The moment those words left his mouth, Red immediately regretted it.
‘Wait, this isn’t right!’
When he thought about it carefully, didn’t that sound like he was asking a stranger to make a vow to live and die together on the same day?
To say something like that to a girl he was meeting for the first time… it was as if his brain had been caught in a door.
Right now, Red felt nothing but sheer awkwardness, as if 10,000 Letias were crawling all over his body.
The feeling intensified when he realized the blue-haired girl didn’t respond.
Instead, she simply stared at him silently with those still, emotionless eyes, not even blinking.
Red felt as if he were sitting on a bed of needles.
His survival instinct kicked in, forcing him to stiffly turn his gaze away and fix it firmly on the surging waves crashing below.
‘Maybe I should just jump.’
He kept muttering to himself in his head.
It felt as if time itself had frozen.
Although only ten or so seconds had passed, it felt as long as a century.
Silence.
A suffocating silence.
On this cliff where only the sea breeze howled, the two of them seemed to have turned into two awkward statues.
Finally, Red plucked up his courage.
Using the corner of his eye, he cautiously glanced at the blue-haired girl again.
For some reason, he felt that her face looked a bit familiar, as if he had seen her somewhere before.
But the problem was, he almost exclusively read books about the Dungeon.
Where did this sense of familiarity come from?
Red felt so embarrassed he could practically dig a three-bedroom apartment with his toes.
The girl turned her head, carefully studying the man who looked somewhat dashing but had a hint of gloom between his brows.
It was undeniable that his spirit seemed a bit low… but no matter how she looked at him, he didn’t seem like someone who had reached the point of needing to seek “release” like she was.
As for Red, he truly didn’t want to continue remaining silent in this hellish awkwardness.
And so, he cast his gaze into the distance, toward the horizon where the sea met the sky.
His voice was low, yet it carried a hint of sorrow.
“If I jump from here, then the troubles of this life will all be over… yet for some reason, I find myself unable to let go.”
If possible, Red wanted to light a cigarette right now and then give himself a slap.
‘What kind of nonsense am I talking about!’
But thinking it over, this might actually work.
Perhaps it could pique a bit of interest in the blue-haired girl.
After all, his original intention was to save her.
Regardless of the method, as long as she was saved, wouldn’t that be enough?
With a “desperate times call for desperate measures” mindset, Red maintained his melancholic posture of gazing at the sea while using his most subtle peripheral vision to nervously observe the girl nearby.
Just as he expected, the girl was staring blankly at his back, seemingly curious about what the “regret” in his words actually was.
“Do you…”
The blue-haired girl hesitated for a moment, but she finally spoke.
“Do you have any unfulfilled wishes?”
Although her appearance seemed a bit cold and she carried an aura that kept people at a distance, her tone was exceptionally gentle, carrying a sense of timidity like that of a small animal.
To this, Red replied.
“If I could, I’d like to stop being single before I die. That way, I wouldn’t feel like I’ve wasted my life entirely…”
If anyone else had said this, the girl probably would have blasted them with a spell for being a creep.
But she looked into the man’s eyes.
His tone and his sorrowful expression seemed sincere.
The girl also stole a glance at his somewhat handsome profile.
After a moment of thought, she spoke in a soft voice.
“You don’t look… like the type of person who would be single.”
“Indeed.”
Red sighed.
“Everyone seems to think so, but in fact, I really am single.”
‘It’s true that everyone thinks I’m involved with Litt, right?’
‘It’s also true that I’m currently single, isn’t it?’
‘I, Red, am not lying.’
“Why?” the girl asked blankly.
At this point, Red breathed a sigh of relief.
He finally understood why Letia was always so noisy around him.
Communication could indeed solve most problems.
If a person kept everything bottled up, it was easy for their thoughts to get stuck in a dead end.
But now a new problem arose.
How was he supposed to follow up?
He had only come up with an opening, but he hadn’t organized his thoughts or words for what came next.
In the end, he was stuck again.
Standing with his back to the girl, he unconsciously rested one hand on his knee while the other instinctively rubbed the Communicator Crystal in his pocket.
Should he call his brothers for help?
After thinking for only half a second, Red dismissed the idea.
Depending on them wasn’t realistic.
In fact, if so many people showed up to join the commotion, it would likely trigger the girl’s stress response.
After thinking it over, Red stood up, turned around, and gave the girl a gentle smile.
“I couldn’t figure it out before, but when I saw you, I think I understood… maybe my standards were just a bit too high.”
Hearing this, the blue-haired girl’s face began to flush.
‘His standards were too high?’
‘Does that mean… he’s taken an interest in me?’
Normally, she should have been a bit annoyed by the man’s flirting, but for some reason, she felt a strange sense of happiness in her heart.
Perhaps this was the first time she had heard such a subtle compliment from someone else.
She had read novels from the human world and had wanted to experience so-called romance and happiness, but for her, such things were far too luxurious.
As a Monster hated and envied by everyone, as a bloodthirsty existence born from the Dungeon, she knew she didn’t deserve it.
She didn’t want to fight anymore.
When a 35th Floor Teleportation Anchor, accidentally opened by some kind soul, appeared before her, she fled to this strange and vast surface world with a desperate urge for liberation.
However, the experiences of the past few days were like buckets of bone-chilling ice water, ruthlessly extinguishing the faint flame of hope in her heart.
Every gaze directed at her was filled with undisguised fear, disgust, and deep-seated hatred, as if she were a walking calamity or a filth that had to be expelled.
Because of this, those fully armed knights had been pursuing her.
She had been alone in the Dungeon, surrounded only by mindless Monsters.
She had thought that by coming to the surface with her human appearance, she might find a place where she belonged… but there was nowhere.
There was no place in this world for her to go.
If she died in the Dungeon, she would be resurrected again and again.
But if she died on the surface, perhaps she could finally escape the loneliness of the past thousands of years.
However, as a Lord, everyone should technically know who she was.
So why did this man in front of her seem completely unconcerned about her identity?
Was he truly seeking death?
While she was thinking, the man had already stood up and was walking toward her.
She didn’t speak.
She simply moved aside quietly, tacitly allowing the man to stand beside her.
‘Whatever… he’ll probably run away in fear in a moment anyway, right?’
In reality, Red had long since sensed the girl’s overflowing Magic.
And when he drew within 10 meters of her…
A bone-chilling coldness and an oppressive pressure that made it impossible to approach instantly hit him.
No matter how beautiful her face was, a fear akin to facing a wild beast rapidly crawled into his heart.
Through this Magic, Red finally understood the girl’s identity.
He also understood where that strange sense of familiarity came from.
This girl was the Lord of the Thirty-fifth Layer.
Ymir — the Ice Witch.
Oh I like her now