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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Teottry
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“What is this…”
When Ia Aris, clad in her white coat, kicked off the air and arrived at Liar’s Trap, she couldn’t understand the situation unfolding before her eyes.
“Whew, phew! I-I almost died for real! Wow!”
A-rank and B-rank Awakeners were scattered on the ground, and among them, a familiar F-rank Awakener was panting heavily and making a fuss. And despite the gate being wide open, there was no trace of any monsters.
And.
“A hole in the sky…?”
Even a large hole in the middle of the thick clouds, one that could never have formed naturally.
It was clear that something had happened here, but it was a situation where one couldn’t even guess what it was.
“Oh? Ia-nuna, you’re here!”
Ia Aris, who had been captivated by the large hole in the sky, came to her senses at the familiar voice from in front of her.
“Ah! F-Faster!”
Ia Aris, who had been distracted by the large wind hole in the sky, remembered in a flash why she had run here with all her might at Faster’s voice.
The hole that pierced the clouds was so bizarre that it had momentarily made even her, whose most important purpose in life was Faster, forget about him.
But now that Faster was in front of her, the hole in the sky could no longer hold her interest.
“F-Faster, are you okay? You don’t seem to have any injuries on the outside.”
Ia Aris, her face full of concern, approached Faster and held his hand tightly with both of hers.
“W-Wait a minute, Ia-nuna. If you suddenly grab me like that…”
Faster, momentarily flustered by the sudden skinship, tried to pull back, but there was no way he could escape the grasp of an S-rank Awakener.
First, seeing his seemingly unharmed appearance, she regained her composure.
As her heart calmed down, the anticipation and excitement that had been momentarily overshadowed by worry when she received the message, ‘Ia-nuna, I’m in pain.’ once again made her chest heave.
“N-Nuna? First, could you just…”
“No. I won’t let go.”
“Y-Yes? Why?”
“Because Faster called me nuna. So I don’t want to let go.”
Moreover, since Faster had just called her ‘Ia-nuna’ again, it was only natural that the strong female switch inside Ia Aris would be turned on.
She smiled a relaxed and alluring smile at the flustered him and playfully retorted his words.
“So what if we hold hands? There’s no one watching. And is it really so strange for us to hold hands like this?”
“Y-Yes? O-Our relationship? What kind of relationship is that…?”
“The kind of relationship where we text each other without hesitation even in the dead of night. And the kind where one calls the other nuna and is called that in return? Isn’t that enough to hold hands?”
Ia Aris’s suddenly strong advance flustered Faster repeatedly.
Faster, who had coolly dealt with Scarlet, Lapis, and Silk Blonde head-on, was unfamiliar with a gentle yet strong woman like the current Ia Aris.
Ia Aris, still maintaining the composure of an older woman, asked Faster lightly.
“Do you perhaps dislike holding hands with me?”
“Ah, no. It’s not that I dislike it, it’s just that I’m a bit flustered…”
“I like holding hands with Faster. My heart pounds and I get excited. Faster doesn’t dislike holding hands with me, and I really, really like it. So wouldn’t it be more beneficial in many ways to keep holding hands rather than letting go?”
Ia Aris’s way of speaking, which respected the other person’s opinion while expressing her own expectations, rather than making self-centered conclusions like ‘If you don’t dislike it, then it’s fine!’ or ‘You’re flustered? You’re just flustered, not that you dislike it, right?’, came across as quite persuasive to Faster.
“Of course, if Faster really says he dislikes it, I’ll have no choice but to let go of this hand….. But please, just remember that I came running all this way in the middle of the night just for one message from Faster.”
Scarlet was an expert at making self-centered conclusions, and Faster had lived a life of being forced to make decisions by her side for 15 years.
Perhaps as a side effect of that, Faster was completely won over by Ia Aris’s gentle yet assertive and skillful way of speaking.
“Th-Then. I guess we’ll just have to keep holding hands.”
“That’s right, isn’t it? Faster-dongsaeng?”
“Yes? Ah, um….. Yes, Ia-nuna.”
“Heh, hehehet. I’m so happy when Faster calls me nuna. Until I came running here, my heart was full of worry and anxiety. But now that I’m here, only good things are happening.”
Under the dark night sky, with her brown, medium-length hair shimmering in the light of the streetlights, Ia Aris, smiling gently like the moonlight, brought a rather fresh shock to Faster.
“Ah…”
It was shocking enough to erase the memories of his date and duel sex with Scarlet and his apology sex with Lapis from that day.
She’s pretty. If Silk Blonde, a tearful Scarlet, or a charming Lapi are pretty in an inhuman way, then Ia-nuna is just pretty. Only good things, she says, just like her words… Wait, only good things?
He had been so mesmerized by Ia Aris’s beauty that he had forgotten to think, but at her words, ‘only good things are happening.’ something he had forgotten flashed through his mind.
“Ah! I-Ia-nuna! There’s something for you to do! This wasn’t the time for this!”
“Y-Yes? Faster? What’s going on all of a sudden?”
Remembering what he had forgotten due to the confusion, Faster came to his senses, held Ia Aris’s hand, and looked up at the sky.
At his anxious gaze directed at the sky, Ia Aris regained the rationality she had momentarily lost in the pink atmosphere.
Faster, still looking at the sky with a serious expression, began to explain the matter he had momentarily forgotten.
“It’s not over yet. I somehow managed to send the creature flying into the sky, but I couldn’t kill it.”
“The creature… you mean?”
“The strong monster I told you about on the phone. They said it was an alpha. It was a wolf-shaped monster with a striking black mane. To name it Silk-senpai style… Wolfy. Anyway, when it was about to turn all the Awakeners, including me into dried squid with its fastest and most powerful charge, I risked my life and sent it flying…”
“Y-Yes? W-Wait a minute. What did you say about an alpha?”
At the sudden TMI dump, Ia Aris reached out her hand and stopped Faster’s babbling mouth.
“First, calm down, and slowly. Can you organize it for me in a way that’s neat, concise, and makes sense? If you just blurt it out without any order like that, you seem like an immature younger brother, which is lovely, but it’s hard to understand the content.”
“Ah, ah yes. S-Sorry.”
“First, I’ll help you calm down.”
“What? You don’t have to do that, it’s okay… Ugh.”
She, who had calmed the excitement of battle that was once again rising in Faster’s chest, stroked his head under the pretext of… helping him calm down.
There was a height difference such that her eye level was at his collarbone, so she had to raise her arm quite a bit to stroke his head, but even so, her stroking was so natural, as if she had practiced it somewhere.
It was a stroking filled with her own personal feelings, but since he had acknowledged that it wasn’t strange for them to hold hands, Faster couldn’t say anything about her stroking his head.
To Faster, who was flustered by the stroking, something he hadn’t received since he was in the orphanage, Ia Aris asked in a gentle voice.
“Now, shall we talk to nuna? What happened to the alpha?”
“Ah, well, so…..”
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“To summarize, at the last moment, just before the alpha Black Mane was about to crash into the ground like a meteor. Faster reflexively used Rabbit Burrow to change the direction of the alpha Black Mane that was in contact with his fist, sending it flying into the sky with the same speed and force it was falling with. Is that right?”
“Yes, you’re very good at summarizing, nuna.”
“Of course. I’m your nuna, after all. Anyway, the Black Mane will come back here. To take revenge on Faster, who sent it flying. So don’t worry. Nuna will take care of everything now.”
Ia Aris, who said that while her doctor’s coat fluttered, looked like a hero with a cape to Faster.
To him, she was a dangerous woman who wanted to possess him, but at this moment, there was no one more reliable to him than her.
“Ah, ahh… I knew I could count on you, damn it…”
At Ia Aris’s dignified back and her words, ‘Nuna will take care of everything now,’ Faster let go of the tension he had been holding onto.
“Oh, and Faster. Next time a dangerous opponent like this appears, you have to bring me along without hesitation. I really don’t want you to get hurt…”
-Splat! Thud.
“Huh?”
When Ia Aris turned her head at the gruesome sound from behind her, she saw Faster lying face down in a pool of blood.
“Faster?”
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