Chapter 236. The Immortal (4)
"Run away — to where?"
Enoch, still seated at the desk, turned to face April. Her sensual, cat-like eyes, along with their ruddy color, locked briefly with his.
For a while, propped on her chin, April just kept watching him.
"……Well?"
As he kept silently receiving her steady gaze without giving any answer, she suddenly burst into a light little "ahaha," laughter and began patting his shoulder with the palm of her hand.
"Ahaha, see?! I was just joking! A joke~!"
"I feel like I heard the same joke before."
"Was it? Hmm, even so, I didn't think you'd take it seriously~? I think back then it was something I just blurted out."
April smiled bashfully and tilted her cheek, still resting on her hand. She grinned at Enoch's face.
"Ahaha. Seeing your stone face like this always cracks me up♪"
April, seemingly in better spirits, smiled brightly and began poking Enoch's cheek with her fingertips. Every time her smooth touch landed against him, a strange feeling rose within him.
When his eyes abruptly met her beautiful gaze, Enoch's heart skipped and he turned his face slightly away from her.
"I felt this before, but — don't you have any sense of personal space?"
"Hmm? Ahaha, really? I'm not so sure~."
She kept staring at him as she lay there, narrowing her eyes in an almost impish way.
"Besides, with as little as your face changes, seeing you flustered like this is super funny. Don't you think so, Direct Lineage~?"
Enoch kept his arms crossed and let April play her pranks, then let out a small sigh.
"Well. Honestly, I don't really know, but you just want to tease me while the chance is here, don't you?"
"Aww, teasing — no, that's not it!"
April widened her eyes as if she hadn't thought he'd take it that way, then chuckled.
"Surprisingly, it's reassuring, you know? Seeing you, Direct Lineage, sitting here all gloomy instead of mingling with other people! I don't really like things too noisy either."
"……"
Gloomy, huh — Enoch nearly gave a wry smile at that. Then again, that must be how he came across from the outside.
Watching with a sour gaze as she tried to climb up onto his head the moment he left her be, Enoch simply sighed and turned his gaze forward again without a word.
"I don't know why, but if seeing me gloomy really put you in a better mood, I don't mind. Still, if there was something you wanted to say, say it to the end. I'll listen."
"Huh? Something to say? Me?"
"Yes."
Looking at April as she tilted her head, Enoch said,
"Aside from being in a better mood — saying 'let's run away' this time didn't feel like a joke."
"Huh? What…?"
April's shoulders stiffened slightly, and after a moment her fingers fell away from his cheek.
She was visibly far more flustered than usual. Enoch calmly faced her.
"I clearly remember when you said 'let's run away' to me before. It's just a sense, but now, the intent behind it seems different. Am I wrong?"
"I……"
For a moment, April couldn't answer anything, and just stared at him vacantly with a hesitant expression.
But soon, as though she'd been caught in her true feelings, she lowered her lashes and turned her gaze to the side.
"Ahaha, found me out. It's true……. That's my real feeling……"
Watching April as she hesitated, looking like someone embarrassed making a confession, Enoch quietly said,
"If you have worries or something you want to say, I'll listen."
"R, really? That's unexpected! I didn't think I'd hear an offer to listen to me from my client……"
April, still lying there, lowered her head slightly before Enoch. Her bangs cast a faint shadow over her expression.
Then she pulled a cushion from the sofa beside her into her arms, hesitated for a moment, and quietly spoke in a somewhat darkened voice.
"……Honestly, yes. It feels like my spirit's going to break."
"……"
"Before, the other freelancers were with us, and I thought we could fight back well enough. But the situation around us has changed too drastically."
With moisture gathering in her eyes, her voice slightly trembling, April continued softly,
"Even those freelancers like Damastes — stronger than me and far more battle-experienced, whom I didn't exactly like — all of them…… ended up that way."
Perhaps suddenly recalling the scene at the morgue, April trailed off. Hugging her slender arm, she glanced up at Enoch briefly, then lowered her gaze again with slightly dimmed eyes.
Perhaps because of her posture, his eyes unintentionally went to her bare nape. The slender, pale shoulders tapering down into the line of her delicate collarbone were trembling faintly, as if something were pressing down on them.
"……"
Enoch quietly watched her.
Whether April was trembling with fear, or hesitation, or both, he couldn't tell.
But unlike the April he had seen up to now, she was markedly shrunk in on herself.
Unbefitting the veteran Outsourcing District freelancer sniper she was known as, her figure looked so fragile it stirred pity. As though one wrong touch might shatter her.
"Honestly, I'm scared. Here, you don't know when you might die."
Lying on the sofa, April hugged the railing cushion, concealing her expression, and whispered.
"If we really ran, Lord Enoch, you might be able to live. Especially since you have that strong Beast-kin and the Maid as your Follower Family with you, right?"
"Yeah. Maybe so."
"R, right?!"
April jerked her head up and cried out.
Her expression — face to face, right before him — carried a sincere, almost desperate quality, as though making her true confession for the first time. For a moment, Enoch was at a loss for words.
"Then, will you really run with me? You know as well, Direct Lineage. Even if we hold out here, in the end, we might be fated not to win!"
Enoch slowly shook his head.
"No. We still have to fight."
"But, Direct Lineage. That's reckless!"
With a thump, April slapped the cushion she'd been hugging down and half-rose. Then, clutching the open front of her camisole — her chest defenselessly on display — she leaned her face in.
Looking down at Enoch in that posture, April, with a cornered expression, cried out as though pleading in earnest confession,
"Certainly, I still want to win against the enemies here in the Outsourcing District too! But the enemy's supreme commander is practically immortal, isn't it?! Can you win against something like that?!"
"That's what I intend."
"But last time, even an 11th Rank freelancer leader was rendered combat-incapable by Anarchilon's magic! With an opponent like that, even 10th Rank or 9th Rank mages would be impossible!"
Facing Enoch, she cried out desperately,
"If we end up dying anyway, nothing else matters! Even if you protect everyone else in the Outsourcing District, Direct Lineage……!"
"You seem to be misunderstanding something, April."
Enoch looked straight at her with dimmed eyes and spoke coldly.
"I'm not here for some grand cause of saving others. I don't want to be some hero who sacrifices himself to protect people either."
"Y, yes?"
Enoch slowly added,
"It's just that, in the current situation, everyone standing and fighting is what gives the highest chance of survival. Through that process, we might be able to reduce meaningless deaths."
"Th, that's……"
"Of course I have no intention of losing or dying in this battle either. But for that, my strength alone might not be enough."
At April — whose expression was becoming visibly more flustered — Enoch spoke, still calm,
"That's why I'll say it once more. I need you, April. That hasn't changed."
"Uguu……!"
At that, April's cheeks flushed bright red in embarrassment and she turned her gaze aside.
"B, but. Needed, you say. I, I just pathetically told the client to run away with me, you know…?"
"Don't worry about that."
Recalling April's figure from before, when she had worked alongside him as a freelancer with his face hidden, Enoch quietly added,
"In a situation like this, if it's the April I know, even if she feels like breaking, she wouldn't really want to run away."
Enoch looked straight ahead and declared it firmly.
To begin with, April, when she felt the limits of her magic, had instead of being defeated and giving up, learned sharpshooting to overcome it in her own way.
It was hard to believe that the April who had pushed back against her circumstances so actively would fall apart so easily in a place like this.
"So, if that's really what you feel……"
As he continued speaking, Enoch noticed that for some reason he couldn't even hear April's breathing beside him. Sensing something amiss, he glanced over, and April was gazing at him in a daze.
"Th, that. Is that a guess? About me……"
When Enoch nodded, she lowered her head to the side as though in resignation.
"Ahaha. You know me that well, huh. Actually, there's one more thing I want to confess."
"Confess?"
"Yes. Last time, what Alicia and I were saying. You remember? That stuff about champions and heroes. I said I used to admire them."
"Now that you mention it, yeah."
"Ahaha, so. Do you happen to remember what I said back then too?"
"Yes. You said something about that kind of job not putting food on the table, didn't you? Very freelancer-like."
"Wow. You, you really do remember……"
April glanced sideways, as if she hadn't expected him to remember, and lowered her head, giving a self-deprecating laugh.
"That's right. But really, that was a lie too, if you break it down. My real feeling wasn't that I dislike heroes — it's that I can't be one."
"Can't be one. What do you mean?"
"Obvious, really. I don't have the courage Alicia has to save people, and I'm not as strong as her in the first place. Even if I really wanted to help someone, it wouldn't be possible."
April let out a small sigh.
Then, hugging her faintly trembling arm, she quietly murmured,
"Even now, I'm this scared."
April glanced over with tear-filled eyes, then, as though forcibly shifting her mood, dabbed at the corner of her eye with the tip of her finger and smiled.
"Well, I'm sorry? I must have been really tired from the last battle. Ahaha."
Like that, as though trying to change the subject, April babbled somewhat frantically, her eyes darting here and there.
"Me too, saying all this now, I must look pretty pathetic! Did it make you feel disgusted, knowing I lied to Alicia like this?"
"No, I already knew that was a lie."
"What?! Y, you knew that too?"
"If anything, it'd be strange not to have known."
Meeting her surprised gaze as she jerked her head up, Enoch shrugged.
"I still remember what you did before, April."
At the previous Outsourcing District while they had been preparing for the Lantern Festival — when an unknown monster had appeared and the children might have been killed in a moment of utter crisis. In the midst of freelancers with no intention of helping them, April had charged at the creature alone.
Retracing that memory, Enoch calmly glanced at her.
"You were the one who tried to save the children in peril on your own before."
"I……"
April, several times, seemed flustered, her head slightly raised, freezing right in front of him. To her, Enoch tilted his head and added,
"Seeing that, no one would think you really hate heroes……. would they……?"
But Enoch couldn't finish the sentence.
Because his eyes met April's right before his face. April, her face thrust in close, her beautiful eyes sparkling topaz-like in the light of the room.
Watching the flush rising on her pale cheeks that she herself didn't seem aware of, Enoch suddenly noticed the biggest change in her.
For some reason, April — staring intently at him — had stopped trembling.
"Your shaking seems to have stopped. Have you calmed down a little now, April?"
"Huh? A-ah! Th, that's right! Ah, ah, really, I have?!"
Only now did April look down at her arm that she'd been hugging, and, apparently not having realized it herself, gave a small gasp.
She closed her eyes briefly and let out a small sigh.
Then, half-opening her eyes, she looked at him and murmured embarrassedly,
"……Yeah. Just a bit, but — when you read me that well, it's kind of a turn-off."
"Turn-off? How?"
"That, and last time too. How do you know me so well? We, we only met for the first time on this mission, right~?"
"That's, right."
Trying to lie, his answer came out a little stiff, but he managed.
Still, April didn't seem entirely satisfied. With eyes half-closed, she kept staring at him and tapped the sofa's armrest with her finger.
"Obviously that should be true, but when you see through me like that, it's like you've known me for a long time? I'll have you know — I'm pretty good at lying~."
"……Saying with your own mouth that you're good at lying is kind of questionable in itself, isn't it?"
"Hmph, is that so~?"
Apparently displeased with something, April puffed out one cheek, and lying there on the sofa, stretched a slender finger and poked Enoch in the cheek.
Then, twirling her finger on his cheek, she sighed as though sulking.
"Haah, you know? Last time you acted like you were playing with that innocent nun, and now this is a whole different side. What on earth are you, Direct Lineage~? Does the House teach mind-reading to its Direct Lineage too?"
"As if. It'd have been nice if they could've taught me something like that for real."
"Huh? So, Direct Lineage. Is there actually someone whose real feelings you want to see?"
"……"
Suddenly, the image of the icy, silver-haired maid flashed through his mind, and Enoch let out a small sigh.
"No, nothing. Forget what I said."
Enoch shook his head, and voiced a discrepancy he'd felt from the start.
"More importantly, April. Talking to you, one thing's become clear. I've felt that something was strange for a while."
"Huh? Strange — what about?"
April, who had been teasingly poking his cheek, widened her eyes slightly and tilted her head.
"The fact itself that every leader-class Interim member went down."
"Hmm, I don't quite follow~. Can you explain a little more?"
"I don't know much about Damastes, but he's someone you thought highly enough of, and I saw how he performed myself. It's hard to believe he was inexperienced enough to be surrounded while acting solo."
Enoch turned to look at April.
"And the other Interim leaders are the same. For most of the leaders to be taken down in just one battle is hard to understand."
"Ah, right? I totally agree with that!"
Lying on the sofa, April widened her eyes and nodded vigorously.
"From what I heard, Anarchilon's whole 2nd attack this time actually seems like it was planned as an ambush targeting the Interim leaders, the top ones."
"Targeting the leaders?"
"Right. The Interim led by those leaders, to fill the losses from last time's big battle, had kept strong elites gathered around the leader and concentrated on frontline defense."
"That's……"
"Yeah. Exactly what you're thinking, Direct Lineage."
Tucking her hair behind her ear, April glanced outside the window and said,
"Those experimental magical beasts, their vanguard deliberately left openings to give the Interim leaders the belief that they could break through."