The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 57

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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 57
“Now hold still while I apply the Ointment.”
The condition was worse than I’d thought.
Along the edge of the scar, torn flesh swelled and puckered like a pufferfish, knotted and rough.
“How…….”
How had he endured this pain?
“Is it very bad?”
Noticing something wrong in the atmosphere, Aktr asked calmly.
At that question, fury surged up in me.
I caught my lower lip between my teeth and reached out.
“Hand over the most expensive Ointment.”
“Huh?”
“The one you’ve been hoarding, you know? The most expensive Ointment! Give it to me!”
“I bought that to use when you got hurt.”
Something inside me burst.
“Stop talking nonsense!”
I started to slap his shoulder but couldn’t bring myself to touch his back, afraid of making it worse.
“The Demon God heals in two days no matter how badly wounded. Hand it over.”
Aktr reluctantly passed me the Ointment.
“It’s fine…….”
“Fine? You want to die with poison coursing through you?”
“I won’t die from this.”
“Not dying isn’t the same as not hurting. Why were you stubbornly suffering through it?”
It upset me deeply. Really upset me.
Especially since Aktr always tried to give me everything good, which made my heart ache even more.
Aktr seemed not to want to put me in an awkward position as I hesitated without daring to touch him, so he fell silent.
“For now, let’s apply the Ointment today and search for a healer at first light tomorrow.”
If only a healer could heal themselves.
If only I had even one Heal Skill…….
‘A Boss Monster, what a joke.’
I clenched my teeth.
Applying the Ointment thinly without touching the wound consumed considerable time.
Aktr’s back muscles rippled occasionally as if he felt the pain.
I struck up a conversation partly to distract him.
“What’s a Specialist NPC?”
“An NPC that Players need.”
Aktr answered without a single groan, managing his voice well.
Yet his forearms and the nape of his neck were already drenched in cold sweat from enduring the pain.
Ssszzzzz―.
A strange sound came from the scar where the Ointment was taking effect.
Aktr bowed his head and breathed heavily, low and controlled.
“Do you want to lean against the desk?”
Aktr nodded and rested his elbows on the desk.
His sweat-soaked body moved obscenely, stretching with fluid grace.
“Keep talking. What do you mean, an NPC that Players need?”
Aktr inhaled and continued.
“They’re NPCs who receive special treatment. There are many craftspeople like blacksmiths, but other professions exist too.”
“Do they rank higher than nobility?”
“No. Specialist NPCs aren’t rare because when they die, another NPC quickly fills that role.”
The sweat hanging from his forehead dripped onto the desk, patter after patter.
The claim about expensive Ointment seemed true—the deepest wound was already showing new flesh creeping up its edges.
Only the smell of burning flesh was appalling.
‘He’s enduring the sensation of flesh burning while fully conscious……?’
What is he?
The same one who gets that sad look in his eyes with the slightest push.
But pain doesn’t faze him at all.
I rolled only my eyes, studying Aktr’s profile.
Eyes shut, enduring patiently the agony of living flesh being torn away.
Like the sea cradling a whirlpool in its embrace.
“How do you bear it so well—all that pain?”
“…….”
“I couldn’t. I’d break.”
I lowered my gaze and brushed his white hair forward, where it kept slipping down his back.
“The slightest ache and I’d fall apart. I know I would.”
“…….”
“Are you truly not in pain? Or are you just hiding it from me? You don’t have to, you know. Not with me.”
“…….”
“Even if you thrash about, even if you cry out—it’s all right. I won’t mock you.”
That was when it happened.
Aktr lurched to his feet and turned to face me.
I jerked my head back as though falling, abandoning the Ointment I’d been applying.
Aktr—the Aktr who endured every torment in silence—
stood with arms spread wide, his face twisted as though he were about to weep.
Countless shafts of sunlight streaming through the window traced the contours of his grief-stricken profile.
Pure tears rolled down his pale cheeks.
I moved slowly, drawn as if devoured, into his embrace.
Thud, roll-roll-roll…….
The Ointment jar fell to the floor.
Because Aktr was so much taller, his spine curved forward while my waist bent backward in a gentle arc.
I lifted my hands and traced the ridge of his ribs.
He didn’t let me go.
“You suffered so much.”
“…….”
“You suffered so much…….”
His shoulders trembled gently.
I felt tepid teardrops falling into the hollow of my neck where he’d buried his head.
The tears kept falling like spring rain melting thin ice.
“How hard it must have been. Six years.”
“…….”
“How much pain…….”
Countless classes wielded against him.
Countless attacks.
Burned, pierced, torn, slashed, crushed, pinned, burst, severed, ripped, split, ground, and scorched.
Cursed, haunted by nightmares, forced to witness the most terrible scenes, the most terrifying sights, abandoned in darkness, made to retch, inflamed, festering, festering, disfigured, grotesque.
Recovered.
Then burned again, pierced again…….
Six years of enduring all that agony.
But that was bearable.
Because there was recovery.
I could endure it happening again.
If bearing it meant I could return to who I truly was.
What I couldn’t endure—
what broke me was that there was no place for me anywhere in this world.
That Iroun wasn’t here. Not now.
That my soul, the root of my self, could not take hold anywhere in this false world.
A perfect stranger.
Perfect solitude.
A perfect shell.
More than any physical pain, what was truly unbearable was living as a puppet—a Boss Monster.
“How could I let myself suffer in front of you?”
Aktr’s voice broke as he spoke.
“How could I cry out in front of you?”
“…….”
“You’re the one suffering most, you’re the one in agony—how could I, in front of you—”
Ah, only you.
Aktr Hebgenia—only you see me, hear me, comfort me.
Not the Boss, but Iroun.
And yet, Aktr.
How could that alone ever be enough?
How could a person live within the confines of a single heart alone?
People need a world.
They need a bed where that soul can rest.
Only there can a person rise again.
Only then can they build a home and take root.
“……What will I do if you comfort me, Aktr?”
I reached to embrace his back, then remembered the wounds and let my arms fall.
“I was going to tell you everything would be fine.”
Aktr wept like a child.
“Pain like that means nothing to me. I’m fine. It’s only a step along the way.”
Death comes after suffering.
If pain must be felt, then I will meet it with a smile.
Afraid and terrified though I am, I will embrace it gladly and let it shatter me.
“That’s why I’m fine.”
……
“I’ve applied the Ointment everywhere. Don’t lie on your back tonight.”
I pushed Aktr away—gently, but with unmistakable force.
He withdrew, lowering his arms.
Despite his weakened frame, Aktr’s body remained perpetually threatening.
His skin glistened as though scalded, and light caught and gleamed along every contour.
Like some vast, living fence made of beasts.
As if driving out something wicked and dangerous before it could take hold.
And in that body, Aktr wept while covering me entirely.
“Stop crying. You’ve already lost blood—you’ll dehydrate.”
Aktr said nothing.
He simply stared at me as though my smile displeased him.
I was reaching down to pick up the Ointment again when I happened to notice the Hologram Arrow at the top of my vision.
It pointed to someone with the potential to become a thrall.
“Aktr. Is the reason you’re trying to bind me because of the Demon God Worshippers?”
……
“Are you afraid they might hurt me?”
Aktr gave no answer.
I asked again.
“Or are you afraid I might use the Worshippers and destroy myself?”
Aktr’s eyes glistened with tears—pure and crystalline, born only of a guileless heart.
Blink. Blink.
As his long white lashes trembled with each blink, a single tear fell and struck my cheek.
Aktr brushed my cheek with his thumb.
As though wiping away tears I had never shed.
“Iroun.”
……
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
His face fragile as glass, Aktr whispered hoarsely.
Even as tears fell, his spirit remained unbroken.
Though he followed and clung, his resolve stood firm and unyielding.
For the first time, I found Aktr frightening.
Truly—as though he could never die.
***
“Master, Master! Heart’s here!”
I woke to the sound of tapping against the window.
Half-asleep and yawning, I unlocked the latch, and Heart pushed through the glass with his body, tumbling inside.
Autumn wind swept coldness across the floor.
I sat up against the headboard and pulled the blanket to my chin.
“Report.”
“Yes, Master! Just as you said, there really was a Player at that location! Would you like me to describe what I saw?”
Heart chattered on enthusiastically.
“Tell me everything you observed.”
“Yes! The Player in question was a male with red hair!”
Heart continued, his single eye rolling as he searched his memory.
“He was wearing decorative fashion items, so I couldn’t determine his class from his garb. However, based on the fact that he was asking a blacksmith to repair a Staff, I estimate he is a Wizard!”
“What does he look like? Be more specific.”
I furrowed my brow and sniffled.
Bound to Aktr as I was, I couldn’t stray far—so I’d devised a small workaround.
I’d sent Heart to shadow a promising candidate, someone with potential to become my thrall.
Heart, who’d spent the afternoon trailing him, tumbled through the air in a lazy roll before 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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