"Young master! Please, wait!"
Haviel turned. The innkeeper was hurrying toward him, breathing heavily. He held a small, neatly tied packet of greaseproof brown paper.
The troops were already checking the "horses’" halters and securing the carriage doors for departure. Everyone was moving with an efficient, morning-routine haste, anxious to put the unsettling events of the previous night behind them and get back on the road.
"My wife baked them before the sun cleared the pines," the old man wheezed, pressing the warm bundle directly into Haviel’s palms. "Just simple biscuits. Hard-tack, really, but they’re good for keeping the bile down. Safe journey to you, Young master."
"Oh," Haviel blinked, his fingers closing around the unexpected warmth. "Thank you. Really. That’s... incredibly thoughtful."
The old man didn’t wait for a formal receipt or a five-star review. He simply gave a boisterous, missing-toothed grin, smacked his own thigh, and turned back to bark at an apprentice who was dropping a bucket. Haviel just stood there, staring at the neatly wrapped packet in his hands like it had personally confused him.
His chest felt slightly tight. It had been... what? Five years since a total stranger had handed him something without an attached invoice, a digital QR code, or an implicit request for an online rating? It was just a small kindness. It felt entirely foreign.
But the word stomach immediately brought a much less pleasant file to the front of his mental server.
The package in his hands instantly reminded him of breakfast.
Out of nowhere, Sevrin asked if Haviel had noticed anything off during the night. Haviel had been thoroughly, completely clueless. He’d slept like a logged-off computer after his localized panic attack. He remembered looking around the table, watching Jaeric’s jaw tighten and Sevrin lock eyes with the King, feeling entirely like an intern who had accidentally walked into a closed-door board meeting about an impending bankruptcy. Before he could even ask, Jevon had reached across the table, tapped his knuckle against the wood, and told him to finish his bread.
Meeting adjourned. No further notes.
"Still completely in the dark," Haviel muttered, his thumb tracing the twine. It was frustrating, sure, but he didn’t exactly have the leverage to demand more information from the ruler of the underworld.
He looked up at the carriage door. His gaze dropped to the polished leather seats inside, and his entire digestive tract instantly went into code-red defense mode as his memory banks retrieved the definitive highlight of yesterday’s travel: vomiting violently onto the Demon King’s lap.
His face went the color of skim milk.
Before he could spiral any further into his own anatomical panic, a tall shadow fell over him. Jevon had walked up silently to his side, his analytical eyes scanning Haviel’s suddenly pale complexion.
"If you require more time before we resume our journey," Jevon noted calmly, his voice flat but entirely accommodating, "we can remain at this inn a while longer."
"No! No, I’m okay," Haviel blurted out, waving his hands frantically to reject any special treatment. He forced a stiff, reassuring smile onto his face. "I already feel much better today. Completely functional. We can proceed with the itinerary."
Jevon walked to the carriage door, waiting. Somehow, that alone was enough to make Haviel feel like he was behind schedule.
"Your Majesty," Haviel said, his voice jumping an octave. He held up a flat palm. "Please. Give me exactly one minute."
Jevon paused, his dark hand resting on the gold-trimmed frame of the door. He didn’t look annoyed, but his left eyebrow did that slow, dangerous upward twitch.
Haviel closed his eyes, pressed his palms together into a tight, trembling wedge right beneath his chin, and began to pray.
Look, whoever is handling the local environmental physics for this world, Haviel thought desperately toward his own eyelids, I am requesting a small miracle. Nothing extravagant. I don’t need luxury. I don’t need premium features. I just need this carriage to stop handling corners like it’s trying to qualify for a motorsport championship. Please let the wheels stay attached to the vehicle. Please let my internal organs remain in their designated compartments. And most importantly, please do not let me throw up on the Demon King a second time. One incident is an unfortunate accident. Two incidents is a personality trait.
He opened his eyes with a sharp, ragged inhale, half-expecting a thunderclap.
There was no thunderclap. There was only Jevon. The man hadn’t moved an inch, his eyes fixed on Haviel with a curiosity that suggested He had watched the whole thing from the very beginning.
Haviel immediately dropped his hands, dropping them into his pockets as his ears began to turn a violent shade of pink. "I was... praying for our journey."
He flashed a quick, incredibly awkward smile to cover his track before spinning around and hopping straight into the carriage.
Once the wheels actually began to turn, however, the entire environment inside the vehicle was entirely different from the day before.
Yesterday had been a blur of gray fog, nausea, and the distinct impression that his brain was being shaken inside a tin can. Today, the sun was actually functional. Bright, sharp light cut directly through the glass panes, catching the dust motes in the air and transforming the leather-lined interior into something almost... peaceful.
Haviel immediately glued his forehead to the window.
The scenery outside was ridiculous. It looked like a high-end graphics engine had been set to maximum saturation. Thick, dark pine forests gave way to sweeping valleys that looked like green velvet, and in the far distance mountain peaks rose against the sky like broken porcelain, glittering with old snow. It looked like every fantasy illustration he had ever scrolled past, or the vacation destinations his coworkers always used as desktop backgrounds.
A heavy, slightly cynical thought crossed his mind. In his old life, he had spent years hoarding vacation days he never actually used. Even when he had managed to drag himself to a beach for a long weekend, he had spent the entire time sitting under an umbrella with his phone balanced on his knee, frantically answering emails about work. He had never just... sat and looked at a tree. Not without a time sheet running in his head.
It was a strange, messy conflict. He missed his coffee maker and his Wi-Fi router. He did not miss his spreadsheet deadlines.
"You appear significantly more stable today," a voice remarked, scattering his thoughts.
Haviel blinked, pulling away from the glass to find Jevon observing him from the opposite seat. The King had his long legs crossed at the ankle, his posture relaxed but his gaze entirely too focused for Haviel’s comfort.
"As long as we continue traveling on surfaces that can legally be classified as roads, I should be fine, Your Majesty," Haviel said, giving a small, sheepish smile.
"The pass we took yesterday was unmaintained," Jevon said smoothly. "The road ahead is in much better condition. Your prayer was likely unnecessary."
And for the next four hours, the Demon King proved entirely correct. The carriage didn’t bounce. The sound of the soldiers’ "horses" faded into the background instead of rattling his skull. For the first time since this entire transmigration disaster began, Haviel didn’t feel dizzy.
With his confidence returning, his hand drifted toward the brown paper packet resting on the seat beside him.
Curious, he untied the twine and peeled back the paper. Inside lay several pale, square crackers, dusted with coarse salt and pricked with neat little rows of pinholes. They looked almost identical to the cheap, mass-produced crackers he used to keep in his bottom desk drawer for when he didn’t have time to go down to the food truck. A ridiculous, completely unearned sense of comfort flooded him.
He selected one, the dry, floury scent instantly hitting his nose. He opened his mouth, ready to take a big, nostalgic bite...
"What is that?" Jevon asked.
Haviel stopped. The cracker hovered precisely two inches from his lip. He blinked, suddenly remembering that he was in an enclosed space with an absolute monarch and he was currently behaving like a teenager with a sleeve of snacks.
"Oh. It’s... a biscuit, Your Majesty," Haviel said quickly, his face warming up as his customer-service instincts scrambled to handle the breach of etiquette. "From the innkeeper."
Feeling entirely awkward, Haviel extended the greaseproof packet across the space between them, fully expecting the King to either decline with a cold nod or simply reach out and take a piece from the paper bundle.
Instead, Jevon leaned forward.
He didn’t look at the paper. He didn’t reach for the remaining biscuits. Instead, his gaze remained fixed directly on Haviel’s face as he tilted his head slightly, his black hair falling forward over his brow.
He parted his lips, leaning down, and took the cracker directly from Haviel’s fingers with his mouth.
The heat of Jevon’s breath hit his skin first, followed by the soft, damp swipe of a tongue brushing flat against the pad of Haviel’s index finger and the edge of his thumb as the King took the biscuit between his teeth.
Jevon leaned back into his seat, the cracker snapping cleanly between his teeth as he chewed, his expression entirely neutral, as if he had simply taken a sample from a standard supply line.
The entire interaction lasted perhaps three seconds.
Jevon considered the flavor thoughtfully, swallowed, and gave a brief, singular nod.
"Not bad," the King murmured, his eyes turning back toward the scenery outside his window.
Haviel didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He just sat there, staring blankly at his own slightly damp finger, then at the side of Jevon’s flawless profile, then back down at his hand.
The carriage continued to roll smoothly down the royal highway, completely stable, entirely peaceful, leaving Haviel completely unaware that his thoughts had just become infinitely more chaotic than the road beneath them could ever be.