In an illusory space, Aaron felt himself gradually waking up.
Wait, is this what I'm supposed to be seeing after waking up?
Where's Kiana?
In this illusory space, Aaron could only see chaos.
It wasn't enough to make him feel fear, but this space... Ah, does the System have this ability?
I don't remember reading about it in the description.
Ooh, there are two round spheres here. Let me just take a look...
And then, before his hands could touch those two spheres, he suddenly woke up.
The waking Aaron saw...
...Kiana, whose face he was grabbing. Several veins were throbbing on her exposed skin.
"I. Was. Just. Feeling. Touched. That you worked so hard to save me."
Stiffly prying Aaron's hand off her face, Kiana said, infuriated.
"This is how you treat me when you wake up?! Give me back my emotional moment!"
"...Sorry. That was an accident."
Good thing it was an accident. If I'm not mistaken, if I hadn't woken up and my hand hadn't slipped, what I would have touched was...
Ugh, if I'd really done that, I'd never be able to clear my name.
But, I mean, she's definitely stacked... No, what am I thinking!
Aaron tried to kip up out of Kiana's lap, but a wave of dizziness hit him and he immediately collapsed again.
Damn it, damn it. This modified Ittou Shura might not drain my energy, but the cost to my stamina...
Even just thinking is exhausting.
"I don't know what happened, but looking at you, you must be completely drained."
Looking helplessly at Aaron, who was staring wide-eyed as if he'd died with regrets, Kiana sighed and spoke softly.
"Get some rest. We're safe, at least for now."
"...Right. By the way, where are we?"
Aaron looked around, raising an eyebrow.
"A forest?"
"Yep. After you passed out, your body just started gushing blood. If I'd taken you back to the inn, the city guards would have arrested us on the spot."
"Besides..."
Kiana's voice suddenly became almost inaudible.
"I... didn't bring my wallet..."
"...Calm down. It's not your fault."
Calmly, Aaron took spare clothes for himself and Kiana from his storage space, and also pulled out the item the System had given him—the wallet of infinite money.
With a trembling hand, Aaron opened the wallet and shook it.
Kiana watched, wide-eyed, as a huge pile of gold coins clattered out of the small wallet.
Staring at the coins on the ground, Kiana said in disbelief.
"You... you even prepared local currency?!"
"You're overthinking it. It's just a convenience item from the System. But if you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have realized... the System actually converts the currency in the wallet when we go to a new world."
Seeing the wallet enter its cooldown, Aaron pointed to the coins.
"We'll split this, so next time I pass out, you can at least 'drop' some gold."
"Just how cautious *are* you..."
After stashing the coins in her storage space, Kiana looked at Aaron curiously.
"I never had a chance to ask before, what did you do in our world? So now—"
"No time now, either. Help me up..."
With Kiana's help, Aaron sat up. He spoke weakly to her.
"If I was bleeding that heavily like you said, that means... if they have hounds, they can follow the trail right to us."
"Chase us all the way out here?!"
Kiana gave Aaron a strange look as she listened to his theory.
"I ran for two hours straight. Are those City Guards you mentioned really *that* dedicated?"
"Oh, that rabble? They're just a useless bunch of corrupt, bribe-taking gluttons waiting to die. Honestly, most of them are nothing to worry about."
"They don't even take their jobs in the city seriously. Expecting them to track us for miles is impossible. But—"
His tone shifted. Aaron looked up at the starry sky and said despairingly.
"Among that useless bunch, there is one 'Super Justice' fanatic. If she finds our trail, she will *definitely* follow it—and she absolutely has the power to take care of us in our current state."
"So, do you understand how serious this is?"
"I think so. In that case, Aaron, what we should do now is..."
"What we should do now..."
"Is drop everything else, take a bath, and *then* run."
............................