Limited Extra Time - Chapter 80

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Limited Extra’s Time

Chapter 80

Millaiyen returned directly to Carina Leopold’s room without stopping anywhere else along the way.

Even as he exchanged words with Baron Cramber, his thoughts kept drifting back to her. She lingered at the edge of his vision, making it impossible for him to remain still.

Standing at the door, Millaiyen knocked lightly.

“Yes.”

At her response, he opened the door immediately.

Carina Leopold sat propped against the headboard of the bed, her expression noticeably improved. Upon seeing her, a faint smile settled at the corners of Millaiyen’s lips.

“You seem calmer now.”

“Yes, I apologize for causing you concern.”

“It’s fine. If you’re in pain, tell me whenever you are—

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anytime at all.”

“…Yes.”

Carina Leopold offered a faint smile. Beyond the window, the tree branches were quite bare.

Only a few leaves hung precariously from the limbs. She knew they would all fall soon.

Knowing this, she wanted to remember even a little more.

“May I sit beside you?”

“Yes.”

I nodded, wondering why she would ask such a thing.

I had expected him to fetch a chair and sit as he always did, but Millaiyen walked directly toward me instead.

Then he simply collapsed onto the bed beside where I sat.

The bed swayed dramatically. My eyes widened. I had never anticipated he would sit so close.

“…Oh.”

“Why do you have that expression?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

I quickly shook my head.

In truth, there was nothing wrong with it. I was merely startled by the unexpected situation.

Reading my thoughts plainly written across my face, Millaiyen pressed himself slightly closer without pretense.

“It’s peaceful without Periel around.”

“Mm, is it? Don’t you find it pleasant when things are lively?”

“His chatter is merely noise.”

Millaiyen spoke with conviction.

It was rather harsh treatment for someone he had asked for help.

But lately, Periel had been getting on Millaiyen’s nerves considerably.

If pressed to explain precisely what irritated him, he could not pinpoint it exactly.

Yet whenever Periel approached Carina more than necessary, or kept speaking to her and feigned familiarity, something felt peculiar.

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And the more Periel grew intimate with Carina, the worse it became.

“I’ve decided to claim all the Haron from this expedition for myself.”

“…Haron?”

“Yes. I intend to inform the other Lords who arrive today of the same. So you need only endure.”

At Millaiyen’s words, Carina Leopold’s eyes widened considerably.

I felt my gaze waver between eyes that had opened without my realizing it.

I understood perfectly well what he had just said.

“…Why are you being so kind to me? What have I done for you? I have nothing to give.”

“I simply wish for you to be safe. I hope that next year and the year after, you’ll continue to paint and find joy in it.”

He speaks of an uncertain future as though it were inevitable, rolling the words across his tongue. What he desires is surely nothing more than for me to continue painting.

But…I know that cannot be.

“Millaiyen.”

“Hmm?”

“I… would it be alright if I followed Millaiyen Pestellio?”

It will take at least a month or two before he returns from the Expedition, and in some cases, it could take up to three months if it drags on.

Honestly… Carina Leopold didn’t have the confidence to wait for it.

Where is the guarantee that she will be safe until he returns?

What guarantee is there that I’ll still be alive when he returns? And where’s the guarantee that he’ll come back in one piece?

Even now my heart aches so much that I want to tear it apart… What if he keeps avoiding that pain by drawing pictures all this time?

Every time the pain comes, Oasis

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Like a wanderer searching through a desert, I now found myself reflexively yearning to paint.

In Periel Kalos’s stories, I began to understand why the Window Creators had worked on their creations with such frenzied intensity.

They too had suffered from this torment.

No medicine, no method could ever free them from this horrific agony—so they created ceaselessly, endlessly, as a means to endure the unbearable.

‘They could not have wanted to die.’

Yet this was so terrible it made one wish for death instead.

The sensation of someone grasping my heart, tearing it, piercing it with needles, rending it apart—it touched my mind with alien clarity.

“…You wish to follow me?”

“I want to go with you on the Subjugation. I don’t mind staying in the back so I won’t be in the way.”

“No.”

Millaiyen’s expression turned grim at once.

Yet he did not raise his voice, which made clear his consideration for her. Carina Leopold looked up at him with lifeless eyes.

Millaiyen’s brows trembled sharply.

But no was no. He bit down on his tongue, suppressing the words he wished to speak, and shook his head again.

A Magical Beast Subjugation was not merely dangerous—it was no sight for one raised with such gentleness.

Even if she had not been raised gently, he did not wish to show her such things.

Above all, when I go there, I become far too sensitive.

In the past, I had even been called a monster—so there was no need to consider further what I felt during a Subjugation. Smoking a cigarette afterward was merely an attempt to dull my heightened senses, even slightly.

Millaiyen shook his head once more.

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Three firm rejections had occurred in rapid succession.

Carina Leopold lowered her gaze, her eyes drooping at the corners.

Millaiyen’s heart sank to the depths.

What was this dejection? He looked down at Carina’s bowed head urgently and opened his mouth.

“Carina, if you wish to see the outside, let’s go after I return from the Subjugation.”

“….”

“Hmm? The outside is dangerous. Especially now—there are so many Magical Beasts that even you wouldn’t find the sight pleasant. During Subjugation, brains and entrails spill out, and everything becomes drenched in blood.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’ll be soaked in blood too, so I won’t even look human.”

“…But it’s still you, Millaiyen.”

I understand his concern, but I cannot back down.

I’ve finally found someone I want to be beside, and yet he speaks of going on Subjugation for two or three months.

That leaves me with barely a month or two at most.

Merely a month or two.

To think that the time I can spend with the person I cherish amounts to so little.

I cannot even muster a laugh. How pathetic I am, dividing and subdividing what little time remains, calculating it down to the last moment.

‘I’m truly someone waiting for death.’

I am indeed someone waiting for death, but at this point, it feels somewhat pitiful.

“I want to spend even a little more time with you, Millaiyen.”

I spoke honestly.

I cannot convey my deepest feelings, but in a sense, he was my benefactor. It was only natural to wish to be of help to one’s benefactor.

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…

Millaiyen offered no response.

This won’t work. What more could I say? Should I simply concede and seek another approach?

As I deliberated, I lifted my gaze. My eyes widened considerably.

…Millaiyen? …

His face had flushed a vivid crimson.

His ears, along with his expression frozen in apparent bewilderment, caused me to reconsider my own words, and I too became rigidly still.

When I had spoken, it seemed inconsequential, but seeing him so rigid made me wonder if I had misspoken.

“Well, I… being confined to the house all the time is suffocating, and… I don’t like being alone either.”

“Ah, …yes.”

Millaiyen nodded.

As I watched him raise his head as though surfacing from the depths of a dark ocean, I held my breath.

‘…What is this now?’

Millaiyen furrowed his brow at the thunderous sound of his own heartbeat. Recently, his days had been filled with inexplicable complications. He gazed down at me with troubled eyes.

He wished to take me with him, but there were far too many variables.

Above all, the Magical Beast Subjugation was truly the domain of elite forces. Assigning personnel to her protection would not be wasteful.

But if he were to assign even one person to her protection, it would prove a loss in this uncertain expedition.

If he did not command properly, the entire Northern Territory would face considerable peril.

“Since you desire it so earnestly, I confess I wish to take you with me. However….”

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“If the escort is the concern, couldn’t you simply bring Herta along?”

…Herta?

“Yes, you mentioned she’s in Deuteul.”

Now that she mentioned it, that was indeed an option.

Millaiyen pressed his fingers to his brow. I’d heard that even the Knights, who trembled in fear at first, seemed to have taken a liking to Herta for her unexpectedly docile demeanor—they frequently brought her treats.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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