EWH Chapter 122

Azar opened his eyes just a few minutes later.

Nathan clicked his tongue softly. He had wanted to pretend to be asleep before Azar woke up, but he had awakened faster than expected.

“What? Why am I…?”

Azar sat up, tilting his head and trailing off. As he looked around, only confusion remained in his gaze when he saw Nathan. He seemed to have no idea why he had fallen asleep. Seeing this reaction, Nathan secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

If he didn’t remember, it was better to leave him unaware. Maybe he would think that incident just now was just a dream. If so, he could just let him misunderstand.

“You must have been tired and dozed off. Don’t you remember? After… we came back to this house to avoid the monster, I cast a spell. And then I told you to rest a bit.”

When Nathan said this calmly, Azar, with a face still groggy from sleep, replied, “…Is that so?” The lie, which he usually couldn’t tell well, came out smoothly. Knowing that this situation couldn’t last long, he did so out of a desire to avoid the subject for now. He was tired too, after all.

“…Now that you’re up, let’s treat your wounds first. Even if it’s not serious, we don’t know what might happen. Wouldn’t it be better to treat them?”

“Ah, yes. Sure.”

Azar responded absent-mindedly and used his holy power. Brilliant light seeped into the wounds, and new flesh grew instantly.

“…?”

Watching this process from a short distance away, Nathan suddenly felt very uncomfortable. He even took a step back from Azar, feeling his insides twist.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

Nathan waved his hand, telling him to continue, and unconsciously crossed his arms, gripping his forearm. It was strange. He had clearly seen Azar use holy power up close before. He had seen others use it, and it had even been used on this body. It wasn’t that long ago, and until then, he had certainly felt nothing wrong with holy power, but now he felt averse to it. Should he say he felt instinctive revulsion?

‘I never thought there would come a day when I’d feel bad looking at Azar, but now I understand why Calypse avoids it.’

Nathan turned his gaze away, feeling like he would frown involuntarily if he didn’t consciously control his expression. And he felt a sense of discomfort. It didn’t take long to realize the source of this discomfort.

‘The attack used by that assailant we encountered earlier… had holy power infused in it.’

The unpleasant sensation he had felt then was exactly the same as now.

‘…But isn’t it only the holy knights of the temple who use holy power in attacks?’

Of course, he couldn’t be certain. There might be people who use holy power without belonging to the temple, like Azar. But it was indeed a strange coincidence.

Nathan was lost in thought for a moment before shaking his head. The temple had no reason to do such a thing. Moreover, the temple and black magic? It was an absurd assumption. What reason could they have for meddling with the taboo forbidden by God? Even as he thought it was just his excessive speculation, Nathan turned to look at Azar.

“Ah.”

At that moment, Azar let out a short sigh and rubbed his face. The expression revealed under his hand turned blank, then reddened, then paled and crumpled up visibly. Realizing that the gaze looking at him had suddenly turned sullen, Nathan felt at a loss. Damn, he must have remembered just now.

“You, no…”

Azar started to say something but hesitated.

“Hey, who were those strange people with you earlier?”

At this, Nathan felt somewhat sorry, but he diverted the conversation as if he had no idea what Azar was trying to say. Azar ran his hand through his hair and muttered something quietly as Nathan suddenly changed the subject. …Could he have cursed?

“…Sigh, I don’t know either. How would I know? It’s probably one of the guys my brothers sent.”

His voice was somewhat irritable as he said this.

“Who else would attack me? For what reason? Their words and manner of speech weren’t those of ordinary people. Their accent was that of nobles, and their skills were those of trained knights. Moreover, they acted as if they knew me and promised a next time…!”

Then, as if realizing something, he clamped his mouth shut.

“Damn, I didn’t mean to get annoyed at you.”

Nathan felt stung by the gloomy muttering voice. He didn’t know where to look.

“Should we just talk about it tomorrow?”

“…Yeah.”

Nathan barely managed to reply while massaging his nape.

“Then, um… I’ll get some rest too. I’m tired… You should sleep again if you’re sleepy. I’ve cast a spell on this place, so tonight will be safe. I’ll use another room over there…”

Nathan mumbled, finally taking his steps that had been reluctant to leave. Just as he was about to exit the doorless room, Azar spoke to his back.

“…If you’re going to let it slide like that, I will too. I’m sorry. For acting on my own.”

Nathan left without being able to give any particular response. He couldn’t even reply to the “sleep well” greeting.

He entered any random room. Fortunately, it was a place where he could properly rest. Nathan immediately collapsed onto the bed. The dust-free bed was completely devoid of warmth.

***

The next day, the two acted as if they didn’t know about what had happened yesterday. But that was merely a facade they had put up to look plausible on the surface.

Thud!

“Can we really eat this?”

Azar said skeptically, tossing and catching the apple in his hand.

When they had searched the house they had been staying in until just now, there was an unexpected harvest. It was this apple. The bright red apple looked utterly ordinary on the outside. Its glossy surface and evenly red color made it look perfectly ripe and delicious.

But it seemed so flawless that it was rather suspicious. Of course, being suspicious was one thing, and eating it was another matter. They had already brought a whole basketful, and in truth, they had no intention of not eating them.

Azar rolled the shiny apple around in his hand before passing it to Nathan.

“Well, there shouldn’t be any problem eating it. It’s no different from a freshly picked fruit.”

As he said this and was about to take a bite of the apple, Nathan handed it back to Azar. When Azar raised an eyebrow and took the apple, Nathan made a gesture of breaking it in half with his hands. At this, Azar smiled playfully and lightly split the apple in half just as Nathan had done, then offered one half to him.

“Rather than the apple itself having magic… cast on it, I think the entire floating island has a wide-ranging magic cast on it, and this apple is just affected by that. So it’s not an illusion or anything… How should I put this? It’s magic that humans can’t do. It’s dragon magic.”

Nathan continued speaking while eating the apple.

“The time in this place is constantly rewinding. Look over there. The buildings that were clearly destroyed by the monster yesterday are now intact. It’s the same with this apple. If left alone, it would naturally rot and decay. But the time in this place keeps rewinding to when this apple was intact. So the apple, if left alone, just endlessly repeats the cycle of rotting and returning. That’s why I don’t think there’s any particular problem with eating it.”

“So the apple we just ate is being reconstructed in our stomachs?”

“…No? Of course not. What are you saying? If that were the case, I wouldn’t have let you eat it. Human time doesn’t rewind, right? The magic probably affects inanimate objects or plants within its range. And I think the magic loses its effect the moment it enters our stomachs…”

Nathan said in bewilderment as he watched Azar take another bite of the apple while saying such outrageous things.

“Then we don’t have to worry about food. You’re saying if we just leave the seeds, they’ll become apples again.”

“If you put it that way, yes.”

For a while, only the crunching sound of eating apples could be heard.

“…”

“…”

The conversation stopped abruptly until Nathan ate his second apple. It had been like this for a while now. Even when they were talking well, the conversation would repeatedly break off, and an awkward silence would fall. And each time, Nathan would naturally recall what had happened yesterday. Honestly, even if he tried not to think about it, it wasn’t really possible, was it?

If they could meet up with the three people as soon as possible, maybe they could escape this suffocating situation?

They were now heading towards where they estimated Ramiya and her group had fallen. They couldn’t know the exact location, but when Azar last saw them, the three had fallen not in the forest but in the city, and there was a body of water nearby, either a lake or a river. So instead of looking for a way up right away, they were searching for that watercourse.

It wasn’t that being in this situation with just the two of them was suffocating. Really. Given that they didn’t know how many of those assailants they saw yesterday there might be, wouldn’t it be stranger not to be worried about the three? Of course, since Ali, who was the strongest after Azar, was with them, he wasn’t too worried, but still…

“I hope nothing bad happened to them.”

“There’s no need to worry that much, Nathan. They’re not as weak as you think. They’ve been through many life-and-death battles while traveling with me. So they won’t die from something like this.”

At those calm words, Nathan didn’t know how to respond, so he just pretended to eat his apple.