Chapter 1707 - 237 - The Moral Regret (5)

After a little while, Natasha called for me, so I went over to see what she needed.

The moment I saw her, I could tell that she was exhausted.

Actually, calling her exhausted probably would not have been enough to describe it properly. Natasha looked completely worn out, almost haggard, and it was honestly the first time I had ever seen her in that condition. She had been pulling all-nighters practically since the moment I got to know her, and somehow, she had always managed to keep herself together despite barely getting any proper sleep. This time, however, the bags under her eyes were impossible to miss, and her usually composed expression looked noticeably more tired than usual.

"Thankfully, the woman you brought to me has the compatibility necessary for the hero," she explained. "Because of that, I was able to transfer the blood to her without any complications whatsoever. You also managed to bring the woman here quickly enough, which was extremely fortunate, because the hero's body was already in such a critical condition that if you had taken even another minute to return, she would have already been dead and beyond revival."

Hearing that was definitely a relief.

If I had not moved quickly enough, things could have turned out completely differently. If Hasegawa-sensei had not been the first person I happened to encounter, or if she had not been compatible with Sakai, then we probably would have arrived too late to do anything useful. There had been so many points where everything could have gone wrong that it was honestly a little ridiculous when I thought about it.

For once, getting lucky had actually mattered.

"How's Sakai?" I asked, wanting to know how the injured hero was doing now.

"She's not doing well yet," Natasha answered honestly. "Her life force is still spilling away, but I'm injecting her with the nutrients you're producing, so she's going to be alright as long as those are administered consistently until she recovers enough to maintain herself."

So, basically, she was using the sperm I produced as some sort of nutrient to replenish Sakai's life force.

It sounded absurd when I put it that way, but considering everything that had happened since I became what I was now, I had already stopped being surprised by things that should have sounded completely insane under normal circumstances. My sperm contained an enormous amount of life force, enough that it could be processed and diluted into a medicine capable of helping someone who had been afflicted with something as severe as eternal sleep.

I still felt a little guilty knowing that Sakai had swallowed my sperm without knowing what it actually was, though.

Still, when the alternative was allowing her to die, I figured that feeling guilty about it was probably something I could deal with later.

"More importantly, Leon..." Natasha suddenly said.

Her tone had changed slightly, and I looked back at her.

"Why don't you give yourself a rest?"

"You worried about me?" I asked, teasing her a little.

"If you died, then all of this would be lost," she replied without even acknowledging the joke properly. "You're one of the reasons we're still standing like this during the war. Because of that, I hope you'll at least take care of yourself instead of pushing your body beyond its limits. I'll take care of the injured hero for now, so I think it would be best for you to get some rest."

I stared at her for a moment before looking more closely at her face.

"What you're saying kind of doesn't make sense, don't you think?" I said. "Your eye bags are even deeper than mine."

Natasha's expression immediately became awkward when I pointed that out.

She actually looked embarrassed.

"W-Well, it's not exactly easy to be a doctor in a warzone," she said defensively. "I've had so many injured people to take care of, and... I've also had quite a lot of dead ones brought to me, just in case there was still some possibility that we could revive them."

She looked away for a moment before continuing.

"I don't exactly have much time to rest."

"You have to rest too, though," I told her. "If you, the person who's supposed to be taking care of all these injured people, end up dying because you haven't been taking care of yourself, then who the hell is going to help the injured people afterward?"

That seemed to catch her off guard.

After a moment, Natasha chuckled quietly.

"Well, there are still a lot of doctors here, and Trisha is here too, so I don't think it would be that terrible if I died," she said, although she was clearly joking at least a little. "But are you going to miss me if I did?"

"Of course," I answered.

The answer came out so naturally that I did not even have to think about it.

Natasha's face immediately turned red.

"R-Really?" she asked, suddenly looking much less confident than she had a moment ago. "Are you just saying that because you want an excuse to spread my legs and do me?"

She quickly crossed her arms, apparently trying to recover her composure.

"Unfortunately for you, I have no interest whatsoever in that kind of relationship. I like my man loyal to me and me alone."

"Is that so?" I replied.

I could not help wondering whether Natasha would actually be able to find a man like that.

She was beautiful, after all, and from what I had heard, plenty of men had already tried their luck with her. Apparently, none of them had managed to completely win her over, which made me wonder what kind of standards she actually had.

Then again, considering her personality, perhaps I should not have been surprised.

She could be surprisingly difficult to read sometimes.

"How about we get some rest together, then?" I suggested.

"Y-You surely are getting bolder, huh?" she replied.

Her expression made it obvious that she had not expected me to say that.

I was joking, of course.

At least, that was how I had meant it when I said it.

For some reason, however, Natasha remained quiet for several seconds afterward, and I started wondering whether I had accidentally made things awkward.

Then she spoke.

"S-Sure," she said.

I blinked.

"As long as it's only sleeping, I don't think I'd mind much."

She accepted it without really seeming to think too deeply about what she had just agreed to, and somehow, that surprised me more than if she had simply rejected the idea outright.

I had expected her to make some sarcastic remark and tell me to get lost.

Instead, she had actually agreed.

"Let's meet tonight," she said.

I watched Natasha as she walked away and eventually disappeared from my sight.

For a few seconds, I simply stood there.

I had originally been joking, but somehow, I had managed to make actual plans with her.

That was certainly not what I had expected to happen.