Chapter 17: Khan

Actually, if Paul had been in a calmer state, he might have asked for the boss monster’s understanding and come up with a more plausible and cool name.

However, in his excited state, Paul’s mind was only filled with the thought of quickly finishing the task at hand and returning to his home with the boss monster…

Unfortunately, the boss monster had no right to refuse.

And so, from this moment on, his name became ‘Khan’.

“It’s good, right? The name! It’s easy to say, easy to remember, and it rolls right off the tongue!”

Saying so, Paul smiled mischievously.

He stealthily approached the blankly standing Khan, grabbed both of his hands, and playfully shook them left and right.

“Try saying ‘Khan’ after me. Khan~ Huh? Come on!”

At that, the boss monster, now called Khan, looked down at the intruder in front of him with a slightly dazed feeling.

He had suddenly given him a name, and now he was urging him to repeat it, shaking his arm as if performing a cute trick.

Khan unconsciously moved his lips slightly inside the mask before closing them again.

It was awkward to say it out loud.

Hearing and speaking were different matters.

Even if he could roughly understand his words, his language and mine were clearly different.

So, he rolled the unfamiliar language around in his mouth once.

The name he had given him was very simple.

He rolled his tongue again, ‘Khan’.

From now on, this would be his name.

“…Khan.”

It evoked a strange feeling.

Somehow nostalgic and also gentle…

“That’s right, good job! From now on, that’s your name! I’ll call you Khan until you find your original name!”

The hands holding his were warm.

In contrast to his own hands, which were as cold as a dead person’s, his hands were scorching hot.

‘Ah, this nameless intruder in front of me smiles a lot.’

‘It was quite strange how he kept a smile on his face even when running through that collapsing prison, and when chattering nonsensical words…’

“Shall we get out of here first? Aren’t you cold? I’m freezing!”

Then, Paul started spinning around while holding Khan’s hand.

Caught off guard, Khan also awkwardly followed Paul, spinning in place with him.

The sound of his clear laughter, as if something was so joyful, echoed distinctly across the open snowfield.

“Ah! Come to think of it, I haven’t told you my name yet!”

Paul’s eyes widened as if he had forgotten, and he made an exaggerated expression.

With a strange laugh, ‘U-hee-hee’, Paul pointed at himself with his index finger and said.

“I’m Paul! Simple, right? Call me Paul from now on!”

Khan looked at Paul for a while and then nodded.

“By the way, did you know? If you go straight down that way, there’s a village. This is Flora Island, so the village is just called Flora Village! Doesn’t it sound like it was named very simply? When we get down there, I’ll show you around the village!”

Then, Paul quickly covered his mouth with one hand and whispered, “But actually, there’s not much to see. People don’t come here often.”

“Still, let’s go to the village first. Anyway, to get to where I live, we have to take a boat from there!”

Paul, who was about to grab Khan’s hand and run down the snowfield, stopped in his tracks at a sudden thought.

“But I don’t think we can just go out looking like this…”

That’s right, Khan’s current appearance was no different from advertising ‘I’m a monster’, no matter how you looked at it.

If he took him to the village in this state, a commotion might break out.

His attire itself was completely different from the northern region…

The clothes Khan was wearing were a style often seen in the warm southern regions.

It was a truly strange sight to see in this snow-covered field, and when he thought about it, it was really strange.

The clothes, and that mask.

‘…But as long as it looks good on him, that’s all that matters! Yes, of course.’

That was that and this was this, so Paul decided to just let it go lightly.

“Just a moment.”

Letting go of the hand he had been holding, Paul rummaged through his bag.

‘I think I had a robe I didn’t wear stashed away somewhere in here…’

After spilling everything out earlier, he had just swept everything back in carelessly, so the inside was a mess.

After rummaging for a long time, Paul finally found the robe and took it out with a pleased look.

It was a simple robe of a similar style to the one he was wearing.

He had been wearing it until recently and had taken it off in the process of changing into his current clothes, and now it had found a use.

Actually, for a cool monster like Khan, it was nothing more than a rag…

But there was nothing else, so it couldn’t be helped.

He wanted to give him the clothes he was wearing, but that would be worse than not wearing anything at all.

“Try this on! Hmm, but can a monster even wear this…?”

Saying so, Paul stood on his tiptoes and draped the robe over Khan’s shoulders.

Fortunately, it seemed monsters could wear it.

Whether it was a game allowance, the robe changed to a size that fit Khan perfectly.

And it looked surprisingly good on him.

Next was the shoes.

Now that he looked, Khan was barefoot.

‘Even his feet are pretty.’

But being barefoot in the snow-covered field looked very cold.

Though he probably didn’t feel the cold.

Paul rummaged through his bag again and took out a pair of shoes he didn’t wear and put them on Khan.

Next was to put on the hood attached to the robe, and that would be it… but the mask was a bit of a problem.

It wasn’t a mask that could be hidden even by putting on a hat.

Paul touched the seam of the mask with his fingertips and asked Khan.

“…You know. Can I take this off?”

At those words, Khan flinched for a moment.

“Well, you see~ It’s not that I have any ulterior motives… It’s just that I don’t think we can enter the village in this state. I don’t think the robe can cover this mask.”

Paul fidgeted with his fingers and glanced at Khan.

He could see his purple eyes flicker briefly, as if in confusion.

‘Did it sound like he was taking away the boss’s identity?’

‘Of course, it would be a lie to say he had no ulterior motives here.’

‘In fact, he was full of ulterior motives!’

Of course, he preferred him wearing this mask that was perfectly to his taste, but he was also honestly a little curious about what was behind the mask, along with that nice hot body.

And he also thought that if Khan was okay with it, he would like him to give him this mask.

‘Mask… I want it.’

Khan’s answer came a little slowly.

[…■■■ ■■■ ■.]

He couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he nodded his head slightly up and down and obediently bowed towards him, which seemed to be a sign of affirmation.

At that, Paul’s heart pounded.

As if representing his trembling heart, his fingertips also trembled finely.

Thanks to that, he fumbled several times while trying to take off Khan’s mask.

“Hoo, hoo!”

Paul took a deep breath and calmly reached out his hand again.

He unfastened some of the dangling ornaments and carefully took off the mask.

“Wow…”

The next moment, Paul was at a loss for words.

To be honest, he had vaguely imagined the face behind the mask.

‘Since it was a game, wouldn’t it be an unrealistic face?’

‘His external features were already unusual, so how amazing would the face hidden inside be!’

‘Surely, they wouldn’t have made the contents carelessly.’

‘He thought that the bare face of a masked character should be handsome enough to be understood at once.’

‘If it was nothing special, what would people say other than “Why did he cover it?”’

So, this was a legitimate expectation.

‘And he was a boss monster, no less.’

‘So he was guessing that he was either incredibly handsome, or conversely, had a lot of monster-specific otherworldly elements.’

‘Of course, either way would surely suit him, so he didn’t care…’

In conclusion, as Paul had expected, Khan was truly handsome.

The moment he saw his face, an exclamation escaped him, to the point where he wondered if he could even sum it up with the single word ‘handsome’.

It was irresistible.

He could only repeat exclamations one after another.

As soon as he took off the mask, jet-black hair that resembled the night sky flowed down like a wave.

With the timely breeze, his hair fluttered like a scene from a movie.

Long, densely woven eyelashes and dark eyes that rose like a noble beast.

The moment the purple eyes hidden within, shining mysteriously like a jewel that a master had painstakingly crafted over many years, met his gaze, Paul almost hiccuped, even though this was a game.

The entire process of Khan slowly closing and opening his eyes was clearly engraved on his cornea like a slow-motion scene.

Even though he had faced these eyes up close several times already, Paul couldn’t help but be captivated by them again.

It was so mysterious and beautiful.

His dark skin was extremely sensual, and his high-bridged nose and nicely thick lips…

After uttering “Wow” about three times with a dazed face, Paul’s hand unknowingly lost its strength and he even dropped the mask he was holding.

Thump.

At the sound of the mask falling on the soft snow, Paul belatedly came to his senses.

He quickly picked up the mask and carefully put it in his bag.

Throughout his life, Paul had never thought he was a person who was weak to faces.

He might be a different story when it came to masks, but he honestly wasn’t interested in people’s outer skin.

But when he really faced such otherworldly beauty in front of him, he realized at this very moment that the standard of beauty that had been formed within him throughout his life could change 180 degrees in an instant.