[CHAPTER 112]
As the distance between them closed, Mayna felt uncomfortable and leaned her head back.
Caliph did not move any closer and simply gazed quietly at Mayna’s face.
Silence passed between them for a while.
“Do you have something you want to say?”
When Mayna spoke with difficulty, Caliph let out a faint sigh before answering.
“I have a lot to say.”
The short reply came mixed with a dry, rasping chuckle.
As if hesitating between speaking and stopping himself, Caliph’s lips slowly closed.
His weary, languid gaze drifted from Mayna’s face to the empty wineglass.
The amber liquid pooled shallowly at the bottom of the glass reflected the flickering lamplight beneath it.
“When I heard from Biterion Parker that you would awaken soon.”
It was a topic he brought up with difficulty.
“Yes.”
Mayna replied softly and met Caliph’s eyes.
Caliph thought that her uniquely deep and calm gaze often felt as though it pierced straight through the skin and stabbed deep into the heart.
And so, like a single key, Mayna’s gaze unlocked the true feelings Caliph had tightly sealed away.
“I hated it. To the point of madness.”
“……”
“Just imagining you spending the rest of your life entering dungeons and crossing the line between life and death was horrifying.”
The confession flowed out with an eerily calm tone, disproportionate to its weight.
“I understand.”
Mayna nodded slowly and lowered her gaze.
Caliph’s hand, which had been resting on the tea table, lifted the empty glass.
Clink…
After silently turning the glass for a while, his movement suddenly stopped.
Clack—!
At the rough sound of the glass being set down, Mayna flinched and her shoulders trembled.
Spinning a glass idly and setting it back down was nothing special, yet Mayna knew.
She could feel that some unidentified emotion was boiling fiercely inside him.
It was something she could sense even through his fingertips.
“I hate that you’re in danger.”
“……”
“Well, that’s only natural.”
As if answering his own question, Caliph continued with a heavy breath.
“We’ve known each other a long time, and we were closest while working together. We even lived in the same house and saw each other morning and night.”
Caliph paused and slowly swept his gaze around the room.
While his eyes were turned away, Mayna let out the breath she had been holding in a long exhale.
She felt like she did not want to hear his words any longer.
It felt closer to an instinct telling her she should not listen further.
“Even if Curden suddenly awakened as an ability user one day, I would hate that too. No matter what, it’s frightening when the people I care about are put in danger.”
Had she ever heard the word frightening come from Caliph’s mouth before?
As he said, they had known each other for a long time and worked closely together, and Mayna often had to accept his raw, unfiltered emotions as they were poured out.
She had soothed his irritation and sharpness morning and night, and sometimes even became the target of his explosive venting.
Yet hearing his inner thoughts in such a calm manner was perhaps a first.
Even on the day she left Sir Renox’s castle, at the moment they exchanged farewells, he had seemed to withhold his very last true feelings.
Mayna, who had always tried to escape Caliph’s gaze, suddenly met his eyes without avoiding them.
His blue eyes had erased every trace of languor and were now shining sharply.
As if he had forgotten to blink, his gaze was fixed firmly on Mayna.
Caliph nodded once.
“Yes. Mayna.”
A faint, unreadable smile lingered at the corner of his lips as he quietly repeated her name.
“Either way, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What?”
“Who caused Sera to misunderstand things. Whether you and Banze betrayed me or not. None of that matters anymore.”
“That’s…”
What did he mean?
Why did it no longer matter, and then what did matter?
Just as Mayna was about to ask Caliph, she shut her lips tightly.
At some point, his hand had firmly cupped her entire face.
“I hate that you awakened, Mayna.”
“……”
“Just as much as I hate that you’re in danger, I hate it even more that you’ll end up mixing bodies with someone else.”
Strength gradually built at the tips of the fingers holding her face.
As if he were barely suppressing a vivid desire.
As if he were pouring all his strength into not crossing the line.
“At the dungeon in the Hiscarn trade port, when you and I rolled down beneath the sand dune together.”
“……”
“Biterion came to save you.”
“……”
“That was fortunate. You were safe, so I should have let my heart go.”
“……”
“That’s what should have happened.”
Caliph’s face twisted painfully as he recalled that urgent moment from days ago.
Just looking at him made Mayna feel as though she had been dragged back to that very instant.
She hallucinated sandstorms raging from all sides and the roars of monsters echoing around her.
Caliph’s arms, which had wrapped around her as he threw himself with her beneath the endless sand dune in a moment of desperation.
His deep eyes as he calmly asked whether she thought she could climb back up.
The moment he handed her over to Biterion, who had come down to rescue her belatedly.
Caliph’s hands that had clutched her shoulders as if unwilling to let go, only to finally release her in the end.
Just like now.
His fingertips, clearly straining with all their might to restrain a desire, a truth of the heart.
“But it wasn’t like that.”
“……”
“Biterion came to save you, so I should have focused on the battle with peace of mind, but I couldn’t.”
Thud…
It felt like her heart dropped straight down.
She felt as though she absolutely should not hear any more of his words.
“I don’t want to hear this anymore.”
“Rather than watching Biterion take you away right in front of my eyes, I thought it would be better to die with you beneath that sand dune. Even if only for a moment.”
“Sir Lenox.”
Mayna tried desperately to stop Caliph’s mouth with a trembling voice.
Heavy breaths spilled through Caliph’s clenched teeth.
His body leaned closer toward Mayna.
Scrape—!
The tea table scraped against the floor as it was pushed aside.
The wine bottle and glass on top of it shook dangerously, as if about to fall.
“I can’t be like this. If my judgment dulls inside a dungeon, not only I but every guild member will meet a meaningless death.”
“……”
“But Mayna.”
“……”
“When you’re in front of me, I can’t make proper judgments at all.”
As if declaring his defeat at last, Caliph said the words.
The rigid line of his mouth loosened for an instant, and a hollow laugh slipped between his lips.
“So, Mayna.”
Caliph’s hand, which had been holding her face, dropped away limply.
“After this dungeon, you’re out of the training.”
“Sir Lenox…!”
“Leave Hiscarn and return to Ashirius.”
Mayna shook her head, pleading.
But Caliph was resolute, as though he had already made up his mind.
