It's been a couple of days, and he's about to leave. Nothing particularly interesting has happened, which is good-I don't like getting caught up in other people's issues. That might sound selfish, but I'd rather keep to myself.
"I'll be going now, Riki. It was nice knowing you." He was almost at the door when I stopped him.
"Huh? What's up?"
"I know this is a dumb question, but I feel like I've seen you somewhere before...You don't have to answer if you don't want to! It's just been bugging me a bit, that's all."
I decided to finally ask him that. I mean, it was a pretty innocent question. What harm could it do?
"....Well, you probably have seen me before." He turned to look at me, and smiled.
"I'm a king."
.....
Oh shit.
Have I been disrespectful at all-no, I don't think I have. He seemed genuinely thankful earlier-wait, he could be lying about his status-where is he even from? What? What?
"It's fine if you don't believe me. I mean, I've got nothing to lose from telling you, so why lie?"
....If he's a king, then what the hell is he doing all the way in Aricto, which is a country with no king, in some random demihuman's house?
...The only way I think that could work is...
"Why are you in Aricto? This country has no king-and what kingdom do you even rule over?]
"Waix. That desert country south of here."
....That explains the accent, then. I'm not totally sure if he's lying or not, but I feel as though he's telling the truth, for some reason.
"So, anyways, you've probably seen me before in some newspaper or something. That's all."
I feel like I'm in a dream right now. At least he's no one bad, I guess..?
"...So anyways, I'll get going now." He turned around and walked the last few steps to the door, opened it, and froze. He then took a step back, and I could see that there were at least two people at the door, but with him blocking it I couldn't make out many details-and then he slammed it shut with a loud thud.
"They're here..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------shorter chapter because this is one of the few story points that can be done better in the webcomic instead of in pure written form, and that I started getting a bit of writer's block on how to word things
Webcomic link (it'll probably end up being way behind the webnovel in terms of story, so be patient with it): https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/hollow-hearted-life/list?title_no=422138