PRSR | Chapter 9.5

Rio was hard to wake up even if you shook him. When he was Jjikjjiki, it was cute to see him sleep, so I’d often tap his palm or stroke his belly.

Now… stroking his belly seemed a bit much, and since his hand was holding onto my back, it was hard to touch it.

Instead of stroking his belly or tapping his palm, I wrapped my arm around Rio’s back.

It was an impulsive move. Since Rio always tried to hug me, I thought I’d try to understand the feeling by mimicking him, but I hadn’t expected to feel his firm chest this vividly against mine.

‘How can he have muscles like this from just cardio…’

Even when he was Jjikjjiki, all he did was run around all day. How did he turn out like this? Is it a species trait?

Yet, among the beastmen I met while rescuing kidnapped Awakened, there were many who were small and thin.

After all, I concluded that Rio was just exceptional.

‘How can he love me this much when he’s so great?’

Honestly, I didn’t mind it. It wasn’t bad to have someone cherish and care for me this much, putting me before themselves.

But the more I thought about it, the more I questioned.

I understood him cherishing and loving me as his companion, but why he loved me as a partner, I couldn’t figure out.

Was it just because I was there during his formative years, causing him to mistake his feelings? Perhaps he didn’t know how varied love could be and couldn’t define his own feelings accurately.

However, considering he didn’t hesitate with physical contact, it seemed unlikely. If Rio’s love were just a mistake, he would instinctively feel repulsed when kissing or hugging me.

‘So, what about me?’

If I didn’t feel repulsed when Rio touched me, does that mean it’s love?

I’m not sure.

“It’s safe now, so I’m starting to think of all sorts.”

Back when I was trembling, unsure if I’d survive, I couldn’t even think about Rio’s feelings, much less sort out my own. But now, with the certainty of completing the Tutorial Quests and secured survival, these thoughts naturally surfaced.

“…”

If I could judge feelings by the degree of discomfort with physical contact… why not just try it?

So far, the kisses had been before my survival was assured, not enough to judge feelings by.

Especially since it would be more telling if I initiated the kiss instead of Rio, but all I had managed today was an indirect kiss.

In the silence, I leaned my head towards Rio.

“…”

The breath escaping his slightly parted lips brushed against my skin.

‘…What am I doing messing with a sleeping kid? Get it together, Kang Soul.’

I quickly turned my head away.

Rio would probably like whatever I did, but that didn’t mean it was okay to kiss someone asleep without their consent.

As a sensible person, let’s not do this, Kang Soul. Get it together, Kang Soul!

“I must be crazy, really crazy.”

I pushed my body back as far as I could from Rio. Maybe because I moved so suddenly, Rio stirred in his sleep and leaned towards me.

“Ah!”

Before I could dodge, Rio’s body flopped over me.

‘Heavy…!’

Regaining the warmth, Rio clung to me with even more force than before. From experience, I knew once Rio grabbed hold in his sleep, there was no escaping.

‘Just give up and go back to sleep.’

With Rio pressing down on me, I closed my eyes.

Feeling the heartbeat of someone, not sure whose, I drifted back into sleep.

* * *

“Good morning.”

As I opened my eyes, Rio greeted me with a bright smile. As usual, he had prepared breakfast himself. Although it was just bread and jam he got from the first floor’s dining area along with some soup, thinking about Rio, who struggles to communicate with the innkeeper, using gestures to get these foods made it all the more impressive.

“Today, I even got some milk.”

“Thanks, I’ll enjoy it.”

Rio spread butter and jam on the bread and poured milk into a glass for me. He himself seemed less interested in bread or soup, opting to eat an apple cut into hexagonal shapes instead.

“Give me that apple.”

“Sure.”

Without hesitation, Rio handed over the apple he was eating to me.

In return for the hexagonal-shaped apple, I carved a new one into a rabbit shape and handed it to Rio.

“Here, eat this.”

“An apple carved by Soul…!”

Rio, who would have nibbled on a rabbit-shaped apple for five minutes when he was a rat, now stuffed it into his mouth in one go. Judging by his reaction and demeanor, he had no idea about the antics I almost got up to last night.

‘That’s a relief.’

I let out a short sigh of relief and started eating my breakfast. The bread and soup were deliciously warm.

“Did you check the Quest Window after the wave ended yesterday?”

“I waited to check it with you.”

“Weren’t you uninterested?”

“You know me too well.”

Rio summoned the Quest Window and scanned it from top to bottom. His gaze stopped at a certain point.

“The contribution to the Monster Wave Quest has been updated.”

“How much?”

“11,856.”

Even without anything to compare it to, I could tell it was a high number. Considering the number of monsters Rio had wiped out on the field and the number of near-death Awakened he saved, it wouldn’t make sense if he wasn’t ranked first.

“Does it show anyone else’s numbers or rankings?”

“The ranking system isn’t applied to the tutorial. That’s what it says.”

Does that mean the ranking system will be applied once the tutorial is over?

“What about the rewards?”

“Wait, it says the rewards are updating.”

“Did it always update before giving out rewards?”

“I don’t know. It’s my first time seeing this.”

Could it be that the rewards vary based on contribution and it’s taking time to update because Rio’s contribution was several times higher than other Awakened?

A new window appeared, and Rio pressed firmly on the air. Then he looked back at me, puzzled.

“A strange reward came up.”

“Strange reward?”

I looked towards where Rio had been looking just moments ago, but I couldn’t see anything. Rio frowned without responding immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

“Kang Soul’s Pajama Enhancement.”

“What?”

“That’s my reward.”

“…What?”

Both Rio and I were speechless, staring at each other in silence.

It was a completely unexpected reward. Even a potion would have been less shocking.

‘Am I doomed to never escape wearing pajamas?’

The thought of being bound to wear pajamas voluntarily in the future made my head spin. Though I could simply take them off, it would be disrespectful to the game developers not to use such a good item.

Of course, this isn’t a game but reality. However, that made it even harder to give up the pajamas. No matter how strong Rio is, accidents happen in a moment, and if there’s an item that can perfectly prepare for that ‘moment,’ then it’s worth using, no matter how embarrassing.

‘Wait a minute…’

As I wallowed in my distress about my future pajama life, a question crossed my mind. There was something odd about Rio’s quest reward.

‘Why is my name on it?’

Upon further thought, field items shouldn’t be bound to me. Technically, I, Kang Soul, shouldn’t exist in the Tutorial Field.

‘If this world recognizes me as part of Rio, even if I wear the pajamas, the ownership should belong to Rio.’

But according to Rio, the system window recognized me as the owner of the pajamas. Does that mean this world recognizes Kang Soul as an entity separate from Kang Rio?

‘Something must be wrong.’

The issue that was supposedly unsolvable can’t have been resolved just like that.

It didn’t make sense that a reward meant for Rio came out for me, and it didn’t make sense for the system to start recognizing me and Rio separately.

“Are you sure my name is written on the reward? Not Kang Rio or Kang Jjikjjiki?”

“I’m sure. It says ‘Kang Soul’s Pajama Enhancement.’”

If he were lying about transferring the item to me, he would have said ‘actually, I was just kidding’ by now. But instead, Rio was glaring at the space where the Quest Window was, his eyes blazing as if filled with anger.

He wasn’t upset about losing the reward to me. There had to be a reason he was guessing.

“Are you mad because the system window called my name?”

“How did you know?”

Rio’s eyes widened, surprised that I had guessed correctly.

“If you get mad over such a small thing, what will you do every time someone calls me?”

“I know I can’t monopolize Soul’s name. But I don’t like it when the Manager calls for Soul. That guy, I’ve been suspicious of the way he looks at Soul from the start.”

“The Manager?”

“He definitely means to harm Soul, or he might be fond of Soul. Either way, it’s ominous.”

His assessment was so extreme, I wasn’t sure which side to believe.

“Why do you think the Manager wrote the quest reward? It could be that the system randomly assigned it.”

“That’s because the only other person in the Tutorial Field who knows Soul’s name is that Manager we saw.”

“…Ah!”

The answer to my casually asked question had revealed the explanation for my earlier doubts. I clapped my hands as if I had just come to a significant realization.

‘Right. The only one who knows about my existence is the Manager.’

When I first arrived in the Tutorial Field, the Manager was unaware of my presence.

Even when I was left alone in the field and argued with the Manager about summoning the status window, it wasn’t revealed that I was an error.

The Manager figured out the error only after checking the documents. In other words, unless one of the dimension managers directly examines the paperwork, no one else would know that I, a non-Awakened, am pretending to be an Awakened here.

Neither the system nor other managers know my name, but it’s clearly written on the Quest Window, which means that the one who wrote the reward must be our area’s Manager.

‘The Manager didn’t seem interested in fixing the error.’

If I compare the Tutorial Field to a game, I am a massive bug, and the Manager is responsible for it. But instead of fixing the bug, the Manager let me roam freely.

I don’t know why. Maybe because fixing me here is a complex error, or because revealing this bug would harm the Manager himself.

‘Maybe… the Manager directly manages the Quest Window?’

If assigning quests and rewards to Awakened is the Manager’s role, then everything that has happened makes sense.

Providing me with protective magic and suggesting ways to enhance it suggests that the Manager wants to safely and quietly send me back to Earth.

‘He’s trying to hide that a bug has occurred in his game.’

Just as releasing a bug into a functioning game, the Manager expects me to wander around quietly and then disappear without causing any issues.

I don’t know why he doesn’t just kill me and send me back; maybe the error is too severe to manage any other way.

Regardless, if the Manager has ulterior motives, and if those are impacting the quest progression positively…

I might as well use it gratefully.