# Chapter 16
As soon as he woke up and met Levi’s eyes, Levi raised his hand and cupped Ion’s small cheek. Ion flinched at first because of Levi’s cold hand, but he realized that the issue wasn’t Levi’s temperature but the heat that had rushed to his own cheeks.
“No more crying?”
Levi’s voice was always consistent. So Ion’s response should have been consistent too, but this strange resonance just wouldn’t stop.
In his mind, the image of Levi holding him and wiping his eyes in the early morning floated around. At that time, his emotions had been so intense from the nightmare that he hadn’t paid much attention to Levi’s actions, but he never dreamed this delayed impact would hit him.
Ion thought he was simply embarrassed and ashamed about what had happened at dawn. If that wasn’t the case, he wouldn’t have been peacefully admiring Levi until he woke up.
The heat rushing to his face, the confusion of still being in Levi’s arms, and the way Levi’s hand stroking his face felt excessively pleasant—all of it was just an emotional overflow caused by embarrassment.
Thinking this way made his flushed mind feel somewhat calmer.
“I’m not crying anymore. I’m all grown up now, so I should stop crying.”
“You’ll still grow more.”
“I know that. I just meant… I’m grown up mentally.”
He meant that sincerely. Ever since he was young, he’d been called an old soul countless times while searching for and doing all sorts of work. Having matured mentally through various experiences, he considered himself much more level-headed and discerning than others his age.
If that hadn’t been the case, he would have still been crying his eyes out, blaming himself for losing his mother that way.
Ion climbed down from Levi and unwrapped the blanket that had been wrapped around himself, placing it over Levi’s shoulders. As he did so, he lightly touched Levi’s back and found it ice cold, as if he had been directly exposed to the chill from the tent pole he’d been leaning against.
“Weren’t you cold?”
“It’s fine. I won’t die.”
“Forget about dying or not dying, I asked if you were cold.”
“I was cold, but I wasn’t.”
When Ion asked what that strange answer meant, Levi once again brought heat to Ion’s face with his expressionless face.
“Holding Ion makes me warm. Your high body temperature feels good.”
“W-well, children naturally have higher body temperatures…”
Ion, with a flustered face, stopped mid-sentence, his mouth gaping.
“Feels… good?”
“Yes.”
Looking at Levi who answered without a second thought, Ion couldn’t say anything more. It was shocking to him that Levi, who had never shown any emotion besides curiosity, would express that something “felt good.”
Ion, still clutching the edge of the blanket wrapped around Levi’s shoulders, wanted to ask again with his face still flushed. Whether the small expression of emotion that Levi had voiced was real.
“Do you really mean holding me—!”
“Coming out soon?”
“Aaack!”
Ion suddenly screamed at the voice from outside. With a shock that felt like his heart had dropped to the floor, Ion swallowed his breath. Realizing the voice belonged to Hest, he glared fiercely at the tent entrance.
‘His timing is as shitty as ever.’
As Ion cursed Hest in his mind, he recalled the day they first met. Back then, Hest had been standing quietly outside, as if waiting for Levi to wake up.
‘Could it be…’
Ion’s eyes darted around nervously. The thought that Hest might have been listening to his conversation with Levi made him feel like his face would burn up from embarrassment.
Ion hastily put on Levi’s long shirt like a jacket and rushed out of the tent. Sure enough, there was Hest in his snow-white robe, with one corner of his mouth twisted upward, looking at him with contempt. Next to him was a black sack filled with clothes, just like before.
“Ugh…”
Unable to snap back at him, Ion rubbed his reddened face with his hand and ran toward the pond. To anyone watching, it would look like he was fleeing from embarrassment, but Ion told himself that he was just going to wash his face in the morning.
Hest, who had been watching Ion’s retreating back with a snicker, opened the tent entrance and said to Levi:
“Getting along well this morning?”
“Yes.”
Although Hest meant to tease him, it had no effect on Levi as usual. How boring.
Levi, with the blanket over his shoulders, stood up and approached the entrance to face Hest.
“Hest. I have a favor to ask.”
Hest’s expression turned to surprise at Levi’s words.
For Levi, who had never wanted anything in his life, to ask for a favor.
As Levi continued speaking, Hest’s expression gradually became dubious.
❖ ❖ ❖
Narkisa, a small country located between the borders of the Delos Empire and the Caron Empire.
It was a place where all slaves from across the continent gathered, and where human trafficking was conducted for royalty and nobility of all countries, regardless of nationality. If you had enough money, they would certainly provide slaves exactly as requested, from head to toe, and these conditions weren’t limited to appearance but also included strength, skills, intelligence, knowledge, and even bedroom preferences.
Among them, unusually special slaves were traded for enormous sums. Notable examples included a woman whose skin was covered in mermaid scales, a child with overly developed shoulder blades that formed bone wings, a man with goat horns on his head, and recently, a girl who could memorize an entire new book in just 10 seconds had recorded the highest price.
Such individuals with unusual appearances or abilities commanded astronomical amounts at auction, and the more detailed the analysis of their abilities, the more their value skyrocketed.
That’s why Ensha, the leader of the slave trader guild that secretly ruled Narkisa, had been in a foul mood every day recently.
Tap tap—
“You know what.”
The movement of her fingertips drumming on the table, as she rested her chin on one hand, grew increasingly rapid.
“How long has it been since I received a report that a premium product would arrive soon?”
As her red-dyed fingernails tapped the table, the four men standing across from her at the table kept shifting their eyes nervously. After exchanging glances with each other, one of them swallowed hard and answered.
“It’s been three weeks.”
“Three weeks… Three weeks…”
Tap tap tap tap—
The sound of tapping on the table became several times faster than before. Tapping so vigorously that it seemed her nails might break, Ensha seductively swept back her slightly curved bangs with the same hand.
“For three weeks, the only additional report I’ve received is that you lost the premium product you all bragged about because of a mere yawning slave, and even the pursuit team I sent has gone missing.”
The men’s faces grew paler as her icy words continued.
“No matter how I look at it, the loss is too great. Don’t you agree?”
“W-we’re searching thoroughly, if you could just wait a little longer…! Ack!”
The man couldn’t finish his sentence as he swallowed his breath. Ensha, who had somehow already come around the table, easily grabbed the man’s neck with her seemingly delicate hand. Red fingernails mercilessly dug into his neck, causing crimson blood to quickly flow down.
“You’ve had all the men out searching for at least ten days. Isn’t it strange that you haven’t found anything by now? Is it because you’re doing a dog-shit job? Hmm?”
“S-sorry…! Kup, huk…!”
After squeezing the man’s neck once more and only releasing him just before he lost consciousness, Ensha shook her hand in the air. Droplets of blood from her fingernails fell to the floor in small spots.
“The longer the search takes, the less likely you are to find it. If we lose this premium product…”
Ensha’s dark brown eyes flashed with murderous intent toward the men.
“I’ll start with your fingernails and toenails.”
The air around them instantly froze. The men, with pale faces and trembling bodies, left the place almost in flight, only leaving behind promises to definitely find what she wanted.
“Tsk, useless.”
Ensha, glaring at the door through which the men had left, opened the drawer of the table with a displeased expression. Inside were several dark-dried grass-like substances rolled up in deep green leaves. Ensha put one in her mouth and picked up a candlestick from the table.
Just as she was about to put the candle flame to the tip of the leaf tobacco, someone knocked on the wooden door.
Ensha clicked her tongue in annoyance and put the leaf tobacco back in the drawer. She might be fine as she was used to it, but most of her subordinates had no immunity to the potent leaf tobacco that could make one’s mind foggy. If they became confused while reporting and wasted time with nonsense, she would be even more irritated than she was now.
“Come in.”
Ensha permitted entry while looking regretfully at the drawer containing the leaf tobacco. The large man who entered was one of Ensha’s confidants.
“What is it?”
The man with a composed face, clearly different in atmosphere from the men earlier, opened his mouth.
“Recently, suspicious individuals have entered Shuranue.”
