Chapter 71. Stop Provoking Me
“I blew it away with the wind.”
“Really? So you timed it with the gust and broke the mechanism?”
When Cryer shook his head, Olivia tilted hers, confused.
“Then what?”
“I struck it with my sword.”
“…What?”
“I swung my sword to stir up wind and blew it away.”
Cryer fell silent, but Olivia’s mouth dropped open.
With a sword? He created enough wind to blow away the spreading incense? Easier said than done. To disperse a scent carried into the air, at the very least it would take a blast strong enough to whip someone’s hair around violently.
What kind of human could make a gale, not by exhaling or waving their hand, but by swinging a sword…
Her thoughts reached that point, and Olivia nodded to herself.
If it was Cryer, it was possible. No—if there was anyone in the world who could do anything with a sword alone, it was him.
“I see.”
When Olivia, having sorted out her thoughts, sincerely accepted it, Cryer gave her a lingering look but said nothing more.
After several deep breaths, Olivia pressed her swollen eyes with her fingers.
It was a small relief, she supposed, that she hadn’t cried on top of everything else. If she had, she probably would’ve fainted by now.
Even without tears, after being caught in that cruel trap, panicking, and thrashing about, all the strength had left her body. She felt limp and exhausted.
She tapped her legs, which wouldn’t obey her, and sighed.
If a trap this vicious had been set, then surely there was something here worth hiding. They couldn’t just turn back now…
Eventually, she stretched out her arms toward Cryer.
Just minutes ago she’d pushed him away with all her might, yet now that she needed him, she couldn’t bring herself to say, Carry me. Her lips stayed tightly sealed.
Whether he understood her feelings or pretended not to notice, Cryer said nothing and simply picked her up.
Flustered by the rush of embarrassment, Olivia wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed tightly, but to him it felt no different than a warm puffball brushing against his throat.
The silence between them was the most awkward since they’d first met. Then Olivia’s small voice broke through.
“…I’m not afraid of you.”
She blurted it out, her tone stuffed with emotion.
There was the shame of having fought him off earlier in a panic.
The guilt of tearing up his arm.
The worry that even though he’d sworn by things he hadn’t done, Cryer might think she didn’t trust him.
But that wasn’t it.
She did trust him. She trusted his vow.
It was just—damn that trap! Whoever set it up, she’d grind them to dust. No, they were probably long dead already. Then she’d at least find their corpse and—
Her murderous thoughts were cut short by a low voice against her ear.
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
The voice was familiar, but the depth and roughness of it sent chills down her back. Olivia flinched before she realized it.
Startled by her own reaction, she quickly released his neck and shouted, flustered:
“I-It’s not because I was scared! It’s because I liked it too much!”
The silence that followed gnawed at her nerves.
Cryer even stopped walking, gently set her down, and covered his face with a hand, making it impossible to read his expression.
She was too busy worrying that he might misunderstand—again—that she feared him, to notice why he was really silent.
“…What?”
When he finally spoke again, Olivia seized the chance and babbled in a rush.
“Your voice! Sometimes your voice flows like… like rich, sticky chocolate. I love it! I really do, but sometimes it’s so good it startles m—mmph?!”
Cryer suddenly pinned her skirt with one hand and used the other to cover her chattering lips.
Confused, Olivia grabbed his hand to pull it away, only for his throat to bob violently and a low growl to escape him.
Realizing something was off, Olivia froze, wide-eyed.
She was like a delicate blue petal trembling above a surging, blood-red tide—about to be swept under and torn apart.
“…Stop provoking me.”
His voice scraped like metal, rough and dangerous, as he pressed the words out.
Slowly, he shifted his gaze from her eyes down to her lips, which brushed against his palm.
“Unless you’re doing it on purpose.”
At last, Olivia’s belated awareness kicked in, and her face went crimson. She shook her head frantically, muffling protests against his hand.
“I know. I know you didn’t mean it that way.”
His words said one thing, but his eyes said something else entirely.
They looked like a beast, staring at prey that had bared its soft belly, wondering how best to devour it.
When Olivia swallowed hard under that gaze, Cryer pressed his lips to his own hand—right where her lips were.
Though he hadn’t kissed her directly, his weighty, faintly chilling scent flooded her senses, and Olivia’s mind went blank.
Why was her heart racing as though it would burst from her chest?
Why did her mouth go dry, her fingertips tingle?
A second passed like a thousand years before his dark eyes receded and his hand left her lips.
Yet Olivia remained frozen, unable to move.
Her mind screamed to say something, anything to break the unbearable tension, but her body refused to obey.
Cryer straightened slowly, looking down at her.
His face was cast in shadow by the backlight, and only then did Olivia manage to breathe again.
What just happened? Why? Why?!
Her head swarmed with questions, but what could she ask? He hadn’t even kissed her directly—he’d only pressed his lips to his own hand.
Still, wasn’t that clearly a kiss? Even a passing monkey would call it a kiss!
“What are you thinking about now? What’s in that tiny head of yours?”
His sigh tickled her forehead as he leaned close again, and Olivia yelped:
“Y-You’re the one who’s too—!”
Too close, too close! She shrieked inwardly, shielding her face with both hands to avoid his piercing stare.
“Me? I’m too what?”
When he pressed, she muttered, voice as faint as an ant’s footsteps:
“…Too provocative.”
Her words brushed against his chest more than his ears, and Cryer squeezed his eyes shut, wrestling down the surge of desire.
The silence that followed was heavy, smothering them both.
At last, Olivia peeked at him through her fingers and cleared her throat.
It was unbearably awkward, but they couldn’t sit here forever. She shoved the chaos in her head to the side.
They were comrades. He himself had said so. Whatever had just happened—she’d bury it. Some things had no answer, no matter how hard you thought about them.
What mattered was the task at hand.
She shut her eyes, shook her head hard, and smacked her cheeks with a loud slap!
Cryer instinctively reached out to stop her, but she spoke first.
“Anyway, let’s…”
She tilted her head at his hand, then continued:
“…move.”
Carried in his arms once more, Olivia glanced around restlessly until a thought struck her.
“Wait, where are we even going right now?”
A fair question, though she hadn’t had the presence of mind to ask earlier.
“Since we found a trap, it’s certain something is hidden in this park.”
“Right.”
“So I’m searching for somewhere that’s been overlooked until now, or something that blends in without being noticed.”
Olivia nodded eagerly.
“Yes. Something people pass without thinking… like—”
She trailed off when Cryer suddenly stopped and turned his gaze toward something.
“Like that?”
“Yes, something old and broken like that statue—huh?”
Realizing what he meant, Olivia smacked his shoulder.
“There! Let’s go there.”
It was in her line of sight too—a weathered statue, so battered by time that its shape was barely recognizable.
They stopped before it, neglected and crumbling.
“Let’s check this fir—”
—Grrrk.
Before she could finish, Cryer tapped part of the statue. A low rumble vibrated through the ground, followed by the sound of something opening a few steps away.
Both of them snapped their heads in that direction.
The next instant, Cryer kicked off the ground toward the sound.
