On The Honeymoon (2)

A situation where mana can’t be used.

And an unknown space.

First, I felt relief knowing that we could still use the breath, so we began moving forward. I couldn’t just stay still; I had to find the exit to recover mana.

But this corridor stretched on endlessly. And it was a straight passage.

“My dear, when will this path end?”

Eventually, Rurin grabbed the hem of my clothes, and after being dragged along, she stopped.

Honestly, I fully agreed with Rurin’s words.

What is this place even?

It looks like a cave, but it’s not a cave. It’s almost like a dungeon from stories where monsters live.

It might be a tower, but so far, this place is completely unidentifiable.

The fact that there’s a passage means there’s some purpose, and having a purpose means there must be an entrance somewhere. If we just find the entrance or exit, the game would be over, but instead, all that continues is this endless path.

The faint light coming from the walls that dispels the darkness was fascinating at first, but it had long since lost its charm. Eventually, I grew tired from walking and sank to the ground.

I chose to rest.

“Ugh.”

Rurin stuck to my back, threw her arms around my neck, stretched her legs out behind her, and drooped.

“I’m tired, my dear! I wish I could lie on a soft bed in the lair. Even the Lurun are soft. I should have brought them as substitutes for the bed.”

“I agree with the first part, but what do you mean by Lurun?”

“If I sleep with my head on a Lurun’s arm, it’s soft.”

“Lurun’s arm? What did you do instead of sleeping in a bed?”

“I just snuck in with the Lurun while they were rolling around in the lair. I didn’t want to be alone in the bedroom without you!”

If she puts it that way, I have no argument left.

“Hmm, you don’t mind that the Lurun don’t like it?”

“No, they like it!”

“Really?”

Nodding vigorously, Rurin gave me a firm affirmation. She’s not the type to torment monsters she likes.

She soon lost interest and, with a natural yawn, rubbed her eyes. I was getting a little sleepy.

Is it already time to sleep?

But I couldn’t just lie down since I still had no idea what this space was. I had to keep walking until I figured something out.

Grrrr.

Huh?

In the meantime, my stomach began to growl. But this time, it wasn’t my stomach making the noise.

I looked down at Rurin’s stomach, and she rubbed it, making a sad face.

“My dear, my stomach is also hungry.”

This was natural. We had been walking for hours without eating anything.

The problem was that we had no food. If I could use magic, I would summon something to eat, but that is impossible right now.

Nothing was working.

Honestly, the biggest issue wasn’t mana, but food.

Without mana, I can’t use magic, but I won’t die immediately. But without food, I would die. And death by starvation is the most miserable.

So, before searching for the exit, we might need to find food first.

I couldn’t sleep until one of these issues was resolved.

“Oooh?”

Just as I was about to suggest walking further, Rurin, who had been clinging to my back, suddenly jumped up with an excited voice and started hopping.

“What’s going on? Why are you acting like that?”

“Chocolate bar.”

“Huh?”

“It was in my pocket, yum!”

Rurin tore open the wrapper of the chocolate bar she found in her pocket at the speed of light and had it in her mouth before I knew it.

She was so fast. Half of the chocolate bar was quickly broken down and chewed inside Rurin’s mouth.

That speed when it comes to food, that’s Rurin for you. She’s not the type to nibble slowly, trying to save food.

“It’s delicious! Hehe.”

After finishing the half-melted chocolate bar from her pocket, Rurin held up the other half and sat next to me.

“My dear, say ah!”

“Huh? Why suddenly ‘ah’?”

“Ah! Ah! Aaaah! Don’t you know? You’re so frustrating!”

I pretended not to understand, but she opened her mouth and repeated it, so when I finally said “Ah,” Rurin shoved the chocolate bar into my mouth.

“You said you were hungry, so why are you giving it to me?”

When Rurin is full, I feel like I’m full too, so it doesn’t matter. Honestly, as long as I’m not starving to death, I’d rather see Rurin happy and full.

But maybe Rurin was thinking the same, as she shook her head and replied.

“I don’t want to eat alone. What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine. So, half and half!”

Rurin is known for not sharing food and having a strong craving for food, but she treats me differently.

Only with me.

That’s another thing that makes her attractive.

After saying that, Rurin giggled and stood up again, starting to rummage through her pocket. She turned it inside out, but there was no more chocolate bar, just lint that she shook out, and then she began to scold herself.

“I should have put something else in my pocket! But why was that one in there earlier? I don’t remember putting it in!”

Rurin tilted her head. Well, that’s true. If it were Rurin, she’d normally store food not in her pocket, but in her stomach.

Still, receiving half of the chocolate bar by accident did give me a little energy.

“Rurin.”

Tap, tap.

With that newfound strength, I continued searching my pocket and then sat the slumped Rurin next to me.

“What is it?”

Then her pretty features formed a question mark, so I pointed to my mouth.

“My mouth?”

“Yes, the mouth! You ate the melted chocolate bar too quickly, and it got all over your lips!”

“Really? No! I thought it through. I’ll eat it later. When I’m hungry…”

“Are you kidding me? Is that food on your face? Besides, isn’t it unattractive to have that on your face?”

“…I don’t like that!”

Rurin reacted to the comment about being unattractive and moved her hand toward her mouth to wipe off the chocolate. Of course, she couldn’t do it because I grabbed her wrist and flipped it around.

“My dear?”

“Look over here. I’ll clean it for you.”

“Huh?”

After saying that, I gently wiped the chocolate on Rurin’s lips and around her mouth with my index finger. A bit of chocolate remained on my finger. I showed it to her as evidence that she had chocolate on her lips.

“How is it?”

“I-it was food…!”

“Food, huh? There’s still more on you.”

This time, instead of using my finger, I stuck out my tongue. My tongue touched the chocolate on Rurin’s lips, then naturally moved from her mouth to her lips.

Soon, my lips covered Rurin’s lips.

“Hoooah!?”

Rurin, caught off guard by the kiss, made an odd noise, but soon there was no movement from her.

No, she grabbed my hand tightly first.

She’s still shy about initiating hugs or kisses, but in situations like this, she’s started being more affectionate in different ways, which is a recent change.

Rurin held my hand tightly, as if to crush it, accepting me. I felt the heat from her hand, her breath, and her scent. Everything made my heart flutter.

And another change.

Rurin doesn’t pull away from a kiss first anymore.

If I didn’t pull away, I felt like we could kiss for 24 hours straight. Wouldn’t my jaw, lips, and tongue freeze in place? But Rurin still doesn’t pull away first.

I once foolishly tested when she would pull away, and we ended up kissing for hours, so I didn’t make that mistake again.

When I pull away first, she moves actively to follow my face.

Her lips would try to meet mine again, as if she was determined to stay connected.

When we pull away once more, she looks at me with a disappointed expression, her face flushed. Honestly, at times like this, Rurin’s face is full of charm, evoking strange feelings in me.

“Then…”

“Huh?”

“So, to kiss, I just need to get chocolate on my lips?!”

“What are you talking about?”

Rurin came to an absurd conclusion after the kiss, and I shook my head. Then she made a giggling sound and suddenly shouted.

“Ah!”

“Why? What’s wrong? Is something happening?”

“No, wait. I just realized, there’s chocolate on your finger too!”

As if remembering something important, she quickly wiped her own mouth, then grabbed my finger with both hands.

Then, she gently took my finger and placed it into her mouth. My finger entered her warm mouth.

It was ticklish.

I felt both Rurin’s body heat and the ticklish sensation at the same time. It seemed that the purpose was truly the chocolate, as Rurin quickly released my finger from her mouth, unlike during a kiss.

Then, she left me with a remark.

“It’s salty!”

It’s not sweet, it’s salty.

If my finger tasted salty, it was probably because I had gripped her hand so tightly during the kiss, causing it to sweat from the heat.

“Don’t joke around, we’ve replenished some energy. Now, let’s walk again. We need to find something and rest.”

“I don’t know about that, but now I’m sleepy.”

“You’re not a child.”

“Yes, I am!”

“Hey! Ugh!”

Rurin slid towards me, charging directly into my lap.

“Since there are no Lurun, you’re my bed now. Come to think of it, in a place like this, your belly is the best pillow! I remember resting on it.”

Lying down, Rurin stared at my belly with wide eyes.

Yes, back when the lair, which Rurin’s mother had left behind, was safe, Rurin had suddenly rested her head on my belly.

At that time, we weren’t that close yet.

But now is not the time to sleep. If she wanted, I could let her rest on my belly, but that’s a story for when we find something and rest.

“Eek!”

I lifted Rurin up in a princess carry, stood her up, and began walking, dragging her along.

“I’m sleepy!”

Ignoring the sound behind me, I kept walking for a while, and finally, the monotonous scenery began to change.

“Clothes? What are these?”

Finally, Rurin, who had been dragged along, ran forward with excitement at the change.

It was a corpse.

The corpse of an unknown monster.

It wasn’t the type of monster I had grown tired of seeing during the monster wars in my world, but it resembled it a lot. A large, orc-like figure, but not quite an orc. It was more nondescript.

There were about three bodies, each with different damage: one with its chest, shoulders, and torso destroyed, another with its head destroyed, and the last one with its stomach missing, a round-shaped wound.

The sight of the dead bodies was grotesque.

The monster at the back was less damaged, but it had still reached death, even though the damage was lesser.

“A monster…”

I thought it might be, and it seems this place is indeed connected to monsters.

There isn’t going to be a boss monster at the top where we have to defeat it to escape, right?

Without magic, that could be troublesome.

Of course, it’s impossible to predict everything just from seeing the monster corpses.

“Anyway, why are these monsters dead here?”

There was still warmth in the corpses, so they hadn’t been dead for long. Rurin, poking at the dead monsters, answered casually.

“It was from the breath earlier!”

“Breath?”

“It was the breath that came out of my mouth earlier.”