Why can't humans do it too?

He was the same as Credo; Credo had expectations of him, and he, in turn, had expectations of…

But in the end, all was silent.

“…I’m not hungry yet, just leave it there for now,” Su Er hesitated, then lowered her eyes and said softly, “Thank you, Ke’er.”

Thank you for taking care of me like this, from the past until now.

"Huh? What? Why are you suddenly being so polite to me, your older sister?" After a moment of surprise, Ke'er quickly smiled and said, "You and Riku are like my younger brothers, so why are you thanking me?"

"Pfft, neither Riku nor I have ever admitted to this, have we?" Suer couldn't help but chuckle. Ke'er was always thinking about this, but she was always driven crazy by the two of them who didn't cooperate.

"So you and Riku are both so naughty!" Sure enough, upon hearing Sul's words, Ko'er puffed up her chubby cheeks angrily, her red hair making her even cuter.

"Haha, there's nothing we can do about it," Suer laughed heartily, then casually asked, "By the way, has Riku returned?"

“Liku hasn’t come back yet,” Ke’er said, her brows furrowing with worry. “I hope they are both safe and sound.”

"Don't worry," Suer nodded simply, reassuringly saying, "Liku is so smart, they will definitely return safely."

With a sigh of relief.

Even though he knew his reaction was despicable, Sull still couldn't help but secretly breathe a sigh of relief when he heard Kole say that Riku hadn't returned yet.

He can stay here and live a little longer.

"Hmm," Ke'er nodded in agreement, unaware of what Su'er was thinking.

The two sat facing each other in silence.

awkward.

"...Did anything else happen when you went out this time?" After a long silence, as if she could no longer bear the torturous silence, Ke'er stared intently at the slightly protruding rock on the ground and asked in a low voice.

“…”, Suer subconsciously gripped the corner of the blanket covering him, “…No, nothing happened. Lenny and the others have already told us the details, right? There are no discrepancies.”

Suer answered nonchalantly.

He resisted telling the truth—even harboring a hidden desire, a bewitching temptation, that kept urging him to keep it all a secret.

Don't tell Ke'er.

Don't tell Liku.

Don't tell everyone.

In this way, he could continue living in the settlement like everyone else, as if nothing had happened.

A rugged fork in the road, full of thorns.

“…I see~” In the end, Ke’er simply agreed softly, accepting this answer.

“Yes, that’s right,” Suer replied, bowing his head.

Before they knew it, the two of them were back in that awkward silence.

"Then I'll be going now. Su'er, you should get some sleep. You look so pale." Taking a deep breath, Ke'er smiled again and the red-haired girl stood up and walked briskly towards the door.

"..."

Without saying a word, Suer just stared blankly as the wooden door slowly closed, along with the lamp that Ke'er had taken away. The sudden loss of all light plunged him into complete darkness.

The cold air swept over us again.

Whoosh!

"Ah! That's right!" The wooden door was suddenly pushed open forcefully, and Ko'er looked at Sul, who was sitting on the bed, trembling slightly at her actions, holding up the ore that was emitting a dazzling orange-yellow light. "Let's celebrate the fact that no one died on this expedition after Riku and the others all come back!"

"When that time comes, Su'er must tell us another joke with a big laugh!"

The girl with beautiful red hair smiled gently, winked playfully, and then closed the door again.

"..."

Finally, there was no sound at all in the dark cave.

Suer sat there, thinking nothing and doing nothing, as if he had completely turned into a stone statue and merged into the darkness.

After a long while, he finally moved around, but did not turn on the lights. Suer simply followed the arrangement of the cave in his memory and stumbled to sit down next to the low wooden table.

Sul ran his fingers over the uneven tabletop and found the small wooden basin that Ke'er had left there.

No light was needed; just by smelling that incredibly familiar aroma, he could imagine what was inside, the image so vivid—dumplings made from powdered plant roots, boiled bean soup, mushrooms cooked with salt extracted according to the method provided by Suer…

It's Ke'er's specialty, food brimming with heart.

The fragrance he knew best.

Even though so much time has passed, the food is still warm.

Taking out his small knife from beside him, Suer trembled as he poked at the wooden basin, repeating the process several times before finally managing to poke a dumpling out of the basin with difficulty.

Chewing and stuffing, even though his mouth was already full of dumplings, Suer was still not satisfied and kept stuffing more food into his mouth, savoring everything.

Something is falling.

"...What? Don't make requests that are impossible to fulfill..."

"You stupid woman..."

Chapter Twenty-Eight Differences

"That orc claimed to have the ability to read minds, and according to him, this ability is a common power among all orcs."

"Mind reading?"

"Yes, but based on my observation, it shouldn't be real mind reading; he was just deceiving me like that."

"Where's the evidence?"

The conversation was concise and refined. The two sat facing each other in the dark cave, neither able to see the other, but Suer felt perfectly at ease.

If the lights were turned on now, he would probably be exposed under Riku's gaze.

Yes, Riku has returned. Even though he was exhausted from the expedition, he didn't rest but went straight to Sull's room.

Since returning from the expedition, he has not left his room. Even his necessary food and drink are brought in by Ke'er. Even the most oblivious person could sense that Su'er was abnormal. It was as if this man was resisting meeting everyone. Even when Credo, who had recovered from his fever thanks to the herbal treatment, came to see him excitedly, he was unable to enter the room.

Sull's voice had become hoarse, and to be honest, just hearing that voice made Riku imagine an extremely haggard appearance.

“At the time, he held me still and asked me questions. If his ability was really mind reading, then he should have been able to see all the images that flashed through my mind, and there would have been no need for him to keep questioning me.”

Suer tried hard to recall every word and expression of Asano Shirasu at that time.

"Suddenly, I remembered that although I didn't realize it at the time, now when I think back on it, there is one sentence that the orc said that still bothers me. I remember his original words were: 'Every change in your muscles, the contraction and contraction of your pupils, your heartbeat, and even the flow of your blood, I can see it all clearly.'"

"You mean..." The quick-witted Riku instantly understood what Sul was trying to say.

“Yes, rather than believing that they have the ability to read minds, the fact that orcs have extraordinary senses is a confirmed piece of information. Therefore, I think that orc judged the truthfulness of my words by my muscles and heartbeat... and that explains it, doesn’t it?” Sul analyzed calmly.

“That’s right, but from this point of view, the difficulty of deceiving the orcs has not decreased at all, but is not much different from the situation where they really have mind-reading ability…” Riku’s tired voice could be heard in the darkness, perhaps with a lot of troublesome headaches.

"There's nothing we can do about it, isn't there? After all, it's far too difficult for humans to completely control their heartbeat and blood flow. We're not some monstrous race like them... Anyway, let's record this information first, and then we'll consider countermeasures later," Suer frankly stated one of the biggest gains of this operation.

“Well, I’ll figure out a way to solve it later. So, besides this information, is there anything else?” Riku’s calm voice echoed in the cave. This man was like a robot that could always be trusted and would never make a mistake. “I’ve heard everything from Lennie about their evacuation. Won’t you tell me about your next move alone?”

Su Er instinctively held his breath.

The air grew quiet, and after a long while, Suer finally opened his mouth.

“I’m saying this, Riku,” Sull hesitated, struggling with whether to bring it up, but he couldn’t find anyone more knowledgeable than him, “…Are humans really completely incapable of using any magic at all?”

"Or is it a superpower-like power? A power that can be used without a spirit?"

Suer pressed on with questions, but the answer that came his way was a fact that required no thought whatsoever.

"Humans are absolutely incapable of using magic. I remember you read about this many times in those books, didn't you? Haven't you given up yet?" Riku's words left no room for mercy, as if he wanted to shatter all of Sul's unrealistic fantasies. "Although humans still have a little bit of elf within them, we have absolutely no affinity for elves. How could we possibly use magic?"

"..."

Undeniably, Sue knew this. In fact, when he first learned of the surreal existence of magic, he was overjoyed and eager to learn such power. He even had Lennie accompany him as he flipped through the related books one by one, only to receive such a cruel answer in the end.

but,

I'm different from you guys...

Suer murmured to himself.

His body, the body that inexplicably returned to his youth after the mysterious time travel, is completely original; it's not a simple matter of his soul transmigrating into someone else's body in this world.

If every human in this world originally possessed some spirits within them, then Sull, who came from another world, could be said to have absolutely no spirits at all—no, spirits are everywhere in this world, so in all those years of eating and breathing, has Sull retained any of those spirits within him?

No way to know.

Even before his confrontation with Asano Shirasu, Sue had not thought about this issue at all, and after returning to the town, he was still worried about another thing.

Now, even checking the number of spirits within one's body is impossible, since humans don't possess any magic.

"I understand," Suer nodded, ultimately choosing to keep the matter to himself.

After all, he didn't even know why he suddenly had that strange connection with Asano Shirosu, and the conditions for activating it were unknown. He had tried to control the monkey afterward but failed. Most importantly, the white-haired orc did not sense the flow of the elf when Asano Shirosu shouted those words.

Therefore, even if it really is magic, it is absolutely different from any known magic.

Leaving the question to himself for the time being, Sue calmly began to tell Riku the reason why he had deliberately stayed behind alone, and what had happened to Leni and the others after their evacuation... except for that monkey.

His concerns included Asano Shirasu's death without leaving any information, the inevitable contraction of the orc race's power and sphere of influence, and so on.

Chapter Twenty-Nine Liku

“That’s too risky…” Riku sighed deeply.

“Yes, it was too risky. If Leni and the others had been a little less lucky, or if the demons had been just a little more intelligent, we probably would never have made it back,” Sull murmured repeatedly.

He feared the worst possible outcome.

He had clearly prepared himself to die, and was even moved by the fact that his impending sacrifice would save four lives. He had long since given up hope of living, but... when he actually saw Lennie climb up that hill, the emotion and joy of being rescued were undeniable; it was the most instinctive reaction.

Suer was genuinely grateful that he could continue to breathe this air.

“Lenny and the others are right. To these demons created by the Fantasy Race, compared to humans, they are actually low-intelligence monsters. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say they are beasts endowed with incomplete intelligence. The only thing they surpass humans in is their immense strength, but they don't possess complete rationality... So those Orks don't think about where the voice guiding them to the Orcs' location came from; they just want to find the Orcs and fight them,” Riku paused and continued, “Besides, if it's to rescue you, it can't be considered a loss no matter what…”

“But compared to that, the risk I’m talking about isn’t Leni and the others’ actions, but yours, Sull,” Riku said calmly. “Your decision to return to the battlefield afterward is far too risky. If you were to perish there, it would undoubtedly be the greatest loss to the entire settlement.”

"But what if that orc left something behind—"