The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 40

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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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The boss wants to die.
Episode 40
Tears spilled out beyond my control. I gasped, my breath ragged.
Michael, watching my face crumble with self-loathing, reached out his hand.
“Come here, Iroun.”
[Michael’s Favorability has increased by 2.]
Michael, who once called me the Evil Goddess, was now calling me by name—consistently, deliberately.
I was too overwhelmed to notice properly, so I stumbled backward.
I shook my head, gasping.
“No, no. Stay back. Go away.”
Get away from me. It’s dangerous.
But Michael laughed.
It was the first time I’d ever seen him laugh.
So I held my breath, captivated by his bright blue eyes, and didn’t resist.
Michael stepped across the filthy ground, his footfalls soft and measured, until he stood before me.
Then he asked again.
“Do you need blood?”
“No, no, I don’t…….”
“It’s all right.”
Michael replied quietly. His tone sounded like Akt’s.
Composed, serene, collected.
I felt myself calming down almost without noticing.
“The priest has permitted this bloodsucking.”
The moment I heard those words, I was already lowering my head to his forearm.
It seemed that the act of creating a thrall and the act of bloodsucking were distinct; this time, Michael’s blood carried a special buff.
Tranquility.
The very feeling I had yearned for.
***
The moment Akt saw Iroun return, cradled in Michael’s arms, he released a rough breath of relief.
“Thank goodness.”
“What are you relieved about?”
Michael asked as he carefully lowered Iroun onto the bed.
Not stopping there, he fetched a cloth soaked in clean water and wiped away the filth that had splattered across her face.
Akt watched this and spoke.
“I’m relieved that you’re doing this.”
“……It is the priest’s calling.”
Michael replied, gazing down at the sleeping Iroun.
“To save a soul that has fallen into evil.”
“Intoxicated by heroic virtue?”
Akt propped his chin on his hand and continued with a faint smile.
“It’s probably not something so grand—just pity you’ve developed for the Evil Goddess.”
“She is the Evil Goddess…….”
“What? Do you want to say she isn’t?”
Akt narrowed his eyes, voicing exactly what Michael was thinking.
“There’s no way the Evil Goddess could be like this, something must be wrong—that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
“…….”
“Pitiful.”
Akt continued.
“Iroun is the Evil Goddess, after all.”
Michael’s face tightened as he glared at Akt.
“Is it amusing to hide information and then mock others for knowing less than you?”
“Yes. It is.”
Akt answered.
Caught off guard by how swiftly the reply came, Michael’s brows furrowed in bewilderment.
Akt seemed absorbed, gazing distantly at the sleeping Iroun.
After a moment, he closed his eyes and continued speaking.
“I envy you—you who know nothing. You, free and unshackled, able to reach out your hand to Iroun without restraint…….”
Akt’s voice trailed off, drawn long.
“Enough to make me want to kill you.”
His sharp black eyes fixed themselves directly on Michael.
“So you think tormenting me wouldn’t bring you pleasure?”
Akt pressed his forehead and exhaled, then laughter spilled from deep in his throat.
A choked, strangled sound that rattled through his larynx like something haunted.
“It’s absurd, isn’t it? The whole situation.”
After laughing for a long stretch, Akt exhaled slowly, breathing ragged.
“I’m doing you a kindness.”
“…….”
“Don’t try to understand. Just comfort the Demon King. Stay there.”
Michael’s eyes widened as his indignant glare softened.
The contempt that had twisted Akt’s face until now drained away, leaving only a bottomless sorrow.
“That alone is enough.”
“…….”
“Do everything you can. Keep Iroun’s tears from falling. I have no talent for that.”
Then came silence.
Michael gazed at the quiet Akt, then turned toward the Demon King.
The pale-faced Demon King lay asleep, unconscious.
Suddenly, he remembered her—Iroun—as she had wept.
Her scream echoed in his mind, raw with the guilt of devouring an innocent player, her spirit fractured by the weight of it.
Iroun’s sense of sin was an emotion born of her conscience.
That such noble guilt resided in the Demon King—he could not fathom it.
Michael brushed her hair back from her face and murmured,
“She drank your blood and suddenly lost consciousness.”
Michael’s hand kept drifting across Iroun’s features.
Akt, watching with relentless intensity, answered in a subdued voice.
“It brings her peace.”
“Peace?”
“Each blood tastes different—carries different properties. It was that way in my past life too. I’d fall asleep the moment I drank yours.”
Akt frowned and irritably reached for a bottle.
Michael watched him and twisted his own face in identical discomfort.
A sudden migraine had seized him.
“Want some?”
Akt held out a crystal glass, crossing his legs as he settled back.
Michael pressed his forehead and shook his head.
“I must decline. A priest drinking liquor—it would be improper.”
“I had a rigid phase like you once. It proved pointless.”
Akt massaged his temple, then brought the proffered glass back to his own lips and drained it.
“Suit yourself. Can’t bear it, you’ll find the bottle on your own, won’t you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your migraine.”
Akt began to answer but stopped, breath catching short.
The way he gripped his head suggested the migraine was grinding him mercilessly.
“Time is fractured, and that fracture brings pain. It’s a side effect of recovering memories.”
“And what has that to do with drinking?”
“Alcohol dulls the pain. It clouds the mind—and since the side effect strikes your consciousness, you numb that impact.”
“You know quite well.”
Michael spoke with clarity.
“Your headaches seem far worse than mine.”
“…….”
“Far worse.”
Michael turned his gaze to the wall as though in thought, then finally opened his mouth.
“Is there more time I don’t remember?”
“A pointless question.”
Akt contorted his face.
“Why wonder about the years I abandoned in the gaps between moments? They’re nothing but garbage.”
His tone had gone beyond derision—it was glacial.
He seemed to despise it all with piercing thoroughness: that phantom past, that weightless history.
“Just as the years you cast aside don’t shine within this present moment, neither do mine.”
“…….”
“That is a time that does not exist.”
All his sorrow, all his love, all his anguish and all his struggle.
Akt, robbed wholesale of those things in the time he’d lost, murmured vacantly.
“A nightmare that will vanish in a single mirage.”
“…….”
“The moment you try to hold me, you’ll tumble straight into hell.”
Do you want to live a life of endless void?
Like me?
Akt smiled faintly and gestured toward the door.
“Leave now. Return to your world where light reaches.”
“But…….”
“Stop dawdling over my girlfriend.”
But if you do that, Akt Hevgenia, where will you be?
How long have you been living in that place?
Michael’s question crumpled into a knot that remained unspoken.
He had to leave Akt’s room as though being driven out.
And dimly, he felt Akt’s firm refusal was a struggle to save him, and he froze rigid.
***
The moment I opened my eyes, a Quest window appeared.
[Human blood is delicious! You have completed the Quest.]
[The waiting period has expired. Quest completion rewards are being automatically received.]
[You have obtained Blood-Red Ruby (×2).]
I blinked stupidly.
The situation didn’t make sense right away.
‘Why is the Quest already completed?’
As I sat up, my limbs hung heavy as though I’d slept for ages.
I groaned softly and, leaning my back against the wall, retraced my memory to find where it had frayed.
I recalled crying pathetically and then drinking Michael’s blood.
“Back then, I’m sure it was five or six times I used Bloodsucking…….”
In any case, it was certain I hadn’t reached ten.
While I was thinking hard about how this could have happened, Akt opened the door and came in.
I was about to chide him for entering someone else’s room so casually, then realized this was Akt’s room.
The situation had plunged into further confusion.
Why was I in Akt’s room?
And how had I even gotten back to the Inn?
“You awake?”
When I didn’t answer and just watched him blankly, Akt naturally parted my black hair and grasped my head.
Then he pulled it toward his neck and wrapped his arm around my waist.
In the blink of an eye, my whole body was drawn close, absorbed into him.
It was so natural, as though he’d spent his whole life like this with women.
He was so skilled that I even missed the moment I should have cried out in surprise.
I froze in bewilderment, my eyes wide, holding my breath.
“What’s wrong? You don’t like my blood?”
Akt’s voice carried an oddly tender warmth.
Like a whisper against the side of my ear.
The scent of blood radiating from his whole body threatened to sever the thread of my reason.
I drew my shoulders back and, as if to push away his chest, pressed against it. Akt patted me.
“Easy, easy. It’s alright.”
His soothing hand swept gently down my spine.
At a tenderness double its usual sweetness, my lower back trembled.
“Should I call Michael? Would you like to drink his blood instead?”
“No!”
I couldn’t bear it. I cried out and pushed him away.
Akt released the grip around my waist that had held like rope and raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm? You’re back to yourself?”
“If I’m awake, obviously I’m back to myself. Go, go away from me!”

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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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