The world around him slowly regained sound. He blinked once, then twice, and when he opened his eyes for the third time he could finally see.
"Where… am I?"
He found himself in the guestroom of an old farm. When he looked out the window, there were cows mowing the grass and chickens being as annoying as ever.
He hid his naked body in a loose cloth and walked outside. What immediately caught his attention was the sudden change in the strider's wall. It was much closer than before, indicating that he was far from the capital.
"The sun is just beginning to rise. How long was I asleep?"
There was a small barrel to his right. He looked inside and found his reflection peeking back from the water.
It was him, Gabriel. He was alive.
What was even stranger is how there were no burn marks left on him. His face looked as smooth as ever, his hair stylish as expected and his stomach… well, it was missing a hole.
"How…?"
He slid his finger between his abs. They were well-toned muscles that were neither too big nor too small. A perfect fit for someone athletic like Gabriel.
"Incredible… These healing effects rival even my previous demonic regeneration! Who could possess the powers to completely heal such drastic wounds?"
As he looked up, there was someone standing before him.
It was a young girl. She had a sad expression on her face that looked all too natural. A straw hat sat on her head, below which hair ran down straight to her hips. Her hair was separated in the middle, its left side colored white and its right side black.
She spoke no words. Instead, she walked by Gabriel and refilled her buckets with the contents of the barrel next to him.
Gabriel was at a loss of words. Not only did the girl act unnaturally, but her hair was unlike anything he has ever seen before.
"E-Excuse me, Miss! Are you the one who saved me?"
The girl refilled her buckets, ignoring Gabriel's question. He raised the heavy weight and went to refill the cows' water.
Gabriel followed the girl, still stubbornly asking his questions.
"If it weren't you who helped me, do you know who I could thank for that? And why did I end up in this house? Is that good Samaritan one of your relatives?"
Gabriel grabbed the girl's bucket and tried to take it away.
"How about I help you out and you give some answers to my questions? I can see you are struggling with this weight, it wouldn't be good if you hurt yourself!"
The girl did not let go. Slowly, she turned her head towards Gabriel and as their eyes met, a shiver ran down the demon's back.
Though it was clear the girl could not harm him in any way, her eyes were as threatening as an angered lioness.
Gabriel let go of the bucket. The girl pulled away and continued her routine with the utmost silence.
"What a weird girl…" Gabriel thought to himself, before hearing an excited shout echo behind him.
"Gabriel! You are awake!"
The source of that voice was none other than Naomi. He rushed to Gabriel with a relieved smile and hugged him tightly. Gabriel was quite surprised.
"I'm so happy you're alright!" Naomi yelled with tears in his eyes. "I thought I was too late! Thank god I was wrong!"
His excitement came to a halt as he felt something strange poke his leg. He did not know what it was at first, but as he realized Gabriel wore nothing but a towel, he recoiled with a prudish squeal.
Gabriel sighed with frustration.
"What are you surprised about? I just woke up from the longest sleep of my life! You are a man too, aren't you? You know this is natural!"
"I feel so dirty!" Naomi took the cows' water and poured it onto himself. "I need to bathe myself in holy water!"
"So overdramatic…" Gabriel shook his head. However, when he realized what Naomi said a moment ago, his eyes widened in surprise. "Wait! Did you just say you were the one who saved me?"
"Oh, yeah! I remember, we took a bathroom break but once I climbed out of my bush, you were gone. I looked everywhere and when the forest caught on fire, I got scared you might have been the victim of an ambush! A-And when I found you… you were a mess."
His expression turned blank as he remembered yesterday's events.
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"When I ran into that forest, I was expecting to find some kind of fire monster. I thought this was the clishé where we get to fight a huge monster that gives us amazing powers! But… What I found instead was the burning corpse of my friend."
"What did you do?" Gabriel shook him by the shoulder. "How did you manage to heal me? I need to know, Naomi!"
Naomi looked away. He could not face Gabriel with the truth.
"I'm… I didn't do any of that. When I first saw your corpse, I froze down in fear. I could not believe your tale would end so quickly. I had to lie to myself and say that maybe, just maybe, this is another clishé I haven't seen before, where the protagonist saves a more powerful warrior and makes him his servant. I tried to play it off as if it was just an… anime… and I was the main protagonist. I laughed as I put your burning corpse on my back and walked out of the forest. I laughed with tears as the rain of ashes fell onto me and burned my skin! I laughed, that all of this was meant to happen and this was just a clishé I have not seen before…"
Tears rolled down the sides of his face. He tried to cover them with his hands as he continued.
"When we got out of that forest, I did not stop walking. I walked for god knows how long until I finally passed out. Why? Because I knew that the moment I would drop you, the chance of this clishé fulfilling itself would disappear. I would never get another chance to save your life…"
Naomi screamed as he cried.
"And I did not want that! My friend, someone who was so kind to me… I did not want to see him die!"
Gabriel recoiled. He was utterly speechless. Never before had he seen a man cry with so many raw emotions.
From Naomi's perspective, he thought that he had finally revealed his true colors. The colors of a weak man, who had to wrap his pain in the mystique of fake tales just to keep himself going.
He thought was nothing more than a pathetic man. A lost cause, abandoned by all of society, and even by his own self.
This is how he saw himself.
But Gabriel saw this reveal in a different light.
Suddenly, Naomi felt a light pat on his shoulder. As he looked up from his tear-filled palms, he was met with Gabriel's smile.
"Thank you."
"W-What?" Naomi wiped the tears from his eyes. "Why are you thanking me? Can't you see how pathetic I am?"
Gabriel answered that question with another.
"Were you scared when you ran into that burning forest?"
"What are you talking about? Of course I was scared! Do you know how painful it is to burn to death?! Oh… Wait…"
"And despite all of that, you came after me. Why?"
"That's because… Because…"
It finally clicked.
At last, he understood.
No matter how much he tried to persuade himself, the very fact that he was willing to run into the depths of hell just to save his friend was enough to debase all his claims.
"I don't know who hurt you in your previous life, but you should give yourself some slack." Gabriel said as he let go of him. "Everybody has some strange quirks. To think it's only you cursed with them is as stupid as believing you are the only sentient man in the universe. To hate yourself for them is even dumber, if not selfish in a way."
Naomi was at a loss of words. Gabriel's words struck him in a way that nothing ever had before.
Something brewed inside of him, though that emotion was still too young to define.
"Ah, by the way," Gabriel pointed behind him. "Who is that girl?"
The silent girl from before was standing right behind Naomi. She was refilling the cows' water, the same that Naomi used as holy water just moments ago.
Her expression was still as depressed as before and she did not bother looking at the two boys. In fact, she was visibly ignoring them.
When Naomi turned around and saw the girl, he recoiled with a scared scream. The girl was so quiet that he did not even feel her presence.
"What the hell?!" Naomi yelled. "Do they teach royalty how to sneak up on others?!"
"Royalty?" Gabriel repeated with surprise in his voice.
"Exactly! Can you believe it? The little farmer with the muddy boots and dirty hands is actually the Duchess of Neustadt!"