Purification

For a moment after opening her eyes and coming to her senses, Yona stared blankly outside the sleeping bag.

The sun was rising over the distant mountain peak, casting a faint light. Regardless of what happens, time flows, the sun rises, and another day dawns – that’s the natural order. No matter how much one struggles or flails, one can’t go against this order, so today, she must do today’s work.

Yona wriggled out of the sleeping bag. Having slept on bare ground for the first time in a while, her whole body felt stiff and sore. As soon as she got up and stretched fully, there was a cracking sound of bones realigning.

“Are you up?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Kaiyak, who was on watch duty, spoke to Yona as he saw her. While answering roughly, she circulated the holy power in her lower abdomen, and the warm lump was still wriggling in her lower belly. She didn’t know why the holy power was located in the lower abdomen, but seeing it move was fortunate as it meant the holy power hadn’t left her today.

“Uh, ugh. Uuh…”

Alec was crawling out of the sleeping bag, making strange noises. Although he was a bit better than Yona, he must have been tired too, given yesterday’s big event. And yet, he had stood watch for half of the long night, so how could his fatigue subside?

After looking at Alec’s face, clearly showing fatigue, with sympathetic eyes, Yona turned to Kaiyak.

“Nothing happened, right?”

“Nothing at all.”

“That’s good.”

Yona went to the campfire, which was still burning well, and squatted down. When she held out her hands to warm them by the fire, a warm feeling filled her. Although she had curled up in the sleeping bag, the winter cold was hard to dispel with just that, so warming up by the fire like this felt so good.

“Ugh.”

Yona, who had been squatting and warming herself by the fire, stood up again. The sun had fully risen now, and the faint morning light had brightened so much that everything in the world was clearly visible.

“The mess tin?”

“Here.”

The mess tin placed on the flat stone by the campfire was full of water. The water in the mess tin, slowly boiled by the heat of the campfire transmitted through the stone plate, had steam rising from it, and when Yona lightly dipped her pinky finger in, she felt it was adequately hot, so she rummaged through her backpack.

Yona pulled out her hunting knife from under her nun’s robe and finely chopped the leftover meat from last night. Then she also chopped the dried carrots, pieces of green onion, and some unidentifiable pickled fruits she had taken out of her backpack. After pushing all of this into the mess tin at once, breakfast preparation was complete.

“Yona, this.”

Yona received two fist-sized stones that Kaiyak casually handed over and ground them against each other over the mess tin, making a grating sound. White salt powder fell into the mess tin, and when she felt she had sprinkled enough, she returned them to Kaiyak.

“About the purification.”

Now they just had to wait for it to boil.

As soon as Yona spoke, almost to herself, as she squatted down by the campfire again, Kaiyak and Alec’s gazes turned to her.

“After the purification. We haven’t decided where to go.”

Kaiyak didn’t answer, and neither did Alec.

In the silence of the two, Yona threw a nearby branch into the campfire. With a crackling sound, sparks flew up.

“To the community, let’s go to the mage community first. Alebiang might still be there. If necessary… Ceres, yes… the Regent might be there too.”

Alec wanted to oppose that idea.

His resolution hadn’t made proper progress yet. That resolution to paint over Yona’s heart with himself hadn’t made proper progress yet.

If they go to the community and meet Alebiang, and if Regent Ceres is there too, and if they manage to erase all the tattoos through the Regent—

‘What happens then?’

Alec couldn’t be sure. As long as Yona’s goal was firm, he wanted to avoid going to the community. It wouldn’t matter if Alebiang was there, but if Regent Ceres was there, that would be the worst. The very fact that Ceres, who Yona said could erase the tattoos, might be there becomes the worst-case scenario.

But the problem is that there’s no justification to oppose it.

*

After roughly finishing breakfast, the three entered the cave.

The cave was quite neatly organized, and according to Kaiyak, since it’s where the altar is, it’s a place that’s always carefully maintained.

The size of the cave wasn’t large, just big enough for Lizardmen to come and go, so the mermaid must not have been able to enter this cave due to its size.

How could the mermaid enter the sacred place, and how could a mermaid appear in the sacred place when there was no trace of it in this cave, which is the source?

Such questions remained, but Kaiyak had said that since humans had entered a barrier where they shouldn’t have been able to, it wouldn’t be strange if a mermaid had flowed in from somewhere too. Besides, now that they had purified it, the remaining Lizardmen would maintain the barrier and the sacred place, and there was no obligation to look after that as well.

Not long after entering the cave, Kaiyak pulled out a torch hanging on the wall.

After striking the flint hanging beside it a few times, the torch lit up, and the shadows of the three people flickered and stretched long in the dark cave.

“The altar will be a bit further in.”

“Okay.”

Alec at the front, Yona in the middle, and Kaiyak at the very back.

The cave wasn’t wide enough for them to walk side by side, so the three walked in a single file towards the inner part of the cave.

The inside of the cave wasn’t humid.

Despite water flowing through it all year round, there wasn’t much moisture, and the cave felt slightly dry, giving a somewhat strange feeling.

Because it wasn’t humid, there wasn’t much of the characteristic cave smell, and there was no moss on the walls.

It felt like walking through a catacomb or dungeon rather than a cave, but it wasn’t particularly gloomy either, creating a strange atmosphere.

“It’s there.”

After walking for quite a while, Kaiyak said.

As he said, there was a wide stone slab that anyone would recognize as an altar.

A large turtle-shaped stone statue on top of the stone slab.

And a rope made by twisting gold and red ropes was wrapped around that statue.

‘That also feels like something I’ve seen somewhere before.’

It looked like the village shrine seen in folk villages.

There were also ropes hanging abundantly from above, and white, red, and blue cloths tied to each rope, creating a truly strange sight.

From the bottom of the altar, a stream of water presumed to be the source of the sacred place was flowing out.

The black water that started from there.

It must be flowing into the sacred place.

“That head part seems to be contaminated.”

Yona pointed at the turtle statue.

The turtle statue was clearly contaminated to anyone who looked.

There was nothing where the turtle’s head should have been, and black fluid was dripping down from there, as if showing off its characteristic viscosity, mixing into the source stream flowing below.

“It seems so.”

Kaiyak shook his head with a low voice. How could no one have paid attention when the sacred place altar had become like this?

Well, since the mermaid appeared right after it became like this, they couldn’t have come in here even if they wanted to.

“Alright then.”

Yona sighed.

As she approached the sacred altar, Kaiyak and Alec also stuck close to her sides and carefully approached together.

Preparing to rescue Yona first no matter what might jump out at any time.

Up close, the turtle statue was quite intricately made.

The turtle’s shell and limbs were so finely crafted that one might think it was a real turtle, but the head part had disappeared somewhere, and black fluid was dripping from there, making it look even more hideous.

“Then I’ll start.”

Yona inhaled and focused on her lower abdomen.

The warm holy power began to circulate through her body according to her will.

Holy power swirled around her right arm wrapped in the holy robe, and a pale blue light rose from her right arm.

Squelch…

As soon as Yona pushed her arm into the statue’s neck, she frowned at the sticky sound and the viscous feeling wrapping around her arm.

It was an unpleasant feeling that was hard to describe.

Moreover, the fluid being burned by the holy power was even emitting hazy smoke, making her feel even dirtier.

Suddenly, as a cool breeze scattered the smoke, Yona glanced to the side.

Alec was fanning Yona with a large leaf. The wind from that fanning was cooling the sweat flowing on Yona’s face while also blowing away the rising smoke.

‘What a thoughtful bas… guy.’

Yona smiled faintly.

He is thoughtful indeed.

Yona thought that after all, only Alec takes care of her like this.

The purification continued for quite a while after that.

It lasted even longer than the purification in James’ village, but by the time about half of Yona’s holy power was consumed, smoke no longer rose.

Most of the fluid had dried up, so the sticky unpleasantness was gone too, and it was around the time when Yona’s hand was scraping the bottom of the empty space in the statue.

‘…Huh?’

Something touched the tip of Yona’s finger.

When she pulled it out, it looked like a glass shard, like a fragment of some ornament.

This was the second time.

There was a glass shard like this in the sacred tree too, and now here as well.

‘Is this the cause?’

Yona examined the glass shard.

As the black fluid that had stained the holy robe finished burning off, emitting faint smoke, and the holy robe returned to its original white color.

After pushing the glass shard into her sling bag, Yona turned to Alec and Kaiyak.

“It’s done.”

“Is that so.”

“The tattoo?”

To Kaiyak and Alec’s contrasting questions, Yona looked over her own body.

From what she could see now, there didn’t seem to be any new tattoos, but just as she was wondering if this was really the end—

When she looked into the chest of her nun’s robe, there it was.

A black tattoo had settled on the right side of her chest, which had been pure white.

She had expected it.

She had expected it, but Yona clenched her lips tightly at the sight.

She had expected it.

It was something she had expected.