episode_0082

Where were my legs, shaking as if they had no strength, heading?

My legs, which had walked aimlessly just to get as far as possible from where the hero’s magic gate had been, reached a certain point and stopped.

To check where I had arrived, I laboriously lifted my head, which was bent like a broken machine.

“Jazel!!”

Through my eyes, I saw Killua-nim rushing towards me in a flurry of panic and urgency.

The moment I confirmed her identity,

my body, which had barely held on until then, seemed to reach its limit and collapsed helplessly to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

***

Feeling the warmth enveloping my body, I barely managed to lift my trembling eyelids.

Beyond my blurry and opaque vision, Killua-nim’s silhouette, guarding my side, was barely visible.

“Are you awake?”

As I barely regained consciousness, she gently touched my cheek with a warm hand.

Then, the warm magic that seeped through my cheek gently caressed my face as if to comfort me.

“Killua-nim… what in the world is this…”

“It’s the aftermath of the slime poison. Although it was the final stage of treatment, there was still some toxin left.”

Listening to Killua’s explanation, I weakly lowered my gaze to look at my chest.

Killua’s heated hand rubbed my chest, absorbing the medicine sprinkled there into my skin.

“Even if it was an extremely small amount, poison is still poison… I shouldn’t have let my guard down until the very end.”

The fact that Ariel had been taken by the hero after falling into the succubus’s clutches had given me an intense mental shock, but the decisive reason my body was so broken seemed to be the toxins still remaining within me.

“There. With this, it’s goodbye to the slime poison forever.”

However, as if the toxins were now gone, Killua, having finished the treatment, let out a sigh of relief.

A single drop of sweat slowly trickled down Killua’s jawline.

As the toxins that had been eating away at my body were completely neutralized, my dulled senses returned, and I could belatedly observe Killua, who had saved me.

Her breath was ragged as if she was exhausted, and her simple indoor clothes were covered in twigs and dirt, as if she had rushed out of the house in a hurry.

Crucially, her shoes.

She had been in such a rush to leave the house that her right flat shoe was worn with the heel crushed, and her left flat shoe was gone, revealing her bare, dirt-covered foot.

“Killua-nim… what in the world…”

When I looked at Killua with surprised eyes at her disheveled state, she seemed to have no intention of hiding her exhaustion and slumped beside me weakly.

“Do you know how surprised I was when you and Ariel disappeared without even getting the last treatment?”

Killua threw the now useless bowl that had contained the medicine far away.

“No matter how wide I cast my detection magic, your and Ariel’s magic couldn’t be detected.”

The reason we weren’t detected by Killua’s detection magic must have been because we had entered the hero’s villa, which he had created.

“I was certain you two had gotten involved in something unusual and was investigating to find some trace… when suddenly your magic was detected.”

Killua, taking a deep breath as if to calm her ragged breathing, caressed her left foot, which was already covered in scratches from how frantically she had run.

I looked at her left foot, which was full of small scratches from being scraped by rocks and twigs, with pity.

“So…”

“I rushed here. Even if you were just my former secretary, if I lost you so futilely, the White Mage’s reputation would be in tatters, wouldn’t it?”

At my gaze fixed on her bare foot, Killua smiled triumphantly as if to say these injuries were nothing.

“Anyway… what exactly happened?”

Having put out the immediate fire by detoxifying the lingering poison in my body, Killua, with a serious face, asked about what had happened to me and Ariel.

“……”

Her question, filled with worry for me and Ariel, choked me.

Where should I even begin…

How should I say it…

No thoughts came to mind.

Only tears, which had begun to pool uncontrollably in my eyes, trickled down my face.

“J-Jazel? Are you okay?”

At my reaction of simply crying without a word, Killua’s face showed great panic, and she hurriedly pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the tears from my eyes.

“Th-that…”

Feeling Killua’s touch as she wiped my tears, I stammered, trying to say something, anything.

Killua, who had been silently watching me, quietly placed her hand on my forehead, cutting me off.

“If it’s hard to talk, just be still.”

“Killua-nim…?”

Killua raised her index finger with her other hand to block my lips, as if telling me not to answer.

And on the hand placed on my forehead, she carefully began to concentrate, gathering her magic.

Could she have magic that reads others’ memories…

I just watched Killua concentrate, swallowing a slightly tense dry gulp.

“There was a strange magic trace even before. Looking at the pattern… it’s a demon… and this wave… it’s a succubus.”

The magic trace Ermel had left when she poked my forehead with her index finger.

Killua had detected that trace.

“Jazel.”

Killua, who had briefly focused and examined the trace of Ermel’s magic remaining on my forehead, called my name in a serious voice.

“She’s an incredibly high-ranking succubus. There’s no way someone like her would appear in this small village at the southernmost tip of the continent…”

As if she couldn’t believe it, Killua frowned and looked at me with worried eyes.

And as if she intuitively knew that asking the question itself might hurt me, she opened her mouth very carefully.

“Ariel… is she okay?”

Killua, befitting her title as the White Mage, seemed to have faintly predicted what had happened to me by reading the trace of Ermel’s magic left on my forehead.

“Th-that…”

As my face turned pale and my lips trembled, struggling to utter words, Killua gently covered my mouth with her hand.

“You fell victim, didn’t you?”

Killua, the White Mage who had mastered all worldly knowledge, knew very well what would happen if one became the prey of such a high-ranking succubus.

She nodded, as if she understood everything, her hand gently covering my mouth as if there was no need for me to laboriously explain it myself.

“C-can it be reversed? Everything…?”

At my pleading question, Killua removed her hand from my mouth and pondered with a serious expression.

“It’s not impossible… but it’s not easy right now.”

She merely looked at the faint magic swirling in her hand with eyes full of regret.

It seemed like something that could be easily resolved if she had the mighty power she possessed during her days as the White Mage.

“Firstly, a succubus like that wouldn’t have appeared alone. Were there any other strange things?”

At her question, only one person immediately came to mind.

“It was the hero. The true hero, chosen by the goddess to subjugate the Demon King.”

To avoid confusion with the plump herb collector who called himself a hero and was living with us, I emphasized that he was chosen by the goddess and revealed the existence of the hero who had taken Ariel.

“These days, everyone and their dog calls themselves a hero. Is he carrying a legendary sword or something?”

“No. Instead of a legendary sword, he was a man who used mysterious powers received from the goddess’s choice and strength.”

“He uses mysterious powers? Not magic or divine power?”

At the fact that he used mysterious powers, Killua’s eyes widened in disbelief as she asked again.

“Yes. It was a mysterious power that left no detectable trace.”

Thanks to Killua’s kind teachings, even I, who had no talent for magic, could somewhat read the flow of magic or divine power.

However, the strange powers the hero displayed, such as the magic gate or the ability to read an opponent’s abilities, showed no discernible flow of power.

“Wait, wait… This is getting more serious, isn’t it? Let’s organize this.”

Killua, having heard my words, began to organize what I had said in her mind with a serious expression.

“So… a hero chosen by the goddess came to the village? Did you hear his name, by any chance?”

“Ah… He was using the name Kwon Sanghoon. It was an unusual name, so I remember it clearly.”

“Hmph…”

Hearing the hero’s name, which was completely different from the style they used, Killua bit her lower lip as if her ominous apprehension was becoming more certain.

“Was that succubus perhaps the hero’s companion or a familiar?”

“She seemed to be a companion. But for a hero to be accompanied by a demon…”

The hero, who was supposed to subjugate the Demon King, was accompanied by Ermel, a succubus, one of the demons.

And not just an ordinary succubus, but one with mighty power like a considerably high-ranking demon.

This was clearly a blatant contradiction.

Killua, hearing my words, slapped her forehead with her hand as if all the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place.

“Damn otherworlders…”

“Otherworlders…?”

At the word I’d never heard in my life, my eyes widened as I looked at Killua.

Killua then let out a long sigh, as if she intuited that things would become quite complicated, and began to explain the existence of otherworlders.

“They are beings from other dimensions or timelines who interfere with our world through various means, such as regressors, transmigrators, or reincarnators.”

“What… what in the world is that?”

I couldn’t help but tilt my head at a concept incomprehensible to me.

“In short, they are beings with strange powers that can twist existing concepts, or mighty powers.”

Indeed, the hero named Kwon Sanghoon had shown strange powers that twisted the concepts I knew.

However, in my memory, he wasn’t the only one who possessed such power.

“Surely… Killua-nim, are you also one of those strange beings?”

Before my eyes was Killua, the White Mage who once possessed mighty power.

Killua, who had been pondering with a serious face, as if the question of whether she was also an otherworlder was absurd, frowned harshly and glared fiercely at me as she replied.

“Surely I wouldn’t be on the same level as those concept-less fools, would I?”

“S-sorry.”

At Killua’s gaze, which clearly expressed anger as if she had been treated as a trivial insect, I hurriedly apologized for my slip of the tongue.

“They are rascals who, by sheer luck, grasp strange powers and run rampant as if they own the world, without thought or concept. They are trash that plagues this world.”

Killua expressed strong disgust for otherworlders in a very firm tone.

“Ah. Right. And by the way, that bitch called the Golden Empress was also an otherworlder.”

“Damn it…”

At her added remark, I too couldn’t help but express disgust for otherworlders.