Theo went out of his way to find work that I could do and brought back a notice distributed by the temple.
“Legion Commander Shane burned down the Temple of Dawn, remember? They’re in the middle of rebuilding it now, and they’re hiring more laborers. The daily wage is ten copper coins, and the temple provides lunch too.”
Theo handed me the notice and added,
“I’m planning to quit working at the tavern and do this instead. Let’s work together.”
If I rebuilt the temple I had burned down with my own hands… could I atone, even just a little, for the sins I had committed as ‘Shane’?
“Sure. Sounds good.”
I readily nodded.
***
The laborers began gathering at the temple grounds early in the morning. We started by clearing away charred timber and debris from the collapsed walls, then carried stones and hauled lumber.
At first, the winter air was so bitterly cold that my fingertips went numb, but once I started moving, things changed. Sweat soaked into my clothes, and hot vapor escaped with every breath. The pounding of hammers and the scraping of chisels against stone rang out without pause.
I pulled stones tied to ropes, cleared broken fragments beside the masons, and mixed lime powder with water before passing it over. White stone dust worked its way beneath my fingernails. One by one, blocks of stone were stacked atop the walls that had collapsed.
Moving my body without thinking about anything made me feel strangely at ease.
Lunch was handed out at a distribution station set up to one side of the construction site.
Steam rose from a huge cauldron, while wooden bowls and coarse loaves of bread were piled along a long table.
Today’s meal was a stew simmered until thick with plenty of barley and beans, along with dense black bread that, while not freshly baked, was still hearty. Finely chopped pieces of lean salted meat were mixed into the stew.
For manual laborers, there could hardly have been a more filling meal.
Among the apprentice priests serving the food was Luna.
She was bustling around with her sleeves rolled up and a ladle in hand when she recognized us and her eyes lit up.
“Rihen, Theo! You came to work. It’s good to see you.”
Luna filled our bowls until they were nearly overflowing.
We took our bread and stew and found a place among the other workers. Sitting on stones between people eating their meals, we blew on the hot soup and moved our spoons.
“You know the Commander of the 13th Legion? The bastard who burned down the temple.”
“Yeah. The one named Shane?”
“Isn’t that guy seriously terrifying?”
A familiar name drifted over from right beside me.
The workers eating nearby were talking about me.
I pricked up my ears.
“They say unlike other demons, he can completely conceal his demonic energy. That makes him almost impossible to track, and there’s basically no way to prevent an ambush.”
No.
I wasn’t concealing it. I had simply been born with faint demonic energy in the first place.
Shane was a human-demon hybrid.
“They say even seven hundred Holy Knights from the capital couldn’t beat Shane. You know about that incident where Shane went into the Holy Knights’ base alone, set fire to the armories, and disappeared, right?”
No.
I had deliberately gone in when most of their main forces were away.
Of course I would lose if I fought the entire Holy Knights head-on.
“The scariest part is that he operates completely alone, without any subordinates.”
“That just means he’s that confident in his own abilities.”
No.
I just had no popularity.
What demon would want to serve a Legion Commander with human blood mixed into him?
“He’s a truly terrifying bastard. Shane….”
One man shuddered while another made the sign of the cross.
I shoved the rest of my bread into my mouth and chewed.
Well, looking strong was a good thing, I supposed.
I tried to think positively.
After the short break ended, work resumed.
The construction we had been at since early morning only began wrapping up around sunset.
Once the work was finished, the laborers lined up one by one to receive their wages, and Theo and I joined them, each leaving with ten copper coins in our hands.
For some reason, Theo seemed ridiculously excited. He shook the pouch of coins all the way home.
The coins knocked together with a cheerful clinking sound.
The next day, Theo and I went back to work on the temple.
Surprisingly, the sensation of sweating through physical labor was not unpleasant.
Between the lingering heat in my palms and the heavy fatigue in my body, I found myself appreciating the value of honest labor all over again.
As we worked, we naturally became friendlier with some of the other laborers.
There was Jack, a shaggy middle-aged man with a rough beard, and Adam, who had a long scar running across his cheek.
At first glance, both looked intimidating, but Jack said he still wore a beard because his first love had liked men with facial hair, while Adam had received his scar fighting a monster while protecting his village as a member of the Sanctuary Guard.
The two were quite talkative, and as regulars at Madam Cecil’s tavern, they knew every rumor imaginable.
Thanks to them, my ears never got bored while we worked.
One story in particular caught me completely off guard.
“They say Saint Rihen is alive. Apparently, he escaped from the hellish Demon Realm and returned to the Human Realm.”
What kind of ridiculous rumor was this now?
Rihen was dead.
To be precise, Shane had killed him.
And yet they were saying he was alive.
“Really?”
When I asked, Jack nodded.
“Yeah. My cousin saw him personally. There’s a small village called Henoia, and apparently he’s staying there, treating the sick and feeding starving people. My cousin was in Henoia until a week ago.”
It had to be an impostor.
Rihen was already dead, and even if he had somehow miraculously survived, the first thing he would have done was inform the imperial family that he was alive.
Henoia was an isolated rural village far from the capital.
Naturally, people living in a place like that would not know what the real Rihen looked like, which would make them easy to fool.
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No, only Adam. My cousin kept nagging me to keep it secret. You and Theo are only the second ones I’ve told.”
“When did your cousin tell you about Rihen?”
“…This morning?”
You’ve got to be kidding me….
In half a day, you’ve already told three people!
What a loose-lipped old man.
Theo and I had only met you today, for crying out loud.
Just as I was about to scold the thoughtless man, Theo spoke first.
“I think it would be better if you didn’t tell anyone else. It could become a serious problem if this story reaches the ears of the demons.”
Theo deliberately lowered his voice ominously, as though trying to frighten him.
“Especially if Shane finds out… whether Rihen is real or fake won’t matter. Not only would he kill him, he might even deal with Jack, the source of the rumor.”
The moment Shane’s name came up, Jack’s face went pale.
He looked just like one of those children from old stories who trembled when told that a tiger would come take them away if they misbehaved.
“R-Right. Got it. I won’t tell anyone. Of course not. You know how good I am at keeping my mouth shut.”
That seemed to have sealed his lips for good.
The rumor probably would not spread any further.
Why in the world was this impostor pretending to be Rihen?
I would have to investigate that myself later.
For now, resolving the twin-demon quest came first.
On the third day, I suggested to Jack and Adam that we go drinking.
With Theo included, the four of us headed to Madam Cecil’s tavern together.
I had only one objective.
To pretend to be drunk.
I had been pretending to be a lightweight in front of Theo, but my actual tolerance was more than ten times that of an ordinary human.
Unless someone literally drowned me in a vat of liquor, there was no chance of me getting drunk.
I emptied my glasses quickly.
Adam repeatedly filled my empty cup with strong fruit liquor, and I drank every drop without refusing, grinning all the while.
It did not take long for things inside the tavern to become a complete mess.
Theo was the only one who remained restrained to the end.
Jack kept nodding off in his chair until he finally rested his head on my shoulder.
Adam could not even stand properly. After staggering around, he dropped down in front of me and mindlessly rubbed his forehead against my thigh.
It happened to be my right thigh, which made me flinch a little.
I… dressed to the right.
Theo shot to his feet.
He grabbed Jack and Adam by the backs of their necks in one swift motion and pulled them away from me.
Then he supported me and said,
“Rihen, you’re way too drunk. Let’s go home.”
In the end, Theo carried me home on his back.
The back supporting me was far broader than it had been when he was a child.
His heavy, dependable warmth and the body heat slowly seeping into me felt comforting.
I buried my face against his shoulder, deliberately deepened my breathing, and closed my eyes.
I’m going to do something awful to someone as good as you….
All for the sake of collecting Evil Points.
***
Theo gently lowered Rihen onto the bed.
Rihen still had not come to his senses and shifted weakly beneath him.
Worried, Theo lightly shook his shoulder several times.
“Rihen, are you okay? Why did you drink so much?”
Only after quite some time did a faint focus return to Rihen’s eyes.
His hazy gaze slowly wandered over Theo, and then, for some inexplicable reason, a loose smile spread across his lips.
It was a strangely off-kilter smile.
Rihen suddenly grabbed Theo, pulled him down onto the bed, and moved his drunken tongue as he whispered into Theo’s ear.
“Welcome, sir. You’ve come again. Today too… I’ll do my very best to satisfy you.”
…Sir?
Rihen’s hand blindly clutched at Theo’s clothes.
With hands trembling from drunkenness, he tried to pull off Theo’s trousers.
The sweet scent of fruit liquor was far too close.
Theo felt as though even he might become intoxicated by it.
He immediately understood the situation.
Rihen was so drunk that he had mistaken Theo for a ‘customer.’
He had even promised that he would never sell his body again, yet the moment he lost his reason, this old habit surfaced automatically.
Just how often had he sold himself for this to become a drunken habit?
Theo’s head throbbed.
“Rihen, snap out of it! It’s me, Theo. I’m not a customer.”
“Haha, playing coy, are we? Feeling shy now?”
Rihen behaved as though he could not hear Theo at all.
He reached for the front of Theo’s trousers and slowly rubbed his crotch.
Even from that minor stimulation, Theo’s cock quickly began to swell.
Rihen fondly licked Theo’s erection through the fabric and let out a soft, breathy laugh.
Everything about it looked far too natural.
So his lower mouth had been a virgin, but he’d been putting his upper mouth to plenty of use?
A vein stood out at Theo’s temple.
He could have pushed Rihen away easily enough.
Subduing one drunken, limp man would never have been difficult for Theo.
He reached out to push Rihen away.
Then stopped.
His fingertips hovered uselessly in the air.
He knew he should end this here.
He knew perfectly well that this situation was wrong.
And yet he did not want it to stop.
Theo lifted his hips slightly, helping Rihen remove his trousers.
“…Rihen started this first.”
Theo murmured as though speaking to himself.
His voice was dark and low, utterly unfitting for someone called a hero.