Home/The Male Lead, Whom I Thought Was the Villain, Is Acting Strange/ch 5

Chapter 5.

‘W-wait, is he mad because I was staring at him?’

Despite my resolve to stay calm, my body instinctively shrunk back like a prey animal encountering a predator.

I'd momentarily forgotten that my opponent was the villainous male lead—a man without blood or tears. On a battlefield…

I averted my gaze and gripped my rifle. Then I fired aura bullets at key points to mark the barrier's angles.

After placing about ten aura points, lines of light stretched across the angles, forming a massive array. A dome-shaped barrier covered it like a lid.

Soon, golden aura drifted inside the barrier like fireflies, beginning to purify the poison-contaminated ground.

‘Oh, purification really is exhausting.’

Purification barriers were already trickier to manifest than others, and they consumed more energy.

With such a wide range, it drained even more of my stamina than usual.

Just as I let out a deep sigh, overwhelmed by the incoming tide of fatigue—

"What's that?"

"Shit, you scared me!"

Startled, I nearly cursed out loud.

I pressed my hand against my pounding heart—flopping like a freshly caught fish—and jerked my head up.

Had he trained in some silent assassination technique? At least make some footstep noise!

"That thing. I've never seen a weapon like it."

Azeint had approached like a shadow and pointed at my chest with his index finger.

I glanced down at my rifle, then back at him. Frankly, I didn't want to have a conversation with this guy if I could avoid it.

But survival meant swallowing my pride. I forced an awkward smile and held up the rifle.

"It's a rifle I commissioned from an alchemy workshop."

---

"......Rifle?"

Azeint tilted his head, curious about something he'd never seen before.

Why do I find it oddly reassuring that he seems to feel curiosity like a normal human?

"Um, well... it's a magical tool that lets me fire aura over long distances, I guess."

After some deliberation, I explained it that way.

In this world, aura and magic were highly developed, but firearms didn't exist. Previously, bows were used to project aura.

But drawing a bowstring repeatedly tired me out quickly.

‘I'm not a monster like Rainer, who does three hundred push-ups to bulk up his arm muscles.’

Besides, I wasn't using aura for killing, so I needed a different tool.

So I used knowledge from my past life to create this rifle.

My younger brother, who I'd grown up with in my adoptive family, was a huge military otaku and used to show me model guns. Thanks to him, I could roughly replicate the structure.

I added alchemical functions to focus aura and correct trajectory, making it a fairly practical weapon.

With its long barrel for easy aiming and semi-automatic firing, it was perfect for supporting rear-line combat.

Of course, it wasn't all that useful for anyone who wasn't a barrier-type aura user like me.

When dealing with large, tenacious monsters, a sword—which could deal damage over a wider area—was far more advantageous.

"A long-range magical tool..."

Azeint murmured with a thoughtful expression, taking in my explanation. Then he looked up and met my eyes again.

He just stared at me silently, making cold sweat trickle down my spine.

‘S-so intimidating. Does he have something to say?’

To be honest, I didn't really want to hear it.

It felt like he was about to deliver some death notice—like, "I'll come for your life at midnight tonight" or something.

Unable to bear his persistent gaze, I was about to discreetly prepare an escape—

A light dizziness hit me, and my body swayed. The energy drain from maintaining the barrier was catching up.

I staggered backward, my foot missing its mark, and was about to fall—when Azeint reflexively reached out and grabbed my wrist.

"Ah!"

I flinched and jerked away from him. His hand, against my bare skin, was abnormally cold.

Even that brief contact sent a bone-chilling cold through my entire body, like plunging my hand into a winter mountain stream.

His body temperature was so low it was hard to believe he was alive.

"....."

Azeint stood frozen in his reaching posture, staring quietly at his own hand.

I felt the blood drain from my head. He wasn't going to kill me for daring to reject him, was he?

Even if not, I'd just blatantly pulled away from the hand he'd offered to help—it probably didn't look good.

Panicking for a moment, I hastily offered an apology.

"S-sorry. You caught me off guard, and I got startled..."

"As long as you didn't fall."

Azeint answered flatly and stepped back. His unexpectedly reasonable response eased my tension a little.

I watched his retreating back and rubbed my wrist, where a chill still lingered.

‘Was that Durendal's influence?’

The legendary demonic beast said to possess the power to freeze every living thing on earth with a single breath.

The epithet "Frost Demon" wasn't given for nothing.

If Durendal went berserk, this world would perish in an ice age where not a single blade of grass would survive.

Carrying something like that inside him—I could only imagine how dangerous it was.

Shivering at the memory of his ice-cold body temperature, I shook my head.

‘Anyway, how did Azeint end up with a sealing stone embedded in him?’

It was said that Durendal was sealed within Azeint's body, but that wasn't quite accurate.

Strictly speaking, a sealing stone containing Durendal had been implanted into his body—into his heart, no less.

Durendal had been sealed by Radenica, the first emperor and a great sorcerer, four hundred years ago.

If the sealing stone still existed today, it was highly likely the imperial family had kept it.

‘Could he be a member of the imperial family?’

But the only direct imperial heir around Azeint's age was the crown prince—who looked nothing like him.

It wasn't impossible that he was a collateral relative or a bastard, but why would an imperial play the role of a commoner hunting monsters?

Besides, he seemed far too socially inept to be royalty.

"Ugh, I don't know. I'm tired..."

Too much had happened in too short a time. My head throbbed.

‘Let's just go home, take a bath, and think things through.’

I forced my heavy eyelids open and let out a big yawn.

---

---

“……Strange.”

Azeint looked down at his palm and muttered quietly.

When he'd grabbed Rutesia's wrist, he'd felt Durendal's aura waver for an instant.

Even though he'd kept it perfectly contained as usual, the moment he touched her, the aura had stirred and leaked cold.

Judging by how she'd startled and pulled away, it didn't seem intentional on her part—but it still bothered him.

Just then, a familiar voice spoke inside his head.

[Azeint. Don't get close to that woman.]

“……Why?”

Azeint asked slowly. A growling, beast-like rumble echoed through his mind.

[It feels foul. The moment I touched her, I felt something off.]

Off. Foul.

The parasite residing in his body had apparently felt that way. Azeint scoffed in reply.

"If it feels that way to you, then isn't that good for me?"

[You little brat... Just you wait. Once I'm free, I'll devour you alive.]

The demonic beast threatened with murderous intent, as if ready to swallow him whole right then. But Azeint didn't flinch.

If Durendal could truly harm him, it would have done so long ago.

But it couldn't—so it just got more and more foul-mouthed as time went on.

---

Even if it was the strongest demonic beast, Durendal was currently in a state of near-powerlessness.

Trapped in a sealing stone and lacking a host body to possess, it could do nothing on its own.

That was precisely why Azeint and Durendal maintained a delicate symbiotic relationship—neither fully dominating the other.

[Anyway, don't let your guard down. That woman—something about her feels wrong.]

Durendal added persistently.

The beast's instincts had never been wrong. It had helped him many times before, so he should heed it this time as well.

Besides, suspicion had never been a choice for him in the first place.

"....."

Azeint recalled the pale, slender wrist—barely a handful—and furrowed his brow.

An unfamiliar sensation prickled at the back of his neck. Was this what Durendal meant by "foul feeling" and "off"?

‘I don't know.’

Azeint tilted his head slightly. It had been so long since he'd had voluntary contact with another person that he couldn't quite process it.

‘Take good care of my brother, Jen.’

The image of pale pink hair, like scattered petals, and eyes as clear as rock crystal drifted across his mind like a snapshot.

Despite her bright smile and extended hand, her expression had been tangled with fear, wariness, and suspicion.

Sharing senses with the beast, Azeint saw through those emotions easily.

But what had lingered around Rutesia wasn't the sinister, venomous hostility he was used to facing.

Rather, it resembled a young fawn with a hunter in its sights.

‘Did she sense Durendal's energy?’

Yet Rutesia had been warily eyeing him even before any of Durendal's energy leaked out.

That was why he couldn't take his eyes off her.

And mixed faintly within her suspicion and wariness—like an impurity—there was something else.

Vaguely cool and sweet…

After staring at his right hand for a while, Azeint soon shook off the lingering thoughts.

There was no point in overthinking it, and no need to. He had no reason to assign meaning to his own likes or dislikes.

Durendal, who had been watching his consciousness, sneered.

[So, what's the next target?]

"House Garther."

Azeint answered calmly, then jumped down from the tree he'd been leaning against.

---

---

"What? You want to join our unit?"

Rainer, brushing his teeth with sleepy eyes, furrowed his brow in an instant.

"Absolutely not."

"Why?"

"Why do you think? Because it's dangerous, that's why."

---

He rinsed his mouth, splashed water on his face from a basin, and answered half-heartedly.

I tossed him a towel as he fumbled blindly in the air with wet hands, and argued back.

"I'm just a support unit anyway."

"Still no."

"After all the help I gave you yesterday, you're going to say that?"

...To be continued.

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