༺ Midnight Negotiations (2) ༻
As usual, the two moons were shining brightly in the sky at the ti we got out of the guards’ office. They were covering each other’s brilliance, resulting in the creation of beautiful nail-shaped shadows.
“Is that a New moon or a Crescent moon?” muttered Luna to no one in particular, making recall my grades in Earth Science.
“I’m sorry, Hassan. You’re in trouble because of …”
Luna talked in her characteristic shrill voice after her anger had subsided.
With money being one of the proofs of her achievents, losing it probably ended up in a loss of confidence in her own abilities. One can’t help but start doubting themselves once one’s wallet starts getting thinner.
“I already said that I’d help you, didn’t I? So let’s do it together. I don’t have anything to do anyway.”
“But I can’t just keep receiving your help forever. I’m the one responsible for the cabin. I have to do it myself.”
Luna’s objective of doing everything herself without asking for others’ help, was in itself very comndable. But I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness settle within my heart at her declaration. It really felt like she was drawing boundaries between us. A thin line differentiating my matters from hers.
Even if Luna, obviously, didn’t an it like that, it still felt that way to . It was also surprising to how her words were enough to make feel so lonely and lost.
I had thought till now that it was only Luna who was relying on all this ti. But now… It seems that I was unconsciously also relying on her ntally.
In this filthy world where even fucking wild animals like deers could empty your pockets and rob you of all your worth, Luna’s gentle and pure persona made my whole body feel lighter. Her very existence was like a beacon in the dark to as I kept struggling alone in this barbaric world without a single person to rely on.
It was a lonely and grim life that I was leading.
My life could never be compared to those who had a reliable partner with them, a partner with whom you could share all your hardships and grievances.
“From now, don’t blindly follow other n as you did. What would you have done if sothing dangerous had happened to you, huh?”
“…”
Perhaps because she realized her mistake, Luna looked mortified and said nothing in response. Adding salt to her wounds like this would accomplish nothing and Luna also seed to have realized her mistakes. So, in the end, I just decided to stay silent for the rest of the walk.
After walking in silence for a while, we finally reached Luna’s cabin located on the west side of Sodomora.
“Are you really sleeping here?”
“I don’t have enough money to pay for an inn.”
“I can lend you so money if you want.”
“No, I don’t want to get into the habit of borrowing money from others. One day, it will suddenly grow beyond what I can manage. I am already 2 golds in debt, I can’t go much higher than that.”
Luna’s decision seed final. She was probably thinking sothing along the lines of “I can’t live alone while being in soone else’s debt” and I totally understood her ntality.
I, however, couldn’t shake my unease about leaving her alone in this place.
Although I didn’t feel like picking at the poor, I couldn’t in good faith say that Sodomora’s slums were the safest place for taking residence.
You could hear the sounds of people falling down from who knows where and even shrieking like “Ugh, ugh…” without even concentrating on the noises.
This place was situated in the western back alleys of Sodomora. Robbers, vagrants, and sick individuals with bandages wrapped all over their bodies resided in this god-forsaken place. Their pale yellow eyes, peeking out of their indolent faces, seed to be flashing in the dark as they watched over these black alleys.
Even I, with my sturdy body and fully ard with three swords, felt nervous every ti I passed through this place.
I couldn’t even imagine just what might happen should Luna sleep in a shady neighborhood like this all alone. Who knows, maybe a holess guy would just enter this cabin to seek shelter from the winds,
So I asked her once more.
“Are you really going to sleep here?”
Luna replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
“What’s wrong with this place? It’s pretty nice since I cleaned it.”
Swish—
Just as she uttered those words a gust of wind blew from sowhere, shaking the planks full of holes hard, making it seem as if the whole cabin was on the brink of collapsing
Luna shuddered with the intrusion of the cold wind.
“Well, it’s a bit cold. But I’ve slept in places worse than this. Anyway, thanks for your help today, Hassan. Goodbye, and see you at the south gate of Sodomora tomorrow!”
Luna seemingly made up her mind to sleep here no matter how much I objected to her decision…
Her stubbornness was similar to a prisoner on death row or perhaps it would be better to compare it to a monk on a quest for asceticism.
Was it like a punishnt she inflicted on herself for losing all her money? I had no way to know about that right now.
“Then I’ll sleep here too.”
I ended up spouting out the words that had been lingering on the edge of my tongue for a while already. I wasted too much ti thinking of how I should word them and as a result, I just ended up crudely declaring my words.
Luna frowned slightly as if she was puzzled as to what the hell I was saying,
“Hassan, sleeping here? But why?”
What did she an by “Why?” exactly? I had no clue whether she was truly wondering just why I wanted to stay here with her or if it was just so form of fancy rejection of my declaration.
Well, I don’t think Luna was smart enough to reject soone like that. So, it was probably just her curiosity about my intentions for being here with her.
“I can’t?”
“It’s going to be very windy here though…”
“Guess we should just stay close to each other then.”
Although I didn’t have much ti to think about what to say, it seems my wit and smarts shone perfectly in this situation. Two people raising each others’ temperature by sharing their warmth during a cold and breezy night wasn’t unheard of.
I was desperately racking my brain for more words to add to my reasoning, fearing that she would refuse my suggestion.
“It will be a little warr for both of us if we stick close together under a warm blanket. Won’t it be better than trembling in the cold alone?”
“Hmm, is that so? I agree, then!”
Oh yeah, it worked! Well, to be frank, as soone who had enough of being holess, I thought sleeping in a cramped cabin would feel very uncomfortable.
But compared to my previous hellish experience, this could be considered as playing a ga on easy difficulty.
Moreover, the presence of Luna’s warm and soft body couldn’t help but make feel a little bit emotional.
Rustle— Rustle— Flap—
After laying the old blanket on the floor, I and Luna put our shoulders together and sat with our backs leaning against the wall and covered ourselves with my long raincoat.
Not as bad as I thought it would be.
“Not bad.”
“Isn’t it? It’s a nice place. I can feel a kind of subtle magical energy nearby.”
Luna began bragging about her cabin, saying how much she liked this place or how this place gave her so weird voodoo vibes that she liked as a shaman.
As a servant of Knox, the god of superstitions, she seed to have a deep belief in the vibes of certain locations and the corresponding energy they emanated.
Anyways, my attention was currently focused on Luna who was excitedly chatting with a sparkling luster in her eyes rather than the cabin she was so enthusiastically describing.
Looking at her side profile, her twinkling eyes were the first thing I noticed, then ca her surprisingly long eyelashes, and her sharp nose that had the perfect amount of curvature and no flatness or thickness to it. It was perfect, in a word.
Her jawline was thin and slender. It went perfectly with her milky white and soft skin creating a pretty feminine outline.
I could feel the warmth and softness of her skin from the contact between our shoulders especially vividly.
Did I really sleep with this girl before? Now that I think about it, what happened before felt like a dream on a midsumr night.
Because I was rather hectic and clumsy with my first ti, so mories of that day were distorted or magnified in my senses. Regrets about the things I hadn’t done with her or parts that I hadn’t touched or licked were welling up inside .
Sniff— Sniff—
Luna’s characteristic cool and minty sll entered my nose as I sneakily sniffed her scent. The sll felt strangely sweet and refreshing today. Perhaps it was because she had not yet bathed.
Throb—
Damn, despite knowing nothing would happen today, my schlong was quickly rising in my pants. This bastard is really the king of positivity.
“Anyway, that’s what ended up happening! So how is it? You understand why I choose this place now, right? 3 gold really isn’t a lot for a place like this. It’s actually a great deal, in fact! I could probably sell it for twice the price in the near future.”
Luna concluded after muttering by herself for a long ti.
Since I was entranced by Luna’s side profile, I only roughly listened to what she was saying to . In Summary, she was basically partaking in this world’s version of real state speculation.
That wasn’t what mattered to right now though.
“L-Luna.”
“Hmm? Yeah?”
Luna turned her head toward with a curious expression plastered on her innocent face. I couldn’t help it anymore and slowly moved my head closer to hers, inching my lips toward her own.
I did it because there was nothing I wished for more right now than feeling the softness of her shiny lips again. However, Luna’s slender fingers gently touched my chest and pushed away…
“Oh, don’t, Hassan…”
“Why? It’s just the two of us, after all. No one will know it if we just do it quietly and secretly.”
At that mont, I rembered the effects of the new blessing I had gotten, the “Night’s Cloak”…
“Night’s Cloak” could reduce the probability of being discovered while doing secretive actions in the dark. Could it be that doing ‘that’ was also included in its repertoire? To be frank, I couldn’t think of anything more secretive than ‘that’ act…
Luna quietly spoke while I was lost in my muddled thoughts.
“It’s not just the two of us. The wolf spider is here too.”
Luna pointed toward a pot in the corner of the room. Holy shit! I couldn’t help but tremble violently at the realization that a spider the size of my palm was nearby.
“And there’s also Lady Knox.”
Point—
I moved my gaze toward the spot Luna was pointing at with her index finger. At the end of my sight, I could see so kind of strangely-shaped wooden statue there.
It was about the size of my palm, I thought it was just a random interior prop at first.
“Is that really Lady Knox?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s a simple statue. Pretty well-made right? I made it based on the voice I told you about last ti.”
Hearing her words, I stood up and approached the so-called statue of Lady Knox. Now that I looked at it from up close, I beca speechless. I didn’t know just how to describe this monstrosity.
Damn, this doesn’t look like a statue at all. If I had to describe it, it looked closer to a cursed object than a statue of a goddess. Sothing that you would insert in the puzzles inside of a maze as a key piece to open a secret door in your typical horror ga.
Its appearance was a mix between an owl and a human. It honestly gave the creeps just looking at this abomination. What was particularly creepy about it were its two wide-opened eyes which felt like they were strangely gazing at .
“Why did you suddenly make this?”
“From now on, I have to pray to Lady Knox every day before going to sleep. She said she wanted to hear about my day and thoughts from now on.”
“I see.”
This felt like a girl reporting to her parents about their day. I pictured Luna sitting silently while chatting in her own mind. It was a surprisingly cute scenario in its own way.
“T-That aside, do you believe , Hassan?”
“About what? The deer that ran away with the money? It does sound a little fake, to be frank…”
“No, about how Lady Knox talked to in my dreams. Other people would tell to stop lying to them… It actually felt like a dream to too at first.”
Aha-! It seems that despite the fervent belief in God of this world’s people, Luna herself didn’t seem to think that she actually spoke to Knox.
Only a few people could receive the blessing of the gods or hear their voices in this world. Most people would just abide by the “Greater beings obviously existed” philosophy or sothing along those lines.
That said, the , who actually t Knox and talked to her while she was hiding under the blanket by possessing Luna’s body already, had no doubts about Luna’s claims.
I returned to Luna’s side. I guess I should be content with only her warmth that I could feel through my shoulders for now. Still, I have to do sothing eventually.
“I believe that you really talked with Knox, Luna. I think it actually happened.”
“R-Really? It’s real?”
“I suppose so.”
“It feels very convincing when you say it, Hassan. Why did the Gold of Light directly help you last ti though? I only heard sothing like this happening only in myths and legends. It’s the first ti I actually saw soone receiving a God’s help with my own eyes.”
Luna spoke out in admiration when reminiscing about what happened back then. Suddenly, I was also reminded of what happened in Acheron’s swamp.
An arrow of fla pierced through the unending fog and blew away all the moisture in the swamp. That experience was very taxing. A similar thing happened during my duel with Hippolyte.
The man who appeared in the middle of the suspended world claid he was one of this world’s gods.
Could he be Mars, the god of struggle? Him quite literally talking about how I chose him over Minerva was probably a reference to how I joined the Mars Guild instead of the Minerva Guild.
That only ant that man was actually Mars, the god of struggle.
Wait, wasn’t it said that Hippolyte was the daughter of Mars? Did a father just strip his daughter’s armor? What? I don’t know anymore.
“That’s amazing, Hassan. It’s actually fascinating now that I think about it. Are you really soone great? Are you perhaps Jupiter’s son?”
“Whose son?”
“Jupiter, the god of lightning and thunder!”
What? Damn, did she just curse my parents or sothing? I was taken aback for a mont by her words until I realized what Luna really ant.
Actually, ‘Son of Jupiter’ is a term that I’ve heard quite a lot. Luna said it as though it was a great complint but it actually was a kind of contemptuous insult.
Because it basically ant being a child with unknown roots. A child without a father.
Jupiter, considered the greatest deity in this world, was quite the playboy in reality and fattened the bellies of quite a number of won wherever he went.
That’s why many won who gave birth to fatherless children would say ‘This is Jupiter’s child’.
“My parents are still alive and kicking back in my hotown.” I think.
“Really? Then how can you get the attention of so many gods without being the offspring of one? You even made them break their 30 years of silence…”
Luna fell into deep thoughts. It seed to that she wasn’t able to understand the reasonings behind the miracles surrounding .
How would Luna react if I told her that I wasn’t Hassan from Samaria but actually Hassan from Korea?
Luna fell so deep into her own thoughts that she ended up drifting to sleep before I even realized it.
It was now ti for , who had been gazing at her sleeping figure for so ti already, to close my eyes too and preserve my strength for tomorrow’s action.
Shiver—
A chilling cold began perating the cramped cabin, making shudder. At first, I just thought the chilly wind was getting through the multiple holes in the planks covering the cabin but…
Crack— Crackcrack—
Damn, I rembered that I already experienced this abnormal bone-freezing cold once before.
『I. Have. Arrived,』
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