Transmigrated into a Female-Oriented Card Game Chapter 139

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After feeding the hungry Lydon and Van, they headed back to the inn. Cadel was able to enjoy a relaxing bath to himself, thanks to Van taking care of Lydon, who insisted on going outside to explore. But even as he rinsed himself clean and lay in bed with the cool breeze outside, Cadel’s mind did not relax at all.

‘Let’s talk again.’

Though he urged Lun to rest, it was his choice to leave. He never knew when Lun would co to say goodbye, which was why he flinched at the sound of footsteps in the hallway.

‘What am I supposed to say? He said that leaving the rcenary corps has nothing to do with , so what can I do to change that?’

Cadel didn’t even know why Lun left the rcenary corps in the first place. He had no way of knowing because Lun wouldn’t tell him.

But he wasn’t about to let Lun leave without a fight. Lun was one of his own. A comrade he’d fought alongside. A bond was a bond, even if it was a solitary one, and he would be lying if he said it could be easily broken. He didn’t want to find a new knight to replace Lun, and he wasn’t sure he could find a better one.

‘Should I kiss him?’

When Cadel was cornered, he ca up with a crazy plan that he wouldn’t normally do. He figured that since he was in a female-oriented ga, he could capture targets if he threw himself at them, but that idea didn’t last long as Cadel quickly beca miserable.

Cadel closed his eyes and thought, and thought, and thought. How to hold Lun. How to get him to open up. A way to make him stick around until the promotion to knight order was successful.

He slowly drifted off to sleep. His hyper-aroused nerves fought off the intense fatigue, but he couldn’t resist the nap that was sneaking up on him.

It wasn’t a long sleep. Twenty minutes at most. At the very least, Cadel woke up with a start, like soone who instinctively realized they hadn’t heard the alarm.

Cadel clutched at his throbbing chest, surprised to realize he’d been distracted. The pounding was unpleasant.

“How can you sleep, you pathetic bastard.”

He pushed himself to his feet. A sigh escaped him as he washed his face roughly and dry.

“I’ll take so fresh air.”

He didn’t want to wake up and face Lun half-asleep. So he left the bed to take a walk outside the inn.

“……Huh?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a small note on the bedside shelf. His heart, barely cald, began its ominous pounding once more.

Quickly snatching up the note, Cadel’s eyes darted around. The note was as short as it was small. Cadel’s face grew pale as he skimd the sa thing over and over again.

“……No.”

He squeezed the note, and the thin paper crumpled in his hand. He stood there, his gaze wandering, and before he knew it, he was out the door and out of the inn.

Hopeful that the owner of this ridiculous note hadn’t left yet.

[I’ll never forget you, so rember , Leader.]

He ran frantically through the night streets that he didn’t even know. Without knowing where or when Lunt had gone.

He looked again and again at the unfamiliar buildings and strange people, trying to find Lun sohow. Lun was always easy to spot, even when he was buried in a crowd, so hopefully, Cadel would find him this ti. Cadel hoped, and he didn’t stop running.

“Please…….”

But no matter how hard he ran, he couldn’t see Lun. Had Lun taken a boat in the middle of the night? Or a carriage? Where did it go? Where was it going?

Cadel’s scrambled, jumbled thoughts slowed him down, and that alone was enough to make him angry, with the sky darkening and his vision narrowing.

With a harsh curse, Cadel pulled himself upright. Nearby, I could only see a bar with lights on, a drunken man walking around, and a sprawling scoundrel, but there was no place where Lun could go.

“What rember? What do you rember, you piece of sh*t.”

He could have at least said goodbye face to face. There was a level of immorality in saying goodbye forever, leaving a piece of paper behind.

Cadel checked the note he’d been clutching tightly as he ran. The badly crumpled note seed to represent his feelings. He stood and stared at the note for a long ti before finally throwing it to the ground.

He took a slow step backward and felt a cold wall at his back. I slid to a stop. His legs were weak from the long run.

Cadel couldn’t tell if it was anger or sadness, but the emotions were coming and going in waves. He didn’t know what to do anymore. It didn’t seem real that Lun was gone, even though he had told Cadel beforehand, and yet Cadel had vaguely thought he could stop Lun.

“Why…….”

His voice leaked out in a tight, stifled whisper. He wanted to ask a million questions, but he couldn’t even think of what he wanted to ask. His mind was blank. He was confused and scared, and he felt a great deal of anxiety, wondering if he had been relying on Lun this much.

“It’s up to him from start to finish.”

Lun ca and went as he pleased. Cadel shouldn’t have accepted him in the first place. He shouldn’t have coveted Lun. He shouldn’t have had a subordinate he couldn’t handle.

Cadel leaned his forehead on his knees and gritted his teeth. The waves of emotion swirling in his chest were uncontrollable. He might as well lose his mind and go into a tavern and make a scene. It would make him feel better.

He was at a standstill, not knowing what to do with his tightening heart. Suddenly, his nose caught a familiar scent. Not the sll of sour liquor or gritty sand, but a crisp minty scent that made his nose tingle.

“Leader?”

At the sound of the voice behind him, Cadel’s head slowly rose, his trembling gaze eting the man before him. Blue eyes, the ones he’d seen again and again in his blurred mind, looked down at him.

“You…….”

“What are you doing here?”

At the sight of Lun who he’d been searching for, his blood pressure, or maybe vigor, spiked. Scrambling to his feet, Cadel nervously clutched at his collar.

“What’s with that note, what are you trying to do?”

“……As written.”

The look on Lun’s face, as he averted his gaze, dashed any hopes Cadel might have had. He had indeed left the rcenary corps, leaving behind a single note.

“I told you, I’ll leave as soon as we break Lydon’s seal.”

“No goodbye, just a la note?”

“A separation doesn’t have to be grand.”

A strangely muted voice echoed in Cadel’s head. Lun said a separation didn’t have to be grand. The sa one that asked Cadel to rember him.

His grip on Lun’s collar tightened until it trembled. His breath caught in his throat, and his steady gaze grew intense as if he were recording every expression on Lun’s face.

“Is that, is that what you want to say?”

“I don’t know what you want. Should we have had a farewell party together?”

“Lun!”

“Go inside. Don’t crouch down here without a jacket.”

There seed to be no way in. Lun’s tightly closed mind wouldn’t let him tiptoe in. Cadel was out of breath.

Cadel released his grip on Lun and slowly lowered his head. His breathing was labored.

Lun stared down at Cadel as he did so. His outstretched fingertips twitched but ultimately failed to touch anything.

Lun closed his eyes tightly and let out a long breath as if to release all his emotions. It was a familiar pattern. But when Lun lifted his eyelids again.

“……Don’t go.”

It was not Cadel’s bowed head that filled his vision, but a pair of vivid hazel eyes. The gaze, deepened by the darkness, only reflected Lun and no one else.

“Don’t go. Even if sothing happens and you have to go, don’t go. Just stay with .”

“Leader, I―”

“Is that so tiring? Or can’t you just stand being next to ? Did you…… Did you just simply hate ?”

Cadel’s voice quivered with anxiety, and he was speechless. His watery eyes scanned Lun impatiently for a reaction. His heart stiffened as if he had been unexpectedly beaten. It was the first ti Cadel had ever felt more pain in his heart than in his body. The pain was unbearable.

Just the fact that Cadel was looking at him like he was about to cry, and it was because of him.

A hand ca up reflexively and cupped Cadel’s cheek.

“I couldn’t have hated you.”

“Then why do you have to leave? If it’s not because of , you can give a reason.”

“That’s…….”

The anxiety on Cadel’s face was unmistakable even as he insisted on asking for an explanation, like a child. Lun’s desire to relieve Cadel of this negative emotion was overwhelming, but he couldn’t get the words out of my mouth.

Cadel’s eyes narrowed at the stuttering answer. Full-blown tears crawled down his cheeks. Lun swallowed dryly, reflexively, at the warmth of tears that seeped into his fingertips.

“I can’t tell you that―”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I don’t know why you’re leaving, I don’t know where you’re going, and you expect to hold on to fond mories like a fool, with no clue where you’re going or what you’re doing? You need to be such a fool to make you feel better about yourself? Then just say it! Don’t make stuff up, just say you’re leaving because I’m sick of !”

Lun’s jaw clenched at the rage that shot through him. He couldn’t tell if the tremor that ran through the hand that cupped Cadel’s cheek was his own or Cadel’s.

Needing Cadel to be such a fool. Leaving because he was sick of Cadel. None of that was true. It was all the opposite, but Lun didn’t have the courage to say it. All he could do was rub Cadel’s wet cheeks and wipe them dry.

The corners of Cadel’s damp eyes twitched. He twisted his head as if to reject Lun’s touch, then clutched at his hand.

“If it’s not, tell . Until I hear a good reason, I’m not letting you go. You’ve never been in a fight with before, so don’t even think about leaving without a fight.”

“……Leader.”

“I’m not kidding.”

The sad eyes quickly changed the emotions and stared at Lun. The tight grip conveyed his sincerity.

“…….”

Why would he do this, who would be so desperate to hold on to soone who was leaving?

Cadel’s behavior was unexpected. It was unexpected, at least in Lun’s imagination, to see such stubbornness, such unwillingness to let go of soone as if so dear to him.

If only you weren’t like this, if only you weren’t so misleading. Lun repeated the words like a mantra, but his mouth could not overco the shallowness of his expectations.

“I’m thinking of returning to my family.”

“To your family?”

“When I was in the White Kingdom, I was visited by a man from Dominic’s family, who told that I had made a na for myself with my exploits and that I should stop wandering and co back, because he didn’t like the rumor that I was a mber of the Scarlet Scales rcenary.”

“Then…….”

“I’m not coming back to please my family. The reason I decided on that is…….”

Lun’s gaze traveled to Cadel’s hand. The warmth radiating from it seed to encourage him. It was as if Cadel was urging him to speak, to tell him everything.

“To renounce the family. Being a patriarch, being a knight defending the family as the second son, everything. I’m going back to throw it all away.”

Defeating his brother and taking the family’s patriarch position, that had been Lun’s only goal. He had grown stronger, greedier, for that alone. If he couldn’t beco the patriarch of Dominic’s family, there was no point in living. He had been so desperate for it. There had been no room for anything else.

It had been definitely like that.

“I said it before. The past that has supported my life so far, the future that drives intensely. I can’t move on without giving up on one of the two. I couldn’t decide what was more important at the ti because I was scared to give it up, be it the past or the future. But now…….”

Lun twisted his grasped hand to get a proper grip and pulled it upward, then leaned down and kissed the back of Cadel’s exposed hand. He hoped the warmth he left behind would stay with Cadel as long as possible.

Slowly his lips parted and he spoke in a whisper.

“I can’t imagine a future without you, a future that I have to give up on you.”

It was a ticklishly sweet voice. Cadel mulled over the words, forgetting the fact that he was supposed to be fixing his frozen expression. The back of his hand where Lun’s lips touched felt like it was on fire, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Then why…… If you didn’t give up on …….”

If Lun had told him this from the beginning, Cadel would have rejoiced in his departure, not mourned it. He would have waved a handkerchief and wished Lun well.

Whether he realized the absurdity of the question or not, Lun untangled his fingers. As Lun hesitantly lowered their untangled hands, Cadel could see the movent of his pupils beneath his eyelids. Unable to contain Lun’s uncharacteristically timid deanor, Cadel was about to open his mouth again when Lun spoke first.

“Because it’s shaful.”

“What are you talking about……?”

“My family will definitely try to catch and it’s going to take a long ti to escape. Even if I’m lucky enough to get out, I’ll have pursuers, and Leader will be hard. ……I couldn’t ask you to wait. It’s burdenso…… to say ‘I’ll throw everything away for Leader, so please leave my position empty’.”

Such a lack of confidence. Cadel had never imagined Lun capable of this expression, this look in his eyes.

“So what were you gonna say when you ca back?”

“I was going to help Leader until you acknowledged .”

“What if I’m so pissed off and I won’t acknowledge you forever?”

“But until the end…….”

“Aren’t you a crazy punk!”

Cadel, who had been listening intently, shouted out. His stomach was in knots, and he didn’t think he could stand it if he didn’t do sothing. Cadel paused and hit Lun in the chest as he looked at him.

“When have you ever been so loyal? Since when have you been so unselfishly subservient? What, it’s shaful? It’s burdenso? Why do you get to decide that?”

Lun silently accepted Cadel’s touch, even as he was pushed back a little by the growing force. As he did, Cadel’s expression grew more intense. The corners of his eyes, barely dry, were becoming wet once more.

“Do you know what is really shaful? In front of a person who only thinks of grabbing you while trembling with thoughts like ‘I don’t want you to leave, I want you to stay with ’, it’s your act of saying ‘Don’t grab because I’ll cut off everything and leave’.”

“I’m…….”

“If you told in advance, I would wait for as long as it took. I would wait for the day you would co back, and if you didn’t show up, I would co and get you back myself. Why are you not confident at tis like this? Why only at such an important ti…….”

Cadel’s voice, shaky with rapid breathing, was interrupted by Lun’s next move.

Grabbing his wrist, Lun pulled Cadel closer. He stared at the brown eyes looking up at him with surprised eyes, then slowly bent his head. Long eyelashes brushed down Cadel’s wet cheeks as if tickling them, and the tip of Lun’s nose pressed lightly against his soft cheek.

Heated lips hovered over Cadel’s closed lips. They were so close that they seed to touch. Cadel’s shuddering breaths did not push Lun away, did not stop him.

But instead of continuing to kiss him, Lun loosened his grip on Cadel’s wrist and stroked a hand through his hair. Slowly, his lips grazed the tip of the rounded nose, then the bridge of the nose, and the fluttering eyelids. Then, inch by inch, his lips left a brief kiss on Cadel’s forehead.

“Please wait for .”

Lun lowered the tousled hair and kissed the top of it once more. Holding Cadel still, he pressed his cheek against his temple.

“I’ll leave it all behind and co back, but until then, wait for . I’ll fight to the death…… so that I can stand proudly beside you.”

Lun closed his eyes and took in everything about Cadel. The heat of his body, his hair rubbing against Lun’s cheek, the feel of his rounded shoulder blades, and…….

“I’ll wait. Until you get back.”

A voice that soothed him, like a loving comfort.

It was the only gift given to a long separation.