GDTEA Ch 67

Because I Like You

Just because one promised not to lie doesn’t mean they have to be completely honest.

It wasn’t necessary to always tell the truth. There were options to hide, evade, or make excuses.

But such evasions are ultimately nothing but undignified, pathetic clumsiness.

[Don’t irritate your master.]

Ren acknowledged it. He knew it himself.

Not only had he prioritized Sharti over his memories, but now he valued his life with Sharti more than the memories he had lost. From now on, he needed to fix his current pathetic attitude that was nothing but clumsy.

Just standing still would only make him someone unworthy of feeling jealousy—a pathetic, pitiful person.

In the midst of this, without understanding what was in another person’s heart and making all sorts of misunderstandings and misconceptions, Ren quickly became honest.

And at the same time, he realized.

‘Ah.’

I see.

‘I think Sha is beautiful.’

And he liked Sharti’s face.

‘From the moment I first saw her.’

The moment he uttered that embarrassing confession aloud, the identity of the improper feelings he hadn’t been aware of until now became clear.

It wasn’t gratitude toward a benefactor.

It wasn’t sympathy or pity either.

‘I want Sha to smile.’

Her laughter tickles his chest and crumbles his composure.

‘I want Sha to be safe.’

He wishes her hands would hold more fresh flowers than dangerous paralyzing herbs.

‘I want Sha to be happy.’

He finds himself constantly wishing that she could live abundantly, doing what she loves without anxiety or worry.

‘I want Sha to look at me.’

It creates a desire to be the one person imprinted in those vermilion eyes that hold the light of the sun.

And the meaning of all these emotions was both simple and complex.

‘Because I like Sha.’

Following the flow of emotions, everything eventually becomes clear.

The jealousy he felt with Ashu’s appearance, and the flutter he felt when facing Sharti—these revealed a clear emotion that was not at all sudden.

It was love.

‘So what?’

Having realized his feelings for Sharti didn’t particularly make him feel elated.

Rather, he needed to gather his thoughts coldly.

‘I mustn’t let Sha find out.’

Sharti was perceptive.

Of course, when it came to matters of romance, she was at a deplorable level, but she was sensitive to detecting both goodwill and malice directed at her.

If goodwill was at an appropriate level, Sharti might be shy but wouldn’t push it away. However, if that goodwill was even slightly deep and immense, Sharti would feel burdened and avoid it.

Having experienced this firsthand, Ren could assert with certainty.

‘I’d be driven away.’

Finally, Sharti was just beginning to open up. Holding hands, embracing, looking at her face—Sharti no longer shrunk back with a disgusted expression.

In this situation where human affection was deepening, to suddenly confess romantic feelings?

‘……I don’t even want to imagine it.’

It would be fortunate if her face didn’t turn pale at the confession of liking her.

Sharti didn’t know what to do even when he simply confessed the plain truth that her face was pretty.

So he intended to wait until they became a bit closer, until he had built up more favorability with Sharti, until he became someone not lacking for her.

At least until he was no longer overshadowed by Ashu, until he became someone Sharti couldn’t even consider as a point of comparison…

“Ren, do you like me?”

Ren realized anew.

He shouldn’t let his guard down in front of Sharti.

Sharti doesn’t carelessly dismiss any secrets, hearts, emotions, or thoughts that others momentarily reveal, and eventually pierces them sharply.

Caught by Sharti, Ren answered.

It was an answer that required no thought.

‘I like you.’

But what came out of Ren’s mouth wasn’t an admission.

“If I answer—”

Even though Sharti’s face was hidden by her hood and he couldn’t see it, Ren could tell.

The delicate hand that held him wasn’t transmitting an excited trembling.

Only a subtle nervousness could be felt.

“Can you handle it?”

It was a question that could have been directed at either of them.

Ren couldn’t handle facing her attitude after rashly confessing his feelings, and Sharti, needless to ask, wasn’t prepared to handle his feelings.

A confession that neither was ready for shouldn’t be easily blurted out, carried away by the atmosphere.

“……”

Sharti dropped her head and withdrew the hand that had been holding Ren.

Watching Sharti, who gave no answer, Ren swallowed a bitter smile.

What was at least hopeful was that Sharti wasn’t drawing a clear line like before, nor was she rebuilding a solid wall.

‘She seemed flustered until just a moment ago, so it’s understandable.’

She had been in a life-threatening situation until just a moment ago, so she was likely in a state of confusion.

Ren quietly turned his head to check behind him.

His gaze, glaring at the unconscious masked person, was chillingly cold.

‘They call themselves mercenaries, but is this how they handle their job?’

Ren’s anger was directed at the Krofl Mercenary Group, which had allowed such a masked person to infiltrate their lodgings.

If he had been just a little later, the person collapsed in the back would have been Sharti.

When a situation he had experienced once before unfolded again before his eyes, Ren went berserk. The hand of the masked person who had been strangling Sharti’s neck was now completely mangled from shoulder to wrist.

‘There must be marks left on her neck.’

He could tell just by seeing Sharti stealthily touching her neck, avoiding his gaze.

Ren quietly gritted his teeth.

He was barely holding back from ending the masked person’s life right then and there, but he had to restrain himself. He was concerned that killing such a person in front of a doctor who saves lives might subconsciously cause Sharti to feel aversion.

“Sha, from now on, it would be better if we stayed in the same room.”

“…Pardon?”

At the sudden change of topic, Sharti reflexively raised her head.

Ren, with his arms crossed, nodded his head.

“This has happened not once but twice now, so I think it would be better if I don’t leave your side.”

“Ah, no? I’d rather be alone. Rather than you being in danger because of me…”

“I think it’s better to be in danger together than to be in danger alone.”

“What?”

A reproachful gaze shot from within the hood, as if asking what nonsense he was talking about.

The confused look she had when she noticed his feelings and being cautious seemed to have mostly subsided.

Relieved that she seemed to have returned to her usual self, Ren opened his mouth.

“Like just now, if you, Sha, keep them at bay with ranged attacks, I can immediately finish them off with close-range attacks.”

“No…”

“It’s an unbeatable combination.”

Ren smiled with satisfaction.

Sharti could only look at him with an expression of bewilderment, unable to refute.

Recalling their past experiences, Sharti acknowledged that there was some truth to Ren’s words.

“I’m not saying we should sleep together, so don’t misunderstand.”

“What…!”

It was just something he said to ease her worries, but instead, Sharti was greatly flustered and jumped up.

“I don’t understand why you keep saying I’ll misunderstand! I, I’ve never misunderstood like that!”

“I guess it was an unnecessary concern. I’m sorry.”

At Sharti’s intense reaction, Ren hesitated and offered an indifferent apology.

Belatedly, Sharti pulled her hood down low to hide her reddened face.

Feeling like he might laugh, Ren rubbed his lips.

‘I’ve avoided the worst-case scenario.’

He seemed to have successfully navigated through the awkward atmosphere he had been worried about. She seemed to have stabilized mentally and emotionally as well, as her speech had returned to being comfortable.

He was getting better and better at coaxing Sharti.

Knock-knock-. At the sudden sound of knocking, Ren reflexively rose to his feet.

He roughly wrapped a blanket hanging on the wall around his face like a scarf to hide the lower half of his face.

“Doctor! I hope nothing’s wrong… Eek!”

The one who came to the lodgings was a mage from the Krofl Mercenary Group.

The mage, who was using a staff like a torch to examine the inside of the lodgings, first saw Ren’s gaze and, terrified, hurriedly hid against the door.

“Does it look like nothing’s wrong to those eyes?”

Ren, with his forehead deeply furrowed in displeasure, spoke confrontationally.

Only then did the mage discover the masked person collapsed half-dead in the corner of the room and hastily bound them with magic before handing them over to colleagues.

Then, for Sharti who was afraid of fire, the mage increased the brightness of the staff’s light to illuminate the room.

“I’m sorry!”

The mercenary mage, who had also neatly cleaned up the mess in the room with magic, quickly bent at the waist to apologize.

<Are the other houses alright?>

“Yes! No problems!”

“If there’s no problem, why did this happen?”

“…I’m sorry.”

The mage knelt in front of Sharti and Ren to explain.

<Is Grandmother Vireta safe?>

“Oh, of course!”

The mage, desperately avoiding Ren’s fierce gaze, quickly nodded to Sharti.

“Right now, Vireta and our mercenary group are all outside the village.”

Intense combat was currently underway outside.

Starting from around midnight, they had received an overwhelming number of visitors to the village — mercenaries hired by Marquis Bridend. Since the land had already been handed over to the Tower Master, they couldn’t openly send the marquisate’s private soldiers, so instead they used these wandering mercenaries.

As mercenaries hired to dig up the land and massacre the villagers, they were all armed and were attacking the village in various ways.

“Even if we capture them, it would be difficult to reveal their backers, so it’s not that complicated for us.”

The mage boasted with a pleased face, but seeing Ren’s blazing gaze, averted his eyes again.

“But there was an unexpected problem, we didn’t expect anyone to remain in the village…”

They had completely blocked off the outside of the village. The Tower Master had deployed grand magic combining his own magic power with the mana of the village, so the defense of the village was naturally perfect.

The problem was the house of the doctor who was a spy planted in the village by Darhan Bridend.

“Who would have thought they would set the basement of that house as a teleportation coordinate to send assassins into the village?”

If a magic circle had already been drawn, there was no way the mercenary mages would have missed it.

They had disguised the basement as an ordinary empty storehouse and just left a place for teleportation coordinates.

“Fortunately, our mages who were on standby in the village detected the unusual magic power and intercepted it, limiting it to a small number of assassins!”

“And you let one of those few slip through and enter here.”

At the sharp criticism that their defense was inadequate, the mage hunched his shoulders.

As the mage made a sad face every time he received criticism from Ren, Sharti poked Ren’s side repeatedly.

Ren turned his head abruptly with a sigh.

“The Tower Master had placed protective magic on each house in the village, so we thought we could catch them quickly…”

Sharti’s fingertips trembled.

‘Was it a problem that Sha opened the window?’

Since she had opened the door from inside first, the protective magic must have temporarily stopped.

“And strangely, the protective magic on this lodging was relatively weaker compared to other houses. The assassin seemed to notice this too and was focusing only on this house.”

The mage glanced at Ren.

Ren’s expression became serious as he realized the meaning of that glance.

The possibility he had vaguely suspected gradually became clearer.

“Though not certain, from our perspective, we think it might be due to the influence of the doctor’s assistant…”

The mage, who had been thoroughly dismissed for his magical skills by Ren, carefully pointed at Ren with a gesture.

“It seems you might have a constitution that magic doesn’t work on.”

“…!”

Ren clenched his fist.

After being silent for a while, Ren raised his head with a gloomy expression.

“Then… are you saying it would be better for me not to be by Sha, my master’s side?”

Ren’s face, as he squeezed out a suppressed voice, was full of disappointment.