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Chapter 171

Speaking of which, just imagining Ellen hissing seemed kind of cute...

Of course, Ellen’s demeanor in the Dark Land had been far from cute. In fact, she had been impressive. She had incredible charisma, spoke way more than usual, and everything she said had been spot on.

She was almost back to her usual self now; cool and collected.

Her sensitive behavior in the Dark Land was the complete opposite of her usual self.

Now that she was back in the safe environment of the Temple, she was returning to her original state.

Of course, it still wasn’t easy for us to have conversations like we did before. We still worked out together in the early mornings and trained together in the training grounds, but it felt like we were just performing assigned tasks.

It wasn’t awkward, but it was just hard to know how to strike up a conversation. We ended up having short, curt conversations instead.

Normally, I would joke around or tease her, and Ellen would respond sulkily or eventually get annoyed, but that wasn’t happening right now.

Even when we made something to eat at night, I would make it on my own, and Ellen would eat it quietly.

It wasn’t that we felt uncomfortable with each other. In fact, she seemed perfectly comfortable with me. It was just that our minds were filled with topics we did not want to discuss, so nothing was said.

It was just that kind of typical lunchtime.

There were only three first-year Class A students left in the Temple: Adelia, Ellen and me.

Adelia had been extremely worried when we first returned, so much so that she was nearly in tears. Of course, I had always found her difficult to deal with, and it was the same with Ellen.

We didn’t tell her what had happened in the Dark Land, and only mentioned that the protection bracelet she’d made had been a great help. In fact, when Ellen cut off Snoden’s arm the first time, she had activated the protection bracelet so that she could catch hold of the sword, so it truly had been useful.

I still hadn’t used mine yet, though, so I still wore it just in case.

“Um... Are you really not going to tell me what happened?” Adelia asked, seemingly not convinced by our claim that nothing had happened.

“I told you, nothing happened.”

“Oh! S-Sorry! I-I shouldn’t have asked so much...” she stammered apologetically, startled by my rather sharp response.

‘Why does she always treat me like I am continuously angry when I am not? How annoying of her.

‘Oh... I get why now.’

“...”

Of course, Ellen paid no attention and ate quietly, gazing with her hollow eyes.

It was clear that she wasn’t getting proper sleep.

***

Bang!

“Ugh!”

I was flung backward. I rolled several times across the floor of the training grounds, and then got up unsteadily.

“Hey... are you seriously trying to kill me?”

“It was a mistake. Sorry.”

Regardless of the various issues plaguing us, we were still sparring as usual on the training grounds, and Ellen was being much rougher than usual.

Ellen adjusted her grip on her practice sword and pointed it at me.

“Let’s go again.”

“...”

Ellen rushed towards me, swinging her sword downward.

Instead of blocking, I sidestepped, aiming to avoid the attack entirely and counter with a strike to her neck.

Thud!

“Ugh!”

As I tried to pivot to the side, she anticipated my move and took my legs out from under me.

Thud!

Ultimately, I lost my balance and fell. She pointed her sword at me as I lay on the ground.

“... Are you really trying to break one of my bones or something...?”

Ellen hadn’t performed a simple trip; she had intentionally targeted my ankle. It stung so much that getting up was incredibly difficult.

“...”

Ellen looked down at me and then grabbed my hand to help me up.

Although my skills were incomparable to before, and I had even reinforced my body with my supernatural powers, I was still no match for Ellen, who wasn’t even using Mana Reinforcement.

While I grew stronger, Ellen also continued to improve. I was trying to catch up, but she was always a step ahead.

Though I was continually getting beaten, every blow I received was making me improve in ways I didn’t even realize.

“Let’s go again.”

Ellen raised her sword again, and this time I took the initiative and moved forward with a thrust.

Clang

!

Instead of deflecting my sword, she struck the side of it as it came at her.

“Ugh!”

I didn’t lose my grip like before, but the trajectory of my sword twisted sharply, leaving my chest exposed. Ellen deflected my sword and simultaneously thrust her training sword into my abdomen.

Thud!

“Ugh!”

The blunt tip of the training sword struck my abdomen forcefully, causing me to collapse immediately.

She didn’t stop the sword blow that should have been stopped...

“Are you okay? I’m sorry...”

Ellen, seemingly startled, knelt down in front of me, examining my condition.

“Hey... It seems like you can’t control your strength...”

Her eyes were hollow, and she looked incredibly exhausted.

If she was truly tired and worn out, she might lose to me, but because she couldn’t control her strength at all, she had become even more rough than usual.

‘If we continue like this, I might end up getting seriously injured by accident.’

“...”

“Let’s call it a day.”

“... Yeah. I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

“Don’t worry about it. These things happen.”

“...”

I staggered a little as I slowly got up.

Normally, I would have just gone to rest, but I had to go see the duty priest.

At this rate, I might actually end up seriously hurt.

***

Ellen stared blankly at the gate to the training grounds, where Reinhart had taken his leave.

She woke up about five or six times the night before because she hadn’t been able to sleep properly.

Since Ellen has a good memory, the faces of the people she killed would come to her mind just before she fell asleep. She remembered the horrific forms of zombies, the shapes of their innards, and how their flesh and blood dripped and splattered as she slaughtered them.

She was tormented by these horrible memories as she struggled to fall asleep, and when she finally managed to fall asleep, those images would materialize in her dreams as well.

There was no way she could sleep properly.

The faces of the people she’d killed, the ghastly appearance of the zombies that had risen from the dead—they flitted through her dreams, causing her to wake up drenched in cold sweat as if she had been having a seizure.

‘Reinhart must be going through the same thing. I don’t want to keep having these nightmares. I don’t want to fall asleep plagued by such horrifying images any longer. None of this happened in the Dark Land. In fact, in the Dark Land, I didn’t have nightmares at all.’

Ellen knew something else too.

Lately, she hadn’t been able to have any real conversations with Reinhart.

It was like they’d been exchanging questions and answers, rather than having a proper conversation.

Single words exchanged here and there without any actual follow-up were not real conversations.

She wished he would say something to her, but she did not want to pry into what he was struggling with because that was something she didn’t want to talk about either.

Before that, though...

Ellen realized a more fundamental problem: the decline in their conversations wasn’t due to a change on Ellen’s part.

Reinhart, who always initiated conversations first, had become quieter.

She has always been the silent one, both in the past and now. Whether her mind was clear or full of complications, she was always silent.

The current lack of conversation was because Reinhart couldn’t find anything to say.

‘Always... always... He’s always the one who starts the conversation.’

Every conversation always began with Reinhart speaking.

Although her responses were always short answers like “yes” or “no,” despite her terse replies, Reinhart relentlessly kept the conversation going.

He would always continue to talk about something, anything, even when she did not respond. Be it nonsense, ramblings, or whatever.

Reinhart always kept the conversation alive, as if he was expecting her to eventually respond. He was always persistent, saying this and that.

Now that Reinhart had stopped talking, their conversations had dried up.

Ellen realized for the first time how passively she had been behaving. She stood there blankly in the training yard for a long while.

***

Ellen had shut herself in her room and did not come out.

Even without Ellen, I continued my training routine. Practicing my form and my swordsmanship against the training dummy had become quite familiar to me.

Besides, I had always done physical training alone anyway.

That night, after finishing my evening training, I cooked something for myself since Ellen wasn’t around, washed up, and went to bed.

Knock, Knock.

However, just before I fell asleep, someone knocked on my door.

Who could it be? There were no curfews in the dorm, and since it was vacation, the dorm supervisors didn’t patrol.

‘Could it be Sarkegar? He visited once before, disguised as a maid, so it’s not entirely impossible.’

However, when I opened the door, it was someone unexpected.

“... What brings you here at this hour?”

Standing there in her pajamas was Ellen.

Entering each other’s dorm rooms at night was, of course, not allowed. However, it was summer break, and the dorm supervisor’s surveillance was generally lax.

Although it was against the rules, as long as we didn’t get caught, it would be fine.

Without waiting for my invitation, Ellen stepped briskly into my room.

There wasn’t anything embarrassing in my room that I needed to hide, so her sudden entry didn’t bother me.

But then, she did something utterly unexpected.

She lay down on my bed.

“... What are you doing?”

“I’m going to sleep here.”

“... What?”

My brain momentarily froze.

‘What is she saying? Maybe she’s lost her mind? Is it an aftereffect of what happened in the Dark Land?’

Ellen stared at me intently.

“I’ve been having nightmares lately.”

“So?”

I could easily see from the dark circles under her eyes that her restless sleep was adversely affecting her. I was experiencing the same thing too.

‘But what does having nightmares have to do with sleeping in my room?’

“I didn’t have nightmares when I was with you.”

‘Hence, I’m going to sleep here with you.’ That was what she meant.

“No matter how lax the dorm supervisors are during vacation, it’s still possible that we could get caught. What if that happens?”

Ellen, lying down with her head on my pillow, shook her head.

I realized that I wasn’t saying “no”, but rather asking what we would do if we got caught, which wasn’t quite right either.

“I don’t care.”

She was basically saying, “If we get caught, so what?”

True, the probability of being caught by a dorm supervisor was very low...

“Also, why didn’t you ask for my permission in the first place?”

“Previously, you didn’t mind us sleeping together.”

Was she saying, “We’ve already done it once, why not do it again?”

She clearly wouldn’t get up even if I tried to force her to.

‘I understand that we’ve become more comfortable with each other... but are we really this close? That she’s okay coming into a guy’s room and casually saying that she’s going to sleep here?’

“... If we get caught, I’m going to say you forced your way in and that I couldn’t kick you out because you were too strong.”

“Okay.”

Ellen, who was giving off the “do whatever you want” vibe, pulled the blanket over herself and prepared to go to sleep.

‘What is this? Did the various things we had to do in the Dark Land somehow make Ellen immune to any normal reaction to this kind of bizarre action?’

“If we did it in the Dark Land, why can’t we do it here?”

That had to be what she was thinking...

“Move over.”

Whack!

In any case, I turned off the light and pushed Ellen towards the wall with my foot before lying down on the bed. There was more than one pillow, so that wasn’t an issue, but there was only one blanket.

Ellen turned to face me, staring at me intently, her face illuminated in the faint moonlight.

‘Why is she staring? What does she want?’

“Do you have nightmares?” she asked.

“... Yeah.”

‘Honestly, nightmares right now would be preferable, because at least that would mean that I’m getting some sleep, and not being confronted by this ridiculous situation.’

Ellen looked at me for a moment.

“Sorry,” she said suddenly.

“What are you suddenly apologizing for?”

Ellen looked at me with sad eyes. “For bringing you to a place like that...”

The horrible memories from that place haunted us in the form of nightmares, and it seemed she felt guilty about it. Going to the Dark Land had become a bad memory for both of us.

It was only now, long after our return, and in this strange and awkward situation, that we could even bring up that place.

“I’m the one who said we should go in the first place,” I replied.

Ellen had agreed not to go when I’d initially discouraged her from going, so it was actually me who had urged her to go, despite her hesitation.

“If I hadn’t brought it up... you wouldn’t have thought of going there,” Ellen retorted. She seemed to believe that her initial suggestion led me to eventually think about going to the Dark Land, and that it was ultimately her fault.

“Then let’s just say we both made mistakes.”

She hesitated for a bit. “Okay.”

I had been prepared to face whatever it was that was going to confront us in that place. Ellen had been as well. Even though what we encountered exceeded our wildest imaginations, we hadn’t exactly gone there expecting to write vibrant and beautiful stories.

We had decided to take it on and experience it, and now, all that was left was to overcome it.

“I... I’ve been thinking.”

It seemed Ellen still had more to say.

“What?”

“About us, not talking at all lately.”

It seemed Ellen was also troubled by the fact that we hadn’t had a real conversation in a while.

“It’s been hard for me because you haven’t been saying anything,” she continued. “I want us to talk about something, anything. I want to sort out my thoughts, but you haven’t been talking at all... And I realized something.”

“...”

There was a hint of guilt in Ellen’s eyes.

“You always, always start the conversations.”

Now that I thought about it, she was right. I was always the one who initiated conversations with Ellen. Whether it was suggesting that we eat or exercise, making small talk, or even starting an argument, it was always me who instigated it.

Not every conversation was like that, but in most cases, I was the one to start the dialogue. Even if she responded brusquely, I kept at it, grumbling or whatever, continuing to ramble on.

Ellen was not the type to talk much, nor was she the type to initiate a conversation, and so most of her replies were brief. It was hard to hold a long conversation with her, even when things were normal.

While she’d been pondering why I hadn’t been initiating conversations, she had come to the realization that she was always just waiting for the conversation to come to her, and making no effort to start it herself.

Ellen quietly reached out and held my hand under the blanket.

“Sorry, Reinhart. For everything... up until now, I haven’t made any effort at all.”

So, Ellen had come to me in the middle of the night, unexpectedly, to make things right.

Unlike before, she was now attempting to initiate the conversation herself.

I paused for a moment. “There’s nothing for you to apologize for. I like talking, and you’ve always been indifferent no matter what I say, which actually makes it easier for me.”

I wasn’t just saying that out of awkwardness; it was true. Ellen never paid attention to the rumors or what people thought of me in the class. She didn’t care if I was labeled a troublemaker or anything else, and simply had zero interest in those things.

Because of that, her reactions to whatever I said were always minimal, and I could say anything around her without much consequence.

Ellen’s passive attitude made it easy for me to be myself without having to make any significant effort, since I’d always been someone used to spouting a lot of nonsense.

A very silent person, and someone who carries on about anything...

In a way, our personalities just clicked.

My words drew a small smile from Ellen. It was painful to see her smile like that in the moonlight.

‘You’re going to wake me up completely, you know?’

Ellen closed her eyes while still holding my hand.

“Good night.”

‘Yeah, sure. I probably won’t have any nightmares now.

‘More importantly, though, I should be worrying about whether I’ll even be able to fall asleep.’

***

The next day...

Smack!

“Ow! What the?!”

I woke up with a start thanks to sudden pain in my head.

“...”

When I looked up, I saw Ellen with her hair all messed up, glaring at me coldly through half-open eyes.

“What the heck! Why did you suddenly hit me on the head while I was sleeping?!”

“... Don’t touch weird places.”

“... T-Touch...? M-Me?!”

“Yes.”

“Where—Where did I touch?!”

“... Do you really want me to say it?”

“... No.”

I could muster no response in the face of Ellen’s icy stare.

Sensing that another wrong word could get me beaten up this time, I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut.