My Protect skill can take my life but it can also help me flirt and make love with cold beauties!
Chapter 15: Raul's Past

After returning to the inn, I didn't feel like talking about anything. El seemed to be aware of my mood and stayed quiet. Even when I lay down in bed and closed my eyes, the image of the ogre popped up in my mind, making me open my eyes wide.

I couldn't tell whether I was sleeping or awake, and time passed by unclearly. I could hear the sound of eleven bells ringing from outside.

When I entered the room, it was already dusk. Somehow, time had passed by without me noticing. When I woke up, I was sweating uncomfortably, and my clothes were sticking to my body.

Though it was getting late, I prepared a bath for El and went to the bathhouse to wash off my sweat. Clothes were already laid out in the changing room, and they belonged to Raul.

It was awkward. I thought about postponing my bath, but if I ran away now, I have a feeling that I won’t be able to laugh and talk with Raul like before. So I also took off my clothes and entered the bathhouse.

"I'm sorry to intrude..."

"Yeah...you're late today."

"I fell asleep for a bit..."

As usual, there is no one else in the bathhouse at night except for Raul and me. Although we have both entered the bath, the atmosphere was still heavy, and we couldn't keep the conversation going.

We just silently scrubbed ourselves. When the awkward silence finally became unbearable for me, Raul stood up. He scooped water from the bath and poured it over his head with great force.

"Oh, that feels good!" Raul spoke in a loud voice, shaking off the water from his short, neatly trimmed hair.

"I heard about what happened today from Seira. You didn't have much choice in your actions. But still, I don't want you to be reckless."

"Yes... I know. I also acted impulsively today..."

Raul sat down heavily next to me. "Can you listen to my story for a bit?"

"Huh? Yeah, sure."

"It's about my past."

Raul's story from the past. I had always wanted to hear it, but never imagined I would get the chance at this moment.

"I was born in a small town nestled in the mountains to the west of the kingdom," Raul began speaking quietly. "Since I was a kid, I always talked about becoming an adventurer. I didn't help around the house, instead swinging sticks around.

"So, I finally ran away from home over ten years ago. I had a childhood friend, Sanchez. Unlike me, he was a rare magic user in our rural town and was clever. Even his grandpa was a magic user.

"But Sanchez's talent for magic was something else. His sister, Isha, was also a magic user, specializing in healing spells. Sanchez, Isha, and I became adventurers and formed a party. I hate to say it, but our party was really good. I was the vanguard, Sanchez the rearguard, and Isha always healed us, even if we got hurt a little."

But I have never seen Raul with anyone else at the guild. He always comes in alone, even when reporting completed quests. And he spoke of his past party in the past tense. I listened to Raul's story silently.

"Our rank rose steadily from bronze to silver, and then, after eight years since leaving our hometown, we reached gold rank."

Gold rank, a testament to being a high-level adventurer just below platinum rank. From what I heard before, it takes more than ten years to reach gold rank. And even then, that’s considered fast.

For this party to have achieved it in just eight years, they must have had considerable strength.

"I was over the moon and thought to myself, our skills are even on par with platinum rank." He continued, "However, it turned out that I was the only one who thought that way. Sanchez and Isha had been saying for a long time that we were rushing too much, taking on jobs that exceeded our abilities.

"Despite this, we managed to complete all of those jobs. I had mistakenly thought that I had accomplished them all on my own

relying solely on my own strength as a vanguard without realizing how much burden I was putting on Sanchez and Isha.

"Then, one day, while we were staying in a town nearby, we heard rumors about a magical beast appearing."

"A magical beast?"

"Yeah, it's an unidentified magical beast that has been rumored for a while. The people who went to subjugate it were all slaughtered, and there were hardly any eyewitnesses who returned alive.

"The difficulty level of the request was platinum rank. Of course, we couldn’t take on that kind of job as gold-ranked adventurers. That's why I decided to defeat it without going through the guild."

Raul made a sour face as if he had remembered something. He scooped up hot water from the pot and splashed it on his face.

"Sanchez and Isha were against it. If they didn't want to go, I would have gone alone. I forced my way out to the nearby mountain where there was information about it. There was no other choice. Reluctantly, both of them followed me.

"We started climbing the mountain in the morning, and when the sun was about to set, we met the beast. It looked like a large black wolf with small bat-like wings on its back. What I remember most is the thick black miasma that spewed out from its entire body. That alone made me understand that I had made a wrong choice. But it was already too late.

"I only faced him head-on a few times and received his claws soon. In no time, I was in tatters and Sanchez, who was chanting a spell behind me, had his throat slit."

Then Raul took a deep breath and splashed hot water on his face again. "It was a fatal blow. Isha, who was beside me, was also seriously injured. She could no longer cast healing spells for others. In that situation, Sanchez mustered his last strength and chanted a teleportation spell.

"What Sanchez was chanting was not an attack spell or a defense spell. He was chanting a teleportation spell to escape from the beginning. He drew a symbol with his finger and Isha and I were teleported to the foot of the mountain.

"However, the city was far away. I was bleeding heavily and Isha was badly injured. Both of us were about to die. I had resigned myself to being wiped out. But Isha began to cast a healing spell. Not on herself, but on me.

"Even though her injury was serious enough that she had to use her life force to maintain her own life… I was willing to die from loss of blood. That's what I thought... In the end, I was the only one who survived. Isha also used her own life force to help me..."

Raul fell silent and looked up at the ceiling. I felt bad for staring at his face, so I followed his lead and looked up as well. "So, what I was trying to say is, don't become like me," he finally said with a smirk. "Well, in your case, it wasn't selfish ambition like mine. Still, you couldn't just let it go, could you?"

"Is that so... And what happened to the beast?"

"Who knows? After carrying Isha’s body back to town, I went back up the mountain to look for it again, but it had disappeared along with Sanchez' corpse."

Raul let out a sigh. "I don't know if it was eaten by that thing or some other monster, but either way, there was no closure. I've been traveling the country following rumors about that monster, but there hasn't been any news since then.

"I heard a rumor recently that it was sighted around here, so I'm gathering information centered around the capital, but it might be a false lead too."

"I see."

"Well, thanks for listening to my story."

"No, thank you for sharing it with me. And thank you for helping me today."

"Yeah... I'm gonna head up first. Get some rest."

"Okay, good night."

I watched Raul's back disappear into the changing room and said good night to him one last time.