ERTHMB Chapter 98

It Hurts When You Pull

 

Ian tugged at the sleeve of his own coat that he had laid beneath Helena. As Helena stirred awake, he pulled the jacket that had slipped off back over her bare shoulders and said:

 

“Let’s stay only until tonight and leave tomorrow. By then, I should be recovered enough to carry you on my back and still cut off all three heads of Cerberus.”

 

“Don’t overexert yourself unnecessarily.”

 

“If I were really overexerting myself, I would have left now. But it’s night and the temperature has dropped considerably. It would also be difficult to figure out the way back.”

 

Helena was a little surprised.

 

‘It’s already night.’

 

Inside the cave, it was always dark, making it impossible to guess the time. To think she had been unconscious for a full day. She felt sorry imagining what kind of expression he must have had while watching her all this time.

 

‘Yesterday I was like that.’

 

She had probably been burnt so black that he could have thrown her insides into the fire when the firewood ran out.

 

Suddenly she remembered the sound of his groaning. Helena pressed firmly below his collarbone and asked:

 

“Do you have things you’re afraid of too?”

 

“…Many.”

 

He answered in a hoarse voice, then asked back as if something was bothering him:

 

“Did I say anything nonsensical while I was sleeping?”

 

“…You sure did. Your sleep talking was incredibly bad.”

 

“That can’t be.”

 

“You insisted all night that it wasn’t a habit you made up on the spot.”

 

A bitter sigh escaped from above her head. Helena pressed her forehead against his chest and chuckled softly. Feeling the small vibration, Ian gently grasped her chin and lifted it.

 

“Did I really say something that amusing?”

 

Helena looked up without completely erasing the faint smile from her face.

 

“I just thought, so you’re a normal person too.”

 

“What on earth did you think of me before to say that?”

 

“…”

 

“…”

 

“…I’m tired.”

 

Helena burrowed back into Ian’s embrace like a kitten seeking its mother’s protection. Ian shook his thigh petulantly.

 

“You should answer before you sleep.”

 

“…”

 

“So what did I say? Hm?”

 

“I don’t remember…”

 

Helena’s voice grew increasingly drowsy.

 

Her body was covered in wounds, and instead of clean bed sheets, there was only dirty, hard stone floor. Yet sleep came. It came very well.

 

****

 

It was just as dawn was breaking.

 

Walter paced back and forth with anxious steps. It had already been half a day since Eugene, who had left around evening, hadn’t returned.

 

‘Surely he didn’t go into the forest again in this night.’

 

Looking at those vacant eyes, it wasn’t entirely impossible. Wherever his obsession resided, nothing ever remained.

 

This time, would he burn himself up without leaving a single hair behind? Walter couldn’t shake off the ominous premonition.

 

He had just returned from checking all the taverns in the street. But Eugene was nowhere to be found. He could only gather information that he had left his seat as if some urgent matter had arisen.

 

Unable to calm his churning stomach, Walter grabbed his sword again and approached the door. At that moment, he heard the sound of steady footsteps approaching. Before long, the door burst open and the long-awaited figure appeared.

 

“My lord?”

 

Walter quickly bowed his head. No matter if his worry for his master’s safety was the reason, entering the master’s room without permission was a great discourtesy.

 

But Eugene did not reproach him. Only the irregularly falling sound of his breathing was strange.

 

‘Why…?’

 

Walter felt his anxiety swelling even more. He had finally returned, but there was no relief. Like a drama reaching its climax, the anxiety only amplified.

 

Walter slowly straightened his upper body – what was so difficult about raising his head? It required considerable courage.

 

The Eugene he faced like that was not the person he knew.

 

“…!”

 

The sword slipped smoothly from Walter’s grasp.

 

“M-My lord!”

 

Eugene was missing his right eye. Whether the eyeball had been completely pulled out or crushed, only dark red blood flowed from the sunken, closed eyelid.

 

However, despite Walter’s scream-like cry, Eugene remained composed.

 

With the most unshakeable attitude possible, he commanded:

 

“Prepare the soldiers.”

 

It was a dried-up tone without movement or inflection.

 

“We go to the hills in the northwest of the forest.”

 

The remaining eye emitted a fiercer gleam than ever before.

 

Walter became afraid of whether he could handle Eugene from now on.

 

****

 

It rained a little in the morning. He worried it might rain all day like the past few days. Fortunately, it stopped around noon.

 

As if it had never poured such torrential rain, the sky cleared brightly. Ian and Helena finally stepped outside the cave.

 

Ian led the way first along a route he said he had noted while collecting herbs. Following behind him, Helena asked:

 

“Do you think search parties are out?”

 

“Which search parties?”

 

“Obviously not the lord’s. Gelda’s.”

 

“Then they’re probably out, aren’t they.”

 

Ian turned his head to check if she was following well. Helena nodded with all positive meaning. In truth, she had known the answer from the moment she asked the question.

 

The Partren Guild captain, who cursed Dairon’s lord as the most wicked bastard under heaven, was that kind of person. Someone who told others to just guard their own homes while she herself built fences for other people’s houses too.

 

‘I hope she doesn’t feel needless guilt.’

 

Helena frowned at the bright sunlight as she jumped down to the dirt path Ian had opened for her. It was clear weather, perfect for a walk.

 

It was so clean it was almost frightening. Like giving candy in advance to a child who would be forced to take bitter medicine.

 

The cave was located near the edge of the forest, so hills appeared before long. They were so vast it seemed like this was what her earlier fear had been about. Helena expressed her dismayed feelings directly:

 

“How are we supposed to cross that without even a horse?”

 

“Should I carry you on my back?”

 

“You might as well say you can fly through the sky.”

 

Helena waited, expecting the immediate retort that would follow. But Ian was unusually quiet. As if planning some other prank, he only hardened his expression deliberately.

 

At that moment, rustling sounds came from nearby bushes. Something was approaching rapidly, pushing through branches. Her hand reflexively moved to her sword hilt.

 

Was the cause of her fear, and the reason he had made a stern expression, all because of this? Could it be some rare species of magical beast she had never encountered before?

 

Eventually the last bush parted and an ominous life form revealed itself.

 

The moment Helena’s eyes met with it, she belatedly wished it had been a demon beast instead.

 

“Helena.”

 

He appeared like the calm before a storm. A heavy mass settled with a thud in her chest.

 

Eugene rushed over like someone who had cornered their prey trying to escape. His long legs brought him right in front of her in just a few steps.

 

“Really, you, damn it, what on earth were you…! Are you alright?”

 

Eugene grabbed Helena’s face and shoulders, quickly looking her over as he asked. His urgent heart preceded his words, making them fall in fragments. And actions that preceded even that followed.

 

Eugene pulled Helena into a crushing embrace.

 

“Thank goodness. Really, thank goodness.”

 

Helena felt dizzy. The breath grazing her ear was hot. She could hardly keep up with the situation.

 

Why Eugene was here, what was making him speak in a voice that sounded like he was about to cry, what was he afraid of that made the hands wrapped around her tremble.

 

Perhaps because they were hands two joints larger than hers. The tension transmitted through the palm resting on the back of her head was vivid.

 

‘You… why?’

 

The complex questions didn’t last long. Ian, who had stepped forward, roughly pulled him away.

 

“Take your filthy hands off.”

 

Though stained with magical beast fluids, Eugene’s uniform was neat. Rather, it was Ian’s hands that left dirt marks when he pushed Eugene away.

 

Eugene, who had likewise roughly shoved Ian away, spat out his words:

 

“Back off if you value your life.”

 

Eugene grasped Helena’s wrist and pulled. He had to get her as far away as possible from that damned bastard.

 

But Helena did not fall into his arms. Ian was holding her other wrist, preventing her from being dragged away.

 

Caught between the two men’s strength, Helena swayed helplessly. Her wrists, scraped here and there, began to ache.

 

At that moment, her body was suddenly pulled toward Eugene. The seemingly endless war of nerves was broken more easily than expected.

 

‘…?’

 

Ian had obediently let go of her hand. Helena, who had bumped into Eugene’s chest due to inertia, blinked.

 

‘…He let go. He let go of my hand.’

 

It wasn’t that she had wanted him to respond roughly, but she also hadn’t expected him to let go so obediently.

 

Helena looked back at him with a bewildered face. The light purple eyes that met hers looked more devastated than hers, despite being the one who let go first.

 

“If I pull….it hurts you.”

 

“…”

 

She almost burst out laughing inappropriately for the situation.

 

That’s right. It does hurt when you pull.

 

Those few words made all her fear and tension fly away. Helena tried to pull her wrist free from Eugene’s hand as well.

 

But Eugene didn’t loosen his grip. Ian, who had stepped back, came forward again with the intention of completely driving him away.

 

‘It’s okay.’

 

Helena gazed at Ian and quietly shook her head. Ian, understanding her look, let out a suppressed sigh and calmed his agitated mood.

 

“I’ll be nearby. If anything happens, call me immediately. No. I’ll come right away.”

 

At those words, Eugene’s anger deepened. He found the gaze that looked at him like some beast that needed to be isolated utterly detestable.

 

Helena and he were married. This was simply the perfectly natural moment of reunion between spouses. If anyone was an outsider, it was that man, not him.

 

There should be limits to delusions. Eugene tried to block Ian as he passed by to leave the scene. Helena used the wrist Eugene was holding to pull him toward her.

 

“How did you know to come here?”

 

Eugene’s attention immediately returned to Helena. He looked her over from head to toe, then let out a sighing complaint.

 

“Being with a guy like that, of course this would happen to you.”

 

“Eugene.”

 

Eugene didn’t answer Helena’s question. Instead, he led her in the opposite direction from where Ian had disappeared.

 

“Let’s go quickly.”

 

“Eugene.”

 

Helena called him again. Her voice had gained another layer of depth.

 

Only then did the force that had been dragging Helena arbitrarily stop. Helena stood her ground with all her might. Eugene faced her with a heavy exhale.

 

“Please come to your senses, Helena.”

 

“What am I supposed to—”

 

“Did you leave me, even declaring divorce, just to meet a guy like that?”

 

“Don’t say just anything because you think I’ll just listen.”

 

Helena grabbed Eugene’s fingers and finally pulled them off.