“I’m sorry… What time is it?”
“It’s almost 1 pm. You were awake only a moment ago. Did I wake you up at the wrong time? Would you like to go back to sleep?”
“Ah, no… It’s fine.”
Last night, although he left Sera to be on guard through the night, Riley merely had his eyes closed without actually falling asleep. He was awake through the entire night until the morning. Riley rubbed his sleepy eyes and got up.
“It smells great.”
It seemed they made a different course from the stew yesterday. The delicious smell made Riley smile. He walked to the inside.
“Young Master.”
“Yes?”
“A… Are you all right? You look very tired.”
Now, not just Nainiae, but even Sera could notice the tired look on Riley’s face. It looked that bad.
It had not been long since they started the travel, yet he was already like this. Let alone handling the rest of the trip, it looked like Riley should be concerned about how he would look when he contacts the mansion through the mirror.
“It’s nothing! It’s not like they have seen me looking sleepy only a few times, right? If you are that concerned… I’ll get some shut eyes after eating.”
Riley’s hand was shaking due to lack of sleep. He forced himself to have his hand calm down and lifted the spoon. Having seen this, Nainiae bit her lips as if she was worried.
‘If I used sleep spell on Young Master… No, that’s no good. Young Master will be angry with me if I did.’
In the past few days, or perhaps weeks, Riley was not getting sleep. Having noticed this, Nainiae tightly grabbed on to her skirt. It seemed she looked upset.
‘What should I do? Is there anything I can do… Is there nothing?’
Nainiae mumbled inside. As if she read Nainiae’s mind, a flame bloomed on Nainiae’s shoulder.
<Are you worried?>
It was Heliona.
“Yes. A little… No. I am very worried.”
<Um. I know. I can see how you feel from the look on your face.>
“Uuu…”
Because of what Heliona just pointed out, Nainiae rubbed her face and corrected her expression. Wondering if Heliona had any suggestions, Nainiae looked at the summon spirit.
<Even I am not sure about this. We summon spirits cannot fight the need to sleep. Even my master cannot win against that. I always thought nothing in this world can beat sleep, yet…>
Having mentioned even Andal, her master, Heliona stared at Riley, the human who was fighting off sleep, as if she was disgusted by him.
<That one over there… No matter how big of a fiend he is… I think something horrible will happen if he keeps going like this.>
Instead of chewing on food, Riley was eating as if he was biting off a piece of rag. Heliona fiddled with her chin and turned again toward Nainiae who looked very anxious. Heliona asked,
<What did he say as the reason for not sleeping?>
“That is… I do have one reason I can think of, but it is not something I can tell you without his permission, so…”
<Ugh. You humans sure have your lives so complicated.>
Wondering if there was any great idea, Heliona leaned on Nainiae’s cheek and thought hard about it together. Heliona mumbled,
<Um… Well then, it cannot be helped?>
* * *
It seemed the snow storm outside was pretty strong. Although it had been a while, the storm was not showing any sign of winding down. Riley made a suggestion to Nainiae,
“… Let’s keep going.”
“Like this?”
Wheeeeec.
Having heard the sound of the wind outside the cave, Sera didn’t know what to do. She asked with concerned look on her face.
“It cannot be helped. We don’t even know how much further we have to go either, so…”
Riley got up from his seat and mumbled. Nainiae, who was rolling her thumb around, had similar look on her face. Nainiae said,
“Young Master, even so… don’t you think it might be a little dangerous? In a snow storm like this, we could get separated from each other too.”
“That’s why we took in two wolves. If not… you can use magic too.”
“That’s true, but…”
“All right. Let’s get going. My body aches because I had been trying to sit still.”
Having heard Riley, Nainiae and Sera both glanced at each other.
‘Of all people, Young Master just said that?’
This was quite the contrary to what Riley was doing earlier. Earlier, Riley was dozing off, blinking his eyes with blank look on his face as if he was mesmerized by something.
‘I need to move.’
If this was any other day, Riley would have spent the time away taking day time naps while lying down. Now, he was saying his body was aching to move. He didn’t really mean that.
He was trying to keep his eyes wide open by forcing himself to move continuously.