Even after such a long ti had passed, he was still angry.
If he confronted him now, he would surely be crushed like an ant pressed by a finger.
Then what was the best thod? Running away.
He grabbed Eibon's hand and ran without looking back.
Sure enough, the chilling sound of sand pouring down could be heard right behind them.
Eibon shouted in confusion.
"Yesung, what is all this?! Why are we suddenly running away?!"
"I'll explain later, so hurry!"
When he shouted, Eibon seed to think she didn't understand either and began running while carrying him.
He couldn't understand how she could lift him up repeatedly when he wasn't exactly light,
But right now it didn't matter since Eibon could run faster than him.
Eibon muttered breathlessly with her breath caught in her throat.
"[The wind that blows freely, even hearing its sound, one knows not where it cos from or where it goes - thus are all things that are born.]"
As soon as Eibon's incantation ended, he felt a sensation of his body becoming lighter.
Eibon, lightened like a mountain rabbit fleeing from a predator,
Ran refreshingly covering a distance of about five or six steps in one stride and shouted.
"Bite your tongue! Clench your teeth!"
"Did you just use magic- ugh!"
He shouldn't have spoken!
His mouth filled with the tallic taste of blood. Yet he was too afraid of biting his tongue again to say anything.
Thanks to Eibon's quick judgnt, the sand that had been rushing in like a tsunami was gradually getting farther away.
Even after completely leaving the village, they ran for a long ti,
And only stopped when they returned to where Aphoom-Zhah was resting.
Eibon wiped her dripping sweat and set him down.
"What on earth was that?"
"That was."
"Wait a mont, Yesung. Since I've cast magic anyway, I should check how the village is doing."
"You're going back?"
Since Yurik had seen him, Eibon might also be in danger if she caught Yurik's eye.
But Eibon grabbed his shoulder and spoke seriously.
"I have to go back. Yesung said so, that if I beco a mage I mustn't harm other people, and also..."
"...Use that power for good places if possible. I rember. Yes, go ahead. But you can't get hurt. And you can't do dangerous things either."
"I'll just spy and co back. Of course, if I have to fight, I'd have to bring the Lord."
Eibon promised and then returned the way they ca with her magically lightened body.
He watched her quickly disappear from view with an anxious heart and sat down on the grass.
Blood kept flowing from where he had bitten his tongue, giving it a tallic taste.
Swallowing it made him feel nauseous, so he looked around for sowhere to spit,
When suddenly white cloth appeared from beside him.
Wow. He could spit here.
Without much thought, he put his mouth to the cloth, spat out the blood he had been holding, then pressed it against his tongue.
With his mouth feeling much more refreshed, he was thinking he should thank Aphoom-Zhah,
When he wondered if Aphoom-Zhah was the type to do such things for him...
Following his gaze along the cloth his mouth had touched,
There was Yurik kneeling on one knee, staring intently at him.
The cloth he had dirtied with blood was even the hem of Yurik's cloak.
He sat there calmly, savoring the emotion of being 'screwed' with composure.
He didn't know how to explain it, but in all the monts he had regressed until now, he had never felt this 'screwed.'
Even right after regressing because things hadn't worked out properly, he had only said things like 'Shit!' or 'This is driving crazy,'
He had never seriously thought he was 'screwed.'
But at this mont, he was definitely screwed. If he said even one wrong word, Yurik might blow his head off.
So what he chose was silence.
Unable to remove the cloak hem from his mouth, he remained still while glancing sideways at the spreading blood, not moving at all.
Yurik was the sa. His round eyes like red glass marbles were fixed on him and wouldn't move.
After what felt like an eternity, Yurik spoke first.
"...When you said 'I'll be back,' how long did you an it would take to 'co back'?"
Had he said such things?
When he tried to rember, it seed like he really had said it, but he couldn't recall.
Actually, he hadn't even counted how many years had passed since leaving the desert.
Many things had happened, and within that, calculating the ti that had passed while counting each day was too...
Much. The days he had lived were too many.
He had vaguely thought a few years had passed, maybe a few thousand years, and would be surprised when Aphoom-Zhah occasionally told him the ti, thinking 'Has it already been that long?'
When he couldn't say anything, Yurik asked again.
"Do you know how long it's been?"
He shook his head.
A hint of disappointnt briefly crossed Yurik's face.
But as if that was only his illusion, his face soon returned to normal.
"Why didn't you co?"
"There were many things..."
"What was so much? Besides taking one man and one woman and running away to hide, did you have other things to do?"
"Idra..."
"I heard that creature's avatars decreased. So it was your doing."
"Snake people..."
"You also visited the ruins of Yoth. Discovering that was coincidental."
Did Yurik have experience as a dental hygienist or sothing?
How could he understand all this?
When the talk of snake-people and Yoth ca up, his eyes softened slightly.
He pulled his cloak, and the cloth that slipped from his hand fell, covered in blood.
Yurik extended his hand to him.
"Let's go together."
"R-right now?"
"I'm your family."
Was that so? He didn't think so. Yurik unconditionally made him stand up despite his confusion.
Holding his strangely cold hand and being half-dragged, he asked.
"Where are we going?"
"Anywhere."
"What are we going to do?"
"Anything is fine."
"Don't you have work you're doing?"
"I did. Now that I've t Yesung, it's okay. It doesn't matter."
"But I-"
"You, what?"
Yurik stopped. Sohow his head felt foggy and he let the remaining words slip away.
"I have soone to et."
"...That black-haired woman?"
"No. There was soone else. That's why I kept traveling around, but this place seems dangerous, so until then I have to keep watching over..."
His words got tangled up.
He had to et Leandros, but that was in the very distant future, and until then he had to stop the strange beings invading this planet.
Wait, co to think of it, wasn't there soone else besides Leandros?
■■■ or sothing, ■■■ or sothing, ■■■■■■■■■■ was ■■■ so it must be deleted ■ like ■■■■■...
A few steps ahead, Yurik said.
"You said we were family."
From childhood, he had always been a smiling face in front of him.
When they t as adults, he had been expressionless, but still often showed lively words and actions toward him.
But the Yurik standing right in front looked like a cold, inorganic mass.
Hard, solid, and seemingly having lost all vitality.
"Even if we're not family, it's fine. You said you'd stay together. I let you go once, and I've been paying the price for that foolish action for over 30 million years."
"That's."
"I collected and followed every trace you left without missing a single one. And the mont I was thinking I should give up, you appeared. I thought you were finally coming back this ti. Wasn't that it?"
"That's not it, Yurik."
"Why?"
He didn't look human.
Yet only his voice was wounded and bleeding drop by drop.
"Why?"
Yurik asked again.
But he didn't have the authority to explain the reason.
Yurik didn't know about the tis he had crossed.
He didn't know about the contract he had made with Hastur, or even the na of one person existing behind the stage.
Therefore, he wouldn't understand the longing he was placing on Leandros alone.
What he could give him was,
"I'm sorry."
Only an apology filled with as much sincerity as possible.
Yurik's face gradually distorted. Blood vessels stood out on his rigidly tensed jawline.
"Don't think everything will be settled with just one word of apology!"
The mont Yurik shouted, sothing made a 'swoosh' sound and quickly passed behind his head.
His platinum hair swaying lightly ca next.
A thin red line was drawn near his cheekbone.
"Let go of Yesung's hand."
A calm voice commanded.
Yurik didn't even look back and stared directly at him, hissing through his teeth.
"Co with ."
"If you don't let go, next ti it will hit exactly in the center of your head."
"Yesung!"
"I'll warn you one last ti to let go!"
The strength slowly drained from Yurik's hand.
Eibon called to him from behind Yurik.
"Yesung. Co here. Behind ."
"But Eibon. Wait a mont."
"Quickly!"
What was all this about?
But since Eibon was also seriously tense, he had to listen to one of them.
Yurik had bloodshot eyes and seed difficult to have a normal conversation with,
So he had no choice but to sneak behind Eibon while watching Yurik's mood.
She hid him safely as if she were his guardian and slowly stepped backward.
Yurik remained standing still with his back turned.
Eibon spoke sharply.
"I don't know your exact identity, but I've scattered all the sand you were controlling, so it will take quite a while for it to gather. Don't get any strange ideas and leave us alone."
"Yesung, are you serious? Going to that woman is your answer?"
No, it wasn't like that. He had only hoped he would calm down a bit.
But the mont he tried to open his mouth, Eibon firmly stepped on his pinky toe with her heel.
"Don't answer."
Eibon whispered. Only then did Yurik slowly turn around.
The appearance of suppressing his rising anger from before was gone, and he looked at Eibon with a gloomy, sunken face.
"You are."
"My na is Eibon. I'm a mage of Theem'dra, and the first mage to exist in this world."
"...Mage. A mage, you say."
Yurik stared intently at Eibon, then turned his gaze to him.
"You copied my Arahans. Did you feed her your blood? It wasn't a bad thod. It was worth enduring and staying in Shambhala grudgingly. Even though it was a desert you didn't like."
"Yurik, that's not it."
"When I took you to Shambhala, you must have felt terrible. You must have been glad you could at least pick up the thod of making Arahans. No, maybe you hated that it was who pulled you out of the black mud in the first place. Because the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes was , whom you so wanted to abandon."
"I said that's not it."
"I wonder how you endured staying with in the Elder Things' city. Ah... I see. I understand without you having to say it. You always left behind and went elsewhere. Your specialty was deceiving with lies and running away as soon as I was reassured. I think I could understand even if you hated ."
Yurik laughed.
It was mockery he had never shown him.
"Am I terrible?"
"Yurik!"
"You're a complete human, but I, who was a failure and slave of the Elder Things, was terrible, wasn't I? Did I seem stupid like an incomplete creature? So you pitied , but since I kept clinging like this, you got annoyed and disgusted and eventually ran away."
Each word was like a well-sharpened blade.
But the sharp words were devices ant to wound Yurik himself, not him.
The idea of Yurik mutilating himself was sothing he had never even imagined, so he was flustered and reflexively stepped forward.
"That's not,"
"I don't know what kind of relationship you and Yesung had. But if you threaten Yesung, you'll have to get past ."
Eibon answered in a rigid tone.
He couldn't predict who would win if Yurik and she fought.
Eibon was Aphoom-Zhah's direct disciple, and Yurik was qualified to be the only villain who could destroy this world.
As soon as her words ended, even the mockery disappeared from Yurik's face.
What remained was only emptiness and futility.
He answered chanically.
"You've... raised a good dog. Yesung. It's like looking at my past self. I'm curious how long this dog will last."
"Eibon isn't a dog."
"Right. I was a dog to you."
Sothing brushed past his feet.
Grains of sand had arrived from the village to here and were slowly surrounding Yurik.
Just before being completely buried in sand,
Yurik spat out.
"I really you-"
The sand that had been wrapping around him was suddenly scattered and disappeared by a strong wind.
He hid under the cloak with Eibon from the stinging strong wind,
Then poked his head out after the surroundings cald down.
Yurik was no longer there.
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