Ch.105Two Faces (5)

“*”

“Ugh,”

The sight that had been cut off right after seeing Ms. Silvia’s raised hand returned immediately, but the scene before my eyes had changed in an instant.

Everything before me—no, the entire world—had gone dark.

It wasn’t that my eyes were still closed; time had simply turned to night.

It seemed I had been unconscious until nightfall, but it felt as if I had been teleported to a pitch-black region in an instant.

However, judging by the throbbing pain in my head, it was clear that I had been knocked unconscious by the impact of her strike.

“Augh,”

I let out a short cry as I tried to slowly look around.

The pain wasn’t from my head where she had hit me, but from my neck.

It seemed my neck had stiffened from being in one position during the long period of unconsciousness.

Carefully turning my head to avoid the pain, I lowered my gaze slowly to see a small campfire burning in the middle of the room.

The clothes she had brought were also wrapped around my body.

No wonder I didn’t feel particularly cold.

It was clear that Ms. Silvia had taken measures to ensure I wouldn’t shiver from the cold while unconscious.

Even though she was the one who knocked me out in the first place.

“…Hah,”

I slowly sighed and sank into thought.

Though I was still somewhat bewildered, at least Ms. Silvia wasn’t right in front of me, so I had some space to gather my thoughts.

First of all, the very fact that she wasn’t in this cabin was strange.

Of course, it was no longer a secret that she had been going somewhere every night recently.

When I asked her where she went, she would only smile and say it was a secret, never giving me a proper answer.

Sometimes she would return in the morning with game she had hunted, other times with corpses she had collected.

Once, she even brought back some cheap wine we had drunk together before, saying she remembered that the underground storage in Millwood Village hadn’t been touched by the flames.

I didn’t know where she went or why she went out every night, but I could vaguely understand why she didn’t sleep.

Though Ms. Silvia never told me directly, I could easily infer the reason from how she always stayed by my side until I fell asleep.

That day when I disappeared into the spirit realm following Pia.

I had secretly left her side while she was asleep.

Ms. Silvia, who must have thought I had died, would have deeply regretted falling asleep that day.

Knowingly or unknowingly, her attitude and demeanor had changed somehow since our reunion.

Before, she had treated me like a child who needed protection,

But now, she seemed to regard me like a precious jewel that must never be lost or used.

In the past, she would occasionally talk about training me or teaching me swordsmanship, but lately, she wouldn’t even let me touch a blade.

This uncomfortable level of care likely stemmed from the despair and sense of loss she must have felt on the day she lost me.

Unable to sleep, because her time with me was too precious.

Ms. Silvia would handle important matters at night while I slept, and during the day, she would only take care of simple tasks that could be resolved in an hour or two.

She spent all her remaining time by my side.

Since I could fully understand her feelings, I neither criticized nor questioned her aggressive physical contact or her nightly disappearances.

But even so, it seemed a bit strange that she had gone somewhere even at this moment.

Given her attitude, it would have been natural for her to stay by my unconscious side until I woke up.

Yet she had gone somewhere again today.

No matter how hard I listened, I couldn’t sense any human presence around the entire lakeside.

“Is it not that she can’t sleep, but that she has something she must do every night?”

I muttered to myself.

But this wasn’t something I could figure out just by thinking about it.

I took another breath and began to shift my thoughts to the next topic.

“Why did Ms. Silvia… attack me?”

It was entirely predictable that she wouldn’t be happy about me going out, and I could fully understand her opposition.

After all, my body had no immunity to magical contamination, and she had seen me dying from magical poisoning before. She had even lost me once because of it, so it was certainly something that would terrify her.

But what was truly surprising was the fact that she had attacked me.

I hadn’t seen it clearly.

All I saw was her raising her hand; I didn’t even see it flying toward me, so I couldn’t be sure whether she had hit me or cast some kind of spell.

However, there was no doubt that she had delivered a shock strong enough to knock me out cold until this late hour.

I thought I knew Ms. Silvia well.

We had spent quite a long time together, and since she was someone I loved, I had become able to distinguish her non-verbal expressions like facial expressions, gestures, and the look in her eyes to some extent. So it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I knew her well.

When I saw her trembling voice and gestures, and how she silently listened to me without any retort, I was certain that I had convinced her.

I could clearly feel that she had agreed to grant my small wish of visiting Laila’s grave.

But why?

Why did she suddenly change her attitude and attack me?

I slowly recalled what I had said.

Although our conversation had taken place quite some time ago, it felt like it had just happened moments ago to me, so it wasn’t difficult to remember.

‘How about we stop by the river for a bath like we used to?’

That was it.

As soon as she heard those words, Ms. Silvia’s expression had frozen.

Why?

It’s not like she would suddenly be embarrassed about bathing together.

And she wouldn’t knock me unconscious just because she was worried I might catch a cold.

Is it not the bath, but the river that’s the problem?

The river?

What could be in that river?

Perhaps she goes to the river every night?

Could there be some secret hidden in that river that she can’t tell me about?

I don’t know.

Despite working through complex thoughts with my throbbing head, the conclusion I reached was simply that I didn’t know anything—a pathetic end.

There was only one way to find out.

“I’ll know if I go see.”

I tried to slowly get up.

“Huh?”

But my body wouldn’t rise.

Only then did I realize that both my arms were restrained against the wall.

Looking alternately at my arms bound on either side of my body, I was dumbfounded by my own dullness.

Of course, I had excuses.

I had just regained consciousness, my arms were bound in their natural downward position, and the concussion was making it difficult to feel other sensations.

I tried to calm my startled heart and slowly attempted to pull my wrists from the wall.

“Argh!”

A sharp pain briefly shot through my wrists, followed by warm blood spreading across my palms.

I carefully examined the device restraining my wrists in the flickering light of the campfire.

“…A sword?”

A sword.

More precisely, a blade.

The blade of a longsword was bent into a U-shape around my wrists, with both ends embedded in the wall.

“…Good heavens.”

It was utterly confusing.

Not only was I terrified by the fact that she had knocked me unconscious and then restrained me,

I couldn’t understand how she had bent the solid iron sword, or how she had driven the curved blade into the wall made of thick-cut logs.

Actually, I could understand.

Or rather, it was closer to not understanding.

This was restraint created not by some petty trick or technique, but by strength that defied common sense.

Why on earth would Ms. Silvia do this to me while I was unconscious?

Of course, she wouldn’t have had anything prepared to confine me, but even so, to restrain me with such a cold blade out of concern?

Because I tried to leave?

She would know I’d come back anyway,

So why doesn’t she trust me?

Have I failed to give her enough reason to trust me?

“Ugh,”

I winced at the sharp sting in my wrists.

Cold sweat suddenly poured down my face.

Fortunately, my wrists weren’t deeply cut, so there wasn’t much bleeding.

But the sticky discomfort of the drying blood smeared on my palms and the chilling terror of having sharp blades wrapped around my wrists froze me in place.

My heart was racing.

The instinctual scream to escape immediately kept disrupting my rational attempt to think of a solution.

My pathetic strength was insufficient to pull the deeply embedded blades from the wall, and if I carelessly pulled my wrists, they would only be cut deeper.

There might be some useful magic among what I had learned so far, but it was difficult to recall spells I had only studied in theory in such an urgent situation.

What could I do?

Teleport?

I had memorized the formula at least, but it required both hands to be free, had too high a chance of failure, and that failure could result in fatal death, so I couldn’t use it now.

Wind Cutter?

That also required aiming, was too weak to cut through the wall, and if I made the slightest mistake targeting the blade, I might slice off my own wrists as well.

Fire?

Unless I wanted to burn down the entire cabin, it was useless right now.

Golem Summoning?

I would need a sculpture to form the golem first.

What could I do?

What had I learned all this time?

My mind was a mess.

The more I tried to think of a way to escape this situation, the less I could come up with anything.

The pain throbbing in my head and wrists, the fear of being restrained, and the suffocating feeling that was only now becoming apparent made it impossible for me to think clearly.

I even felt an itching sensation all over my body.

I wanted to twist and turn wildly.

But I couldn’t.

I literally couldn’t move an inch.

Of course, if I gritted my teeth and pulled until my wrists were cut, I might either pull out the sword or lose my hands, and either way, I would be free, but I didn’t have that much courage.

I didn’t want to lose my wrists over something so foolish.

A sense of helplessness weighed heavily on my entire body.

I was afraid of Ms. Silvia.

This violent action that I couldn’t understand at all, occurring just when I thought I understood everything about her, was terrifying.

It was frightening because I couldn’t understand it.

For Ms. Silvia to do this to me.

Why, just why?

How could she, to me…

“Need help?”

I jumped at the sudden voice and looked ahead.

“Want me to untie that?”

A silver-haired child with fox ears twitching on either side of her head spoke to me.

It was Pia.

.