Chapter 54
‘Bigcheek!’
A house-sized beast with tufts of yellow fur bristling all over its hulking body. That awful squealing was its cry. As loud and coarse as its size suggested, the sound alone was threatening.
Ken was crouched in front of it.
In that instant, my body locked up. Was he hurt? Injured? Couldn’t move? Was I too late?
The thoughts came crashing in all at once, each colder than the last. I opened my mouth to call out to him — nothing. Not a whisper came out. Like my mother when the shock of something stole her voice… maybe I’d ended up the same.
Terror swept over me.
‘Breathe. You have to breathe.’
My mind kept working, but my limbs wouldn’t obey. Even my breath was stuck somewhere between forgetting and fear.
‘How do you breathe again?’
I didn’t know. Breathing was supposed to be automatic. You had to decide to stop breathing. Who consciously chose to start?
While I stood frozen like that, Ken slowly turned his head.
Ken moved as if the world were underwater. By the time his eyes met mine, I felt my whole body drop out from beneath me.
I stumbled forward a step just in time to catch myself, and a ragged breath crashed into my lungs.
“Hhk!”
Only then did I understand. It wasn’t that I had forgotten how to breathe, or lost the ability to speak. I hadn’t frozen in fear, not exactly. Time had simply stretched thin around me. A single second had pulled itself out like taffy — long and slow, a full minute’s worth of dread pressed into a blink.
Ken greeted me with an easy nod.
“Hey, Belle. Just a sec.”
“Uh… o—okay…”
Then he crouched again and resumed whatever he’d been doing. Completely unbothered.
I stood there, stiff as a scarecrow, watching the giant beast wailing behind him.
“KIEEEEK! KKIIIEEEEEEEK!!”
The sound was hideous — shrill and primal and enough to make my skin crawl.
But that was all it did.
‘Right… this thing doesn’t actually attack, does it…’
A creature that ducks its head into the ground and sticks its rump in the air at the sight of a passerby — Bigcheek was a gentle monster that fed mostly on parasitic fruit growing on trees.
‘Why did I think it might have hurt Ken?’
Now that I thought about it, the idea seemed ridiculous. I walked toward Ken. The moment I moved, Bigcheek twitched either its fur or… wings?
It was hard to tell. The creature was entirely round and covered in thick yellow fluff, but if you looked closely enough, you could spot a beak. It didn’t look like it could fly, not even a little, but still, it resembled a bird more than any mammal.
“It’s okay. All done.”
“…Huh?”
I thought Ken was talking to me, but then I saw it. He was finishing up wrapping a bandage around Bigcheek’s ankle. With a final tug, he tied it off neatly, then gave the creature’s foot a gentle pat.
“All done. Go on now.”
Bigcheek gave a delighted little chirp—“Ppyak-ppyak!”—like a massive chick, then waddled away through the trees, rustling the undergrowth with all the grace of a feather duster on legs.
“It makes sounds other than that screeching noise, huh.”
“That screeching is the sound it makes when it’s scared.”
Well, of course it would be scared if a Demon King subjugation force passed by.
So this was the first time I’d heard Bigcheek make any sound other than that screech.
I could no longer see its yellow fur, but I could still hear the rustling of trees as it moved away.
Ken was tidying up the first aid kit.
“What did you do?”
“Treated it.”
He says outrageous things like it’s no big deal. I mean, treating someone isn’t a huge deal in itself, but he just treated a monster! He did!
“From what I saw… that thing that just left looked like a monster.”
“It looked like one to me too.”
“Then why treat a monster?”
“Because it was hurt.”
Right. If it weren’t hurt, why would he treat it? But that wasn’t really what I was asking. I stared at Ken in silence. He wasn’t an idiot — he’d know what I meant.
“Is it weird?”
Ken asked. Instead of nodding, I kept my eyes on him. Weird? Not that weird.
‘He’s the kind of guy who feels sorry even when plants or animals get hurt…’
Come to think of it, moles or badgers messing up the fields might be more of a threat than Bigcheek, who doesn’t even attack people.
In the end, I shook my head after a long pause. Ken gave a faint smile and stood up.
“As humans expand their living spaces, the habitats of wild animals shrink. So animals pushed into lands tainted by magic eventually become monsters.”
“The Demon King is dead, but the number of monsters isn’t going down — is that why?”
“Exactly. Monsters are practically a part of the ecosystem now.”
“…Is that why you released the spirit, too?”
Ken didn’t answer. He just picked up the straw hat he’d left on the ground, dusted it off, and put it on.
Not denying was as good as admitting it.
“Why did you do it?”
“Because I didn’t want to.”
“Didn’t want what?”
“There was someone I didn’t want to help.”
I was confused. Ken had let a vengeful spirit go — a spirit capable of killing people.
This was the same Ken who had slain the Demon King. And yet… he did something that could harm people?
‘He really did that? Sean too…?’
Ken releasing the spirit. Sean lying to me.
But what unsettled me more than either of those things was something else entirely. What truly got under my skin was the realization that I didn’t understand Ken at all — not until he actually did something like this.
Ken said nothing. He just watched as I stood there, tangled in confusion. I faced him and said firmly:
“Ken, don’t do that again.”
Ken nodded immediately, as if he had expected me to say that.
“If there’s someone you want to get rid of next time, just tell me.”
“…What?”
Ken looked flustered. Really flustered.
Did I say something that surprising? After all we’ve been through together — crises, pain, and all the impossible odds?
“I’ll take care of it for you. Dad said he doesn’t want to waste any more time hating or resenting people. You shouldn’t have to either. Just do what you like. That’s enough for you.”
I looked over the mana stones wrapped around Ken’s body, then met his eyes. Ken was already suffering. Just because he had been the one to end the Demon King, now he bore the weight of all humanity’s pain all by himself.
You can’t put a price on a life, but if Ken ever asked for an innocent life in return, I’d offer it up without hesitation.
“Okay?”
I pressed him again, watching his stunned expression. After a moment’s hesitation, Ken gave a small nod.
“Okay, Belle. I will.”
“Good.”
“Wanna grab something to eat?”
“Yeah!”
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