My Strange Savior - Chapter 63

Chapter 63

The sunlight, lazily seeping into the barracks, directly illuminated Gia’s eyes. 

The light threatened to wake Gia from her slumber, but Kalion leaned forward to block the incoming sunlight with his body.

After climbing up the mountain, Kalion, experiencing a newfound sense of leisure, stretched out his injured leg and stood on the remaining one for the first time. He gazed at Gia’s innocent face, nestled on her knees, lost in sleep.

At times, she seemed like a young girl, and at other times, her face appeared devoid of any lingering attachments, resembling an old man who had lived through the world. As she slept, her face finally revealed her true age, much like Kalion’s.

Kalion couldn’t take his eyes off Gia. Her shortened hair tickled her face as it flowed down. Kalion carefully used his hand to sweep it away, ensuring not to disturb Gia’s sleep, and gently brushed aside a strand of hair.

Although Morrison had been missed, the journey was initially undertaken to capture the dragon. Now that the goal was achieved, all they needed to do was descend the mountain with the dragon’s carcass. 

Strangely, Kalion’s heart raced, and his face unexpectedly turned red.

In reality, the injured area might not be the leg or wrist but an internal organ. The rapidly beating heart resonated in his ears. The hand that had been raised to tidy up the hair flowing down Gia’s face now moved on its own accord.

‘Oh no.’

The uncontrollable fingers roamed over Gia’s cheek.

Soft.

Kalion’s hand hesitated, pushed back by the unexpectedly smooth sensation of Gia’s cheek, softer than one would believe for a twenty-five-year-old. Rather than his rough palm, Gia’s cheek seemed to adhere more and more as he touched it.

It wasn’t that his hand wouldn’t let go; perhaps, it was that Gia’s cheek wasn’t detached. With absurd thoughts in his mind, Kalion, with a vacant expression, admired his hand wandering over Gia’s face.

The knight’s code about not touching the face of a sleeping woman had long flown away into the distance. Was he always such a reckless man? 

Knowing he shouldn’t, he couldn’t stop himself. Kalion’s eyes widened.

It seemed like an unusual hobby was developing.

Kalion’s eyelids suddenly drooped heavily.

Where did the Kalion from the past go, who would be startled and flustered by a maiden visiting a man’s room late at night? 

Kalion, without removing his hand from Gia’s cheek, closed his eyes as they became increasingly heavy.

* * *

It seems like a severe snowstorm has begun at the peak of winter. 

Joseph’s prediction about incoming snow proved accurate, and fortunately, they had found a cave beforehand. Thanks to this, they managed to avoid the worst scenario of being trapped in the middle of the forest during a snowstorm.

The Hagria Mountain Range lived up to its reputation, as the amount of falling snow was staggering. The snowfall seemed capable of sweeping the entire mountain.

Whish.

At the sound, Gia flinched. The snowstorm, filled with cold air, relentlessly raged even inside the cave where they had set up a makeshift fire. Still, it was much better inside than outside.

As Gia sipped on warm water, she suddenly felt a longing for the coffee that had disappeared along with her bag.

‘Caffeine… I need caffeine.’

Although drinking warm water in this situation was satisfying enough, human desires never seemed to diminish. Gia, with shoulders hunched against the gusting wind, hurried inside.

“When will it stop?”

“Probably… it might last at most a week. We should know for sure by tomorrow.”

Gia fervently wished it would stop, and she pushed more firewood into the flames to keep the fire going.

If not for Joseph, they might have been wandering the mountain, unable to find a dry cave or gather dry firewood. They could have been shivering in the cold, possibly even succumbing to the dropping temperatures. Thinking of such chilling scenarios, Gia bit her lip.

“I hate mountains.”

Muttering her dislike for the mountain as if expelling a curse, Gia wrapped herself in her blanket. Resembling a caterpillar, she awkwardly approached Kalion, who was leaning against the wall and resting.

“What are you doing?”

Judging by the sunken expression on his face, it was evident he was lost in thought again.

“It’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing. Quite the opposite.”

“Just…”

Kalion reached for the small pendant hanging from his hand. Since Gia didn’t know to whom it belonged, she deliberately made a loud, conspicuous noise while sitting next to him.

Observing Kalion touching the memento from Rockt, Gia stifled a laugh internally. 

Kalion, who used to be unreadable even when looking at his expressions, now revealed his thoughts at a glance. Perhaps his mind was so transparent and clear that it allowed others to read him easily. 

Kalion was undoubtedly different from those suspicious individuals with sinister thoughts.

“Wearing out, huh?”

The necklace, a memento of Rockt, was said to be a gift from his late mother. Kalion, who had managed to retrieve the necklace that Rockt had always cherished, shook his head with a bitter sense of loss.

Observing Kalion self-reflecting and seeming to contemplate burying himself in the ground again, Gia sighed quietly, so he wouldn’t hear.

Every time this happened, Gia felt endlessly awkward about how to console. Spending a considerable amount of time in a place where one had to become indifferent and numb to people dying was the cause.

‘I should have experienced something like this to understand.’

With that thought, Gia pursed her lips like a duck.

In a place where dozens of people died every day, she hadn’t thought deeply about death. Or maybe she couldn’t. Nevertheless, the more she refrained, the more her mind deteriorated.

Having nothing precious or something she wanted to protect, Gia couldn’t attach emotions or sentiments anywhere. Apart from the goal of clearing her father’s name, her only small wish was to die as a human. 

Gia had only survived because she lacked the courage to die. Therefore, Kalion’s sadness felt unfamiliar.

During the initial days of the zombie outbreak, the shelter lacked everything due to the influx of people fleeing from zombies. There was a scarcity of sleep, food, and everything. For those still alive, there was nowhere to step, let alone for the dead.

Due to the shortage of resources and space to handle the bodies, people discarded them like trash. A shell of a person, fodder for the zombies. Gia, who had grown up seeing it, had no words for Kalion.

‘What should I know?’

Gia’s social memories only extended until middle school. She had entered high school just as the zombie outbreak occurred, and to Gia, who didn’t know the adult world, becoming an adult and the world after that was all unknown.

Seeing someone grieving for the first time since the entity that showed affection, Gia felt her chest sink with a peculiar sensation. She had thought such emotions were a luxury. Yet, watching Kalion suffer made her feel very human.

Being with him brought that feeling. The feeling of being a person, not a zombie, and living like a person.

When Rockt died, Gia felt a similar emotion as Kalion, but it didn’t last long. 

Whether it was to defend her sanity or for some other reason, those heavy emotions vanished easily. Unable to keep her hands still, Gia racked her brain to find the right words to say silently.

Because she’s a sister. She wanted to say something befitting an elder sister, something mature and helpful. However, as she contemplated the words to use, Kalion’s voice reached her ears first.

“It’s hard to lose someone you were close to……. It’s never easy to lose someone you were close to.”

“Well……. It usually is.”

“When I was born, the wars with neighboring kingdoms had already ended. In other words, I was born in a fortunate era of peace.”

Wasn’t that a good thing? Perplexed by Kalion’s sudden confession, Gia concealed her bewildered feelings and waited for him to continue.

“I learned the sword, and became a knight, but, in truth, I’ve never killed anything other than monsters. Perhaps it’s because I grew up under good parents and in a good household, only surrounded by good and refined things.”

Kalion’s voice, quietly uttering these words, resonated gently in Gia’s ears. The voice, seemingly not wanting to be heard by others around, grew even quieter, and Kalion’s head approached close to Gia’s face.

“For the first time…”

Kalion’s low breath tickled Gia’s cheek.

“I lost someone close.”

His voice carried a hint of moisture.

“A shameful confession, but I felt so sad and powerless to the point of wanting to die, leaving everything behind. However, I can’t let their sacrifice be in vain. I must endure, not only for those who trusted me and sacrificed themselves to come this far but also for those who are still alive.”

Gia, who had not known that Kalion was grieving so deeply, was left slightly agape in surprise. She had tried in her way to care for Kalion, but it seemed to be of little help, and it dampened her mood.

“I didn’t know I was such a weak human being.”

Kalion laughed somewhat emptily and brushed back his bangs. Pretending not to notice the slightly moistened eyes, he tied the end of the damp blanket.

“It hurts so much, like my heart is being crushed, all in one…….”

Kalion’s red pupils glimmered like clear water under the fading blanket.

“Gia, how did you endure so many farewells?”

“Ah…”

How did she endure that separation? Gia’s expression froze in response to Kalion’s question.

Ah. Ah.

The words that couldn’t form dispersed meaninglessly into the air. Kalion’s gaze, as if it wasn’t expecting an answer, returned to face her directly. Nevertheless, Gia pondered his words again.

‘How did I endure?’

Did she endure at all? Wasn’t she closer to avoidance?

Through lips that wouldn’t close, Gia exhaled a warm breath. 

Faces of numerous people who were already dead flashed through her mind like flipping through pages, colleagues she fought alongside, as well as those she simply knew from the shelter. Their faces were etched one by one on the rapidly flowing film.

“I’ve never endured.”

Gia admitted honestly. Despite appearances, she never saw, never felt, tightly closing off her emotions.

“I just cowardly turned away.”

“Avoidance?”

At the response, Kalion removed the large hand covering his face.

“Yeah. If I tried to find meaning in every death, I might have ended up with a mental illness and committed suicide.”

“That… makes sense.”

Kalion hesitated in response to Gia’s raw honesty.

“Sorry. This is all I can say.”

“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Kalion glanced at Gia apologetically. 

What kind of world did Gia live in? 

What does it feel like to live in a place where someone’s death has become so commonplace?