By Zephyria 
I returned to the room with Aska. Aska, who was drenched in sweat from training in the training arena, went straight into the bathroom as soon as we arrived. While Aska was showering, I examined the wooden sword lying on the sofa.
It was indeed the wooden sword I had given Aska for his birthday last year. He used to break wooden swords in the training arena almost every day, so I thought this one would also break soon, but it didn’t even have a scratch.
It was made sturdier than the standard ones in the training arena, but I never expected him to carry it around for so long.
“…….”
Aska basically cherished everything I gave him. He wouldn’t even let me, the person who gave the gift, touch it carelessly.
At first, I was just proud, but as time went on, I felt strange. It was the same with him always giving me half of anything delicious he ate. It was a bit annoying, but I was more impressed, but gradually my feelings were changing strangely.
The reason I was reluctant to talk about his height was because I thought of Aska as a pet. It’s true that he’s cute and pretty, but that doesn’t mean the owner wants to mate with their dog.
He was still stubborn, but he rarely hit me or got annoyed anymore. His tone was still brusque, but when you looked closely, most of his words were based on affection.
Even when he was so ill-mannered as a child, I never really got angry with Aska, so how could I now?
“…….”
Thinking about that, I suddenly had a strange urge to smash the wooden sword I was holding. Then, of course, Aska would get very angry, right?
“…….”
But he still wouldn’t be disappointed in me. He would just grumble a bit and then ask me to buy him a new one.
“Haa…….”
“Why do you keep sighing like that?”
I only sighed once, I think.
I said to myself and turned my head to see Aska approaching, dripping water. He didn’t come out naked like he used to when he was a child, but he still didn’t dry himself properly.
Aska dropped the fluffy towel he was holding on my lap and sat next to me. Most of the bath products were unscented, but a pleasant fragrance wafted over.
“Why have you been sighing so much lately? Every time I see you, you’re just sighing.”
“…….”
Aska frowned, wondering what he didn’t like. I stared at his wet face and sighed again.
“Why do you keep sighing?”
“Haa.”
I fiddled with the fluffy towel that had fallen haphazardly on my lap. Aska was sitting close enough to touch shoulders, waiting for an answer.
My heart was heavy, and I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t even know why my heart was like this.
Sometimes, whenever Aska seemed too affectionate or close, an indescribable discomfort and a little fear washed over me. The discomfort was one thing, but what was the fear?
The inexplicable phenomenon continued to drive me into a corner. That’s why I kept sighing whenever I had a chance.
“What’s wrong?”
Aska, who had been waiting patiently, finally couldn’t stand it and asked again. I didn’t have anything to say, so I wiped Aska’s wet hair with the towel.
I deliberately shook his head back and forth, making a fuss so that Aska couldn’t say anything, and moved my hands. Every time the cold, soft hair hit the back of my hand, I wanted to grab it, but as always, I held back.
Aska’s hair had grown quite a bit as time passed. When he first came here, it was a bob that didn’t reach his shoulders, but now it was past his shoulders, about medium length.
He usually tied it up in the training arena, which looked like a small animal’s tail, which was funny. No matter how tightly he tied it, it would come loose quickly because it was too soft, and Aska would cut his hair with a knife by himself until I caught him a few times.
I don’t know how long it will last, but anyway, I wanted to see him with long hair, so I kept dissuading him.
I was imagining his long, white hair fluttering in the wind when Aska, who had been still, suddenly grabbed my wrist. Red eyes glared at me through his disheveled hair.
I could tell what Aska was going to do without him having to say anything. Because he had done this countless times before…
Sure enough, Aska stood up from the sofa, grabbed my shoulders with both hands, and lowered his head.
“…….”
“…….”
Lately, this had also become awkward. Aska still wasn’t fully healed, so he did this whenever he had a chance, but I wasn’t really in bad shape, so it was even more so.
But last year, I didn’t trust him and used magic, which caused me to vomit blood, so I couldn’t say anything.
Aska was the only one who could treat me like this, so I couldn’t ask anyone else. So, in the end, I didn’t really have a reason to refuse until Aska said I was fully healed.
“…….”
It seemed like the time was getting longer and longer…
I was still feeling bad because our lips were still touching. The reason was that Aska was trying so hard to grow taller because he wanted to do ‘it’ ever since he found out about mating.
The act of touching lips and contacting mucous membranes was actually a major part of mating, so I couldn’t help but be suspicious. I couldn’t tell if he really had no ulterior motives other than treatment.
I was thinking about that with a serious expression when Aska finally seemed to be done and lifted his head, touching my lower abdomen. I asked, just in case,
“Are you all better?”
“Almost? You’re a bit reckless, so I’m trying to fix you up as strong as possible. You wouldn’t know, since you’re annoyed every day…”
What didn’t he like this time? Aska grumbled, showing his displeasure.
“Reckless?”
When I frowned, Aska sighed and shook his head.
“Whatever, I fix you up and you still complain…”
I was about to tell him not to swear, but I closed my mouth because Aska didn’t seem to be in a good mood.
Just a moment ago, I was reluctant when Aska got close or approached, but I didn’t like him being so irritable either.
I didn’t like this and I didn’t like that, so why was my heart like this? I couldn’t help but swear.
“Haa…….”
When I sighed, Aska, who had been frowning and looking away, turned his head towards me.
“Why do you keep sighing?”
“Aska.”
“What.”
I was about to sigh again, but I barely swallowed it and said with all my heart.
“I really want to tell you, but I don’t even know my own heart.”
“What are you talking about?”
“So… anyway, sit down. I have something to show you.”
At my words, Aska still sat down on the sofa with a scowl on his face. I touched Aska’s half-dried hair with my hand, tidied it to one side, and brought a small box.
“What is it?”
Without telling Aska, who was asking with a puzzled expression, I opened the lid of the box. Inside was a necklace with a round gold medal.
“Do you know what it is?”
I asked, just in case, and Aska took the necklace, examined it carefully for a while, and shook his head.
“I don’t know. Why? What is this?”
“Do you remember me saying that I was going to explore the Ruins a while ago?”
At my question, Aska nodded.
“You said you were going to send people to a few places first, right?”
“Yeah, but they couldn’t go inside. Most of them died, and only a few managed to come back alive with this and some parchment that needed to be deciphered.”
In the meantime, Mahir and I had tried everything to find out about Aska’s identity, but we couldn’t get any information. Then, we discovered Ruins related to monsters in various places, which were said to have been built long before Actan was established.
It wasn’t a discovery, but rather, we knew of their existence but weren’t interested in them. All non-human races were called monsters, but most of them had already become extinct a long time ago, so there were hardly any scholars studying them.
Occasionally, they were studied by Wizards because they were the basis for new magic, but the number of Wizards was too small to obtain meaningful information.
So, we recently started looking at the Ruins that had been neglected for a long time again. There was no information about Aska anywhere else, so it was an unavoidable choice.
“People died?”
Aska asked with a surprised expression. I hadn’t expected this either, so I nodded with a heavy heart.
“Was there a trap or something?”
“That too… They said a statue suddenly moved.”
“A statue?”
Most of the few surviving explorers had gone insane. They were unable to have a proper conversation, but one of them barely regained his sanity and found out some information.
“They went down to the basement for a long time and found an artificially made structure and a large cavity. While they were looking around, a large statue suddenly moved, and it looked like a horned beast, and it had wings, but it didn’t look like a bird…”
“What is it? A monster?”
Aska tilted his head as he listened to me.
I hadn’t seen it myself, so I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like it.
“Anyway, most of the Ruins are just empty or severely damaged, but that’s the only place where such a strange phenomenon occurred. Do you feel anything strange about the necklace?”
Aska seemed to be able to sense things that ordinary people couldn’t, so I brought it just in case. Just like he sensed the abnormality in my body that the Wizards didn’t know about, I thought he might find something in the necklace, but Aska shook his head.
“I don’t feel anything strange.”
“You don’t?”
Aska nodded at my question.
I picked up a piece of paper and drew the location of the statue and the box containing the necklace as I had heard. The five circles represented the statues, and the box in the center was represented by a square.
“The location is unique.”
I agreed with that. If you connected the statues in a line, they formed an inverted pentagon. So it was as if the statues were protecting the box.