"Click…"
The door was pushed open gently, and Demeter's figure appeared in the doorway.
But the moment her eyes landed on the person already sitting up on the bed—
She froze.
Only for a second.
The next second she just stared at Genichi, her eyes reddening visibly, and then—
She broke into a hurried trot and rushed over.
As she moved, the heavy fruit of her figure swayed unavoidably.
For an instant, his gaze was pulled there on reflex.
Genichi unconsciously tried to say something, but before any sound could leave his throat, the soft sensation coming straight at him blocked everything.
Soft and warm, pressing against his face.
His vision filled with nothing but that pale softness.
Demeter threw her arms wide and pulled him into her chest.
It was a hug so tight it was almost suffocating.
The goddess's arms locked around his shoulders and back, burying his face against the soft swell of her bosom.
Her body trembled faintly. Her breathing was fast and uneven, and she didn't say a word. She looked nothing like the gentle, composed Inneria Rose people imagined.
The tip of his nose filled with Demeter's distinctive scent, a light blend of soil and fresh flowers.
The place his cheek pressed was warm and springy, rising and falling with her heartbeat.
Genichi's thoughts stalled for a full three seconds.
Three seconds later, he forced himself to push Demeter back, but the lingering softness stayed stamped into his memory like a brand.
"…Thank goodness. You're okay!"
Demeter's voice trembled above him, thick with a clear sob she couldn't quite swallow down.
She didn't realize how intimate her posture was, and she didn't notice how stiff the boy in her arms had gone.
She only held him harder, confirming it again and again—he was alive, he was breathing, he was here in her arms.
She had been terrified.
When she'd pushed open the door yesterday and seen Genichi collapsed in a pool of blood, Demeter had felt as if an invisible hand had seized her heart in a crushing grip and then, in the next instant, stopped it cold.
Even now, that image still made her shake—
That shocking dark red spread across the floor, glinting with an ominous sheen in the dusk light.
The boy's pale face lay turned to one side in the blood, lips pressed tight and drained of color, his chest barely moving.
Clothes that had already been stained with blood were soaked through all over again, the spill beneath him spreading into a blinding red.
She hadn't even dared check his breathing.
As a goddess, she wasn't supposed to be shaken so violently by a mortal's life and death.
Since descending to the Lower World, she'd seen countless births and farewells within her familia. Those sorrows had long since settled into something gentle, a warm remembrance rather than agony that tore the heart apart.
She'd thought she was used to partings.
But in that moment, when her eyes touched the slender boy lying in blood, everything she believed about "being used to it" collapsed in an instant.
It wasn't frustration at losing a trump card.
When she thought he might be dying, the emotion that surged up had nothing to do with utility.
And it wasn't the sadness of losing a familia member.
When a member left—by death or by departure—she would always feel sorrow. But that sorrow was soft and tempered, like fallen leaves in autumn: regretful, yes, but ultimately returning to stillness.
What churned inside her then was far stronger than sadness, more primal, more raw—
Fear.
Yes. Fear.
She was afraid of losing him.
Not losing someone useful. Not losing a promising child.
Losing Genichi himself.
She was afraid.
And in that moment she understood that this boy, at some point without her noticing, had come to occupy a place inside her heart where even a goddess could fear losing him.
Thankfully, when she forced her shaking hand to hold together and leaned down to check his breath—
He was still breathing.
Weak, uneven, but there.
She'd nearly collapsed right there.
Using every bit of strength she had, she managed to lift the blood-soaked boy, place him carefully onto her bed, and then examine his condition—
Aside from the long pink scar where the wound had already sealed, there were only minor bruises and scrapes.
For an adventurer, they barely counted as injuries.
Demeter sat at his bedside and kept watch for three whole nights.
She watched his pale face. The occasional furrow of his brow. His lips cracked from blood loss.
Again and again she wiped his forehead with a damp cloth. Again and again she checked whether his breathing was still there.
Until dawn, when the color finally returned to his face, just a little.
Only then did the fear in her chest truly begin to ease.
And now…
He was awake.
Awake, sitting up, alive.
Demeter hugged him hard again, as if she wanted to knead him into her own body.
Her voice shook as she finally asked the question she'd held in all night.
"What kind of monster did you run into in the Dungeon?"
Genichi stiffened in her arms.
He could feel the tremor in her body. He could feel the strength in her embrace, tight enough to crush the air out of him. He could hear the fear and aftershock she couldn't hide.
She wasn't scolding him.
She was worried.
He was silent for a moment. He didn't struggle, and he didn't push her away.
He simply spoke in the same calm tone as always.
"I ran into Evilus."
Demeter's embrace paused for an instant, then loosened slightly as she lowered her gaze to his face.
In her amber eyes, the worry was joined by clear shock.
"Evilus? You ran into them? They did something to you—"
"No."
Genichi shook his head, expression flat as he began to explain. "On the fifteenth floor, I ran into four Evilus members. Around Lv. 2. They spotted me and planned to rob and kill me."
He paused, voice still without ripples. "I fought back. I broke their arms and legs."
Demeter stared.
"…You… alone… against four Lv. 2 Evilus members?"
"Mm."
Genichi said it as if he were talking about what he'd eaten today.
He didn't tell Demeter why he hunted Evilus, and he didn't mention the boiling kill intent or the rush of vengeance.
There was no need to explain that to anyone.
"Then what?" Demeter pressed. "Those Evilus men—did you kill them?"
"No. They're alive."
Genichi shook his head slightly. "When I was going to deal with them further, someone interrupted."
"Interrupted? Who?"
"Gale. Ryuu Lion."
Demeter's pupils contracted sharply.
"The survivor of the Astraea Familia?"
"Mm."
Genichi gave a brief, efficient account of what came after—Ryuu Lion saw the scene of him severing Evilus limbs and misunderstood, assuming he was a torturer. She attacked immediately. He tried to explain, but she wouldn't listen. He had no choice but to fight back. At the critical moment, he threw out a single sentence to shake her focus, then used Apparition to escape.
"…And that's what you saw," he finished, lowering his eyes slightly.
Demeter fell silent for a long time.
Her hands still rested on Genichi's shoulders, and her amber gaze watched him with a complicated intensity.
Worry.
Aftershock.
Heartache.
And beneath it all—
Anger.
(End of Chapter)
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