Seeing Letia’s face covered in black lines, a faint smile couldn’t help but curl at the corner of Red’s lips.
Unconsciously, he seemed to have already integrated into Letia’s rhythm.
Watching this little creature chattering away could indeed make one forget their worries.
He couldn’t quite say how this playful, laughing feeling compared to those warm, healing feelings.
But what was certain was that he didn’t find it annoying at all; in fact, he thought it was quite fun.
“Alright, alright,”
Red pulled Letia back and said to her, “Calm down, calm down a bit.”
“How am I supposed to calm down with this?”
She gave Red a huge eye-roll.
“In my eyes, you’re at least a brother. But you, you’re either calling me a monkey or a gorilla, and even a damn silverback gorilla… Is that even human language?”
By the end, she really wanted to kick Red in the face, but was afraid of hurting him, so she settled for giving him a big middle finger instead.
“Perhaps?”
Red didn’t confirm or deny it, but then he changed the subject, saying to Letia, “But doesn’t that prove from the side that our relationship is pretty good?”
She didn’t say it out loud, but she was also very clear: men… only show their childish side in front of people they are familiar with and trust, while in front of those they don’t trust, they wear that incredibly mature mask.
So, from a side perspective, the fact that Red could be open and relaxed with her meant she really was one of his most trusted people.
“Alright, alright, stop making trouble and go back to sleep quickly.”
“I thought you’d let me sleep here.”
“Get lost,”
Red pushed away Letia’s head as she leaned in and continued, “I’m suppressing myself right now, and I might not be able to control myself, understand?”
Red’s gaze fell on Letia’s thighs.
The latter naturally felt Red’s burning stare.
She had originally wanted to tease Red a bit more, but seeing his utterly serious expression, the words at the tip of her tongue were swallowed back.
In short… she chickened out.
“Tch~”
But even so, Letia still wore an incredibly smug expression.
She got up from the bed, made a face at Red, and said mockingly, “So, in the end, you’re all bark and no bite, huh!”
As soon as the words were out, she turned and ran, not giving Red any chance to react.
It wasn’t until the bedroom door closed again that Red sighed, his face written with speechlessness.
“What did that girl even come here for?”
As for what Letia was thinking, Red had never been able to figure her out.
However, one thing was for sure… he did indeed have some thoughts about her in that regard.
Let it be known beforehand, he absolutely was not a lolicon, and he didn’t want the smallest caliber for his spell bullets either.
If possible, Red preferred Litt’s relatively well-proportioned, youthful figure over Letia’s little chatterbox.
But as the saying goes, life is unpredictable.
Not to mention the distant past, even two weeks ago, he never imagined he’d get this close to Letia.
And now they were even considered boyfriend and girlfriend…
Although only nominally, Letia’s attitude was indeed a little… subtly different.
But, well, the fact that she hadn’t explicitly opposed it was already proof of her inner thoughts.
Red considered himself not entirely clueless about emotions; he could still guess her little thoughts.
It’s just that this girl was all talk.
Talking about some crazy grand lotto, but in the end, when he took a step forward, she got scared and ran far away.
Thinking about this, Red felt a bit amused.
He really wanted to push her down on the bed on purpose and see what kind of reaction she would have.
“Forget it…”
The sleepiness that had been chased away by Letia had also mostly disappeared.
Red closed his eyes and once again drifted into slumber.
***
Consciousness sank as if into a viscous mire, continuously sliding toward a chaotic abyss.
Thoughts seemed covered by thick frosted glass, growing fuzzier, harder to focus…
Yet this time, the expected, clanging nightmare did not descend.
Red found himself in an extremely familiar posture, hunched over a desk piled high with papers.
Before him was a boundless, seemingly endless expanse of documents and intelligence reports, chaotically stacked in front of him.
“This is…”
He murmured unconsciously, with a trace of confusion, slowly raising his head, his gaze sweeping over the surroundings that were both familiar and tinged with the filter of time.
A dream?
Red quickly realized.
And the place he was in… was the Dawnblade headquarters?
Why… was he dreaming of here?
He felt a hint of bewilderment.
The logic of dreams was always chaotic and capricious; the scenes and plots woven… often defied any constraint from the waking will.
Although he clearly knew he was in a dream, his body moved completely out of his control.
He began sorting the mountain of materials on the desk, his fingertips rapidly flipping through, categorizing, annotating.
His movements were practiced to an almost instinctual degree.
That familiar, weary feeling once again surged in his heart, but the sense of responsibility and his serious attitude made him continue working like a machine…
“How long are we planning to drag this out?!”
At some point, Liz seemed to have entered the room.
Her icy gaze fixed on him, and her hand slammed hard on the desk.
“Compared to other Hero Parties, our team is lagging far, far behind!”
Listening to her words, Red, already exhausted, couldn’t muster much energy to explain.
“The other Hero Parties have better compositions than ours. We have both frontline and backline here, but we lack a Priest…”
“But the problem is, each of us individually is strong enough to kill elite monsters from the Fifteenth Layer like chickens. What is there to be afraid of?”
Liz’s cold stare, her noble-born pressure, and her looking down at Red from above made the latter’s heart grow immensely heavy and oppressive, and… even more profoundly weary.
“I understand…”
Red didn’t want to argue with Liz.
He just stood up calmly.
“I’ll go recruit a Priest first. I heard a Priest from the Holy Church has arrived in Nightbright Town. Their strength is decent and should be able to keep up with our pace.”
Hearing Red’s reply, Liz frowned tightly.
“Three days. I’ll only give you three days.”
Red glanced back at the desk behind him.
If he wanted to complete the plan and intelligence gathering, he’d need at least a week.
And if he wanted to finish this work and recruit someone within three days…
Then, conservatively, he’d only be able to rest for six hours total over those three days.
But even so, Red still nodded.
“…Okay.”