Ch.66XX Tina (11)

# XX Tina (11)

I had been harboring heat all along.

Overwhelmed by an uncontrollable warmth, I refused to look around.

I want to possess it.

Only that thought circled in my head, and when I came to my senses, I could see myself swept away by that impulse.

Tina understood.

The name La•Pa had called her. What she had simply thought was a mistake.

He had called her that because he truly wanted to make her that way.

Tanha.

Meaning thirst for love.

A child of non-liberation, meaning one who is obsessed with the desires of the five passions and seven emotions.

“I, I…”

Fortunately, Melody had survived, but it couldn’t be said that everyone was safe.

Among the scholars sprawled in the hallway were people Tina knew.

People who had chosen not to pursue her to the end.

The death of someone close.

No matter how consumed by greed Tina was, she couldn’t cover her eyes to such a tragedy.

Grind!

Tina gritted her teeth.

Sparks flew between her teeth, sharpened by dragon blood.

“Lady Tina.”

“Melody…”

Tina approached Melody who had collapsed. She pretended to be fine, but she had lost a lot of blood. At this rate, she wouldn’t last long.

Then why did she put on such a brave front?

Because she had lingering attachments to life? Or because she was confident she would survive?

Tina might be an oblivious fool, but she could understand why Melody was putting on this brave front now.

“Just keep going. We’ll rest a bit and then escape. You shouldn’t fight that thing. It was… it was a monster.”

“Yeah… we were planning to do that anyway. Don’t worry.”

“That’s a relief then.”

Tina declared while holding Melody’s hand. She had originally planned to escape. She thought Esmeralda would be good at escaping.

But…

‘I really don’t listen, do I?’

When told to escape, she found she couldn’t.

She could now restrain the greed that had consumed her like a blazing fire.

What a deficient person she was.

The kind who only comes to her senses after seeing such painful sights.

Tina laid Melody, who had been slumped against the wall, down properly, then turned to Lug with a relieved expression.

“Lug.”

“Yes, Lady Tina.”

“Sorry, but I need to go back.”

“I see. I think I’m finally seeing the Lady Tina I like. I’ll specially put you back on my list of people I like.”

“No, this guy really has some insane baseless confidence. Where does that confidence even come from?”

“Well… maybe my face?”

“…When you say that, I have nothing to say. You don’t live up to that face.”

Tina looked at Lug with half-closed eyes. It was a face that could confidently claim to be handsome, but…

‘His eyes are so cloudy.’

That murky gaze ruined it.

It wasn’t this bad before, so how did it get like this?

As Tina scrutinized Lug’s appearance, she found herself still attracted to him despite everything and smiled wryly.

“Lug, you stay here.”

“…Pardon?”

“You’d just be luggage if you came along anyway. Ah, I’m talking about actual luggage, not your name.”

“I understand without explanation.”

“You might get confused.”

Mostly me.

Lug looked at Tina as if dumbfounded. He seemed to understand why she wanted to go alone.

“So I’d be inconvenient for you.”

“…I don’t know when I might go berserk again. It’s better if we’re apart when I come to my senses.”

“I understand.”

“Let me tell you in advance, don’t think about running away.”

Lug flinched and said:

“…Of course not.”

“Your answer is slow, Lug. Even if you don’t like it, listen because I’m saying this for your own good. Unless you want to become a skewer by wandering around alone and getting caught in a trap.”

“Haha, I won’t run away. I’ll wait here.”

“You look like you’re thinking about running… No, seriously, it’s dangerous.”

“Haha, I understand perfectly.”

Tina sighed deeply, seeing that Lug didn’t seem like he would listen no matter what.

Still, her intuition wasn’t bad, so she felt Lug wouldn’t get seriously hurt. At most, he might end up caught in some binding trap somewhere.

This should be fine.

‘No, is it bad to be overconfident? I didn’t know about La•Pa right away either.’

She had never felt anything bad about what La•Pa had fed her.

Come to think of it, La•Pa had known about her intuition from the beginning, so it wouldn’t be strange if he had prepared countermeasures.

Of course, the cloudy-eyed Lug in front of her didn’t seem like he would possess such an absurd ability.

‘Well, he’ll learn to be careful after getting hurt once.’

Tina didn’t think Lug was hiding anything.

Unlike someone somewhere, she trusted her companions.

“Then wait here.”

In the end, Tina had no choice but to leave Lug behind. She couldn’t take him with her in her current state.

She had already betrayed her companions once. She didn’t want to do it again.

If her companions got hurt because her greed ruined things, how much would she regret it?

“Ah, Lady Tina.”

“Yes?”

It was when Tina turned around at Lug’s voice calling her back.

The moment she turned, Lug’s hands grabbed her chest.

“…What are you doing?”

“It’s my way of cheering you on.”

Tina was so dumbfounded she couldn’t speak.

Did it really not matter how small they were as long as they were breasts?

Did he just like all of them?

Tina felt secretly pleased but couldn’t help feeling shame at being sexually harassed.

“Huff…”

Slap!

Tina knocked away Lug’s hands.

She wanted to slap his face, but considering what she had done, she restrained herself to just pushing his hands away.

It didn’t feel that bad anyway.

Of course, that didn’t mean it was something to just let slide.

“…I think it’s better to take these things step by step.”

After all, she was just a girl suffering from her first love.

For a girl’s sensibilities, steps were quite important.

“But didn’t you say earlier you’d let me do anything?”

“No, that… I wasn’t in my right mind then. You know that.”

“Then you’re in your right mind now.”

“No, I mean…”

“Don’t forget that state of mind.”

“…Are you under the delusion that you’re saying something profound?”

Tina couldn’t hide her bewilderment at Lug’s gentle smile.

What was it? Why was he making a face like he’d said something good?

What he had done was just sexual harassment. It was just satisfying his sexual desire without any lesson or warning.

Or was he saying if she didn’t want to be harassed again, she should keep her mind straight?

“Well then, go save the heroes. I’m sure they all need your help right now.”

“…Alright, I got it. And don’t act like this with other people, okay? I’m letting it slide, but someone else might swing a sword at you.”

“Don’t worry. I know how to make that distinction.”

“No, someone who knows how to make that distinction wouldn’t… nevermind.”

Tina felt that talking further would only tire her mouth, so she turned around again and headed back the way she came.

As Tina, who had been noisily chattering with Lug, disappeared, silence fell over the ruin’s corridor.

“…What was that just now?”

Breaking that silence was Melody, who was enduring pain while breathing heavily.

She still hadn’t fainted. Despite both Lug and Tina assuming she had closed her eyes, she had been holding on without losing consciousness.

“What did you do to Lady Tina…”

Tina seemed not to have seen it as she turned around, but Melody was different.

She had been able to watch the entire process of what Lug did to Tina.

That Lug’s hands had been engulfed in blue flames for a moment.

And those flame-wrapped hands, as soon as they touched Tina’s body, flared up and extinguished as if burning something.

“As you can see, Lady Tina was not in a normal state.”

“…Are you saying Lady Tina is strange?”

“You wouldn’t deny it, would you? With horns, wings, and a tail, how could she look normal?”

“…True, but it doesn’t matter. At this point, whether Lady Tina is a dragon race or whatever, the Lady Tina I know is someone who helps us kindly.”

“Lady Tina is loved. That’s good.”

“…So? What was that just now?”

“Hmm… that’s right. The greed that confuses her. No, a bit different? It would be more correct to say I reclaimed what should have been mine originally.”

Lug looked at Melody with a gentle smile.

Melody felt somehow drawn to Lug’s appearance.

His once cloudy eyes now held blue sacred flames, making them look intelligent, and his pathetic expression was gone, replaced by a confident one.

Yes, with a face like that, it was worth evaluating.

While feeling the unfairness of the world, Melody doubted.

‘Is this really the same person?’

The gap between his seemingly stupid appearance earlier and his current sage-like appearance was quite large.

It was then, as Melody was carefully observing Lug.

Lug was looking down at his hand. Was he recalling what he had extracted from Tina?

“…Certainly bigger is more… no, but the texture was surprisingly soft… in a way this is…”

Seeing this, Melody was convinced.

‘He is the same person after all.’

Lug had simply gone from being a stupid pervert to a wise pervert.

“Ah, it seems they’re coming. Well then, Melody, rest a bit.”

“What…?”

Melody blinked in confusion at Lug’s words. It didn’t take long to understand what he meant.

The sound of footsteps from the far end of the corridor.

Melody could tell someone had come here from the sound of what seemed to be a woman’s heels.

“Wait! Who exactly…”

“Sometimes it’s better not to know.”

Blue Blood

Six Realms Manifestation – Heavenly Realm

[Six Desire Heavens: Four Kings Heaven]

Melody fainted before finishing her sentence. Her expression was as peaceful as if she had fallen asleep in a warm blanket.

No, not just Melody.

Everyone still alive and breathing here suddenly stabilized their labored breathing.

Injuries that had been near-fatal all disappeared. And everyone fell asleep as if having sweet dreams.

“You’re still so kind-hearted. Won’t you run out of karma by healing so many people?”

Right after a burst of blue flames engulfed the corridor and disappeared.

As the sound of heels approaching from beyond the corridor stopped, a woman’s sultry voice was heard.

“That’s not for you to judge. By the way, appearing before me like this means you’re admitting that everything until now was according to your will, correct?”

Lug glared at the figure that appeared from the far end of the corridor.

The only being toward whom Lug, who had produced blue flames, showed clear hostility.

The one with countless names who had likely manipulated the plan to infiltrate Lug into the hero party and had also tampered with the hero party itself.

Tenma.

Non-liberation.

Takejizaiten-ō.

Angra Mainyu.

The red dragon of the apocalypse.

Satan.

And…

The being who held the title of the first Demon King and Heavenly God.

“Mara-papiyas.”

Dragon King, La•Pa.