Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 5: Dream of the Past
Sepanti, the Karns estate.
Queenie Karns stood in the center of the entrance hall, admiring the painting before her.
It was the only surviving portrait of “Saint Salaar”. No, strictly speaking, it was a replica of that portrait.
The original was small, not much bigger than a diary, and had long been kept under tight guard in the underground vault. The moment the Karns family obtained it, they commissioned a large version and hung the replica in the very center of the great hall.
Three hundred years later, everyone took the copy to be the original itself.
In the painting, Saint Salaar had blond hair and blue eyes, strikingly handsome features, and a completely blank expression. He sat on a dull wooden chair, staring fixedly toward something outside the frame, as if waiting for it.
Such a portrait was unusual. Normally the subject should be smiling and looking at the viewer.
Queenie disliked the painting. She always felt it was unfinished. The Saint Salaar in it was cold and hollow, though the guests all explained that as “compassion” or “humility”.
“Queenie.” A voice interrupted her thoughts.
She turned, the curls of her black hair sliding over her shoulders. “Brother.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked with a smile. “It looks like our little lunatic isn’t dead. The manor in Ring Town burned to ash, no one saw him leave, yet his status crystal doesn’t have a single crack.”
“Grandfather was explicit. Whoever kills him first gets his share of the inheritance. You’re really not tempted?”
“Not interested,” Queenie said coolly.
The Karns family was flourishing. This generation had eight heirs. Queenie was the seventh. Kendrick Karns was the youngest, two years her junior.
They had tried to set him straight once, but Kendrick was an exceptional fanatic. When he was young the elders still hoped for the best and merely sent him to the border. Now he was nearly twenty-one, and far from restraining himself he had only grown more violent.
So the elders now had to choose between “family honor” and “Kendrick Karns”.
“I inherited enough to keep me comfortable for life. I don’t need more,” Queenie said. “It’s Kendrick I am thinking about. He slipped away too cleanly, which may mean he had help.”
She paused, and her tone turned meaningful.
“If he has colluded with someone he shouldn’t have, hunting him won’t be easy.”
“Opportunity always comes with risk.” Her brother shrugged. “Forget it then. It’s fine if you don’t get involved.”
“Mm. Be careful, all of you.”
Queenie ended the topic without much interest and turned her eyes back to the likeness of Saint Salaar.
In the dim background, the Hero wore gray and still gazed toward a vague, far-off place.
……
Salaar quietly looked up at… Him.
Gravestones surrounded Salaar—some rough stones, some planks, some swords and shields carved with names. They were tidied spotlessly and stood silent on the earth.
Salaar, clad in battered armor, lifted his head in silence, and seemed almost like one more grave marker among them.
It was a dream. He suddenly realized that a human body dreams.
This was the first dream Myss had ever had, and He dreamed of long ago.
Back then Salaar hadn’t been so unruly, and back then some of his people were still alive.
Yes, when Salaar sealed Him, he had brought over a thousand elite warriors. In the eternal darkness they had built a crude settlement and lived on mushrooms, salt, and clear water.
Salaar was the strongest among them and aged the slowest. The other humans couldn’t live that long. In only a hundred years they died one after another, leaving the ground littered with bones.
In the end, Salaar carved everyone’s headstone, everyone except his own.
Myss watched it all in silence.
His countless eyes hung high above, their black pits hidden in an even deeper dark. Yet Salaar seemed able to feel His gaze and would always lift his head and look back.
What expression had Salaar worn then? He couldn’t remember.
In those days His feelings had been faint, not enough to sustain an emotion like curiosity. He simply looked at him and only looked.
The dream wavered and drew away. Myss blinked awake, dazed, and found himself facing Salaar’s face.
The man was sitting by his bed, observing Him…him, with the spirit of a researcher. That face was very close, close enough that Myss could feel his breath.
Myss jerked upright and loosed a streak of black light. He moved too fast and yanked his long hair hard, letting out a cry of pain.
His attack slammed into a golden shield; Salaar had clearly prepared for it.
“Good morning, Myss,” Salaar said, straightening his collar and greeting him with mock solemnity.
“What is wrong with you?” Myss threw the pillow at Salaar again. The latter snatched it out of the air.
“You never slept before. I was curious, that is all.” Salaar tossed the pillow back. “It seems the human body affects you a great deal.”
“How do you know I never slept before?”
Even though Salaar was telling the truth, Myss couldn’t resist snapping at him.
“I prodded you at different times on purpose, and your reaction speed never changed.” Salaar tidied up the sheets and blanket. “Back then you never tired, or at least that was how you seemed.”
So this man had been studying him and had never stopped.
From Salaar’s standpoint it was not edifying research. It meant that from then until now, Salaar had been looking for a way to eliminate him.
Myss didn’t want to pursue the topic. He grimaced and took stock of his surroundings.
Last night Salaar had ridden at full speed. Myss’s backside was sore from the jolting, and his head was so sleepy he felt like dying. Once he dismounted, the ground still seemed to buck like a saddle, making him stagger along. His mind and body were in a state of semi-shutdown.
So the moment Myss found a bed, he fell onto it at once. Salaar seemed to have said something like “take off your shoes first,” but the words slid past his ears like the wind.
Now he was surprised to find himself in a cozy little cabin.
There were two single beds, each against a wall. His shoes had somehow slipped off by themselves and were neatly placed by the bed, and his coat was draped over the headboard.
The morning light was growing stronger and bathed the whole room in a bright golden glow. In the middle stood a small round table already set with fried eggs, hot milk, and oatmeal cookies.
Myss’s nose noticed them before his eyes did, and his stomach answered with an enthusiastic rumble.
“Pain, drowsiness, and hunger, you have experienced them all.”
Salaar spoke around a cookie held in his teeth. “It is a bit late to say this now… Welcome to the human world, Myss.”
Myss sat at the table without ceremony and grabbed a cookie. He stared at Salaar for a moment, then said suddenly, “So this is your plan?”
Salaar showed a politely puzzled look.
“You want me to empathize and see how pitiful humans are, maybe even develop some fondness for the human world, then go to my death willingly… or something like that.” Myss snapped the cookie in two with a crack as if it were Salaar’s skull.
Humans seem to love this kind of redemption script. At the very least, bards love it.
Salaar blinked, then burst out laughing, almost to the point of tears. Myss had never seen him laugh so hard.
“So you mean… ahem, sorry.”
Salaar coughed twice from laughing and wiped the corners of his eyes. “You mean I am begging you for mercy?”
Was he not? Myss stopped chewing.
“Good heavens, of course not.”
Salaar said it with his face still smiling, yet there it was devoid of laughter in his tone.
“I would never do that, Myss. Never.”
Myss watched him quietly. He suddenly remembered last night’s dream. For a brief instant Salaar seemed to turn back into that man who stood among the gravestones and looked up into the dark.
“…Very well,” Myss replied.
He lowered his eyes with a sigh, then noticed that Salaar had taken all the fried eggs from the plate.
Yes, Salaar wouldn’t beg for his pity, but he had better beg for his forgiveness. Myss bit the cookie with hatred and added another mark against him in his heart.
For a while the only sound in the room was the crunch of chewing.
While they ate, Myss took stock of his body.
Magic flowed through his new shell and methodically refashioned flesh. Given time, he could recover a little power.
This was a good sign. His magic was flowing freely, which meant his true body was intact. It still lay in the deepest dark and waited quietly for his return.
Myss ate while spacing out and suddenly bit into something dry and tough.
Oh, hair. He had been thinking too hard and had sent a strand of hair into his mouth along with the cookie.
To be honest, the long hair was a nuisance. It was nothing like the tentacles he once had and refused to obey him. Myss pinched the ends and kept gesturing, thinking about how to deal with it.
“Keep it,” Salaar said with interest as he watched. “Unless you can find a professional barber, for example me.”
“Right, having you stand behind me with scissors would be so reassuring,” Myss snorted.
Salaar brushed the crumbs from his hands. “No scissors needed.”
He walked behind Myss and gathered the hair with quick motions. Then he pulled off his cravat and tied the ends neatly. The whole process took less than half a minute.
“Done.” Salaar sat back down.
Without the cravat, his shirt collar sat slightly open and looked less formal.
Myss reached back to feel it. The top half of his hair still hung loose, while the lower half was loosely braided, the end tied with a cravat the color of lapis lazuli.
The hair did stop wandering, but the color of the cravat displeased Myss. It felt as if Salaar had marked him.
He suspected Salaar had done it on purpose. Taking it off now would look childish yet leaving it on was irritating.
Myss quickly talked himself around. Better to keep it than let the hair make trouble. It was behind him anyway and wouldn’t be in his line of sight.
Things went smoothly after breakfast.
Salaar sold the horse to other guests at the inn and switched with Myss to a carriage.
A caravan happened to be heading for the city of Rosha and had taken on quite a few passengers. According to them, they would reach Rosha before sunset today.
Salaar paid extra, and the two of them were assigned to the last, upscale carriage. The space was small but clean and quiet, with pretty good privacy.
Unfortunately, besides Myss and Salaar, there was one more person in the compartment.
A slightly suspicious person.
The author has something to say:
Their looks are finally locked in. ☆
Myss: feels like I got marked.
I support the Archdemon making one back.
Also, “Sweet Trap” is basically an over-the-top gag. We won’t actually do the content. In our canon we cannot accept single-gender reversal (…)
At most it is a pure hero seducing a Chaos Witch (♂).
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