Chapter 282: Path to the Demon King’s Castle

What was this, some kind of chain reaction? It felt like one of those stories where someone trades a small item for something bigger and keeps going until they end up with a fortune.

In the end, they had decided to leave Long behind. Besides, Qiu Nuoya had his dragon flute, and Long had promised to fly to him from anywhere if he played it when necessary. So there was no problem.

Incidentally, Slime Communication required Xiao Tao’s indispensable assistance, so he had stayed behind as well. Warren, who had practically become Xiao Tao’s bodyguard, had remained with him.

Thinking that far, Qiu Nuoya remembered Warren and let out a quiet sigh.

At the moment, things were a little awkward between them.

Qiu Nuoya had known that this would happen if he chose someone. The four of them had always gotten along well as a party, but their balance had never been particularly stable.

Leaving Igor aside, Viktor and Warren were probably two people who would never even have crossed paths if Qiu Nuoya had not been part of their lives.

Both had confessed their love for him, so it had always been within the realm of possibility that choosing one over the other would lead to this kind of situation. Even so, Qiu Nuoya couldn’t help feeling down.

He might not have been able to choose the other as his lover, but he had hoped they could remain friends for a long time.

Yet friendship could crumble so easily when romantic love got in the way.

"What’s wrong, Nuoya? You look rather glum. Getting cold feet now that we’ve made it this far? Well, I can understand feeling conflicted about attacking this place after seeing its residents going about their perfectly ordinary lives."

Igor leaned over to peer at Qiu Nuoya’s face as he spoke.

Still, Igor had a point. Although the residents looked different from humans, Qiu Nuoya had learned that they lived ordinary lives much like his own. Naturally, once he realized that, he couldn’t help wondering why they had to do this at all.

If it weren’t for the monster stampede that occurred once every hundred years, and if the Demon King never marched his forces into their kingdom, then Qiu Nuoya didn’t think they had any right to take these people’s lives away from them.

While he was seriously pondering the matter, an arm suddenly wrapped around his waist and pulled him backward.

"You’re standing too close."

Before Qiu Nuoya could react, Viktor, who had been standing right behind him, pulled him into his chest and held him securely in his arms.

"Hey, Viktor! How many times have I told you not to do this!?"

"I don’t recall agreeing to that."

It was true that Igor had been standing a little close while peering into Qiu Nuoya’s face, but this sort of distance had always been normal between them. It wasn’t anything worth getting worked up over.

Yet Viktor simply brushed off Qiu Nuoya’s words and showed no sign of letting him go.

As a mage, Viktor wasn’t particularly strong physically. If Qiu Nuoya really wanted to break free with all his strength, he could probably manage it. Instead, he simply sighed in Viktor’s arms.

He had deliberately made their relationship public to discourage Viktor from doing things like this, but apparently, it had made absolutely no difference.

"Ah... I don’t mind you two being lovey dovey, but you really are close, aren’t you? This is painful to watch when I’m already nursing a broken heart."

Igor’s words made Qiu Nuoya feel guilty. It was probably true that Igor was still heartbroken over having his wife stolen by someone who looked exactly like him, despite being a complete stranger. Yet Igor was making lighthearted remarks to keep the atmosphere from turning awkward, and Qiu Nuoya felt that they were putting him through a great deal of trouble.

Under the circumstances, Igor would have been perfectly justified in losing his temper and shouting something like, "I don’t care about any of you anymore! I’m going to do whatever I want from now on!"

But he hadn’t said a single word of the sort.

In that respect, Igor really was a mature adult. Qiu Nuoya sometimes thought that being with someone like him would probably make for a peaceful life. Yet even Igor had a past in which he had failed to keep his family together. Human relationships really were complicated.

"Anyway, putting that aside, how are we going to get into the Demon King’s Castle?"

Igor looked up at the castle towering before them. It was called the Demon King’s Castle because the Demon King lived there, but in the end, it was simply a royal castle. Its defenses were naturally formidable, and it certainly didn’t look like somewhere they could sneak into easily.

"Igor, how did you get into the castle last time?"

"Hm? Like I said earlier, by the time I arrived, the royal army had already advanced into the castle. So I simply went in through the front entrance."

That made sense.

Adventurers hired as mercenaries wouldn’t exactly be the ones leading the charge into a castle. Their role would more likely be to clear out the weaker enemies.

"At the time, I think the royal army’s main forces had probably gone after the Demon King. We were sent to deal with reports that monsters were emerging from beneath the castle. That’s how we ended up wandering into the underground dungeon."

"Our objective this time is the underground dungeon rather than the castle itself. Do you think we could sneak in through a drainage channel or some other passage like that?"

As Qiu Nuoya pondered the situation and glanced around, something caught the corner of his eye.

"Huh? Wait, is that Mochi?"

The slime bouncing up and down over there was none other than Mochi, his tamed monster. Usually, Mochi stayed tucked away in the inner pocket of Qiu Nuoya’s robe, so why was it bouncing around and seemingly trying to wander off on its own?