Inside the narrow tent, the rhythmic sounds of heavy breathing filled the air.
"Zzz... zzz..."
"...In the end, it turned into this, didn’t it?"
After returning to the campsite, Rest had been given a thorough earful for acting on his own. Only then was he finally allowed to turn in for the night.
Dawn was already fast approaching, but it wasn't as though he could afford to skip sleep entirely. The Worm meat had left him overstimulated; he hadn't closed his eyes once all night. Even though his mind was wide awake, his body was screaming for rest after the intense battle.
If possible, he wanted to sink into a deep, muddy slumber... but there were certain circumstances preventing that.
"Mumble, mumble... I can’t eat any more... A classroom full of pork trotters is too much. And now a cow is jumping in...?"
"...What kind of dream is she even having?"
The one speaking such remarkably clear sleep talk was, predictably, Yuri.
She was currently sleeping pressed tightly against Rest. Her slender, supple limbs were wrapped around him in a firm embrace. Despite having the arms of a young woman, her physical strength far exceeded his own. Far from being able to break free, it was genuinely terrifying to think she might accidentally strangle him to death in her sleep.
Upon returning to camp, Rest had been forced into Yuri’s tent to ensure he wouldn't slip away again. He had previously used the barrier as an excuse to sleep alone, claiming he needed to be nearby to maintain it. However, he had inadvertently proven that as long as he infused it with enough mana beforehand, the ward would hold even from a distance.
He had just replenished the barrier’s mana. It would likely hold until dawn.
"Ah... the pork trotters and the loin are having a fight..."
"Mgh..."
As if determined not to let him escape, Yuri clung to him even tighter. Her chest and thighs were pressed ruthlessly against him, their soft texture making a bold claim for his attention. It was a situation that couldn't be explained away to an outsider unless they had already shared an intimate night together.
If Yuri’s father had seen this, he likely would have lost his mind and transformed into a literal Berserker.
"The meat... the meat..."
"...You’re the meat. Maybe I should be the one to eat you."
The fact that he could even joke like that meant he still had some level of composure. Had he still been in the state he was immediately after eating the Worm meat, he was certain he would have attacked her by now.
"Zzz... zzz..."
Rest was enduring thanks to his iron self-restraint, but there was one more reason he couldn't lay a hand on Yuri. It was the presence of the girl sleeping on the other side of her.
"Zzz... zzz..."
"You too, huh... Ulula."
Ulula Lavender was also there. She was sharing the tent with them. There had been an option for her to move to a different tent, but for some reason, she had stayed there as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Zzz... zzz..."
"...Please don't look at me like that."
To make matters even more unsettling, Ulula was sleeping with both eyes snapped wide open. While there were people who occasionally slept with their eyes half-closed, it seemed Ulula was the type to keep them fully dilated. Her eyes stared straight ahead as if they might pop out of their sockets at any moment, and her unblinking gaze made him feel strangely guilty.
"............"
(Even so... she has such a mysterious iris color...)
Looking back into Ulula's eyes, the thought suddenly struck him. At a glance, they looked like the color of Amethyst, but looking closer, her pupils seemed to shimmer with a rainbow-like brilliance. It was a bit of a macabre thought, but if those eyes were gemstones, they would surely fetch a fortune.
(It doesn't feel entirely bad to have those eyes reflected on me... but honestly, I feel like I'm being watched. It's not exactly comfortable...)
"Zzz... zzz... Chicken wins..."
"Zzz... zzz..."
"How am I supposed to sleep in a situation like this?"
Caught between these two sources of awkwardness, Rest somehow managed to claw back exactly thirty minutes of sleep.