Ch.292292. Six Clock Hands (12)

In a place where six people had gathered, not a single one opened their mouth.

Perhaps they couldn’t.

Someone who had disappeared without a trace during battle had returned alive and well, and those whose bodies and minds were broken—one from fear of going berserk and another from the death of a beloved—had apparently brought her back.

And another person who everyone believed was certainly dead. Someone thought to have passed away after forcing through an absurd treatment called a mana circuit operation was now staring at this place with bandaged eyes from atop the hill.

So what scene were these four people witnessing?

This side was no less shocking. Just as much as a dead person returning.

A man with a large hole through his upper body, the area around it stained crimson red, eyes closed; and another person checking his pulse in terror.

Finally, their eyes fell upon the murderer holding a blade soaked in bright red blood.

-Clang.

Erika dropped the dagger and began to mutter in a dazed voice.

“That’s impossible… Senia definitely disappeared without a trace during that operation…”

Then she questioned herself internally.

Was I really certain that Senia had disappeared?

She couldn’t be sure. Not when it was Junon’s fault.

“No, no… But it was definitely Junon who fed that poison to Michel… Yes, that can’t be denied!”

As Kelnur had said, there was definite evidence for this.

But then, what about the Michel standing before her? How could this contradiction be explained?

From a distance, Charlotte approached and broke apart some herbs.

“It is a poisonous plant, but it wasn’t used to harm anyone…”

“What…?”

“Look, this part is empty… Don’t you understand?”

Charlotte openly showed the hollowed-out part of the poisonous herb.

“Someone suffering from mana circuit overheating symptoms inevitably needs circuit surgery first. But… if that doesn’t work well.”

The youngest carefully took out the medicine bottle she regularly consumed. It was a very pure, clean blue liquid.

“The only option is to put them to sleep. So that while the body sleeps, the mana circuit can slowly recover.”

A vague memory surfaced. Junon would occasionally prepare and boil herbs by himself.

Charlotte, who drank what he prepared, would always sleep for several hours.

Most decisively, the color. Not just similar, but identical.

Charlotte tearfully said to Erika:

“There’s no way he would have poisoned someone with malicious intent…”

Blood trickled down Aris’s fingers as she checked the pulse. As the blood pooled and finally dripped to the ground with a plop.

There was a sound of a palm pressing down hard on something stick-shaped, followed by the gleam of a blade being drawn with a swish.

“You crazy bastard. How can you even call yourself human?!”

“Senior Senia!”

“Let go, Cain. Will you not let go?!”

There was no need to think hard about this situation. Everything in sight was evidence.

Junon collapsed with his chest pierced and soaked in thick blood, and Erika, the culprit holding the blade, was right there.

What happened here was obvious.

The only conclusion was that Erika, who had never thought highly of Junon, had finally taken up a knife and stabbed him.

Needless to say, Senia’s blade was now pointed at Erika, who already held another blade, and Cain was using all his strength to block Senia, who seemed ready to cut Erika down at any moment.

However, now was not the time for this.

“We don’t have much time before the monsters arrive. This is no time for us to fight among ourselves.”

If a human corpse was here. Moreover, if a comrade’s corpse was here.

They couldn’t just leave him like this.

If they did, not only would he be dead, but his body would be torn apart by monsters.

“Let’s go. They seem to be coming back, so we need to get down this hill quickly.”

Cain urged them to hurry down. With him carrying Junon on his back, Tembris began to descend the hill.

“…!”

But one person—Erika—headed in the opposite direction.

After confirming Kelnur’s location, who she thought was in the cave.

***

Moving in the opposite direction from Tembris, Erika saw clearly with her own eyes.

Kelnur, who had said he would wait in the cave, who had said Junon had gone up the hill path, was backing away as soon as their eyes met.

It was definitely the behavior of someone trying to flee, someone running away.

Pursuing him wasn’t difficult. Though he was the son of a fallen warrior family, he had long since put down his weapons and had forgotten how to handle mana, working as a scribe.

A non-combatant. Someone close to an ordinary person like Kelnur couldn’t possibly escape from Erika with her intact limbs.

Binding and slowing magic to hinder movement, plus weakening strength—after casting these debuff spells on her target, closing the distance took less than twenty seconds.

Cornered, Kelnur tried to make excuses.

“E-Erika, miss? Ha, haha! How did you, did you meet him?”

But immediately, Kelnur’s skin was mercilessly flayed.

Screaming in pain as the muscles attached to his legs were crushed and raw flesh was torn away, Kelnur heard Erika shout at him in resentment.

“Why did you tell such lies? Why…!!!”

“Ugh, guheeuk… hueeee…”

Kelnur’s voice, as he writhed in pain, gradually turned into an eerie laugh.

It wasn’t that Erika had reduced the power. Nor was he laughing like a madman driven insane by pain. If anything, Kelnur was essentially being tortured by holy power.

“Hu, huhahaha!!”

Yet it was a satisfied laugh. A brazen laugh suggesting he felt not a shred of guilt for what he had done.

“Lies? Kekek. It’s true that Junon is useless. Was I wrong?”

“You…!”

“He held everyone back no matter what. His abilities are subpar, and he’s always getting injured, relying on your holy power. Is this a lie? It’s the truth. It’s not wrong to say that Junon is a huge hole in Tembris.”

Slap!

Erika’s hand fiercely struck Kelnur’s cheek.

“Even so… Even so, I never thought you’d make up such falsehoods. You deliberately led me to misunderstand!!”

“Ha, hahaha! Made up, you say, misunderstood, you say!”

Despite his cheek turning red and the taste of iron in his mouth, Kelnur continued to laugh.

Why did he make up falsehoods?

Why did he distort the truth to make people misunderstand, why did he use exaggeration and speculation to bewitch people and make them turn their blades toward Junon?

Kelnur knew exactly what Erika was asking.

And with his next words, Erika crumbled.

“Isn’t that what you thought too, which is why you killed him yourself? I didn’t lead you to it. Isn’t that right?”

Because she thought Junon was incompetent. Because she thought he was in a position he didn’t deserve. Because she believed he didn’t fit in the Tembris party, that he wasn’t suitable as an imperial army commander.

So she had harbored complaints against Junon and acted on them.

Not content with that, she had developed resentment for him supposedly leaving a comrade to die, and had called an emergency meeting wanting to pull him down from his position.

He also appeared to be the culprit who caused the previously calm Charlotte to go berserk again, and who exploited the dulled vigilance of someone who had lost their lover.

And finally, she thought he had killed Michel with his own hands.

Despite all of this being speculation, exaggeration, and circumstantial evidence, Erika had acted.

-Are you even helpful? If you’re just going to rely on my holy power every time, Junon, I don’t have the slightest intention of healing you!

-What strategy? Isn’t it because of our individual capabilities that we didn’t collapse despite carrying out such a reckless strategy, not because of you?

Looking back, it had always been like that.

Had she ever believed in him even once?

Even when Goden had mentioned that Junon was essential, had she ever thought so?

-You piece of trash…!

-To call someone like you a comrade…!

No. How many harsh words had she hurled at him?

From the beginning, she had only looked at Junon with disdain. She had never believed in him once, never offered a word of encouragement or support.

The result was reality.

Because she had fully accepted it herself. Because she couldn’t trust her comrade. Because she doubted him until the end.

She had taken up a knife and stabbed his heart with her own hands.

“…”

“Kekek, kekekek! See? If you thought so too, then it wasn’t entirely a wrong judgment. He deserved to die. You delivered justice, miss. Understand? Let’s think of it that way. The monsters are coming soon. So this magic…”

BOOM-

“Guhaack…! What are you doing?! Didn’t you hear me say the monsters are coming?!”

“…You bastard.”

Instead, as if firing a flare, Erika spread mana from her body.

-‘It would make more sense for me to join as a member instead of that Junon guy.’

Yes. Even then, his true intentions had been so obvious, yet she had failed to notice.

“I-If you do this, we’ll both die. Neither you nor I will survive!!”

Death? She wasn’t afraid anymore.

After killing a comrade with her own hands because she couldn’t trust him. After completely uprooting a ray of hope who held an important position in this party, in this country, because of her inferiority complex.

Rather, she had no reason to live.

“No, no…! Nooooo!!”

Rumble-rumble-rumble-

Massive monsters, detecting Erika’s openly displayed power, began to swarm toward them.

***

Monsters passed by, each making their own eerie noises.

They seemed to be searching for humans but couldn’t find the cave.

Instead, each member was on the verge of exploding at the slightest touch. Unable to accept Junon’s death, none of them dared to speak.

In that lengthy silence, Michel was the first to move.

“…Michel?”

“Sister Michel?”

-Tap tap tap.

As she touched the wall installed inside the cave slightly, hidden characters began to appear. She must have detected them through mana.

But what use was that now? The leader of Tembris who had saved everyone in the end, Junon, the only hope the imperial army had, had just died—what meaning could it have at this moment?

But Michel slowly read the displayed characters, and after a while, turned around and spoke to everyone present.

“There’s a way to save Junon.”

The members looked confused, but Michel pointed to the characters written on the wall as if she were certain.

“Those characters. I don’t know why I can interpret them… but they’re about magic related to turning back time.”

“Turning back… time?”

“Is that even possible…?”

“Why not? If sacrificial rituals exist, why not this?”

Senia stepped forward as if anything would do.

“So? How do we do it? How can we save this guy?”

Michel addressed all the members firmly.

“We have to offer all of our memories as the price.”

They would have to gather everyone’s memories into mana to create a single clock hand.

With these clock hands, they would turn back time to reverse one person’s death.

What they had to offer was time. And memories.