Chapter 37
"Hey."
"Yes. Please go ahead."
I glared at Baek Eunseong who answered briskly. Just because I shed a few tears earlier, Baek Eunseong's attitude had completely changed. It was to the point where I could feel him at a loss, constantly watching my mood.
While poking Baek Eunseong, who was avoiding my gaze, with Asil, I accidentally-on-purpose touched the dungeon core. At that, his eyes widened in surprise.
"Hunter Seong Dohyun!"
"What? Who told you to watch my mood?"
I faced Baek Eunseong with a shameless expression and raised my eyebrows.
How dare he pity me.
Baek Eunseong looked at me silently, then let out a laugh as if he couldn't believe it, before turning his gaze to the core that was starting to whip up a sandstorm.
"Let's get ready."
The sandstorm gradually began to intensify, and I pulled my hood deep over my head. Asil quickly wove fabric to block my front, but it wasn't enough. While Asil fluttered pitifully, Baek Eunseong's rock golem approached and blocked the sandstorm for me.
A moment later, after the sandstorm had somewhat subsided, what appeared was a pack of desert foxes.
I observed the magical beasts running around us. Smooth ivory fur, gleaming black eyes, a shiny nose. One fox that plopped down in front of me stopped grooming its whiskers with its front paw and looked at me, tilting its head.
For a moment, I couldn't move my body due to an indescribable cuteness.
"Snap out of it. No matter how cute their appearance is, they're magical beasts."
"...I know that. You be careful. Don't get cut by their claws."
Baek Eunseong scolded me with an expressionless face as he walked through the desert, and I shot back as if I wouldn't lose, brushing the sand off my clothes.
One fox that had been running away making "ki, kii" sounds shivered its body, perhaps not liking the sand that had splashed on it. Looking at its plump tail, I then lowered my gaze and took in the sharply gleaming claws.
Right, I shouldn't be fooled by that appearance. Those guys' claws are coated with deadly poison.
"Why aren't you attacking then? Going to ride the bus this time too?"
"Bus?"
At Baek Eunseong's voice asking back with a puzzled face, I realized anew that there was no such word in this world.
I waved my hand as if it was nothing and opened my skill window. Using 'Celestial Command,' I put the desert foxes to sleep as I answered.
"It means doing nothing and getting carried by other people."
"Ah."
When I said it dismissively, Baek Eunseong just smiled without saying anything.
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't come up with any particular reason why that guy was staying still. If I had to pick, it seemed like he was doing that because he cared about rankings... When the ranking tournament opens, everyone will be exposed anyway, so why is he acting like that?
I gathered the now-sleeping desert foxes in one place and waited for a while.
"What are you doing?"
"If you don't know, just stay quiet."
I recalled the knowledge I had obtained from perusing the 『Magical Beast Encyclopedia』 and waited for the foxes to wake up little by little.
"Kii?"
After some time passed, one fox muttered softly and opened its eyes. The first one to wake shook the other foxes around it awake, then soon hid its tail and curled its body into a round shape.
Like that, when one by one, all of them curled up roundly, the foxes gathered together and became a large mass of fur.
"Step back."
"You step back."
Sensing something unusual, Baek Eunseong gestured for me to retreat, but I swatted his hand away and focused my gaze on the fur mass. And the moment the undulating flow merged into one, tails began rising one by one from the fur mass.
"Kihihi!"
"It worked."
Smiling fiercely, I opened my skill window and attacked the desert foxes—no, the gumiho. Baek Eunseong seemed flustered for a moment, but soon calmly summoned his golem and began blocking the gumiho's movement path.
"The claws are coated with poison just the same, so be careful!"
After warning Baek Eunseong, I minimized the 'Day Words Night Words' skill as much as possible against the gumiho's growing laughter.
"Kyahahahaha!"
As expected, the gumiho's laughter burst out and I felt an ear-splitting resonance.
Baek Eunseong frowned in displeasure, but for me, whose hearing was more sensitive than others, it was on another level. My head rang to the point where my vision swam due to the chilling laughter. I staggered for a moment before biting my tongue to snap out of it.
I had already been hit by a bat once in front of this guy; I couldn't show myself being affected by the gumiho too.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
With my mouth hurting, I answered shortly and gazed at the gumiho curling its body. According to the 『Magical Beast Encyclopedia』, the gumiho's main attack techniques are divided into three types. Close-range attack is claw swinging, wide-range attack is howling sound wave, and long-range attack is fur spitting!
Sure enough, as soon as I and Baek Eunseong moved apart, the gumiho began spitting fur from its entire body. It was enough to create the illusion that snow was falling in the desert.
Soon after, due to the countless clumps of white fur flying about, my vision was completely covered in white.
* * *
"Hunter Seong Dohyun!"
Eunseong sent his golem to find Dohyun, then used his cloak as a shield to secure his field of vision. Each strand of fox fur was thicker than a finger, and the amount of fur being spewed out was so great that it was difficult to even distinguish what was right in front of his nose.
While on high alert, raising all his senses in case a fox suddenly approached from somewhere, a golem came staggering over, stepping on the piled-up fur, and pointed in a certain direction with a gesture.
"Is he over there?"
The golem nodded. Eunseong collected the golem, then chose an easier method than directly pushing through the fur to find Dohyun. When Eunseong flicked his hand, a giant hand of earth rose from the ground. Eunseong, who climbed onto the concave palm, drilled straight through the fur and burrowed underground.
"Now I can finally breathe a little."
Removing the fur stuck to his cloak, he wondered how far he had traveled. He rose above ground where he could sense Dohyun's presence. Creating a screen with the earthen hand and surveying the surroundings, he saw Dohyun sitting on the ground, covering his mouth and coughing.
"Hunter Seong Dohyun!"
Roughly dragging Dohyun, who was coughing incessantly, inside the screen, Eunseong clicked his tongue as he saw the blood running from the corner of his mouth. To be like this and claim he was fine—what part of this was fine? He definitely hadn't even touched the potion he'd been given.
It was when Eunseong, looking down at Dohyun with his jaw clenched tight, was rummaging through his bag with a sigh.
"Hey, take this off for me."
Dohyun, grabbing Eunseong's arm, stuck out his tongue slightly. On his bleeding tongue, a single strand of fine fur was stuck.
'Why doesn't he take it off himself?'
Thinking that, Eunseong's hand still moved toward Dohyun's tongue.
The closer he got, the more he found himself examining Dohyun's face as if observing it. How dense his eyelashes were, how white his skin was. Every time things he hadn't paid attention to before entered his eyes, he swallowed dry saliva.
On top of that, whether it was his imagination or not, a strangely sweet scent had been tickling the tip of his nose for a while now.
"Hunter Seong Dohyun, right now..."
"What?"
The moment he met the shining golden eyes, Eunseong lowered his eyelashes and slowly tilted his head. Then, startled by himself, he quickly pulled his head back. This wasn't right.
An inexplicable impulse was whispering in his ear, but forcefully ignoring it, he clenched his fist tightly. Something... he felt this wasn't the way. He didn't want to do it like this. It was the moment Eunseong came to his senses and stepped back.
"Ugh...!"
Dohyun instantly reached out his hand and grabbed Eunseong by the neck.
Just as he had done earlier, Dohyun approached with his jaw slightly twisted and his lips slightly parted, and everything seemed to move slowly. It was as if time had stopped.
Unable to take his eyes off the face that suddenly drew close, he hastily inhaled the moment their lips touched. A round bead passed between their touching lips.
Eunseong tore off the arm wrapped around the back of his neck and immediately spat out the bead in his mouth. Then he crushed the bead with his foot before urgently catching the staggering Dohyun.
His heart was beating so fast that he couldn't think of anything.
Fiddling with his lips that still held residual warmth, Eunseong slowly exhaled. For that very brief moment when their lips had touched, he wanted to feel that sensation again.
"Hunter Seong Dohyun."
Looking quietly at the unconscious Dohyun, he grabbed a potion bottle and poured the contents down in one go. This is nothing more or less than an action to save Dohyun from the fox poison, he reminded himself inwardly.
Then, closing his eyes, he cradled the back of Dohyun's head and pressed their lips together again. The moment their lips met, Eunseong threw away the bottle he was holding and pulled Dohyun's waist tightly. In the gap of slowly transferring the potion, their tongues became entangled.
He heard the sound of Dohyun swallowing the liquid with a gulp, but even after the potion he was holding was completely gone, he couldn't pull away.
"Mm..."
Eunseong finally separated his lips at the small whimper and the hand pushing against his chest. He swallowed dry saliva several times. His heartbeat sounded so loud, as if someone were beating a drum right beside his ear.
It was strange.
After slowly breathing with his hand covering his mouth for a moment, he caught Dohyun who was trying to open his eyes slightly and asked.
"Can I do it one more time?"
"Ugh, what..."
Whether he was intoxicated by poison or medicine, as soon as the slow answer came out, Eunseong took out a potion from his pocket and drank it again. Holding the liquid in his mouth and pressing their lips together, he felt Dohyun grab his forearm.
As fingertips weakly brushed past his thigh and slid up, goosebumps rose. The sound of swallowing the potion clicked in his ear. Eunseong squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his arms that were holding him.
When he felt Dohyun's breath between their touching lips, his body trembled as if he'd fallen into an icy lake, but when their tongues slightly touched, heat rose to the nape of his neck to the point of stiffness.
Eunseong desperately suppressed the impulse to press their lower bodies closer, and carefully separated his lips.
"...Hey."
A dry voice that was completely unlike his own heart that felt like it would burst, with not a trace of excitement or lust. Eunseong chewed on his lips that were thoroughly soaked with each other's saliva.
Given Seong Dohyun's usual personality, he wouldn't forgive him for kissing him, even if it was to save himself from poison. So he had braced himself for a punch to fly.
"If you could just do that a little more... mm!"
At Dohyun's following words, he couldn't help but lose his reason and lunge forward. He had clearly intended to kiss slowly and carefully, but it felt completely beyond his control. Eunseong wrapped the arm that Dohyun extended to push him away around the back of his own neck and plunged back into his mouth. The body heat transmitted through their pressed lips was hot.
'Just a little more...'
It was Dohyun who had asked for more, but it was this side that was desperately stirring as if craving something. Eunseong continued to entangle their tongues and dug deeper. Small gasps leaked out as if breathing was slightly insufficient, but he had no leisure to care about that.
How long had their tongues been entangled like that? A moment later, Eunseong pulled back his head with a slightly surprised expression at the feeling of something clicking against his front teeth.
"I'm sorry..."
Did I push too hard? As reason slightly returned and he worried whether their front teeth might have collided, he checked the inside of his mouth.
Between the lips reddened from repeated friction, something gleaming was visible. Eunseong inserted his finger and took it out.
"...Ha."
Confirming that what he held in his hand was yet another fox orb, he felt an unbearable rage for a moment. Because it was too pathetic that he had been played by a mere magical beast. Even knowing that the gumiho seduces its prey and passes on a fox orb, he had been so distracted by the kiss with Dohyun...
"Ha..."
Eunseong covered his lips, moist with saliva, with his hand and looked down at Dohyun, whose eyes were closed.
Surprisingly, what made him the most angry was none other than the fact that Dohyun hadn't wanted him of his own accord.