Free Web NovelChapter 59: The eye of death 4
Could he trust her?
The thought formed clearly in his mind, but before he could even examine it properly, another voice immediately answered from somewhere inside his head.
Of course you can trust her.
Yuto frowned slightly.
Why?
Because she’s pretty.
His expression tightened.
He nearly rolled his eyes out of instinct alone.
And yet, unhelpfully, the thought refused to collapse under scrutiny.
Maya was undeniably attractive.
Not in a subtle way either.
In a way that forced attention without asking permission for it.
Her face alone carried a kind of quiet perfection that made people pause mid-thought, as if their attention had been briefly stolen before they realized it was gone.
And that was only the beginning.
The way she moved was controlled and fluid, every step carrying a natural confidence that didn’t feel learned so much as inherent, like she had never once doubted where her body needed to be in space.
Even the way she stood now, walking slightly ahead of them through the shifting wasteland, had a kind of effortless poise to it, shoulders relaxed, posture steady, entirely unbothered by the harsh world around her.
Yuto’s eyes drifted toward her without him fully intending it.
From behind, he noticed the subtle line of her silhouette against the pale glow of the desert, the smooth curve of her back, the quiet definition at her waist, and the steady rhythm of her steps that never once broke pace.
He clicked his tongue internally.
She really was unfairly good-looking.
Almost inconveniently so.
At that exact moment, something bumped into him from the side.
Yuto staggered slightly.
"Huh?" ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
Tami was walking just behind him, rubbing his shoulder.
"Sorry."
Yuto narrowed his eyes immediately.
He didn’t believe it for a second.
The timing was too precise.
Too clean.
Had Tami noticed him staring?
Heat crept up the back of Yuto’s neck before he could stop it.
He quickly looked forward again, forcing his attention away as if nothing had happened.
His thoughts, now compromised, shifted unhelpfully toward Tami instead.
Unlike Maya, Tami felt straightforward.
Almost too straightforward.
No hidden edges.
No careful silence.
Just blunt reactions and visible emotions.
And yet, despite that simplicity, Yuto still couldn’t fully settle around him.
There was no clear reason for it.
Tami had done nothing suspicious.
If anything, he was exactly the kind of person who should have been easy to trust.
But Yuto never quite reached that conclusion.
The voice in his head returned, almost amused.
Sure.
Yuto’s brow twitched.
It’s definitely not because you like Maya and he has a better chance than you.
His jaw tightened.
What nonsense.
He did not like Maya.
And Tami certainly wasn’t some kind of rival.
That entire idea was absurd.
The voice responded with quiet disbelief.
Right.
Yuto clicked his tongue again under his breath.
At this rate, he was beginning to seriously question when exactly he had started arguing with himself.
Maybe the Astral Realm wasn’t just dangerous.
Maybe it was actively corrupting his sanity.
xxxx
When noon came, Yuto returned to the cliff.
The light had shifted slightly, the strange sky brightening in its own unnatural rhythm as he stepped once more toward the familiar edge of stone.
Below, the basin had not changed at all, as if it had been locked into a moment the world refused to continue.
The colossal vine beast still lay there.
Still sunk into that impossible sleep.
Still holding a silence so deep it felt deliberate.
Its vast body sprawled through the hollow like something abandoned by an ancient catastrophe, buried under thick mats of moss, knotted vines, and creeping growth that clung to it like a second skin. The shape of it blurred into the landscape, not quite alive, not quite dead, more like the memory of something that once moved and had been forgotten mid-motion.
Yuto stood at the edge for a long time without a word.
The air felt heavy there, damp and stale, carrying the scent of wet earth and old plant life, like the forest itself had been exhaling around the creature for years. Nothing stirred. Not the vines. Not the mass beneath them. Not even the smallest hint of breath.
Eventually, Yuto let out a slow exhale, tired and thin, as though he had been holding it back just to match the stillness in front of him.
Then he turned away and walked back toward the cave, the ground soft under his steps, each one sounding louder than it should have in the surrounding quiet.
Hours passed.
When afternoon light had shifted and thickened, he returned again.
The basin greeted him exactly as before.
The same frozen enormity.
The same unmoving heap of green and twisted flesh.
No twitch. No shift. No sign that anything inside had ever considered waking.
It was unsettling in its consistency, like reality itself had decided to look away and forget this one place existed.
Yuto stared a while longer, then finally turned back.
Back at camp, the fire had burned down into dull embers, giving off a weak glow that barely pushed back the surrounding shade.
Maya and Tami looked up the moment he entered.
No one asked the question out loud first. They didn’t need to.
It was written in the way he carried himself.
Still, Tami broke the silence anyway.
"Well?"
Yuto gave a single nod.
"It’s still there."
Tami’s shoulders dropped as if something inside him had given up mid-fight. He flopped backward onto the ground with a long, exhausted groan.
"Ughhh."
One arm came up over his face, shielding him from nothing in particular, like even the thought of it was too much to look at directly.
"So what do we do now?"
The question hung in the air longer than it should have.
The camp stayed quiet. Even the wind outside seemed to soften, brushing through leaves without urgency, as though it was waiting for an answer too.
Yuto stood there for a moment, expression unreadable. Then something faint crossed his face, not quite a smile, not quite anything warm.
It looked tired in a way that went deeper than exhaustion. Like acceptance pressing down from inside the bones.
"We can’t keep waiting."
Tami slowly lowered his arm.
Maya’s eyes tightened slightly, focus sharpening as she studied Yuto’s face, reading what came next before it fully arrived.
Yuto’s gaze moved between them, steady but heavy, as if each word cost something.
Then he said the last thing they wanted to hear.
"We need to kill it."
