Ren frowned awkwardly. It wasn’t that he was in trouble, but he seemed embarrassed rather than in distress.

Sharti, trying to examine it more closely, leaned forward, but Ren quickly blocked her.

Sharti sighed softly, covering her deepening doubts for a moment.

“Any injuries? Did you fall?”

“I’m fine.”

Facing Karun, who wielded a fearsome greatsword, Ren seemed to have held up well. There were no visible injuries.

“He changed his clothes. I thought he might have been injured again.”

Ren was wearing a different outfit for the first time. It wasn’t the custom-made clothes that Sharti poorly made; it was the ready-made clothing that most of the Kropel Mercenary Group members wore.

He had also taken off his cloak. Instead, he covered his eyes with a long piece of cloth.

Perhaps because of that, since Ren’s turquoise eyes weren’t visible, Sharti somehow found him unfamiliar.

“Why are you doing that?”
Seeing Sharti’s reduced talkativeness, Ren tilted his head slightly and asked.

As Ren’s face got closer, Sharti awkwardly averted her gaze.

“It seems like Ren liked the mercenary group.”

Ren, with a suspicious demeanor, sparred with him, gave him clothes, and the Kropel Mercenary Group was friendly to Ren.

They acknowledged Ren’s skills and didn’t covet him.

‘Wouldn’t it be better for Ren to stay here longer?’

Her lips curled.

However, at the moment a chilling feeling seeped into her chest, Sharti couldn’t speak.

“Well.”

While Sharti was troubled by complex and subtle emotions, Ren seemed to have no particular thoughts. His nonchalant response suggested he didn’t need the attention of the Kropel Mercenary Group.

Sharti, suppressing an odd sense of relief, saw Ren tilt his head slightly.

“I couldn’t even please my master.”

“…!”

When Sharti, shuddering, was about to let go, Ren smirked.

Even though he was covering his eyes, Sharti felt like Ren was trying to gauge her reaction.

“You’re teasing me…!”

Sharti, with her eyes wide open, tried to let go, but the firmly held hand wouldn’t release.

Ren chuckled. His laughter made her ears itch for some reason.

Sharti pinched her ear and turned her head.

If she exerted more strength here, Ren would probably let go easily, but hearing Ren’s laughter, she couldn’t bring herself to give more strength to her hand.

“Ah, I got it!”

When Ren’s laughter subsided, with panting sounds, wizards appeared from behind the building and rushed towards Ren.

Startled by the unexpected entrance, Sharti, who was about to step back, was quickly blocked by Ren.

‘Are they wizards from the Matap?’

The robes worn by the wizards had unfamiliar patterns engraved on them. There were symbols of the moon, stars, and crosses. Sharti, who vaguely realized they were wizards from the Matap, looked at them with tense eyes.

However, the attention of the wizards from the Matap was solely focused on Ren.

“Where are you going like that!”

“What’s your identity? Are you really a mercenary? An ordinary person? Really?”

“Why isn’t any magic working? Why?”

“Is it your constitution? Not a powerful protective spell?”

The wizards blinked their eyes like detached scholars and bombarded Ren with questions.

The wizards from the Kropel Mercenary Group were not as intense. The wizards from the Matap seemed more actively curious and open to the possibility of immediately dissecting Ren’s body for research.

It didn’t seem to make sense.

‘After the mercenary group, now the Matap…?’

However, the wizards in front of her were more proactive and overt. As much as Ren, with his magic-resistant constitution, attracted their curiosity.

Ren was barely holding back the desire to swing his arms to push away the wizards sticking to him. Unless they were enemies, he couldn’t show a violent side in front of Sharti.

“Is it true what the wizard, Shukadi or something, said?”

“Can’t we get along well with us?”

“We can offer you a job at our Matap too!”
Thanks to the uproar caused by the Matap-affiliated wizards, Sharti roughly grasped the situation.

‘Did Ren get a job from the wizard he met this morning?’

It seemed related to the job he obtained, which turned the area behind the building into chaos.

With plausible speculation, Sharti’s expression became serious.

‘It seems like a dangerous job.’

As she recalled Ren’s record, which had previously been glossed over with his eloquent speech, her worries grew.

Of course, it wasn’t beyond suspicion that Shukadi, a colleague mercenary from Viretta, had tricked Ren into employment.

However, Sharti thought that Ren, being Ren, might have casually accepted a job without properly investigating.

” Don’t touch me.”

“…!”

While Sharti was lost in thought, Ren menacingly growled at the wizards.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, the wizards who had confronted Ren all fell down in unison. It was effective as they had just been severely beaten by Ren, who had turned Shukadi’s formidable weapon into his own.

At that moment, Sharti raised her heel slightly.

“Ren, were you with the Mercenary Group when they fought against the Matap?”

“…I just stood there quietly.”

“Did you agree to do such a dangerous job?”

In response to Sharti’s astonished reaction, Ren quickly turned and raised his head.

“I promised not to get hurt.”

“How can you be sure of that…!”

“I wrote it in a magical contract.”

As magical contracts could impose appropriate penalties for breaching the contract, they were quite valuable.

Sharti was left speechless by the fact that Ren used such a magical contract for his employment agreement.

On the contrary, it increased the level of trust.

However, Sharti’s expression wasn’t positive.

“While you’re staying here, you just have to help the requests from that wizard.”

“Doesn’t that include being a shield in conflicts with other wizards?”

Ren didn’t even carry a weapon.

Sharti couldn’t hide her disappointment at the fact that Ren, relying on just his constitution, was used as a shield.

“It’s not a particularly difficult task.”

As Ren tried to explain to the sulking Sharti, he scratched his head awkwardly.

“And I’ll be compensated accordingly for enduring it.”

“If you need money, I can…!”

“Hey…”

While Ren and Sharti were arguing in hushed tones, the wizards sneaked up on them again.

Although they watched their surroundings to avoid disturbing Ren, their eyes still gleamed with intent to target him.

“We only need it once!”

“Now! We can all finish it at once!”

“If you cooperate, we can give you a substantial reward!”

The wizards gazed at Ren with earnestness in their eyes.

“I’ll just touch your hand!”

Ren, naturally, ignored them.

Contact with anyone other than Sharti was uncomfortable.

The gaze, the touch, the look, and even the smell were all the same.

“Isn’t it more reliable to trust wizards from Matap rather than mercenaries?”

As Ren mentioned Matap, he turned his head and stared at the wizards.
Despite covering my eyes, I felt the illusion of making eye contact.

“Well, my master prefers the opposite.”

“…?”

Ren, countering with an indifferent tone, subtly raised the hand he was holding with Sharti.

The eyes of the wizards all turned towards Sharti, who was embraced by Ren.

Sharti quickly blinked her eyes.

“Above all, my body belongs to my master.”

Ren, sticking close to Sharti, spoke.

“I can’t offer my body freely without my master’s permission.”

…!”

After silently contracting with Shukadi, acting as a shield, he was shameless.