The Esper Grand Duke Wishes For Purity - Chapter 8
“……”
Northern Ygreth Territory, Teir Empire. In the middle of the Obsidian Forest, Grand Duke Kylus sat up with a troubled expression.
He wore a look of bewilderment. The sensation of something enveloping his most sensitive and delicate lower half, the complete lack of pain in his body—there was nothing here that wasn’t unfamiliar.
He had been fighting a monster alone, one that had been about to attack a group of mountain foragers, and for a moment, he let his guard down and got swallowed whole. After incinerating the creature’s skull from the inside out and plummeting to the forest below, his last thought had been that recovery would be impossible.
Yet his body, which had been in rags, was now completely clean, without a single scratch. The miasma that always contaminated his mana had been thoroughly purified, and his senses had become razor-sharp.
Even more shocking than the changes to his body, however, was the person sitting atop his lower body.
Bathed in moonlight, that pale white face shone as if carved from ice. If not for the faintly furrowed brow, the flushed lips, and the faint breath escaping between them, he would have thought a statue was sitting on his lap.
He could see the skin pressed against his own bare body, every fine hair standing up in the cold. Kylus could say for certain: this was the most confused and astonished he’d ever been in his life.
As he shifted in his bewilderment, the joining between them parted, and lukewarm fluid trickled down along his s***t. With his heightened senses, it was easy to recognize it as his own fluids.
The pale shoulders above him were blue from the cold. Kylus hurriedly used his mana to warm the surrounding air. When he carefully touched the curled back, he was shocked at how cold the body was.
The delicate figure shuddered as the air warmed. When he reflexively caught him as he nearly toppled over, the small body seemed to melt into his arms. It was an electrifying sensation.
“……Ren?”
Kylus exhaled softly.
***
Heejae woke, dazzled by the warm sunlight. Everything around him was bright. It was so bright it made his eyes water. As he rubbed his eyes furiously, he froze as the unfamiliar surroundings came into focus.
First, he noticed the huge bed with pillars at each corner.
On the ceiling of the bed, a beautiful forest had been carved in relief, and all sides were draped with long, translucent curtains. Only one side was drawn back, revealing a glimpse of a lavish room.
“Ah, so you’re finally awake.”
“……”
Hearing the rustling, a man approached and spoke. It was a language Heejae had never heard before in his life. He tensed, gripping the blanket covering his body with both hands.
The man looking down at Heejae had striking red eyes. His short-cropped hair was as white as snow, and the black clothing that enveloped his massive body was a style Heejae had never seen before.
‘He must be an Esper.’
What caught Heejae’s attention most was the man’s abnormally large build.
‘Could this be a hallucination?’
Uneasy, Heejae’s eyes darted around.
Was he still inside theGate? But it was so warm and comfortable…
He could still vividly remember the bone-chilling cold of the previous night, when his teeth felt like they might shatter. The Ha Sehyeon who had been inside him, his body ruined and pierced, his hands soaked with Sehyeon’s blood.
He slowly opened his clenched hands gripping the blanket—his palms were clean.
‘If this isn’t inside theGate, then someone must have washed me.’
As he twisted his hands this way and that to check, the man took a tray from the cart he had brought in and set it on the bedside table. A round cup of steaming water caught his eye. Like the ceiling of the bed, it was beautifully decorated with colorful glass depicting a forest, like a piece of fine craftwork.
“Can’t speak yet? Meeting the northern night unprepared can cost you your life. You were lucky. No, I should say it’s our Grand Duke who was lucky.”
The man’s speech had a rhythm Heejae had never heard before. He didn’t know every language on Earth, but if he’d even heard it in media before, he’d have had some idea.
“The clothes you were wearing were burned because they were too heavily stained with monster blood. If you leave that much contamination untreated, the poison will spread.”
Heejae cautiously met the man’s red eyes and opened his mouth.
[This really doesn’t seem like aGate… Where am I? Do you speak Korean, by any chance?]
Hearing Heejae’s words, the man’s red eyes widened. Thinking he might understand English, Heejae awkwardly stumbled through a few phrases, but that only made things worse.
Flustered, the man stiffened, muttered to himself, and hurriedly left the room as if fleeing.
