Things happened pretty quickly after that. The palace guards called for reinforcements, and along the way they found a whole bunch more injured guys, along with even more dead ones. I healed the good guys right away, but I only healed the bad ones once they were safely tied or shackled. It was a complete healing, too, so all those hacked off limbs were properly reattached. The corridor was still a bloody mess, but at least I was able to save a few people. Blood and gore were still splattered everywhere, and it was easier to smell the stench of it without the sour-smelling duke around.
“Now that the adrenaline of the situation has left me, I find myself nauseated by this scenery,” I said with a sigh. “If you don’t mind, I’ll excuse myself, and adjourn to the antechamber. I truly pity whoever is tasked with cleaning up this mess.”
That’s right, I didn’t have some sort of overpowered isekai skill for cleaning things. I had subordinates who could clean up quickly, but most of them couldn’t leave the dungeon. Besides, there were dead people here—any sort of magical cleanup would likely erase everything foreign from the room, including the corpses, and those remains, even as mangled as they were, should rightfully be returned to their families.
Though I supposed it would depend on the will of the caster. Yeah, magic could be scary sometimes.
“I’ll send for you later, then,” the king agreed. “Please excuse the mess.”
“Oh, and King Doma,” I warned. “This will be the last time I spare him. If he raises a hand against me or my people just one more time, I’ll kill him where he stands. If you’d rather not let that happen, I’d suggest keeping a better eye on him, or just executing him outright. Brother or not, he was definitely trying to kill you today.”
I left with that final parting shot. Nothing more needed to be said.
When I returned to the antechamber, Ringo braced himself for a scolding. He got a hug instead. I wrapped my arms around him and held on supertight. When I saw that sword coming down... Thinking about what would have happened if I’d arrived any later, I shuddered. I’d nearly lost him, forever, and that would have been awful. He still wasn’t boyfriend material, but I’d really hate it if he died.
The others were very confused, especially Mela, who looked a bit panicked.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” I said, releasing Ringo so I could look him right in the eyes.
“Hey, relax, I would have been—”
He tried to play it off, but I interrupted him.
“Killed! You were about to die!”
“Even if I got killed back there, I would have just gone back to the Unseen—”
“You don’t get it!” I cried. “That sword he was about to slice you with was made with materials from the Unseen Realm. If you’d been killed by it, it would have destroyed your spiritual body as well. I almost lost you back there. Permanently! If I’d arrived just a few moments later, I would have been avenging your death instead of having all those people restrained. Do you understand me?”
Ringo’s eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open a bit. I could see he finally understood just how close he’d come to oblivion. The others seemed to understand as well.
My hands were trembling as I let go of Ringo. I clenched my fists. As soon as I got back to the relative privacy of the antechamber, my emotions just spilled out. My royal facade crumbled away, and my worries and fears burst out. Even so, I managed to keep from crying. I looked around, and decided I needed to calm down. I sat down and rang a bell I’d been given to summon one of the maids outside of the room.
After the castle’s maids brewed me a fresh pot of cherry rose tea, I sat and drank it in silence with my eyes closed. When I did happen to open my eyes to check, I saw a taciturn Ringo, reflecting seriously on his brush with death.
It was much easier to risk your life when death wasn’t the end. If you played virtual poker, you could take bigger gambles with in-game funds than with real money. It changed the way you saw risk. When you were playing a video game, you were more likely to take a chance on a precarious jump, because if you died there were plenty more lives where that came from. For Ringo, the revelation that he could have died permanently in that battle must have been a shock. Team Apple treated themselves as expendable shields, feeling safe in the knowledge they would always return from the Unseen Realm after death. This incident seemed to instill something new in all of them.
“I-I’m so glad you’re safe!” Mela burst out.
I looked up to see Mela in front of Ringo, her clenched fists trembling. She looked to be on the verge of tears. Oops, did I make her jealous with that hug? I’d meant it as the sort of hug I’d give to a plush toy, or a beloved pet. It wasn’t the sort of embrace a woman gave the man she loved. (Just so you know, the difference was where the hands are. When a woman hugs a man she loves, her arms should be around his neck. It brings her lips closer to his...and aligns certain other things as well. I’d hugged Ringo around his torso, under his arms. More of a bear hug. That’s a hug for friends and family.)
Oho? Is Mela going to make a move? When I looked, I noticed Pomme and Manzana were holding hands. Each of them must have been thinking about how awful it would be to lose the other. Ugh, the mood was so somber and depressing, but I didn’t try to change it. This was something important for them, a lesson that would shape their personalities in the future. If it changed the way they fought, and made them value their lives more, then it was a good thing.
Mela seemed frozen; she just stood there in front of Ringo, trembling and blushing. Ringo didn’t seem to know how to respond either. He thought about it for a moment, and then—