“These man-killing bees… there can’t be many more of them, right?”

“Even one more would be more than I can handle…”

Turing rubbed her sore, aching right hand, silently lamenting to herself.

“Let’s hurry on to the next level.”

“We don’t even know when the ice bees might come back… To me, those things are far more dangerous than a straight-up fight with the man-killing bees.”

Turing got to her feet. She pressed a hand to her forehead, her face slightly pale, as if she were a little anemic.

Merka slipped one arm around Turing’s shoulder and the other around her slender, lotus-root-like waist, helping her up off the ground.

“Turing, you’re tired.”

“How about… I carry you?”

“You can ride on my back and help me find the way.”

At Merka’s words, Turing lowered her eyes and thought it over for a moment before slowly nodding.

“Then… I’ll leave it to you…”

Merka gave her a gentle smile, then turned around and crouched with his back to Turing.

Watching Merka crouch down, Turing rubbed her feet together where they stood on the ground, her heart giving a small flutter.

Merka’s broad shoulders were wrapped in a wrinkled shirt. Those shoulders, radiating dependable masculine appeal, looked to Turing like freshly baked apples coated in frosting—sweet-smelling and irresistible.

Turing’s cheeks flushed. Almost unable to wait, she leaned against Merka’s back and brought her lips to that tempting shoulder.

Merka’s own bittersweet scent sent Turing into a daze.

“Then… then I’ll leave it to you.”

“Tell me if I get too heavy, okay?”

With a coy little smile, Turing brought her nose close to Merka’s ear and spoke to him.

“Sure. Turing’s so light, I could carry you all day!”

Merka replied with a smile.

Crack.

Suddenly, something broke through the sound barrier and came hurtling toward them.

A gigantic mace swept up a storm, cleaving through time and space.

The entire room shattered with a crash.

…The moment Turing finished speaking, Merka felt an immense force strike him from behind.

Merka’s expression changed in an instant. An utterly unstoppable force surged over him like a flood, tearing him and Turing apart and sending him hurtling away.

That monstrous force drove Merka straight into the wall. His limbs snapped and became embedded in it; for the moment, he couldn’t even fall down.

Merka narrowed his eyes and forced his badly wounded body to look toward Turing.

Hundreds of iron chains wound around Turing, binding her limbs and pinning her completely to the ground. She seemed to have lost consciousness.

Not far away, the man-killing bee—its body nearly torn in half by Turing—rose to its feet once more.

It raised its gigantic mace. While Turing and Merka had been flirting, it had driven the weapon down, tearing a huge gash into Turing’s back.

Merka’s face went deathly pale.

He suddenly remembered what Turing had said.

If being struck by that gigantic mace really meant sleeping for a thousand years…

Then, given the ratio between time passing in the illusion and in reality, this nightmare would likely circle through the sealed person’s mind in solitude for millions of years.

Merka could hardly imagine that kind of suffering!