Cassian lifted his head to look at Hiro with eyes that expressed a calibrated concern, fake but undetectable. She continued to hold him in her arms, her hands pressed against his back, feeling the warmth of his body through the torn fabric of his bloodied shirt.
"Are you okay?" Her voice was soft, almost fragile, each word chosen with care. "You're completely covered in injuries."
She was speaking without really thinking now, the words coming out spontaneously from her lips as if her body had taken control while her mind watched from afar with a kind of horrified detachment.
She took a step back, breaking the physical contact, and pointed at the multiple cuts that streaked across Hiro's torso and arms.
"The fight against the werewolf must have been really violent, really intense."
She let her eyes widen slightly, just enough to appear shocked.
"You need to go get treated quickly. The scratches you got are far too numerous, too deep."
Hiro was visibly a bit surprised that Cassian was so worried about him, his eyebrows lifting slightly as he looked at her with an almost touched expression. It was the first time he had seen her show this kind of direct concern for his well-being, and something in his gaze softened.
A faint smile slowly appeared on his lips, forming gradually like the sun rising on the horizon.
Despite all of Cassian's sulking, despite all her rejections and constant refusals, she really did care about him deep down. She was proving it now.
Cassian turned her head slightly toward Constantine, motionless, his breathing barely perceptible.
"He's in even worse shape than you." She looked at Hiro with what must have seemed like sincere confusion. "Was the werewolf really that strong? That dangerous?"
Hiro felt immediate relief spread through his chest like cool water. Cassian had misinterpreted the situation, exactly as he had hoped, exactly as he needed.
"It was a really tough clash, very difficult."
He nodded gravely, adopting the expression of someone who had barely survived a terrible ordeal. "The beast was exceptionally strong, far more than we could have imagined. Constantin and I had an enormous amount of trouble holding our own against him, but finally the monster fled a few minutes ago after realizing he was heading straight for his doom if he continued."
This bastard dares to lie. Cassian kept her face perfectly neutral while her rage boiled beneath the surface like lava under a fragile crust of rock.
She felt like insulting him, calling him a pathetic liar, watching him crawl at her feet and hearing him admit he deserved nothing of what he had, that he was just a dangerous psychopath playing the hero.
But she could do nothing about it, absolutely nothing, and this powerlessness was eating her up inside.
It was always hard to admit, even silently in her own head, but she depended on him.
No, it was more complex than that, more nuanced. She felt paradoxically reassured not to be Hiro's enemy, to be on his side, within his sphere of protection rather than outside where he apparently became a dangerous and ruthless predator.
It was really annoying, really frustrating to acknowledge this truth. He was the person she hated most in this world, the one whose very existence filled her with powerless rage, but she also desperately needed him.
If only things could be simpler, clearer.
In the end, being on the so-called good side wasn't so great either.
She suddenly thought, noticing with unpleasant clarity, that Hiro didn't really have any friends.
He was just constantly surrounded by damsels who endlessly flattered his ego, who looked at him with admiration.
She almost laughed at this observation, finding it almost funny in its absurdity, then realized with a jolt to her heart that she was precisely one of those damsels and that she was doing exactly as they did even if she pretended she was just faking it.
No matter if she was faking it in her head, no matter if she told herself it was just a temporary role, the end result remained identical.
She was flattering him. She was playing the game. She was boosting his ego. The more Cassian thought about it, the more she realized with horror that the trap was slowly closing around her, each passing day tightening the jaws a little more.
She had thought the battle to wage against this world would be more frontal, more direct, a clear struggle with identifiable enemies and precise objectives, but it was exactly the opposite.
Vicious. So vicious. A psychological war of attrition that was eroding her little by little, transforming her into something she didn't want to become.
"We should go back up now." Cassian broke the silence that was starting to stretch uncomfortably.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
She approached Constantine, leaning down to assess if he was transportable, then awkwardly tried to lift him under the armpits.
Hiro quickly approached.
"Leave him, I'll carry him instead of you." He gently pushed her aside and lifted Constantine.
---
At the surface, the cool night air hit Cassian like a welcome slap after the confined atmosphere of the underground tunnel.
Hiro emerged from the crater carrying Constantine over his shoulder, Cassian walking a few steps behind him.
Lena screamed in pure terror upon seeing Hiro appear like that, her piercing cry making several people in the street turn around.
"HIRO! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!"
She ran toward him, her wide eyes scanning the numerous wounds covering his body.
Lucia and Lena quickly approached, their faces showing different degrees of concern and shock. Lucia immediately began to chant, her hands glowing with a soft light while she asked in a calm but urgent voice: "What exactly happened? Why is Constantine unconscious?"
"It's nothing serious, really."
Hiro tried to reassure the girls with a smile that didn't completely mask his fatigue.
"We just had a difficult fight against the werewolf, but everything is fine now."
Lucia didn't respond, too focused on her work, her hands moving methodically over each wound, the golden light intensifying with every touch.
She treated Hiro first for several minutes, closing the deepest cuts, soothing the burns, restoring spent energy.
Then she turned to the still unconscious Constantine and repeated the process, her eyebrows furrowing slightly upon discovering the extent of the internal damage.
After finishing the treatment, Hiro adjusted Constantine on his shoulder. "I'll take him to his place so he can rest properly." He hesitated, realizing an obvious problem. "Only, I don't really know where Constantin actually lives in the guild. Does anyone know?"
"I know his apartment." Lucia nodded. "I'll come with you to show you the way."
---
They headed toward the guild's main building, entered through the large ornate doors, then climbed the stairs to the upper floors reserved for high-rank adventurers.
People they passed in the hallways stopped to look at Constantine with worried and sympathetic expressions, murmuring among themselves about how he must have fought valiantly to protect the city from the invaders.
After several minutes of navigating identical corridors, Hiro and Lucia finally found Constantine's apartment. Hiro unceremoniously rummaged through the pockets of Constantine's pants, finding a keyring which he used to unlock the door.
He entered first, still carrying Constantine, and set him down without much delicacy on a chair near the entrance.
Even with his head tilted and his body completely slumped like a puppet whose strings had been cut, Constantine's features remained perfectly harmonious, almost too beautiful to be real.
One might almost think he had positioned himself there on purpose, striking a studied pose for a tragic painting depicting a fallen hero.
Constantine's lodging was significantly more luxurious than theirs, with higher quality furniture, thick rugs, elegant decorations hanging on the walls.
"B-rank apartments are rather nice compared to ours." Hiro observed the space with a mix of appreciation and envy.
Lucia nodded in agreement while looking around her.
"It would still be better to put Constantine to bed in an actual bedroom rather than leaving him on a chair all night."
Hiro sighed, already tired of carrying Constantine around like a sack of potatoes.
He lifted him again and headed for the first door he saw, opening it without knocking or checking. He entered the bedroom, took three steps inside, then stopped so abruptly that Constantine slipped from his shoulder and fell to the floor with a dull thud.
The scene before him was so shocking that he remained completely frozen for several seconds.
Charlotte lay naked on a completely broken bed, the wooden frame fractured in several places, the mattress sagging, the sheets in absolute disarray.
But that wasn't the worst.
Looking more closely, involuntarily, his brain registering the details despite himself, he saw that she was wearing fake elf ears, and even in her unconscious state, the disguise was evident, intentional, disturbing.
Hiro immediately lifted his head toward the ceiling, staring at the wooden beams with an intensity that could have set them on fire, and breathed loudly through his nose, trying to control the wave of murderous rage rising in his chest.
"What's going on?" Lucia called from the hallway, having heard the sound of Constantine's fall.
When she entered the bedroom to see for herself, her cheeks instantly turned bright red, and she quickly turned away, stammering something incomprehensible.
Hiro, for his part, was trying to hold back his murderous impulses toward Constantine with all his remaining strength, his fists clenching and unclenching repeatedly, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth were grinding.
---
The next morning, the city of Veritas was slowly beginning to recover from the devastating attack the day before.
The last surviving kobolds had fled during the night, disappearing into the surrounding forests, pursued by a few groups of adventurers determined to eliminate them completely.
The streets were filled with people cleaning up debris, repairing damaged facades, transporting bodies to the temporary morgues.
Hiro stood before the guild's reception counter, quickly scanning the list of available quests with evident urgency.
Why this haste?
He was watching out of the corner of his eye the adventurers around him who were actively being encouraged, almost forced, to participate in the massive city reconstruction efforts.
He absolutely wanted to get the hell out of there before being forcibly enlisted in these endless chores.
Moreover, their group's apartment wasn't even really habitable anymore after the severe damage it had sustained during the attack. They could no longer reasonably reside there with the girls under these conditions.
Better to temporarily leave the city and come back later when they no longer desperately needed help from every available adventurer.
An employee at the reception confirmed the registration of the quest Hiro had selected.
Hiro exchanged a few polite and professional words, retrieved the official parchment, then quickly moved away before anyone could assign him anything else.
The quest consisted of exploring and mapping the mysterious tunnel that had appeared beneath the city.
Apparently, according to Veritas's official archives consulted urgently, the city had never had a tunnel or underground structure beneath its foundations.
No one even knew there was one until Constantine's attack accidentally exposed it.
---
A few hours later, when the sun reached its zenith, Hiro and the girls were descending a thick rope through the gaping hole leading to the underground tunnel.
Cassian, wanting to be different and demonstrate her unique abilities, chose to walk in the air, creating invisible platforms under her feet with each step, descending gracefully as if going down a perfectly normal staircase.
Once at the bottom, their feet finally touching the solid floor of the tunnel, Lena and Lucia turned to Cassian with surprised expressions.
"We didn't know you could do that!"
Lena pointed at the platforms that were already disappearing.
"That's really impressive!"
That was exactly what Cassian wanted to hear, exactly the reaction she was looking for.
Hiro also expressed his surprise, although he had already seen Cassian use this technique the day before in circumstances that hadn't been favorable for appreciation.
They suddenly heard a voice coming from further down the tunnel.
A man with a cart pulled by two sturdy horses was waiting for them, tapping his foot impatiently.
He quickly approached them and handed them the reins with a brusque gesture. "Here's your means of transport for the exploration. Don't damage it, especially because any possible repairs will be entirely your responsibility according to the standard rental contract."
He didn't wait for a response, immediately heading back to the rope to go back up to the surface.
Their group settled in and around the cart, distributing positions. Cassian was particularly glad they had a cart rather than having to do the whole trip on foot.
She would have poured out all her accumulated rage on Hiro if he had suggested walking for kilometers in this dark tunnel. She tried to wonder exactly how long this quest was going to take.
She imagined a few hours at best, maybe a full day, two days maximum if the tunnel was really long.
---
Two months later.
Cassian was sitting at the front of the cart, legs dangling in the void, observing the tunnel that continued endlessly before them with exactly the same appearance it had had from the very beginning.
Her face showed no emotion, completely blank, her eyes staring into the void with a dead intensity.
She slowly turned her head to her left to stare at Hiro who was mechanically controlling the reins, guiding the horses in their interminable progression.
He had a face just as blank as hers, the same dead eyes, the same expression of someone who had abandoned all hope.
"Let's turn back." Cassian uttered the words for the thousandth time already, maybe more, she had stopped counting long ago. Her voice was monotone, without any inflection.
Lena at the back of the cart automatically responded as she always did.
"We've gone way too far to turn back now. It would make no sense to waste all this travel time."
Cassian suddenly went crazy, all the frustration accumulated over two months exploding at once. She screamed her rage at the tunnel ceiling, her voice echoing and reverberating in the confined space.
"YOU ALWAYS SAY EXACTLY THE SAME THING! ALWAYS! EVERY DAY! THE SAME WORDS! THE SAME STUPID ARGUMENTS!"
She stood up abruptly, dangerously rocking the cart.
"I have no idea how long exactly we've been advancing endlessly in this fucking tunnel! A few days? Weeks? Months? Years maybe?! I don't know anymore and it's driving me completely crazy! CRAZY!"
