
“This is for eating.”
‘I know that.’
Swallowing the words that nearly escaped his mouth, Ion carefully adjusted his position so he could run at any moment, just in case. The young man seemed completely unconcerned about Ion’s wariness or movements, remaining as calm as ever.
Suddenly, the young man brought the dirt-covered potato to his own mouth. Wondering what he was doing, Ion watched in horror as the young man opened his mouth to bite into the potato—dirt and all.
“That’s dirty! Dirty! Ptui! Quick, spit it out!”
Ion rushed forward, holding out his cupped hands in front of the young man’s mouth, who was acting like a clueless three-year-old playing in the mud. Having worked part-time as a caretaker for toddlers before being captured by slave traders, he reacted out of habit.
The young man only blinked in response, then spat the piece of dirt-covered potato into Ion’s hands when Ion made a spitting gesture.
“Good job.”
Tossing the potato piece away without hesitation, Ion wiped the young man’s dirt-stained mouth with his torn sleeve.
“You’re not a child—how could you eat something so covered in dirt?”
“I wanted to show you it was for eating…”
“That’s enough, okay? I knew it was a potato without you having to eat it.”
As Ion grumbled, the young man tilted his head in childlike confusion.
“Then why didn’t you eat it?”
“Well, that’s…”
About to answer, Ion suddenly recalled what he’d just done and jumped back in shock. Moving three or four steps away from the young man, he gave him a wary look once more.
Whether aware of this or not, the young man showed interest in Ion’s legs, which were moving just fine.
“Your wounds are healed.”
Ion flinched and looked down at his legs. The previously injured legs now had clean scabs or had even healed completely smooth. Though bloodstains remained on various parts of his legs and would stay there unless washed off with water, they weren’t so dirty that you couldn’t tell what had happened to the wounds.
After looking at Ion’s legs, the young man took in his proper posture and moderately tensed body.
“And your stomach doesn’t seem to hurt anymore.”
Hearing the young man’s calm observation, Ion couldn’t help but tense up more.
Not only his left hand’s ability but also his abnormal self-healing power could become a source of profit for certain people. It wasn’t just the slave traders who’d been chasing him, but also the once-kind baker next door to his former home, and the circus troupe leader who’d visited their village. The more people learned about his abilities, the more they tried to sweet-talk him—eventually becoming more selfish than anyone else and reaching out with rough hands.
With suspicion, Ion glared at the young man while keeping his mouth firmly shut.
But the young man behaved differently from those people.
“Can’t you heal hunger too?”
While he could heal damaged body parts, there was nothing he could do about hunger except endure it. If he continued to starve, he might actually die—or he might live on in a state of agonizing hunger. The reason for his uncertainty was that Ion had never reached that point, and he had no intention of finding out.
But apart from all that, the young man’s direct yet innocent question strangely drained him of energy. Perhaps the biggest reason was that there seemed to be no ulterior motive regarding his abilities.
“People die when they’re hungry, you know.”
What a one-dimensional thought.
It wasn’t wrong, but his way of thinking was so simple it was childlike. Especially considering he’d noticed that Ion’s self-healing power was far from normal.
Ion narrowed his eyes, suspicious of the young man’s intentions.
“You said you wanted to live.”
The young man’s next words made Ion’s shoulders tremble. Whether his words carried some heavy weight or not, Ion couldn’t take them lightly for some reason.
Ion’s body, which had been stiff with wariness, slowly relaxed. Though caution still lingered in his eyes, he no longer showed hostility toward the young man.
***
“Argh, mister! Are you stupid? You’re stupid, right?!”
After sitting inside the young man’s tent, Ion eventually came out, unable to bear it any longer, and scrunched up his face. The young man was tearing off a whole cabbage that was not only dirt-covered but also brittle, and was biting into it like a goat. Watching him calmly chew what seemed to have no appealing texture whatsoever, Ion cried out.
“Spit it out!”
The young man stopped chewing, looked at Ion, and subtly spat the cabbage piece onto the ground. Meanwhile, Ion snatched the dried cabbage from the young man’s hand.
“How did you even get something in such terrible condition? And shake off the dirt before you eat it! I told you it’s dirty!”
Ion scolded the young man as if he found him utterly hopeless, while patting the cabbage with his hands. But there was so much dirt on it that such efforts were far from sufficient.
“Don’t you have any water?”
His intention was purely to wash the cabbage, but as soon as he spoke, the thirst he’d been ignoring came rushing back. His parched throat, which he’d barely been enduring, now hurt sharply as if he’d swallowed something pointed.
“Water…”
After briefly lowering his eyes as if thinking, the young man soon stood up. Given that he was heading somewhere without saying a word, it seemed there was indeed a place to get water.
‘I’m saved.’
Ion felt relieved at the prospect of being freed from his maddening thirst, but he was also worried. If the cause of the forest plants’ withering was in the lake, the water might already be too contaminated to drink. And not just ordinary contamination—something close to poison.
‘Hmm… If it’s really contaminated, should I just drink it and prepare for a stomachache?’
When captured by the slave traders, they’d fed him poisons from unknown sources daily to test his abilities. Despite his desperate struggles against the terrible stomach pain and the agony of his blood seemingly boiling, they merely watched with curious eyes. Eventually, they were shouting and laughing among themselves about their windfall when they saw he wouldn’t die even after consuming several times the lethal dose.
That’s why he shuddered at the thought of poison—but with his extreme thirst, he was starting to think it might not matter. Since no amount of self-healing power could naturally resolve hunger and thirst, he decided to just eat and drink whatever he could and then deal with the consequences by rolling on the ground in pain if necessary.
As his thoughts reached this point, he suddenly became curious. This young man seemed to have stayed in the forest for more than just a day or two, so why hadn’t he set aside drinking water separately?
More questions about the young man kept piling up.
Following closely behind him, Ion arrived at a place where there was indeed a small pond.
“Ugh…”
However, the water looked abnormal even at first glance.
‘It really must be poisoned.’
Ion looked down at the black water of the pond with a tense expression. No matter how thirsty he was, he absolutely didn’t want to put this kind of water in his mouth. He’d rather drink ink.
His earlier thought of “who cares if it’s poison, I’ll just drink it and deal with the pain” had completely vanished.
As he stood there with an unwilling expression, the young man beside him reached toward the pond. He scooped up water with one hand and brought it straight to his mouth. The rippling black water entered the young man’s mouth, and soon his Adam’s apple moved slightly.
‘Ugh… He’s really drinking that?’
Ion grimaced as he watched the young man, who seemed to be saying “this is how you drink it.” A stream of black water flowing from the corner of his mouth made Ion even more horrified.
But his thirst had already reached its limit. Despite its appearance, it was still “water” after all, and since the young man who drank it seemed fine, he thought perhaps it would be okay if he just closed his eyes and drank it.
With that thought, he extended his trembling left hand toward the pond.
The moment Ion’s fingertips touched the surface—
“…!”
The black water instantly became clear. It was so transparent you could see in detail the various sizes of stones and pebbles at the bottom of the pond, and even the thin twigs stuck between them appeared as vivid as if they were right in front of his eyes. The water even sparkled as if diamond dust had been sprinkled into it.
Startled, Ion sat down on the spot with a dazed expression.
Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. His power-infused hand had touched water many times, but it had never caused such a dramatic change. This seemed to be special water, and he thought that the magic he’d only heard about in legends might feel exactly like this.
Ion just stared blankly at the clear water drops falling from the fingertips of his left hand that had touched the pond.
Ion wasn’t the only one surprised.
The black eyes of the young man, who had never shown surprise no matter what happened, trembled slightly, and his red lips parted as if about to release a small gasp.
The young man knelt on one knee beside Ion and removed his right glove. When his revealed black hand touched the clear water, it turned black again as if it had never been clear.
