Level Up Legacy

Little Yin seemed confused about where and when as she turned around and looked at the surroundings. She seemed unfamiliar with Arthur, and he was starting to wonder if this was the third personality.

“How long did I sleep for?” the confused Little Yin asked. Arthur smiled and pointed toward the sunrise behind him, making Little Yin stare at him with surprise before jumping to her feet. Then, she rushed toward the cave’s entrance to see the scenery down the mountain.

The goo was still on fire, and the forest was half destroyed. Nevertheless, there were traces of ice, fire, lightning, and metals between the trees. These were the manifestations of the traps Arthur had set up for the pursuers.

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” for some reason, Arthur didn’t want to reveal Other Yin. So the outcome could be either of two: Little Yin already knew about her and tried to hide it, or she did not know that her body was possessed. Arthur didn’t want to have both conversations with her.

“The fight… happened? How did I stay asleep?” she muttered with a shaky voice. The answer was that she wasn’t asleep, but Arthur did not say that. He was still pondering how to explain things when her shoulders started shaking uncontrollably. “I,” she sobbed, “I let you fight on your own while sleeping.”

The man known as the creator, beloved by the world, outsider, and the strongest, had one fatal weakness he failed to overcome. Arthur had no idea how to console another person. Therefore, when he realized that Little Yin had tears streaming down her face, there was very little that he could think about.

“I was the one to block the sounds from waking you up,” he explained, not wanting her to feel bad. Arthur could tell when someone faked crying, but he also preferred those who did. After all, real crying made him confused.

Little Yin was sobbing, sniffing, and wiping the tears away from her face with her sleeves. Arthur stood behind her awkwardly, not knowing what to say next. He tried thinking of what he wanted others to do when he cried as a child.

Young Arthur could not cry in front of his mother because he didn’t want her to feel guilty about the fact that he needed to work. That was why, after his father disappeared, young Arthur cried alone on days it was too much.

‘I think all I wanted at that time was not to be alone.’

The memory disappeared as it came, and Arthur knew he could only do that. So he walked to stand beside Little Yin and placed his arm around her shoulder.

“You don’t need to feel guilty,” whispered Arthur to her. “This is a job I received with payment in mind. Even if you were awake, I wouldn’t have wanted you to get involved. I promised your sister that I would take care of you.”

Arthur reassured what he assumed to be her guilt for sleeping during the battle. But instead, Little Yin shook her head repeatedly as she used her forearm to cover her eyes.

“You could have escorted me without getting dragged into a fight, but you had to make sure I was safe before leaving,” she sniffed, seeming to calm down. “Even then, I doubted that you were just deceiving me to make me grateful. I didn’t believe that anyone would care about my safety other than older sis.”

Little Yin calmed down, and her crying stopped. Arthur stared at the ground before them, not knowing what to say. Finally, he decided to deny such an assumption to ensure she knew his real intentions.

“Listen, Yin,” he started. “I…”

Arthur started to explain, but his words were cut short because Little Yin suddenly turned and tackled him to the ground. The two of them fell on the red, brownish soil of the cave, with Little Yin hugging Arthur tightly.

“Hey, what are you doing?” asked Arthur as he held her shoulders, about to push her away. This sudden intimacy with another person made his skin feel a burning sensation that flooded his senses. Arthur was far from being used to it. “Little Yin, let go.”

Despite asking her of that and pushing her to let go of him, Little Yin hugged him tightly while burying her face in his chest. Arthur could feel the warmth of her tears-covered face transmitting to his skin, making him unsure of what she wanted to do.

This situation was a bit different than the one with Rain, where he could tell that she was feeling lustful. This hug had no such emotion behind it, but Arthur failed to recognize what emotion it had. That was the reason that he panicked.

“Thank you,” she muttered on his chest. “I know I’m being spoiled,” she began, raising her head to meet his eyes. Her blue oceans stared at him, glistering from the tears. “Even so, please let me hug you.”

There was a hint of a desperate tone in her voice. Arthur stared at her silently for a full two minutes before he nodded. Little Yin gave a sweet smile before she placed her cheek on his chest again and closed her eyes.

Arthur leaned back on the ground, feeling helpless. Arthur didn’t have the heart to turn them down if a person looked at him like that while asking for a hug. Little Yin didn’t try anything more than just a hug, and he didn’t think she even considered more.

Her warmth sharply contrasted the cold morning breeze climbing the mountain, making Arthur feel relaxed. Humans were such sociable creatures that proximity to another made them feel safe.

In the end, Arthur started feeling sleepy. However, before he was about to fall asleep, Arthur wrote a barrier rune to use on his body. Even if Little Yin seemed honest, she wasn’t someone that Arthur could trust.

Before he applied the rune on his body, Arthur paused. He felt he was ruining her trust in him and being unappreciative of her gratitude. However, he feared that he couldn’t trust anyone else enough to fall asleep with them.

The rune dissolved from his hand, and Arthur closed his eyes. It was foolish and idiotic to let down his guard in this place, but he knew he would wake up if anything happened. However, that alternative was not why Arthur decided to sleep without the rune. Arthur wanted to let go of his vigilant caution that seemed to ruin every new friendship and relationship he had.

‘If I had trusted Sier with the truth, I wouldn’t have lost Mistletoe and made an enemy out of them. This mindset keeps me alive, but I lost something more important along the way.’

These thoughts filled his mind as Arthur fell asleep. This was the first time he slept beside someone else after separating from Diana. The last feeling that he had was guilt for doing this with someone else.

***

Yin could hear his breathing growing deeper as his chest started heaving underneath her face. Then, she raised his head to look at him and found that the man, who she didn’t know his name, had fallen asleep.

It made her happy that he trusted her enough to let down his guard like this. A smile covered her face as she placed her ear on his chest, listening to his powerful heartbeats that made her feel like the world had absolute order.

This was the first time Yin embraced another person other than her sister. The Bloodflower Gang was not a place to make meaningful relationships, and most members looked down on her.

This was the first time she touched a man with her entire body. Yin always despised them for being too selfish or lecherous. However, ever since she met this man, he seemed incapable of being like the others.

Their breathings grew synchronized, and their chests moved in rhythm. Since her sister brought her to Helios and joined the gang, Yin could never feel at ease.  However, at that moment, she felt nothing but peace.

Then, her consciousness drifted to sleep. The next time she opened her eyes, the sun was high in the sky, but they were both in the shadows. Yin opened her slowly, and she could feel the soft soil beneath her.

The first thought was that he woke up before her and pushed her away, but something grabbed her waist. Her eyes snapped open, and Yin realized that even though she was no longer on his chest, the man didn’t wake up yet. He was still asleep, but he was next to her, hugging her while sleeping.

Earlier, she was the one to hug him. However, now, he was pulling her toward his body, which made her heart eccentric. Then, her breathing grew shallow and rapid, making the man notice it and wake up too.

His eyelashes fluttered, and the man slowly opened his eyes. Yin then froze while staring at his eyes because their color had changed to golden.