HEO 21

=======

Wolf looked up at the cave opening. The light scattered chaotically. It looked like white feathers pouring out all at once from a pillow with a torn corner.

“That fight that day was nothing more than a stroke of luck. I’ve never fought anyone in my life. I haven’t learned any martial arts, and I just killed time during the combat training I started this year.”

“You’re being too humble, Wolf. I’ve watched many martial arts matches between first-class knights at the court, so I know how to tell the real deal from a fake. Besides, didn’t you say you exercised every day?”

“That’s because I’m a bakery apprentice. You can’t do kitchen work without physical strength. These calluses are from kneading flour dough.”

Wolf held out both hands. Red Eagle seemed to have lost his words and could no longer speak.

“Back then, I just used some tips I happened to overhear. A fighter famous as a legend of the back alleys is a neighborhood hyung of mine. Whenever that hyung told his tales of bravery, the boys would gather around him in crowds, and I was one of them. The hero novels sold in the back alleys couldn’t compare to his stories; on days I overheard his tales, my heart would race so much I couldn’t sleep at night.”

Even when fights broke out at school, Wolf always played the role of the spectator. He had never once stepped forward as a protagonist. Wolf Bell was always Passerby 1.

“They say people exhibit superhuman strength when they’re desperate. My friend Roy told me that his mother, who is as tiny as a chick, once scooped him up and ran all the way to the hospital.”

“When?”

“I think… he said he was seven…”

“Wolf, I… Ah, I don’t know how to put this…”

Red Eagle ruffled his hair wildly with both hands.

“Wolf, your words don’t sound like lies. But there is a world of difference—like a pole and a stick—between a mother running to the hospital with her sick son and an ordinary bakery apprentice skillfully fighting against warriors. I can’t understand how that precise posture was just luck. It makes no sense.”

“You seem quite surprised. To be fair, I was surprised then too.”

That was true. He hadn’t been able to dwell on it because he was so flustered at the time, but back then, Wolf had been beyond surprised; he was aghast. In that brief moment when the opponent thrust their spear toward him, a neighborhood hyung’s tale of bravery popped into his head. His eyes swiftly captured the opponent’s movement.

Simultaneously, the 17th illustration from the Stohl Heteromorph Anatomy Chart that he had secretly peeked at in a back-alley bookstore overlapped with the opponent. The full body of a Stohl warrior, drawn with only the muscle bundles in red. A single line of explanation beneath it: ‘If the shoulder girdle collapses, the line of center of gravity shifts forward of the toes, and the pelvis and knees twist in succession.’ His body moved first. Wolf stepped forward and drove his elbow in sharply.

The more he recalled that experience, the more Wolf felt a sense of dissonance within himself. A body that selected the most appropriate fighting style for the situation like a perfect recipe, and executed it precisely as if taking bread out of an oven on time. As a result, the opponent’s face caved in. Like a lump of flour dough struck down by a fist. From start to finish, as Red Eagle said, it was something that ‘made no sense.’

Damn, my head hurts. Let’s stop thinking about it.

Wolf stood up, letting his shoulders slump.

“Anyway, Prince, please keep it a secret from Silver that I can’t fight.”

“Huh?”

Red Eagle flinched and looked up.

“Sorry, Wolf. I was just dazed by what you said. Right, I should keep this a secret from Silver.”

“Yes, he’s a risk factor. Given his personality, if he finds out my real fighting skill, he’ll lose interest in me immediately.”

Suddenly, a sharp pain, as if raw flesh were being torn by a sickle, surged through him. Wolf clutched his chest with one hand.

Ah. Was it because of this?

The reason he was overwhelmed by miserable and sad emotions the moment he realized why Silver liked him. Because Wolf Bell was not the ‘warrior’ that Silver liked. Because he was nothing more than a common bakery apprentice, as ordinary as ivy. Because if Silver knew the truth, he would lose interest.

He felt he understood a bit of how Red Eagle felt when he was bewildered by the claim that Wolf couldn’t fight. That feeling one gets when a phenomenon that is hard to understand with common sense suddenly appears before one’s eyes. It was beyond absurd; it was desolate. In Wolf’s common sense, this experience he was currently having was the thing that made no sense. To think that his heart could ache this much just because he might lose the interest of a peer.

Why, why? Even the male protagonist in the novel written by the boarding house uncle didn’t suffer this much when the woman he had long loved married his arch-rival. That guy at least had a long history; I’ve only known Silver for a few days.

Am I crazy? Or could I possibly be under some magic?

Wolf caught his breath and looked back at the gray sky. Even assuming it was flat ground, the distance to the cave opening was far enough that a candle would have shrunk by the width of a fingernail by the time he walked there. If he climbed the cave wall, it would take even longer. And yet, Silver had arrived in an instant, as if running through an alleyway…

Wolf realized once again the difference between himself and Silver. He was the floor of a cave where sunlight merely pooled. Silver was the sun that blasted light in all directions. They were ruthlessly and completely different. The only thing they had in common was a name.

Swallowing his sense of futility, he trudged toward the cave wall. As he absentmindedly stroked the wall with his hand, Wolf narrowed his eyes. Huh?

This…?

Touching it directly, the wall was quite bumpy. The texture was rough, like sandpaper. Wolf placed his foot on a protrusion. It was wide enough that he didn’t have to worry about slipping.

‘It’s not dangerous.’

Silver’s brief reply brushed past his ears. Wolf swallowed as he felt his way along the cave wall. Indeed… it wasn’t dangerous.

I might be able to do this?

‘I once had a test of courage. We placed a very narrow plank between two three-story buildings and walked across it. Oh, you ask what happened? If I had screamed and fallen down then, I wouldn’t be able to act all high and mighty against those dim-witted kids here now.’

The neighborhood hyung’s voice continued in his ears. Wolf listened as if possessed.

‘I told you fighting is all about guts, right? Anyone can walk on a straight line drawn on flat ground. It’s the same. When I walked on that plank, I simply imagined that I was walking on flat ground.’

Imagine…

Wolf scanned the cave wall from the bottom up. He got the hang of it.

“W-Wolf?!”

Red Eagle gasped as Wolf suddenly began climbing the cave wall.

“What are you doing! It’s dangerous!”

“It’s not dangerous.”

“What are you talking about! Get down right now!”

“Prince, on the ship heading to Stohl, you used the top bunk. The one you climb up with a ladder.”

“I told you to get down!”

“This is just like that ladder. Only much longer.”

The sensation at his fingertips no longer felt like rock. Wolf stared at the sun hanging in the gray sky and climbed persistently. It would be difficult to reach the cave opening from the start. Today, he would adapt his body by repeating the process of climbing a certain distance and coming back down several times. If he imagined he was climbing up and down a somewhat long ladder, it wasn’t difficult at all.

“Wolf… why are you doing this?”

Red Eagle’s voice now sounded quite distant. Wolf grit his teeth as he moved his feet. Why?

I don’t know. Neither do I.

The reason wasn’t something he was curious about, nor was it important. Although he had always watched from the position of a spectator, Wolf had witnessed countless peers who fell for reckless and dangerous pranks with no purpose. Right now, he just wanted to run frantically toward the sun.

* * *

“Grandma!”

Black Weasel flung the door open violently. A white-haired elderly woman, who was flipping through a book at an old desk in the corner of the room, frowned.

“It’s been half a year? If the door breaks, I’ll patch it with your hide.”

“Thanks for the lovely greeting.”

Books were piled up not only in the closets but all over the floor. Black Weasel had to kick several piles of books while approaching the desk.

“Take it.”

As he slammed a chest onto the desk, the old woman closed her book.

“I’ll gladly take it, but… how is your young master?”

“The same.”

Answering curtly, Black Weasel glared at the old woman.

“My investment isn’t free. How much progress has been made in half a year?”

“Two dissections of female mutants performed. They were essentially mock surgeries. Rare cases of twin sisters in their early twenties. A double suicide due to despair over their circumstances.”

“Is that all? That means you still haven’t even touched a scalpel to the spruce tree.”

“Damn it, you know as well as I do! Mutant corpses are hard to secure. Especially male mutants!”

22 – Hell Execution Order