The heavy door clicked shut, severing the connection to that room—and the suffocating weight of the words she had just spilled into the air.
Raska stood there, unmoving, her hand pressed flat against her chest. Beneath her palm, her heart wasn't just beating; it was thumping a frantic, irregular rhythm against her ribs. She could still feel the phantom heat of her own confession, the memory of her voice cracking on the most dangerous, stupid thing she'd ever dared to say.
...What the hell...
The whisper was raspy, barely audible over the patter of rain against the hallway's darkened windows. She squeezed her eyes shut, a sharp, ragged breath hitching in her throat. Her ears twitched once, twice, in agitation, the fur standing on end as if they were trying to shield her from the sound of her own lingering embarrassment.
Must be the heat.
She frowned at herself, forcing a scowl onto her face to anchor her composure. She shook her head, a violent, sharp movement, as if she could physically dislodge the memory of her own face turning crimson.
"...A bath."
She started walking, her movements stiff, trying to reclaim the predatory elegance that usually defined her.
"Yeah. A bath should fix it. Just... wash the day off."
She took one step. Then another, her boots clicking softly against the floorboards. She exhaled sharply, keeping her eyes glued straight ahead, assuming she was entirely alone in the deserted corridor. She wasn't just walking; she was retreating, crafting a wall of silence around herself.
It was only when she finished the thought and let her gaze drift to the side that the world violently crashed back in.
Bell and Welf were plastered against the wall right beside the doorframe. They were frozen like statues carved from sheer, unadulterated shock, squeezed flat against the wood with their eyes squeezed shut, silently praying to whatever gods were listening that she would just walk past them without noticing.
Raska blinked. Her brain took a full, agonizing second to process the two breathing, petrified forms occupying her immediate peripheral vision.
Then, the realization hit her like a physical blow.
It wasn't the heat.
They heard it. All of it. The "Your Majesty," the "I like you," the pathetic, stumbling vulnerability she had laid bare. Without them standing right here, she wouldn't have even realized the truth of her own panic—she wasn't feverish; she was utterly, catastrophically exposed.
The air in the hallway turned to absolute ice. Raska's tail, which had been swaying with the rhythm of her earlier confusion, went completely, unnaturally rigid. Her ears flattened flat against her skull, pressed tight enough to hurt.
Their mouths were hanging open. Neither of them had moved a muscle. They were caught in the amber of what they had just heard, completely paralyzed by the sheer social carnage they'd stumbled into.
"...How long have you two been standing there?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and lethal. Bell and Welf exchanged a slow, pained glance, their eyes wide with the realization that they were witnessing a moment that would likely cost them their lives.
"...Long enough," Welf muttered, his voice barely a breath of sound.
Raska's gaze snapped forward, her expression hardening back into a mask of cold iron. Before she could even form the words to demand why they were lurking in the shadows like common thieves, Welf blurted out, "Before you say anything—we didn't hear a thing."
It was too fast. Too desperate. It was a confession wrapped in a denial.
Raska paused. A slow, dangerous smile tugged at the corner of her lips, though it didn't reach her eyes, which were rapidly turning the color of cooling embers. She leaned lazily against the doorframe, her posture deceptively relaxed, masking the coiled tension in her muscles.
"Hear... what?"
Bell's hand dropped from the air, striking his own cheek with a soft slap. The red spread across his face with agonizing speed, turning from pink to a burning, humiliated crimson. He looked at the floorboards, then at Welf's frantic eyes, then back to Raska, his honesty clearly overriding his survival instinct.
"S-sorry. We did..."
Raska's tail, which had gone rigid moments before, gave one sharp, involuntary lash. Her ears, still flattened, pressed tighter still.
"You did?"
The silence that followed was suffocating, thick with the phantom weight of "Your Majesty," "I like you," and "In your dreams." Every word felt like a physical object pressing against the walls of the hallway.
Bell cleared his throat, his eyes wide and earnest, seemingly ready to spill the entire mortifying transcript of her vulnerability. "From the very—"
CLAMP.
Welf's hand smashed over Bell's mouth with the force of a falling anvil, muffling the rest of the sentence into a pathetic, high-pitched mph! Before Bell could even attempt to bite down, Welf grabbed the back of the boy's head and physically shoved him toward the stairs, his own face contorted in a silent plea for sanity.
"Come on, Bell," Welf hissed, his voice cracking like dry wood. "We just arrived. Haven't we?"
He shook Bell's head slightly, his eyes begging for even a modicum of cooperation.
"Right?"
"Mmph!" Bell struggled, his eyes pleading for release, for mercy, for anything other than this.
Raska stood frozen, the heat creeping up her neck, scorching her cheeks. Her mind was a riot of calculations: if they knew—if they had heard the entirety of that pathetic, stumbling confession—she would have to move to another continent. Or kill them. Or both.
She forced a sharp, dry cough, her tail starting to lash behind her with a frantic, agitated energy she couldn't suppress. She decided, then and there, that she would rather disintegrate into ash than acknowledge the truth.
"Oh?" she said, her voice dripping with an icy, feigned indifference that was almost impressive given her state. "Then what brings the two of you here?"
She jerked a thumb backward toward the room, her gaze fixed with intense, unblinking focus on a spot on the wall exactly three inches to the left of their heads.
"If you're looking for that Goblin head, there he is. Be my guest."
Welf blinked, momentarily stunned by the pivot, but he immediately latched onto the lifeline like a drowning man. "Yeah. That's it. We just came to check on him."
Bell, finally released from the iron grip on his face, exhaled a shaky, wheezing breath.
"Y-Yeah. Exactly. Just checking."
Raska didn't blink. She didn't offer a rebuttal. She simply turned on her heel and walked away, her ears burning a deep, vibrant red and her tail tucked tight against her legs, leaving them standing there alone with the weight of their own clumsy, transparent lie.
The hallway felt suddenly, suffocatingly narrow. Every wooden board seemed to groan under the weight of the silence, echoing the mortifying revelation that had just transpired.
Raska didn't look back. Her heart was a trapped bird, thumping a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She rounded the corner, her tail lashing behind her with a mind of its own, betraying the icy composure she was desperately trying to project.
The cool air of the inn's main floor greeted her, but it did nothing to soothe the heat radiating from her face.
"Mis... Raska?"
She stopped dead.
Lili stood behind the reception desk, a ledger in her hands, peering over the top with those sharp, observant eyes. One look at Raska's flushed face—the ears pinned flat against her head and the nervous twitch running through her tail—was enough to make her narrow her gaze.
"You look," another voice chimed in, carrying a touch too much curiosity for Raska's liking, "like you've just committed a crime... or seen a ghost."
Time stumbled for a heartbeat, as though the moment had been painted still.
"...Or," the man continued after noticing the color lingering on her cheeks, "did something good happen?" His voice grew more amused.
Raska didn't even slow down.
"Stay out of it, Gisel," she threw over her shoulder, a little sharper than she intended. "And keep those two idiots away from me for the next hour."
"Oh?" he called after her, mock innocence dripping from every word. "Which idiots?"
Raska simply lifted a finger and pointed at Lili. "She knows who."
Lili blinked. "...Why?"
Gisel let out a knowing hum, a grin slowly spreading across his face.
"Don't tell me..." He looked at Raska with exaggerated suspicion. "You knocked them out too? Honestly, girl, you can't go around punching people whenever you get bored." He folded his arms, looking far too pleased with himself.
Raska finally glanced over her shoulder. "...Says the man with a girl's name. Geezer."
Gisel barked out a laugh. "Hah! Fair enough."
Raska snorted and resumed walking. She reached the inn's exit, pushed the heavy door open, and stepped out into the evening chill of Orario.
Gisel watched the door swing shut behind her, still chuckling under his breath.
"...I didn't expect this from the Silent Fist."
The words barely cleared the edge of the counter before Lili's head snapped toward the closing door, her body reacting a split second before her mind could catch up.
The name lingered like fog in winter air.
"...Mister..." she whispered, a spark flickering in her chestnut eyes. "Did Mister Gisel say... Silent Fist?"
Outside, the rain had dwindled to a drizzle, leaving Orario's streets slick with mud and glistening beneath the lantern light.
She took a long, ragged breath, letting the damp air hit her lungs. The city was busy, the usual bustle of adventurers and shopkeepers moving around her, but for a moment, none of it felt real. The only thing that mattered was the echo of her own voice in that room, the vulnerability she'd let slip through the cracks.
She leaned against the stone exterior of the inn, sliding down until she could bury her face in her hands.
I like you.
The words weren't just spoken; they felt branded into the air of that room. She groaned, a sound of pure, unadulterated frustration, and let her head thud gently against the cool stone behind her.
She'd survived an Irregular. She'd survived the depths of the dungeon. But she had a feeling this... this was going to be the thing that finally broke her.
🌪️
She stayed like that for a while longer, her face buried in her hands, waiting for her pulse to settle. It didn't.
Instead, her hand slid down off her face, searching for something solid to hold on to—and found something else. The foolish heat lingering in her cheeks ebbed away, replaced by a cold weight settling in her chest.
The moment her fingers touched the jagged edge, everything she'd been trying to forget came flooding back.
Slowly, she drew it free from her pocket. Resting in her palm, the massive magic stone pulsed beneath the dim, rain-soaked lantern light, its dense core glowing with a deep, suffocating violet radiance that seemed to throb with a sickening amount of raw power.
Whatever was left of the embarrassment shrank, suddenly small and far away.
Her stomach churned.
Just give it to Naaza.
The thought flickered through her mind, sharp and immediate.
Hand it over. Let her and Elara finish what they'd been chasing for over a week. Let them grind it down and use it however they needed to finally drag the truth out into the light. Erase the ambiguity.
Bury the problem where she wouldn't have to look at it anymore.
Her thumb grazed the razor-sharp facets of the stone.
Testing his blood. Finding out what he actually was. The very thought made her breath catch, her chest tightening with a cold, paralyzing dread.
She didn't want to know.
If this was the piece that finally cracked him open, she might find something horrifying staring back at her—something that meant he wasn't just a stray traveler, something that meant she couldn't keep him safe even if she tried.
She stared at the pulsing light, her ears twitching back in sheer, unadulterated hesitation.
Or better—just throw it out. Toss it back into the mud of the dark streets, let some scavenger take it, let it sink into the earth where no one would ever have to ask what kind of monster bled to create it.
Just get rid of it. Walk away.
And yet, as the seconds dragged on, the cold panic slowly fractured, giving way to something far heavier.
A flash of his face when he woke up—confused, shattered, caught between realities that didn't belong to him. The absolute, hollow terror in his eyes when he muttered things that didn't make sense.
What if he didn't even know?
The thought hit her with the force of a physical blow, grounding her frantic breathing.
He didn't choose this. He didn't ask to be torn apart, to have his mind scrambled like broken glass.
What if he was just a ghost in his own skin, dragged into the dark and warped by Evilus bastards or whoever used him as a disposable weapon experiment, wiping clean whatever was left of who he used to be?
If she threw this stone away, if she buried it and pretended she didn't care, she was just abandoning him to whatever cruel design had birthed him. She'd be leaving him to drown in a past he couldn't even remember.
Raska's jaw tightened. The dread didn't vanish—it hardened, melting down into a grim, unyielding resolve.
She closed her fist tightly around the stone, the sharp edges pressing painfully into her palm, drawing a tiny bead of blood she barely even felt.
No.
She exhaled a long, shaky breath, her amber eyes locking onto the dark, rain-slicked street with a fierce, quiet certainty.
She wasn't going to abandon him. Not after seeing what he was capable of... and the kind of person he really was.
Evilus or whatever else had broken him—she didn't care. She was going to find out. And she was going to help him put the pieces back together, whether he wanted her to or not.