“To find the cause, I sent my other children beyond the border.”
Other children? Was he referring to the centipedes, his servant?
It made sense. Not just this man standing before me in human form, but all those insectoid monsters I had seen at the inn were Basha’s limbs and eyes.
Basha’s lips curled upward slowly. His deep, dark-red lips moved as if he were carefully unspooling words he had been chewing on for a long time.
“However... they were all found dead.”
“...!”
Dead?
I racked my brain in a panic. I remembered the bloodstains left in front of the inn, the traces trailing through the grass and the smell of blood that hadn't quite dried.
Had the creatures Happy, no, Damian, defeated been Basha’s servant all along?
If so, it meant Basha had been watching me for a long time.
Since when?
The color drained from my face instantly. Before my thoughts could catch up, I reflexively took another step back.
As I stumbled backward, my heel caught on a jagged rock jutting from the floor.
Thwack!
“Ack!”
I landed hard on my backside. The impact against the uneven stone forced a scream from my throat.
I reached out to push myself up, but the sharp surface of the rock sliced right through my palm. Blood seeped out in a thin line before a stinging heat radiated through my hand.
I hurriedly wiped my hand against my trousers. Ignoring the pain as best as I could, I caught my breath and looked up at the two figures.
Basha remained in his half-reclined posture. Beside him, the man stood holding the frying pan, looking down at me.
His gaze was infinitely cold.
“My mate is dead.”
“…….”
“Human... because of you.”
Clang!!
The frying pan slipped from his hand. The sound of metal hitting stone echoed through the cave.
I stared at it blankly, then pinched my thigh hard, trying to regain some sense of reality.
...It hurt.
Clearly.
And yet, it felt strange.
My ears went dull, and the world felt muffled, as if I were submerged in water. Sounds arrived a beat late, and my vision blurred into a hazy gray.
Did Basha spray some kind of poison?
He was a being who could paralyze a person with a single gesture and spread a death that didn't shed a drop of blood. Was this dizziness the effect of his toxin?
“…Hah.”
No.
A hollow, bloody laugh escaped my parched throat. This wasn't poison. It was simply the weight of everything I had tried to ignore finally crashing down on me as reality.
The stinging pain in my palm. The unpleasant sensation of liquid, whether sweat or blood, soaking my trousers. The damp, heavy smell unique to the cave. The frying pan lying on the floor.
And above all, the man standing there, suppressing a cold rage after losing his mate because of me.
The evidence of an inescapable reality entered my vision one by one.
I looked around stupidly.
It was a gloomy cave. Water clung to the damp stone walls, and when I reached out to scratch the floor, stone dust wedged itself under my fingernails.
“Ugh... heup...!”
My stomach churned.
A sensation like insects crawling inside my gut surged upward.
I already knew the answer to why I felt this way.
Ever since being transmigrated into this novel, I had lived my days without a true sense of reality. Death, fear, and pain had all felt like mere "plot points."
But now, the events unfolding before me were too real. Or perhaps, for the first time, reality had finally caught up.
I was realizing too late that the "true reality" I hadn't felt once since arriving, this vivid, raw sensation, could be so utterly revolting.
Just then, the silent man spoke in a low voice.
“The mate who carried my seed died that way.”
I wanted to make an excuse, to say it wasn't me, that I didn't do it.
I felt like saying those words might let me breathe a little.
But beyond the instinct to survive, a quiet voice of conscience whispered within me.
Then who did?
Gilbert?
And why did Gilbert do it?
...Because he wanted to save me.
What would happen if I mentioned Gilbert’s name here?
Just as they had targeted me, wouldn't they target Gilbert next?
And what about Gilbert?
Even if he was suspiciously strong for a mere innkeeper, his opponent was Basha. The final villain who stood against the protagonists until the very end.
Could I really say Gilbert’s name in front of such a person? Even if I could extend my own life by doing so, was it right to keep breathing at the expense of someone else’s life?
Instinct and conscience tangled and clashed endlessly in my head.
Part of me wanted to fall to my knees right now, shout Gilbert’s name to shift the blame, and earn a pardon to survive. Even knowing it was selfish, I wanted to cling to life.
However.
“The big guy asked me to look out for you.”
If it hadn't been for Gilbert that day, I would already be dead.
“…….”
The clash of impulses and conflict eventually tied my tongue. I couldn't say a word, only letting out ragged breaths from my bone-dry throat.
Then, the man slowly leaned down toward me.
“...Ugh, heup...!”
Skitter.
The man’s hair grew long in an instant, splitting into dozens of strands that began to squirm like countless legs. Soon, those legs wrapped around my wrists, tightening like inescapable nooses.
“Gack...!”
I couldn't even scream properly. The shock of the bizarre sight was greater than the pain. Disgust arrived before fear. It felt like insects were burrowing under my skin, and every hair on my body stood on end as if screaming.
“Those who survive by stepping on the deaths of others must carry the weight of their sins.”
“W-wait, just a second...”
“That way, you won't forget.”
The legs dug into my skin.
As dozens of limbs raked across my flesh, my skin split open to reveal raw, red tissue, and blood began to drip steadily.
“Agh, ack...!”
If it had just been physical pain, I might have endured it. But this sensation didn't allow for endurance.
An unnamable emotion swelled from within. Fear and terror were only parts of it. It was a feeling so sensitive it seemed to escape the moment I tried to put it into words, yet it became clearer the longer I held my breath.
It was as if the distant sound of war cannons had suddenly exploded right next to my ear, as if the monster that existed only on paper had crawled into reality to choke the life out of me.
Just then.
“Don’t be so rough with him,” Basha’s calm voice rang out, sounding horribly out of place. “He’s someone under the King’s protection. Didn't the King just recently tear this entire region apart?”
Basha’s words of caution didn't seem to reach the man. If anything, the legs wrapping my wrists tightened further. What had initially felt like a tickling graze had turned into talons digging into my flesh.
“Guh, ack...!”
A sickening tear sounded from between my skin and his. My flesh ruptured, and thick red blood flowed out. As the droplets hit the stone floor, the sounds of drip, drop echoed low against the cave walls.
“We were the ones intruded upon. So why did my mate have to die?”
The man's voice as he questioned me was calm. But beneath it was the growl of a beast.
“Stop, stop...!”
“She cried like that when she died, too.”
The legs tightened once more.
I clearly heard the crack of my wrist bones shifting out of alignment. The blood pooling below now sounded duller as it hit the puddle, like water striking water.
The metallic scent of blood stung my nose. The smell and the sound overlapped, allowing terror to cannibalize my senses.
It hurts. It hurts so much. Please, someone...
I screamed inwardly, but my lips only trembled. My teeth chattered violently, and the taste of iron spread from the tip of my tongue as if I had bitten into metal.
Even when I tried to inhale, only the smell of blood pushed deep into my lungs. It felt like the cold air was scratching my insides before freezing solid.
Unable to utter a word, I looked up at the man through my blurred vision.
His face was pale and lifeless, and the eyes set within it were a tangled mess of despair, longing, and silent fury.
Is the rage of one who has lost their mate always this lonely?
The man's face, which neither wailed nor erupted in violent anger, was simply still.
Looking at that face, an emotion resembling fear scratched at my heart. The more I breathed, the heavier my chest felt, and the more I tried to look away, the clearer his face became.
I struggled not to hold onto that feeling.
I knew that the moment I gave it a reason, I wouldn't be able to ignore it anymore.
So I swallowed hard. I closed my eyes, forcing my chattering teeth shut, and pushed out the words through the gaps.
“Please...”
But the man said nothing.
Instead, those dozens of legs tightened one last time.
The blood flowing from my wrists was no longer dripping in beads, it had formed a stream that ran down my arms.
As my terror reached its peak, my body began to give way. My mouth fell open, unable to speak, and a string of saliva trailed down from my lips.
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