The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 54

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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 54
I moved the moment I reached a conclusion.
Aktr was already unconscious, so there was nothing to hold me back.
I undressed him as thoughtlessly as I might remove clothes from my youngest brother, but my hands froze when they reached the buttons of his Priest’s Robe.
Gulp…….
The sound of me swallowing echoed loudly.
I startled at the noise.
As if I were doing something terrible.
“I, I’m only being practical. I’m trying to warm him up from the cold.”
“Mmm…….”
He was groaning softly.
It was a sound like a low growl, and it made my hair stand on end.
Aktr’s voice is a gentle, deep baritone—like a cello.
Which is why, when he makes a rough sound like this, it stands out all the more vividly.
I tried to collect myself.
‘Get it off quickly.’
The pants are too much—just the top.
Just this.
I steeled myself, undid the buttons, and pulled the garment wide open.
It was a relief that it was structured like a jacket and could be removed easily.
Beneath the Priest’s Robe, always stretched taut as if it might tear from his muscles…….
“……I’m going to lose my mind.”
It was beautiful enough to draw out an involuntary gasp.
“Why in the world does someone with a body like this become a priest?”
He’d look like he could survive as a champion gladiator if thrown into the Colosseum!
Blue veins pressed out by the muscle added a wild, feral quality.
His pectoral muscles were so large they were as thick as a cheetah’s hind legs.
And yet his nipples were a shy, delicate pink.
Ugh.
I buried my face in my hands and stifled a quiet moan.
How is this man’s body even shaped like this?
Developer of this Game, are you listening?
I don’t know how appearances are determined, but this intention is far too obvious.
Why would you give a priest such a sensual body?
Is it so that the heart burns hotter at the symbol of unobtainable celibacy? Something like that?
‘The developer has dangerous taste too…….’
I finished removing the Priest’s Robe.
His six-pack abdomen, wet with rain, glistened obscenely with every breath he drew.
As I was drying his body with a Towel, I found the source of his massive frame.
His already broad back had latissimus dorsi muscles spread menacingly like a manta ray’s fins.
Honestly, just being held by him would feel crushingly powerful.
“So this is why your build looked like a werewolf’s. With that naturally commanding bone structure and such large, developed muscles…….”
I finished drying him completely as I muttered.
I changed into the thinnest Mini Dress I had.
It was the one that exposed the most bare skin.
I slipped directly into Aktr’s Blanket.
Thanks to him rolling onto his side at just the right moment, I was able to nestle comfortably into his embrace.
How snug.
His large frame made it feel like I’d crawled into a tent.
‘Though it is still uncomfortably huge.’
We need to sleep since it’s night, but being aware of his animal-like physique is driving me mad.
Uncomfortable, I twisted my body this way and that, and as the Blanket rustled, cold air slipped in and made Aktr shiver violently.
So I became completely unable to move.
Early autumn had passed now, and the nights were growing genuinely cold.
A mountain night looking toward winter was remarkably frigid.
Ugh…….
Tonight’s cold was unusually harsh.
Half-asleep, Aktr shuddered and reached out his hand toward me.
Ah!
I had been rigid as a wooden log, not moving an inch, and though I tried to flee in surprise, I missed my chance to escape and was dragged along instead.
The forearm wrapped around my waist brushed against my skirt hem and grazed the area near my knees.
“Ah!”
I’d braced myself, thinking he meant to lift me completely, but it seemed the skirt had simply caught as he stirred in his sleep.
‘If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve just worn hiking clothes…!’
And here I was, trying to share body heat skin-to-skin.
His soft lips touched the nape of my neck, exposed and unguarded, and his skin kept brushing against my forearms.
‘Is he not sleeping?’
Suspicion crept in, so I glanced back sideways, but Aktr was truly unconscious.
It looked less like sleep and more like he’d passed out entirely.
‘Something seems off about his condition.’
I reached out and grasped the forearm brushing against my bare legs.
Hard and hot as iron.
Aktr was radiating heat like a small sun.
‘He’s burning up.’
Without proper washing and having endured so much hardship, his body was running a fever.
‘Maybe it’s the sweat—Aktr’s scent is so…’
The acrid, heavy body odor, almost like cloying perfume, made my head spin.
Perhaps because we were inside the Game, it was different from the salty sweat humans normally carried.
It was fragrant in some way, yet far too bestial, too wild to call mere perfume.
I bit my lip.
My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst from my mouth.
‘It’s just the blood scent doing this. Is Aktr’s blood scent actually that appealing?’
The blood scent flowing beneath his skin came through vividly.
I squirmed and forced myself to put distance between us.
It was only the slightest shift, but whether it was my imagination or not, the musk scent Aktr gave off seemed to fade a little.
‘I’ll stay with him just until the fever breaks.’
Differing only in warmth from a bamboo wife, I drew the blanket over his lukewarm skin.
I hoped the added warmth would help him shake off the sickness faster.
“Mm…”
Aktr groaned in discomfort.
I wondered what terrifying dream he was having, to suffer so.
Tears had pooled in round drops between his high nose bridge and the hollowed shadows of his eyelids.
“Aktr. Are you crying?”
Seized by a strange tenderness, I wiped away his tears as I might for a younger sibling.
Despite his large frame, the Aktr before me now looked as fragile as the young boy I’d glimpsed in that hidden memory.
‘Is he really so alike?’
I opened my eyes slightly.
‘No. It doesn’t seem so. The atmosphere is far too different.’
Still, thinking it might help a little to embrace him the same way, I wrapped my arm around his waist—and suddenly his eyes snapped wide open.
“Aktr!”
I started badly enough to open my eyes wide as a rabbit’s.
Aktr slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows.
White hair that had gathered on his back tumbled down in a cascade.
He pressed my shoulders down to the floor, pinning me, and breathed in sharp, ragged gasps.
His breath turned white and scattered as it met the frigid air, freezing in the cold.
“Ah, Aktr?”
He didn’t seem to be in his right mind.
Aktr never moved with such aggression.
His face was one I’d never seen before.
His expression twisted like a beast’s, a face that seemed to have never once lost its gentle smile until now.
Eyes full of rage.
The eyebrows that had curved so gracefully were now drawn down to his eyelids, fierce and furrowed.
His smooth nose bridge creased like a roaring carnivore’s, creating a savage expression.
I asked in a thin, trembling voice.
“Why, why are you like this?”
“Roun…”
He whispered in a hazy tone, as though wandering through a dream.
His voice was gravely hoarse from the fever, almost incomprehensible.
“…Why, why did you… why…?”
“What? Ah, wait—just wait a moment!”
I grabbed Aktr’s shoulders as they collapsed toward me and shoved him back.
The gap in our strength held; he couldn’t press forward any further.
Yet he paid no mind, breathing hard and ragged.
Plip.
Hot tears spilled onto my cheek.
I stared up at him with a dumb expression, tears streaming down my own face as his anger broke into weeping.
Surely this was the Aktr I knew?
‘I thought I understood him by now…….’
We’d been together for quite some time already.
We’d clashed emotionally so often that whether I liked it or not, we’d begun to know each other better through our endless words.
But that wasn’t true at all.
I…….
‘I hardly knew Aktr at all.’
Beyond his tender affection, I’d never glimpsed any other side of him.
Because he always tried to hide it.
“……I hate this, Roun, I hate it…….”
“What?”
I snapped back from my thoughts.
“What did you say?”
“I’ll make you cry…….”
“Hah……!”
Aktr bowed his head deeper still.
Startled, I tucked my neck down like a turtle into a shell.
Click.
I realized his teeth had caught the Restraint Chain wrapped around my throat.
The Collar began drawing my strength away in a steady stream.
‘If this keeps up, I won’t be able to resist…….’
Drip, drip.
Aktr murmured through his tears.
“I’m sorry…….”
Just as I was about to thrash against him, his heavy frame bore down, threatening to crush me.
When I checked what had happened, Aktr had lost consciousness and collapsed against me.
Somehow all my strength drained away.
It was a hollow sort of ending.
“…….”
“…….”
I pressed my palm to my forehead and let out a bitter laugh, then rolled his body to the side.
Aktr slumped helplessly, groaning.
“Sigh…….”
Never again—never again would I set out on a journey like this.
Not until my preparations were absolutely flawless. Absolutely not.
For a moment, I considered leaving him to the bitter cold.
But my resolve crumbled quickly.
It felt cruel to abandon an injured creature whimpering in pain, and thinking of that little one as well only made my chest ache.
I draped the Blanket back over him and lay down pressed against his side.
‘This should shield him from the cold.’
I turned onto my side and studied his face.
The breath streaming from his large frame was deep and heavy, like that of a carnivore.
Each time his masculine breath, carrying that musk scent, poured across my ear, my palms grew slick with nervous sweat.
‘The blood scent troubles him…….’
If Aktr caught a cold, it would only make my life harder.
So despite the discomfort, I held him close.
There was no deeper meaning to it. I simply wished for him not to suffer.
‘Just until his pain fades. Until then…….’

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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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