I’m the Only One With a Different Genre

16 – Where are you touching!

Fruits spread their seeds in various ways. The fruit that Lian had just split open was one of those types. However, this fruit didn’t have a sweet smell. Instead, it emitted a smell similar to raw meat, enticing animals.

This fruit was evolved to resemble raw meat in order to attract more animals, as even a single bite entering the animal’s mouth through the seeds embedded in the flesh was beneficial. This could only be understood by someone who didn’t exist in the kitchen.

“What on earth happened?”

Noah looked at Lian, who was trembling and rolling his eyes, with a worried gaze.

He couldn’t ignore Lian, who had sacrificed himself and fled to live a comfortable life, but now swollen and swollen from cleaning with hands covered in blood.

“Look at me and tell me. Is it really the work of bugs? If there are such bugs, we must find them immediately. Otherwise, the kids would be in danger.”

“Well, actually…”

Startled by Noah’s serious gaze, Lian began to reveal what had happened.

The problem was that Lian, in her bewilderment, started rambling about the story ever since she arrived in the kitchen.

“Oh, this isn’t it!”

Lian paused her story, looking anxious, after she mentioned dropping a glass bottle in the kitchen.

“The point, yes, just give me the point.”

In the world of comedy, when someone talks too much, most people ignore them and leave. That’s why Lian made it a habit to shorten her words and only focus on the main point.

“Phew… In short, when I arrived in the kitchen, it was all messy. While I was cleaning, Rania came and found an intruder hiding in the kitchen, and…”

“What?! W-wait! An intruder?”

“Yes, uh-huh. A man with arms so big and a skinny body… Oh, right, his cheekbones were sticking out a lot.”

Noah’s face turned pale at those words.

With arms abnormally thick and cheekbones sticking out absurdly, Noah had seen that man before.

The sound of pouring rain, the sound of haggling heard among the sounds of rain, someone’s scream that echoed in the woods, unable to escape.

As the surrounding temperature dropped significantly, Noah clenched his hands, feeling a pain that seemed to freeze. He continued to endure with Nero, dividing their body heat, desperately clinging to their resilient lives.

“Tch, this place is always disgusting and filthy.”

When he was crouching down as low as possible to maintain his body temperature, a voice came from above. Noah held Nero tighter in his arms and cautiously shifted his gaze outside the narrow enclosure.

The unnaturally swollen arms and the disproportionately skinny body, the cheekbones sticking out so much that they could be seen from below, captured his attention.

“Please come in. Do you have something you’re looking for?”

Dovan, wearing a robe that only high-ranking black magicians can use, was approached by a slave trader with a servile face, who fluttered both hands like a fly.

“Hmph, don’t you know me?”

“Huh? Ah-… You’re Dovan!”

The slave trader glanced at the grotesquely protruding cheekbone, causing cold sweat to trickle down his back.

“Well, I guess you also know what I’m looking for.”

The slave trader felt cold sweat dripping down his back. A merciless and cruel sorcerer who enjoyed brutal experiments.

The slave trader desperately tried to recall. Perhaps his efforts paid off, as Do Ban seemed to remember what his preferences were.

“Ah! Then of course you know! Come here. I will show you the highest grade of slaves.”

The slave trader bent his waist and pointed with both arms. Although such a humble gesture was not bad, Do Ban followed the slave trader without a word.

Just as Do Ban was about to take a step, a slave who was being dragged by a leash like livestock suddenly fell in front of him.

With severed tendons that made standing impossible and a slimy ground, the slave collapsed.

Thud.

A dry slave fell on the muddy puddle on the ground. Gasping for breath like a fish hauled out of water, the slave looked up at Do Ban.

“….”

Do Ban silently looked at his polished shoes and dirty pants. When the slave fell into the mud, it had splashed onto the front of his shoes and the lower part of his pants.

“How dare…”

Do Ban flashed a stern look and pointed at the slave with a small wand he held in his hand.

As he opened his mouth to recite a spell in a foreign language, a magical circle emitting an ominous energy appeared in the air.

Whoosh!

A burning piece of fireball flew towards the slave.

Boom!

“AAARGH!”

The slave was enveloped in fierce flames and was instantly consumed. It was as if a dry log was being burned.

Covering her mouth and her sister’s mouth with a rag, Noa recoiled at the terrible smell of a human being burned, likened to rotting fish.

Pop, crack!

“How dare you! How dare you soil my clothes!”

Do Ban kicked the charred corpse as he spewed curses.

Thud.

Upon hearing a horrifying sound she didn’t want to know, Noa tightly closed her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to scream. But she couldn’t.

If she made any noise, she could be sold faster or could be beaten until the brink of death for being noisy. Noa had seen several children die for such reasons.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Yes? Yes?”

“Do you want to die?”

“Aaaaah!”

Splash!

Dovan, overwhelmed by fear, threw magic at the slave trader, unable to meet his eyes, and once again vented his anger.

Afraid that his anger would turn towards him, he hid Nero, who was trembling in fear, behind his own product.

“That man invaded the kitchen?”

Noah’s face turned pale.

“But nothing happened… Wait, what are you touching?”

“You, you got hurt!”

Noah grabbed Liane’s bloodstained clothes and trembled. In his sight were scars that looked like graffiti, which he had seen before.

“I’m really not hurt!”

Lianne grabbed the clothes that were pulled up and forced them down, shouting.

“But there’s blood…!”

“What blood are you talking about -… Oh, this?”

Finally, Lianne realized that Noah misunderstood the juices stained on his clothes as blood.

“It does look like blood, for sure. The smell too.”

Since it’s a land ruled by the demon king, the scent of blood and fruits that pulsated like a heart were common.

There are fruits that are disturbing in appearance even though they’re edible for humans.

“This is not blood, it’s juice. I’m making this juice.”

Lianne pointed to the juice that was neatly poured into a cup. The juice in the cup looked like blood reserved for a vampire to drink.

“That’s… juice?”

From Noble mtl dot com

“Yeah, it’s not bad tasting. Just a moment.”

While working, he had left some fruit aside to eat later. Noah’s pupils trembled aimlessly when he brought the fruit he had left aside.

“Try it.”

“This…?”

“It’s really delicious.”

At those words, Noah swallowed his dry saliva and picked up the fruit with his trembling hands. For some reason, the fruit felt slightly soft.

As Noah lifted the fruit, juice -… no, the juice flowed down. Noah swallowed his dry saliva again and put the fruit in his mouth.

“…!”

“Isn’t it delicious?”

Noah nodded silently. As he said, the fruit tasted ordinary. Without realizing it, he picked up another fruit to eat, and Lianne, with a satisfied expression, put a plate in front of her, telling her to eat her fill.

“I’ll bring the juice, so just keep eating.”

“Wait…!”

Noah, who belatedly came to his senses, tried to grab Lian, but Lian ran off so quickly that he couldn’t catch him.

“…Then why is your hand like that?”

Only now did Noah realize that Lian had hidden another wound.

“When you come back… I’ll have to ask properly.”

How the wound occurred, when it happened.

Terrifying thoughts mixed with sarcasm emerged before he could think about such things.

‘What can you do on your own? Even if you find out, what can you do?’

Noah silently looked down at his hands stained red with juice. The hand, dyed red like blood, felt like a trace of someone who had hurt another.

Splash, gush!

Noah hurriedly brought his hands to the sink and turned on the water. He washed his roughly stained, red hands.

“It’s just fruit. Yeah, nothing special.”

Compulsively washing his hands, but the red-stained hands didn’t easily come back to normal. Or at least, it felt that way.

Gush…

Hearing the pouring water, Noah thought of Dovan’s face. He remembered wiping away tears secretly while huddled up, hiding from Nero.

“…”

Noah silently stared at the stream of water flowing into the drain. A miserable feeling overwhelmed her.

While Noah was grappling with trauma, Lian arrived at the reception room.

“Ugh, guaaaah!”

“Hmm, what’s wrong?”

“Teacher, please have some cookies.”

As the door opened, there was Dovan, tied tightly with chains, rolling on the floor, and Lania casting various spells at Dovan while holding a cookie in her mouth.

Mia sat on the sofa, flipping through a thick book.

“Hmm.”

Lian closed the door he had opened.