Chapter 83: New Journey

"Alas, you wanted to walk alongside her, didn’t you?"

"...Yeah. I did."

"But maybe the places you and she wanted to reach slowly changed over the years. If you stand still, you’ll never reach the place you’re trying to get to. So maybe she simply chose her own path and started walking toward it..."

"..."

A long, long silence followed.

Qiu Nuoya gently stroked Igor’s hair as he continued lying beside him. His hair was soft and fluffy, and it felt pleasant to the touch.

Moonlight streamed faintly through the window in the hallway, casting Igor’s shadow against the floor. His expression was difficult to make out. But Qiu Nuoya thought that was probably for the best.

After all, even a grown man probably did not want other people seeing him when he was at his weakest.

"I’ve been wondering about this for a while..."

"Hm?"

"Nuoya, you’re lying about your age, aren’t you?"

Oh no.

Qiu Nuoya had gotten so caught up in comforting Igor that he had completely forgotten to worry about his apparent age. Indeed, what kind of ten year old talked about life like that?

"Ah, haha... No, of course not."

"Well, it doesn’t really matter how old you are. It’s not like anyone is being inconvenienced by it, so I don’t really care." Igor tslowly sat up and settled down beside Qiu Nuoya. Then he placed his large palm on Qiu Nuoya’s head and gently ruffled his hair and said, "Thanks."

"Viktor once told me that I should rely on other people more. I wasn’t very good at that sort of thing. But you, Viktor, and Warren have all been so kind to him. So I wants to become someone that others can rely on too, just as much as I relies on everyone else."

"You’re already more than reliable enough." With that, Igor pulled Qiu Nuoya into his lap and buried his face against the back of Qiu Nuoya’s head.

Qiu Nuoya wondered if perhaps Igor was crying. But he could not bring himself to say anything. So he simply remained quietly in Igor’s arms until Igor had calmed down.

From the next day onward, Igor was almost completely back to his usual self. He was not quite at the point of being completely recovered, but at least he no longer showed signs of being deeply depressed.

There was only one thing that had changed. For some reason, Igor had become even more overprotective of Qiu Nuoya than before.

Viktor and Warren had already been excessively protective of him, but now Igor had joined them.

It was not as though anything particularly dramatic had changed. Just like before, Igor would pick Qiu Nuoya up whenever they reached a dangerous area. However, he seemed to be doing it a little more often than before.

Whenever Warren was about to hold out his hand, Igor would casually scoop Qiu Nuoya up first, leaving Warren looking slightly bewildered.

It was understandable. Until now, Qiu Nuoya and Warren had often walked hand in hand whenever Igor was around, but now Igor would not let them do it.

As far as Qiu Nuoya was concerned, both options were embarrassing, so it was not as though one was better than the other. Still, why had Igor suddenly started doing this?

Could it be because... he doesn’t want to see someone who reminds him of his daughter walking around holding hands with another boy right in front of him?

Considering that his wife had remarried and that his daughter would eventually grow up and get married herself, Qiu Nuoya could somewhat understand the complicated feelings a father might have. Still, Qiu Nuoya thought Igor might be projecting a little too much of his family onto him.

Of course, this was nothing more than Qiu Nuoya’s own speculation. He had no idea what was actually going through Igor’s mind. For the time being, all Qiu Nuoya knew was that Igor was giving him a piggyback ride again today, and from up there, the world looked enormous.

After all, he was seeing everything from a height of more than two meters. The view was incredible.

"Igor, Igor! I can see a huge wall over there!"

While sitting on Igor’s shoulders, Qiu Nuoya leaned forward to peer down at Igor’s face.

Even though Qiu Nuoya’s movement could easily have thrown off his balance, Igor did not even flinch. He was incredibly steady.

"Oh, you’re right. I can see it."

"Huh? Where? I can’t see anything at all!"

Warren narrowed his eyes as he walked beside them, but the scenery directly in front of him was blocking his view, so he could not see the wall towering in the distance.

Viktor silently followed behind them. For some reason, he had been unusually quiet lately.

Qiu Nuoya had become a little worried, so he secretly asked Igor about it and according to him, this was actually what Viktor had always been like.

"He was never much of a talker to begin with. He’s always been the quiet type. If anything, the Viktor you knew after meeting you was the strange one."

Igor had laughed as he told him that. So Viktor had been acting strangely after meeting Qiu Nuoya?

Even if Igor said that, Qiu Nuoya had no idea what Viktor had been like before they met.

The only Viktor he knew was the one he had encountered after coming to this world.

Come to think of it, Qiu Nuoya had always relied on Viktor, but he actually knew very little about him.

He knew that Viktor was incredibly passionate about the study of magic. However, despite saying that he wanted Qiu Nuoya as his disciple because he wanted to understand the foundations of his abilities, Viktor did not seem particularly interested in exposing the powers Qiu Nuoya had been keeping hidden.

If anything, Viktor seemed almost overly considerate about making sure those abilities did not become widely known.

Qiu Nuoya had no idea what was really going on inside Viktor’s mind.

To make matters even more complicated, Viktor had openly declared that he intended to pursue him.