“Breakfast is the same for everyone: oatmeal and bread,” said a middle-aged man with bushy whiskers, setting down a glass in front of Leon when he sat at the bar on the first floor. He appeared to be the innkeeper.
“Do you have any alcohol?”
“A bit of ale.”
As he watched his glass being filled by the cheerful innkeeper, Leon calculated how much of his food supplies he needed to replenish.
“Also, I’d like to stay until noon if possible,” he told the innkeeper.
“Which room are you in?”
“Top floor, the last room.”
The man’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s the double room where the servants stay. I’ve already heard the story. Those boys were quite satisfied, so there’s no need to pay extra to stay until noon. They drank all night.”
Leon had paid one hundred gold coins, which would have been enough money to rent the entire inn, if not for the current situation—and he was willing to pay even more without hesitation. He didn’t even look like an exhausted refugee.
The innkeeper handed him a plate of bread and asked casually, “So, do you think the city’s in serious trouble?”
“Well, if I were you, I’d leave the city instead of staying behind to try to make money.”
“Young people are actually doing that. But it’s easy for them since they have nothing to lose. How could someone like me suddenly leave home? Even if I abandon my sheep, chickens, and land, there’s no guarantee that where I’m heading will be safe. And even if I somehow manage to cross over to another region, I’ll still need money to properly settle down.”
From what he said, it seemed the innkeeper was considering leaving if things became more dire.
Leon recalled the lamb stew he’d eaten yesterday. The idea of selling one’s property to fund an evacuation sounded good in theory, but there might not be enough time left for that.
These people are like frogs sitting in slowly boiling water.
“I just hope the newly fortified city walls will hold even half as well as Tyran’s did,” the man said.
Leon, who had been casually tapping the table with his fingers, suddenly stopped. He slowly raised his head and repeated as if to confirm, “Tyran?”
“I’m talking about the regions guarded by the Southern Holy Knights. Thanks to them, the land routes have been safe for two years. The Bayern incident is different since it’s a port city—there’s the sea to consider.”
The innkeeper spoke earnestly as he pushed forward a plate filled with oatmeal. Leon remained silent, lost in thought. Had Bayern truly been attacked from the sea?
Leon had actually taken a ship himself to get ahead of It, yet he had still arrived too late. He hadn’t encountered any Bahamuts on the sea route either. How could he make sense of this situation?
Steam rose from the plate of oatmeal. He had been staring at it for a while and was just about to lift his spoon when—
“I’ll have the same, please.”
An empty chair scraped against the ground as the woman sat down beside him. She must have washed up right after waking, as her short hair was still wet behind her ears. She kept her gaze lowered, trying to hide her red eyes that looked so out of place with her black hair, but the innkeeper didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. The very idea of a Corrupted walking around normally seemed inconceivable to most people.
“Does that include the alcohol too?” the innkeeper asked, glancing at Leon’s cup.
Veronica shook her head with an incredulous expression. While the innkeeper went to the kitchen to fetch more bread, she awkwardly blurted out, “Are you actually an addict? I thought the church forbade drinking.”
“They say don’t get drunk, not don’t drink.”
“Heretic.”
Her muttered comment made Leon chuckle softly.
Despite their feigned casualness, the air was tense between them. Veronica lowered her eyes slightly, recalling the vivid memories of the previous night.
Yesterday, she had begged him for salvation.
That was why she had scrubbed her lips so vigorously when she woke up this morning, hoping that somehow the intimate moment from the night before would wash away too. But the result was exactly the opposite.
The redness became more vivid the more she rubbed, like she was polishing stained glass. He had helped her, and now there was no denying her reality: she was like a mayfly that could only survive for a day, needing to depend on his holy power to prolong her life day after day. In that sense, he was like her god.
“You applied the medicine.”
A low voice suddenly sounded near her ear, making her eyes snap open. Veronica stared straight ahead, unable to turn and look at him. She could feel his gaze on the nape of her neck.
She felt embarrassed, for some reason. She was just showing him her wound, nothing more. The neck wasn’t even a particularly intimate part of the body. Yet strangely, his gaze made her feel naked. She wondered if she had always been this easily flustered around men.
No, that wasn’t true. Veronica had actually had quite a few male friends, but Leon was somehow different from her peers. If she had to describe it, he seemed more… mature.
“There’s still some left on your hand.”
Leon shifted his gaze and lightly touched her fingertip resting on the table.
Veronica froze, staring down at her fingertip covered in white powder. Next to it lay a man’s hand with prominent veins.
She might have continued staring if a middle-aged woman with a headscarf hadn’t interrupted them by placing down a plate of oatmeal and bread.
“Ah, to be young and in love,” she said with a sigh.
The dishes clinked as they were set down. The woman saw Veronica’s face and smiled warmly. Seeing the woman’s knowing look, Veronica frantically waved her hands in denial.
“It’s not like that!”
“Hmm, if not that, then are you relatives who ran away together in the middle of the night because your parents disapproved?”
“Something like that,” Leon said with a grin, casually taking a napkin from the tray.
Veronica glared at him in disbelief. Something like that? The only part that was correct about her assumption was that it actually had been the middle of the night when he kidnapped her.
But after making that joke without changing his expression, he was now wiping the medicine from her fingertip. That thoughtless tenderness made her fingertip tingle.
There it was again—that strange feeling. The same thing she’d felt when he told her to apply medicine yesterday, and when she’d found clothes on the bed this morning.
Make up your mind. Stop confusing me.
“Oh my. Well, don’t go too far away, for your parents’ sake. My daughter is about your age, and she got married and lives in Karta now. I miss her terribly.”
The woman who had played along with the joke nodded toward a portrait on the shelf, where a black-haired woman with a fair complexion was smiling among vividly blooming red flowers. She looked a little like Veronica.
Now Veronica understood why the woman had looked at her so warmly from the beginning. She must have been reminded of her child.
At the mere mention of parents, Veronica felt a hot lump rising in her throat. Why was that? The woman hadn’t said anything special. It was nothing. Nothing at all. She needed to hold it in.
And she did hold it in, for the most part, but she couldn’t hide her reddening eyes. The woman’s warm smile suddenly gave way to concern.
“Oh dear. Are you all right?”
“Ah, yes. I’m fine. It’s just… I haven’t seen my parents for a long time either.”
Veronica fumbled for an excuse. By “parents,” she meant her mother. Her father had been different from other parents. He’d treated her with indifference rather than affection, especially after her mother passed away when she was ten.
He’d found her child-like yearning for affection burdensome and struggled to look at the face that reminded him of his dead wife. The more her father stayed away, the more young Veronica thirsted for attention and affection.
Perhaps that was why she became so immersed in dancing. Because during those moments, people only looked at her. They loved her. As a result, Veronica was particularly vulnerable to kindness. She would stake her life on even the smallest gesture of affection. A childhood friend once called it attachment disorder.
Though she forced an awkward smile, the woman seemed even more concerned by her demeanor.
“What do you mean by ‘fine’? There’s no such thing as tears without reason. You’re trying to hold them back, aren’t you? That’s how you develop emotional scars. Just because it doesn’t show now doesn’t mean you’re not wounded. Later, you’ll find yourself crying unexpectedly even during completely unrelated conversations.”
Her concerned gaze was kind and maternal. Veronica suddenly felt envious of the woman in the portrait whom she had never met.
Even after being reassured several times, the woman was still worried and turned to Leon. “At times like this, a husband should be there for his wife.”
Leon’s voice was calm when he lied and said he would. Satisfied, the woman handed them several yellow fruits that were in season. Veronica fiddled with the cute, round fruit before abruptly offering one to the man beside her.
It wasn’t that she had let her guard down—she couldn’t, and shouldn’t. She would remain cautious and suspicious, but… at least yesterday, he had helped her.
“Here, let’s share these.”
Leon had already emptied his bowl and was leaning back casually, gazing out the window. When he slowly turned his gaze toward her, her body tensed automatically. She worried he might mock her for yesterday’s incident, but surprisingly, he accepted the fruit without comment.
The brief warmth of his touch made her hold her breath.
Outside the small prison-like window, snow was falling softly, piling up on the ground.