Chapter 28
If this damned suspicion turned out to be true, he knew he would never be able to forgive himself. Forgive? The thought was laughable. He might have to wipe out every last remnant of the Pope not just from the Holy Kingdom, but from the entire world, and perhaps even destroy himself, to find any peace.
She wrinkled her straight nose bridge and stared blankly, her gaze piercing through him.
A silence fell, where one second felt like a minute, and one minute felt like an hour.
He faced her with a face that had grown even stiffer from the anxiety, when suddenly her cheeks twitched and she burst into explosive laughter.
“Kuh, keuk, pffhahaha…!”
The clear, ringing laughter shattered the silence. Confused by her inexplicable reaction, Ronius furrowed his brow.
After laughing heartily, she was the first to speak.
“You’re really something else, you know? What kind of nonsense is that, haha. Linking that old fart and me together like that.”
“No, I just, Jeina…”
“Ah, it’s fine, it’s fine. Really, it’s not true. No matter how desperate I might be for a man, I don’t deal with non-human creatures… Ah, when I say ‘non-human creature’ here, I mean it literally, not as a metaphor. He wasn’t really human to begin with. He forcibly took others’ mana to extend his life, he was basically a walking corpse, you know?”
Ronius twitched an eyebrow briefly at the point about her being ‘desperate for a man,’ but soon fell silent and listened to her words.
“Besides, you know how much that bastard hated mages…”
“……”
“He hated even touching me so much that when he made contact to drain my mana, the face he made was like he was chewing on s**t…”
It didn’t change the fact that he was still a bastard who deserved to die, but was this, perhaps, a small mercy in the midst of misfortune? Or…
‘Wait. Then why is Jeina acting like this?’
What does she want? What is she trying to do? Is she obsessed with my body…?
Just as he felt like tearing his hair out over the resurrected questions chaining together one after another,
“Alright, now that the misunderstanding is cleared up!”
Her cheerful voice shattered his train of thought.
“I think I need an answer too, right? I answered you, so it’s only fair, hmm?”
In other words, she was telling him to answer that absurd question from before.
That question about ‘playing with his body’… the one that sounded downright lewd at first glance.
Ronius shot her a look of utter disbelief, but the gaze meeting his was endlessly serious.
“Ha, ‘play with me.’ That sounds strange, Jeina.”
Now that he was fully dressed, Ronius forced a casual smile, lifting the corner of his mouth.
“Strange? How?”
“…Forget it. Whatever that question means, my answer is no. Sorry, but the fool who would run to you saying yes to everything you say is gone. The naive kid you knew doesn’t exist anymore.”
In the end, Ronius offered a self-mocking reply, looking back on his past life.
Jeina was miraculously alive, and the threats to her were gone. For her sake, maybe it was best for him to step away now.
He had made that bitter but necessary decision, yet she just blinked at him.
He was staring blankly at the fluttering of her long, lush eyelashes when the corners of her eyes crinkled slightly.
“Does that matter? I said I need your body.”
Her reply, as if he were being obtuse, left him speechless. She shook her head and continued.
“How long has it been? For you, here?”
“…Huh? About 12 years.”
It was exactly 12 years and 169 days…
“See? I’ve been here a long time.”
He was confused by the sudden change of topic but answered sincerely.
“Yeah. I guess so… Sorry.”
Just as he thought she might drop the subject, the conversation returned to its origin.
“Right, exactly. I’ve been locked up for so long, and now I finally get to see the world again, and you won’t even do that for me?”
“Ha.”
She was relentless. She always knew exactly where to press to break his resolve, and he clicked his tongue in frustration.
“Raspberry. It’s been so long for us. Since we’re meeting again after all this time, just give me your body.”
She uttered an even more brazen request, yet smiled so brightly it seemed to light up the dim underground. A smile so dazzling it almost made him relent…
“Enough with the ‘Raspberry’.”
Finally regaining his composure, he answered curtly.
“Fine. Then, Roni? It’s cute, Roni.”
The way she tilted her head and cooed the name made his heart feel like it dropped with a thud. He turned slightly to hide his flushing face. His ears were burning so hot he felt like dousing them in cold water.
“No. Still no.”
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