The Distance Between Them
The thick clouds of dust coughed up by the collapsing Demon King's Castle refused to settle, lingering long into the night.
Like Belzegor's final curse — or like an ominous curtain foretelling a tragedy that had only just begun — it hung heavy over the ruins.
The subjugation force's temporary encampment had been thrown together on a highland plateau, safely distanced from the wreckage of the castle. The cheers of victory had faded, and in their wake settled an air mingled of exhaustion, relief, and a faint undercurrent of tension.
Around the campfires, soldiers gathered in small clusters, trading tales of their exploits or quietly raising their cups as they pined for the families they'd left behind.
Amid that clamor, Logan stood apart, staring out at the ruins where darkness had fallen. The rowdy noise drifted faintly from behind him, yet it felt as though it belonged to another world entirely.
......
Foresight.
The horrifying visions that had been forcibly crammed into his mind in the Demon King's dying moments. They were no curse, no hallucination. Deny them though he might, they were fragments of a reality yet to come.
The sensation of his heart chilling and hardening like a shard of ice. The sickening feeling of every drop of blood in his body flowing backward. And... rising from somewhere deep in his chest, a betrayal and rage of a kind he had never once felt in his life.
He fought desperately to suppress the emotions boiling inside him.
Irene had been his reason for being for years. His feelings for her went far beyond mere affection — they bordered on religious devotion. A single smile from her had made him feel as if he owned the world, and her smallest sorrow had torn his heart apart.
And that woman would betray him? In such an unspeakably cruel way?
...It hasn't happened yet.
Logan steadied himself. The future could be changed. No — it had to be changed.
But how?
He couldn't tell Irene the truth. She would never believe him, and even if she did, there was no telling what choices she might make to try to avert that future. Perhaps... she would only flaunt her feelings for Rian more openly and cling to him all the harder. That much, he refused to watch.
Then... he would have to change first. He would have to distance himself from her. He had to make her realize that he was no longer someone she could take for granted — someone she could lean on without a second thought, even after wounding him.
But... could he really do that?
For the past fifteen-odd years, his entire life had revolved around Irene. He had laughed for her, wept for her, fought for her. How could he turn his back on all of that now? His mind tangled itself into knots until he thought it might burst.
Just then, he heard a familiar set of footsteps behind him. He didn't need to turn to know who it was.
"Logan."
It was Irene. There was something different in her voice — a sharp, uneasy edge. Logan took a deep breath and slowly turned around.
Her face, when he met it, was a mask of bewilderment, wounded pride, and a flicker of anger. No doubt because of how he had shoved away her touch in the Demon King's Castle and fallen into Anastasia's arms.
"What are you doing out here all alone?"
Irene demanded, her eyes probing, as if trying to see straight through to his hidden thoughts.
"......Just getting some air."
Logan answered in a dry, flat voice, stripped of every ounce of emotion. Whether or not she caught the change in his tone, her brow narrowed slightly.
"Air? Are you messing with me right now? What's been wrong with you all day? Back in the Demon King's Castle, and then again when you were practically glued to that Princess earlier! You've... you've turned into someone else!"
Irene's voice climbed higher and higher. She reacted with such agitation, as if she simply could not — or would not — accept that Logan had changed.
'Glued to her?'
Logan couldn't help but laugh inwardly at her crude phrasing. To describe the moment he had briefly leaned on Anastasia for support like that.
Then what should her own behavior be called — falling head over heels for Rian at first sight and losing her mind just to stay by his side?
But Logan didn't let those words leave his mouth.
Instead, he took a step back, widening the distance between them. At that subtle gap, Irene's eyes grew even sharper.
"I'm tired. I just want to rest today."
"Tired? Logan, are you avoiding me? What did I do wrong? Don't tell me... is this because you saw me with Rian earlier?"
Irene interpreted his behavior through the lens of her own standards — and began, of all things, to interrogate him. As if she were the injured party.
Her words carried an unmistakable subtext: How dare you look at anyone else when you have me?
"......."
Logan didn't feel the exchange was even worth answering. He no longer wanted to bandy words with Irene. The entire conversation felt meaningless. He turned away and started walking toward his barracks.
"Wait — Logan!"
Irene grabbed his arm in a panic. The instant her fingers touched him, goosebumps erupted across his entire body before he could stop them.
The very same touch that had deceived and betrayed him in the visions of the future. Disgust and fury surged up all over again.
Smack!
Logan shoved her hand away once more — this time harder. It was a gesture so ruthless and decisive that it bore no comparison to his earlier refusal.
"......!"
Irene froze in place, eyes wide with shock.
Twice. Logan had rejected her touch. And so coldly, at that. Her mind went utterly blank.
"Lo-Logan... why are you really acting like this...?"
Her voice began to tremble thinly, tears welling at the corners of her eyes.
This was the man who had always fumbled helplessly around her. The man who, at the smallest sad look or the faintest glisten of tears, would panic and lose all composure. The Logan of the past would have softened at the sight of her like this, rushed into her arms, apologized, and soothed her at once.
But the Logan of now was different.
He looked down at her with eyes gone cold, and spoke with unwavering finality. There was not a trace of sympathy anywhere in his voice.
"I'm sorry, but... don't touch me without permission. Irene."
"......What?"
"And... I'd rather you didn't lean on me so much from now on. I've helped you plenty these past years, haven't I...? So I'm... going to rest now."
With those words, Logan walked toward his barracks without hesitation, without so much as a glance back at her reaction.
There was no lingering attachment in his footsteps at all.
Irene could only stare, dumbfounded, at his retreating back. She simply could not believe what she had just heard. Don't touch me? Don't lean on me? How could he say those things to her, of all people?
"What did I... what did I even do... to deserve this?"
Hot tears spilled down Irene's cheeks.
Enough? It wasn't nearly enough. She still needed him. No one knew better than she did that without him, she could do nothing.
Resentment, rage, and a nameless anxiety began to eat away at her heart.
Logan had changed. He was no longer the man she'd known — the one who had always had eyes only for her.
'No... something's gone wrong... I know... it's that Princess!'
Rather than accept Logan's change, Irene cast every ounce of her blame onto Anastasia. Ever since that woman had appeared, Logan had been acting strange. It was obviously that woman's doing. She had done something to him.
How dare she try to steal what's mine.
'How dare she... my Logan...! I won't forgive her!'
Irene's eyes began to gleam coldly. She wiped her flowing tears away roughly and glared with pure venom in the direction of Anastasia's barracks.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Meanwhile, back at his barracks, Logan all but collapsed onto his worn bed. As the tension drained from his body, crushing fatigue flooded in.
Being cold to Irene was far harder than he had expected. The momentum of years of accumulated feeling was more stubborn than he'd imagined, and somewhere in the corner of his heart, lingering attachment and pity for her still squirmed.
But he shook his head. He could no longer remain tethered to the past. His blind devotion to her was over now — whether for his own sake, or for hers.
Logan closed his weary eyes. In the darkness, he tried to chart the path he would have to walk from here. How to untangle things with Irene; how he ought to live going forward. No answers came easily.
One thing, though, was certain.
His pure, devoted love was now racing toward its final destination. And at the end of that road... he had a faint premonition that perhaps, instead of regret and lingering attachment, a new beginning might be waiting.
At the center of that premonition, the image of one person rose hazily in his mind — the one who had worried over him and held him warm in her arms.
'...Anya...'
Logan murmured her name without meaning to.
He was no fool. He had a rough sense of what feelings she harbored for him, of how much she had labored on his behalf all this time. And even of the care she took not to burden him.
'...Maybe... no, I'm no different from Irene at all, am I...'
If he hadn't been granted that vision of the future today, what kind of future would Anastasia have lived? He hoped — please — that she wouldn't end up like him, foolishly gazing after a single person until the very end.
'Surely... surely not, though. Not with someone as worthless as me...'
She was born into a different world entirely from a nobody adventurer born in a frontier village. She was the Imperial Princess, after all. So surely not — that's what he told himself, and yet...
What if... just what if... in the unlikeliest of cases... she too had received nothing in return for anything, just as he hadn't...
Was there any absurdity in this world crueler than that?
'It's... not too late yet...'
No — perhaps it was already far too late. She must have been lonely and in pain for a long time as well, just as he had been. But couldn't things still be turned around, even now?
Whether a worthless man like himself had any right to approach her so shamelessly... that part did trouble him a little.
But if she wanted him to...
Though it was terribly late, a resolve began to take root in Logan's heart: the will to answer her feelings, here and now.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Having triumphed over the Demon King and his horde, the Hero's Party and the subjugation force wrapped up their brief night of celebration and set out on the road back to the Empire. The groaning of axles and the clip-clop of hooves settled over the long column of the marching army.
"Hmm~ hmm~!"
Somewhere near the middle of the procession, Baldur was in a fine mood, humming a tune as he lazily reined in his pony. Riding alongside on her white mare, Elara frowned at the sight of him.
"Isn't the dwarf still half-drunk? Why are you so bloody cheerful? It's grating, honestly."
"Hahaha!! I'd wager what's grating isn't me, lass — it's the lad sharing a carriage with Her Highness the Princess!"
Baldur guffawed and needled her. At his words Elara shrieked in outrage, yet her face flushed red all the same, as if the barb had struck home.
"Wh-what did you say, you dwarf?!"
At the sight of her, Baldur clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"Tsk tsk... you long-eared lot live for centuries, the least you could do is keep some shame. With a few hundred years on you, aren't your own kind careful about such things?"
"N-no, they're not!!"
"Gwahaha!! Right, right... well, at least you're doing fine on that count."
"I said no! Ahem...! And what do you mean, someone like me is doing fine?"
"See for yourself."
Baldur jerked his chin toward the front of the procession, where the Hero's Party's carriage rolled along.
"Ah..."
Elara nodded in understanding and fell silent.
She couldn't make out the expressions inside the carriage, but the frigid aura pressing around it — and the rigid profile of the Hero Party's mage she'd glimpsed through the window — told her plenty. Her gaze kept darting, again and again, toward the carriage carrying Logan and Anastasia.
Having sneaked a glance at the Hero's Party themselves, Baldur and Elara shook their heads in perfect unison.
Elara clicked her tongue in disdain and muttered,
"Tsk... short-lived races. Truly impossible to understand. Have they forgotten everything they did to Logan?"
"Heh heh heh... well you know, lass. The most sublime of beings is Man — and so is the most wretched."
Baldur stroked his beard in agreement. The race called humanity was truly baffling — at times they showed the nobility to risk their lives for their comrades, and at other times such wretched, self-serving behavior as this.
"That may be, but... they're so shameless it leaves me speechless. Especially..."
"Aye, aye. Far more shameless than you, certainly. After all — unlike you, she's already had the lad's whole heart given over to her alone, and yet! Heh heh heh!"
"How many times do I have to say it's not true?! Listen here, dwarf! Do you want to be subjugated next, right after the Demon King?!"
"GWAHAHAHA!!!"
As Elara fumed, Baldur kept ribbing her, all while thinking to himself.
'The lad... it seems he's finally come to his senses, though late... but the road ahead won't be an easy one...'
The great threat of the Demon King had been removed, yet somehow he suspected the boy's future would be anything but smooth.
Of course, it was fortunate he'd changed his thinking when he did. He had made a choice a hundredfold, a thousandfold better than letting himself be jerked around by foolish women like that for the rest of his days.