The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 44

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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.
Chapter 44
Akto cradled my ashen face in his hands, examining me from every angle.
His dark eyes were wide with terror.
More than mine.
“Nothing scary happened to you, right?”
I’d meant to jest that the fear had befallen him instead, but I retched before the words came.
“Heave…”
“Shh, it’s all right. Don’t worry—just let it out.”
He spoke gently, carefully gathering the strands of hair that clung to my cheek.
“I’ll clean it all up.”
No—why should you be cleaning this?
The thought only made me more anxious, and I fought harder to suppress the nausea.
Mihael, standing nearby, rushed forward and patted my back frantically.
I was too occupied with retching to notice until Akto had taken control of the situation.
“Why did you summon them like this? They get motion sickness.”
Akto reacted sharply to Mihael’s complaint, as though the interference itself was unbearable.
“Don’t meddle. Step back.”
He shoved Mihael away and quickly pulled me into his arms, waiting for me to steady myself.
Mihael seemed to realize that any further fussing would cause Akto to snap, so he fell silent.
Tears streamed down my face—just the body’s reflex—as I gagged repeatedly.
A high-pitched ringing wouldn’t stop in my ears.
‘Forever… mine….’
A voice layered with static warbled indistinctly, like a tape playing in an old tape recorder.
‘Has anyone ever said such a thing to me before?’
It was neither Akto’s voice nor Mihael’s.
Something younger….
“Rouen!”
“Gasp…!”
My eyes snapped open.
The moment Akto saw focus return to my gaze, he drew me close, cradling me as if to crush me into safety.
“Please….”
“Ugh, ah….”
“Please, calm down. Everything’s all right.”
His reassuring composure, woven through with tenderness, swept methodically across my pale face, my ragged breathing, my parched lips.
He sat me upright on the floor where I’d been precariously balanced on his thigh, and spoke firmly.
“Breathe slowly. Nothing happened. I’m right here.”
Even my stalled mind responded to his short, simple commands.
I nodded.
I gripped the fabric of Akto’s cassock and regulated my breathing.
As I deliberately slowed my accelerated inhales, the tightness in my chest began to ease.
Perhaps it was because we’d moved away from Agilpid.
The churning in my stomach showed signs of recovery.
Once I could manage my own breathing, Akto swept his hand across my back, as though brushing away the last of his own tension.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. Just felt nauseous for a moment.”
Akto studied my face in silence for a beat, reading something, then nodded.
“The chain didn’t tighten painfully when you were summoned?”
“Not at all.”
If anything, it tickled uncomfortably.
I would’ve preferred it to have bound me painfully—at least then I wouldn’t have felt this awkward unease.
“Where are we?”
“An attendant’s quarters in the Information Guild. No one else is here.”
Akto explained in measured tones, and his hand suddenly came up to wipe around my mouth.
He wiped his hand casually on his robes, then retrieved a water bottle from his inventory.
I didn’t want to drink, but I lacked the strength to refuse—I took a few sips and handed it back.
I frowned at the floor, staring hard.
The unpleasant feeling wouldn’t dissipate.
“Did you encounter Agilpid?”
Mihael asked.
“You’ve already heard the information, then.”
I answered, exhausted.
“About Baron Rouan’s true identity.”
“Yes. We’ve also heard that he’s a worshipper of the Evil God, but…….”
Mihael let out a sigh.
“After that, Akto suddenly summoned you, and we haven’t been able to meet with Eritman since.”
I watched Akto with only my eyes.
He sat with his back against a piece of furniture, running his fingers through his hair.
He bore the same exhaustion I did.
His clothes clung to his muscular torso — evidence of how much cold sweat he’d shed.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
“You’re strong enough. There was no need to summon you, yet Akto refused to budge on the matter.”
……
“In truth, he shouldn’t have summoned you so ruthlessly. You vomited the moment you arrived. Please allow me to apologize on his behalf.”
I said nothing.
The vomiting wasn’t because of the summoning.
My condition had deteriorated sharply after meeting Agilpid.
‘But why did Akto summon me in the first place?’
Agilpid isn’t someone to fear.
He was madder than I’d imagined, but this was a game world.
‘I’m just a Monster who doesn’t even deserve respect.’
In a game, I’d thought such desires could be expressed freely.
Yes.
I understood madness to that degree.
You could just kill him with disgust and be done with it.
But I hadn’t.
‘My body was trembling so badly back then, yet now it’s as if nothing happened.’
What struck me as odd was that even the Evil God within me had gone silent, holding its breath.
That personality that used to rear its head whenever I was ignored or my pride was wounded — it wasn’t stirring now…….
The longer I dwelt on it, the more unnatural it seemed.
Akto Hevgenia, who’d summoned me in haste despite Mihael’s objections, was equally suspicious.
‘He’s definitely hiding something from me.’
I watched him covertly with only my eyes, but his face showed nothing but concern for me.
‘Tch.’
Why was he always so worried, anyway.
“Your body’s settled down now, so shouldn’t we get moving? We can’t even rest properly here.”
……
“We’ll meet Eritman soon.”
Akto rose to his feet, cutting through my suspicion with the motion.
He shook out his wrinkled priest’s robes and extended his hand toward me.
I raised an eyebrow and merely stared at the hand he offered.
“Want to rest here longer?”
I shook my head and asked abruptly.
“Why did you summon me?”
Akto looked into my red eyes.
I didn’t look away, meeting his steady gaze.
***
Akto Hevgenia gazed quietly down at Rouen, who looked straight back up at him.
It had been a miscalculation.
He’d known that Agilpid Golzbien was posing as Baron Rouan, but he hadn’t anticipated he’d be such an obsessive fanatic.
It should have been impossible to know.
This was the first time.
This was the first time he’d visited this town with the Evil God.
He should have anticipated that as a variable and been more cautious.
‘I made a mistake.’
She was already harboring suspicions.
She thought the vomiting wasn’t from nausea, and that Akto knew the true cause.
And indeed, it was true.
He knew.
That’s why he’d summoned her.
Even knowing it would deepen Rouen’s suspicions.
Still, he couldn’t stop himself.
He couldn’t bear to see Rouen grieve.
‘Foolish of me…….’
Rouen wouldn’t remember any of this anyway, yet here he was, worrying needlessly.
But if he were sent back to that moment again, he would make the same choice.
He was sick of his own stupid decisions.
How many times had he caught his own foot in the traps he’d set?
And so, unwittingly, Akto had cultivated flawless acting skills.
“I wasn’t asking. I’m asking why you suddenly Summoned me.”
Even as he stood defenseless before a torrent of sharp suspicion, his expression remained composed as he answered.
“I was worried Agilpid might do something strange to you.”
“He can’t do anything strange to me. You know that.”
The Evil God Helord pressed in keenly.
“Agilpid Golzbian is weaker than me. There’s no need to protect me by summoning. And we weren’t even guaranteed to meet in that situation.”
Akto was cornered at once.
Cold sweat bloomed against his palm, which he’d stretched out in feigned ease.
He was thinking of how to slip through the interrogation that was tightening its noose around him.
‘What should I do.’
Should he just tell her everything?
Everything he’d been hiding, laid bare.
It was always the method he’d yearned for.
To pour it all out and speak the truth.
But he couldn’t.
He hadn’t been able to for a very long time.
And so now Akto’s wish had become something greater than any worn-out love — to finally be able to speak the truth.
Yet God had always turned away from his wishes.
‘Thanks to that, my head is bursting with things I want to tell Rouen.’
The moment permission was given, even the gentlest prompt would have it all spilling out.
Why the sudden Summoning?
Simple.
For her sake.
That there’s a painful moment you don’t remember.
That Agilpid pulled that trigger.
So that you wouldn’t hurt any more, I brought you away — he could have answered smoothly like that.
If she asked how he knew?
How would he answer then?
The words he wanted to say cascaded forth like a runaway flood.
Should he tell her he knew everything about her?
The reason you want to die.
Even with all that forgotten, the homesickness you’re still stubbornly aching from — should he tell her he knows every ravaged corner of your sick soul?
If she couldn’t believe him, why not lay down facts she couldn’t deny?
Your body, hidden beneath that thin dress.
Should he tell her he knows exactly where every mole is scattered across your pale skin?
Should he tell her he’s seen your countless deaths, that he’s died before you countless times?
If she asked how it came to that, wouldn’t it be enough to say he’d held you close and that’s how it became?
That your soul shattered and you died, while I died in my own embrace, pierced by your soul splintering like glass around me?
But all of it.
‘It’s all pointless thinking.’
In the beginning, Akto had already told Rouen the truth once.
What came of it — he’d witnessed her death in its horror.
Dead.
Dead.
And dead again.
After watching her die over and over, like an unbreakable nightmare, Akto had stopped speaking.

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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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