EWH Chapter 128

‘Again…’

Nathan had lost count of how many times he had made eye contact with demon beasts. He glanced sideways at Azar walking ahead and waved his hand quickly. Whether it was because their wavelengths matched well or not, it seemed that in the current situation, Nathan was better at finding demon beasts than Azar.

As Nathan secretly drove away the demon beasts lurking around without Azar noticing, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

‘Am I depriving Azar of opportunities to grow?’

Perhaps that might be the case. After all, one of the reasons Azar wandered alone in the dungeon was for his own growth. Originally, all these situations would have been stepping stones for his growth, and as a result, Azar would become stronger later. However…

“Why?”

“…Don’t go too far ahead by yourself.”

He thought there was no need to face situations that could be avoided in advance.

“Sigh, I’ve been wanting to say this since yesterday.”

At that moment, Azar sighed, scratching his head with a deliberately grumpy voice.

“This feels a bit unfair.”

And he added, as if feeling wronged:

“I’m not trying to make excuses, but listen. I didn’t intend to go that far originally. Really! After what you said, I’m not stupid enough to misjudge the situation like that!”

Nathan momentarily stopped breathing, feeling guilty at the word ‘yesterday,’ but then inwardly sighed in relief at the words that followed. Whether Nathan was doing this or not, Azar continued speaking as if making excuses.

“Since we didn’t know what was ahead, I just wanted to check inside the alley right in front of us… That’s okay, right? Since demon beasts could suddenly jump out, I thought it would be better if I checked for safety first rather than you. I knew you were following right behind me anyway, and even if you walked slowly, it was only about ten steps away…”

“…That’s right.”

Nathan agreed, recalling that moment.

“I wasn’t that far from you. So honestly, I let my guard down a bit too. That was definitely my mistake. I really didn’t expect you to disappear so suddenly…”

“Huh?”

Nathan interrupted Azar’s words and said, shaking his head:

“What do you mean, it wasn’t me who disappeared then, it was you.”

“Me?”

Azar said, pointing at himself.

“Wait, wait, stop for a moment.”

At that instant, both of them stopped walking and faced each other. While they were blinking at each other in confusion, Nathan seemed to realize something first and sighed.

“…I didn’t hear about this.”

Nathan muttered softly, touching his forehead.

‘Even if it were a labyrinth, it wasn’t this place, right? But why?’

It occasionally happened in labyrinth-type dungeons. The space inside the dungeon would distort, causing someone walking beside you to suddenly be far ahead or behind if you looked away for a moment, or the terrain would flip, leaving you standing upside down on the ceiling. But this dungeon wasn’t like that. While this place was enchanted to make people lose their way, the space itself didn’t warp. At least, that’s how it was in the original story he knew. Even Melchiel hadn’t mentioned anything like this!

“…Do you remember what I told you before?”

“Which part?”

“You know, when we went to Lupelham last time. The magic that distorts space using a medium.”

Nathan continued speaking while looking around. The medium could be buildings, or other small objects, or maybe even the floor tiles they were standing on…

‘This is bad. There are too many possibilities. If even a single floor tile is a medium, we might end up walking in place instead of moving forward if we step on the wrong one.’

As Nathan walked along, feeling the walls of buildings, something caught his eye.

“…This is the path we first took yesterday.”

Nathan said in bewilderment. Azar asked in surprise:

“Are you sure? We’ve been going straight ahead all this time?”

“Look here. This, this is the mark I left just in case yesterday, and it’s here.”

Since the building itself wasn’t destroyed, the scribble-like mark he had carelessly left yesterday was still there. It was the one he had left when they first entered this urban area.

Ah, they thought they were going in the right direction, but they’re back to square one.

“What’s the chance you’re mistaken?”

“None.”

Nathan shook his head firmly. There was no one in this world who could imitate this. That’s because the mark he had left as a trace was in Hangul.

‘I’m the only one who can write this.’

So there’s no reason to be mistaken, to see it wrong, or to doubt. Nathan ran his hand over the wall once.

“But what does this say? Were there characters like this?”

“It’s just a random scribble, doesn’t mean anything. More importantly, I don’t think we can leave this place by just walking aimlessly like this. Even if we take a different path from before, I think we’ll end up with similar results.”

“If you say so. Your judgment is probably right.”

“Ha, damn it. How did it end up like this…”

As Nathan unconsciously bit his nails while muttering, Azar snatched his hand.

“Still, think positively, Nathan. We realized this fact while the sun is still up, instead of wasting the whole day, right?”

“…That’s true.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, I would have just kept going around this place without knowing. Maybe we would have been separated like yesterday.”

Saying this, he kissed the knuckle of the hand he had grabbed. The action was so natural that Nathan recognized what had happened in front of his eyes a beat late.

“You, you! W-what are you doing!”

Soon after, Nathan jumped in place like a startled cat, hastily pulled his hand to his chest, and stepped back from Azar. The back of his hand felt hot, leaving him utterly bewildered.

“Biting your nails is a bad habit.”

But Azar acted shamelessly, smirking as if he didn’t know what he had just done. His brazen attitude left Nathan speechless. His complicated mind turned blank before suddenly burning up.

“T-tell me that with words! I can understand if you just say it!”

Nathan shouted, stuttering uncharacteristically. If it was a method to prevent nail-biting, well, it was the best method. Thanks to that, he wouldn’t be able to bring his hand to his face for a while due to self-consciousness! But who does such a thing for that reason! Nathan suppressed the urge to shout that inwardly.

“Why are you so surprised? This was just an act signifying trust.”

He thought Azar would back off if he pretended not to know, but to think he would be this brazen! It was his miscalculation. Is that it? Since he’s been caught anyway, is he going all out? Yesterday and now, Azar was the one who acted first, yet Nathan was the only one flustered and surprised. Nathan felt somewhat wronged.

But in his effort to calm his startled heart, Nathan failed to notice that the tips of Azar’s ears had turned redder than before.

“…Nathan, we need to find our way first.”

It’s the right thing to say, but why does it sound so annoying? Nathan blew air out of his mouth with a “Huff!” in a sulky manner. His bangs fluttered from the breath.

“Fine, whatever. Let’s get out of here first.”

Nathan tapped the ground roughly with his wand. As he glared at Azar, the latter shrugged as if to ask what was wrong.

“I have two methods in mind right now, but one could potentially shorten the time, though the risk of problems arising during the process is too high. So we’ll skip that one… The other takes time but is relatively safe and certain. Yes, this one is certain.”

Nathan spoke as if he was reciting what he had thought of rather than explaining to Azar.

“We’ll cross the stone bridge by tapping it as we go.”

As he tapped the ground again, dozens, maybe hundreds of large and small magic circles flickered and appeared before quickly disappearing. In that fleeting moment, so much magical power drained out that Nathan’s vision spun. The fingertips holding the wand turned pale. Somehow, he already feels tired.

‘As expected, it’s too vast to check all at once. I knew it, but this is completely manual labor.’

Thinking it would be a big problem if he accidentally ran out of mana, he resolved to distribute his remaining magical power more carefully. Nathan took out the compass just in case. But as expected, there was no change, so he put it back.

“Follow me closely.”

Perhaps because of what happened earlier, his voice became grumpy without meaning to.

Like in the forest, Nathan took the lead. Azar followed a step behind him. Every few steps, Nathan would tap the ground with his wand again, and magic circles would shine above it, fainter than before. Each time, Nathan would either change direction to avoid the magic or deliberately use it.