Ch.302302. Broken Clock Hand (2)

“Where is this…?”

As a blinding white light enveloped my vision, forcing me to close my eyes, the location suddenly changed.

The cave that had contained nothing but bedrock, stone walls, and ritual formulas carved as “oracles” had transformed into a scene where green sprouts were emerging.

“Spatial transfer magic… perhaps?”

No way. I shook my head vigorously, realizing I was muttering nonsense to myself.

I wondered if I might be under some illusion magic or other influence, but…

“The mana itself… can’t be detected?”

The fact that I couldn’t even detect it meant this wasn’t simply seeing an illusion or hallucination.

Occasionally, there might be cases where the gap between a spell’s caster and its target is so vast that it feels impossible to approach, but Erika Scherpen’s magical caliber wasn’t that low.

Yet, not only response-type magic but even detection-type magic wouldn’t activate at all. Moreover, magical power itself wasn’t even rising.

In other words, the common sense here was completely different.

“My body moves just fine though… how strange.”

Erika felt as if she had entered a barrier where all magical circuits were completely blocked.

She couldn’t use any power. She couldn’t convert her internal magical power into divine power, and she couldn’t even feel the circulation of mana.

This was a realm where attempting anything was impossible from the start.

Despite being in a state where she couldn’t use magic, let alone circulate or draw up magical power, the strange thing was that her limbs—her body—moved perfectly fine.

While she was pondering the significance of why her body could still move…

-Screech!!

A familiar magical beast that she had seen before appeared.

“Oh no…!”

She hurriedly tried to use magic, but naturally, the spell wouldn’t activate.

Erika closed her eyes tightly, thinking she would be helplessly devoured by the magical beast charging at her.

-Thump thump thump thump!

“Huh? What…?”

But for some reason, the magical beast passed by without even acknowledging her.

A magical beast that would see humans as prey ignoring her and passing by? It even went around her without so much as brushing against her? This could truly be called divine fortune.

Thinking the aggro might have been drawn elsewhere, Erika looked in that direction, intending to flee, but as soon as she turned her head back, she encountered the same magical beast again.

This time, she couldn’t even close her eyes and was destined to be crushed completely.

-Thump thump thump thump!

“…Huh.”

Now Erika herself realized it.

If a human body had been in the path of that huge creature, it would be fortunate if the flesh was merely crushed, and it wouldn’t be strange if something broke. Yet her body wasn’t embedded in the ground, let alone showing any injuries.

Crucially, a weak human body colliding head-on with a magical beast was still standing intact.

Had it deviated from its path like before? Could that be possible when she was watching it with her own eyes?

Indeed. The magical beast hadn’t ignored Erika.

Just as stepping on a shadow causes no effect, the magical beast had simply passed through her body. Unable to see, hear, or feel her.

Like becoming a ghost, or being in a spirit state, as the magical beasts passed through her, she could clearly understand.

In this realm where she couldn’t even detect mana, let alone use magical power, she was being ignored as if invisible, inaudible, and intangible.

“For my body to move normally in such a space…”

It meant that even if she couldn’t touch or be touched, she could see, hear, and feel with her perfectly functioning ears and eyes.

It was the oracle’s intention for her to hear, see, and feel everything happening here.

Moreover, this was a place Erika recognized.

“Tveshar Lowlands…”

-Gulp.

“The clock hand… that’s right.”

Understanding what the oracle’s designation of an object meant to a person, she moved her legs toward where the magical beasts would be.

***

‘Tveshar Joint Training Exercise.’

An operation where students were sent to the Tveshar Lowlands, an area where magical beasts periodically appeared, to clear them out.

It was also an operation aimed not only at exchanges among classmates but also interactions with seniors and juniors, and additionally implemented to assign practical evaluation scores, as practical experience was deemed important.

Though some time had passed, it remained in her memory. This was when Charlotte had entered Tembris.

But was the Tveshar she was seeing before her eyes really like this?

-Raaaaaaah!!!

A girl screaming and rampaging.

A chilling cold that could freeze the entire area manifested from dark blue magical power, turning the swamp into a frozen wasteland.

The ground, crackling as it froze white, seemed to emit a pale cold gas.

-Ugh!

-Get a hold of yourself, Charlotte!

Charlotte was knocked back with a bang from Junon’s shield attack. The demonic energy dwelling in the delicate girl’s body indicated she had entered a berserk state, just as in the subjugation of Defornice III.

Charlotte going berserk?

This was so different from what she remembered.

What suddenly came to mind was the telepathic message that had been swirling in her head.

“Unable to face any past… that’s what was said.”

There was also mention of returning it now.

So this was the past. The past she had been unable to face.

-Phew, finally stopped.

Charlotte had been subdued. As expected, the skills of Tembris’s leader, Goden, hadn’t diminished.

-…Goden.

-Hmm? What is it, Junon?

-I don’t think we should take Charlotte to Erika right now.

-What are you talking about?

“That bastard again…!”

He’s spouting nonsense again. I knew he was doing the same thing then as now, but was it from this time?

Since Charlotte’s body couldn’t possibly be normal after going berserk, prioritizing recovery and taking time to rest would be the right approach.

Just as she was about to curse at his consistently contrary attitude, her vision flickered.

The location instantly changed to the interior of an infirmary.

It was Professor Dahlia’s room.

-Is she alright?

When Goden, who had carried Charlotte in his arms and immediately sought Professor Dahlia, asked, she nodded once as if signaling there was no major problem.

“Phew…”

Erika breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing there was nothing wrong with Charlotte.

However.

-There must have been someone quite clever? If healing magic had been cast first, she would have gone berserk again soon.

“…What?”

The professor said Junon wasn’t wrong.

-Could you explain why that is?

Reason? Yes. That’s important.

She needed to hear clearly why Junon was right in order to accept it.

-Well. For humans with this kind of impurity-filled constitution, it’s more important to cleanse the mana than to attempt recovery recklessly. Otherwise, they’ll go berserk again, and if they become addicted to demonic energy at that point, it becomes irreversible.

-Does that mean… the components in that water flask worked properly?

-Yes. I’d say someone boiled magical herbs in water and mixed them well with other herbs before feeding it to the patient. It lowered the impurity ratio in the berserk patient’s body and simultaneously extracted the addictive demonic energy into mana, allowing human mana to circulate well. Thanks to that, I hardly had to do anything.

Professor Dahlia took a sip from her coffee cup and handed the water flask Junon had used to Goden.

-The mixture is so exquisite that it could be patented. If you feed that consistently, there won’t be any instances of going berserk unless it’s an extreme situation.

-Thank you for the good information.

-So, who is he?

-Haha. That won’t do, Professor. What if you poach our talented personnel?

-Oh, what a shame.

The act of giving her boiled magical herbs instead of taking her to a healer had actually saved Charlotte.

Junon’s measures had been perfectly correct.

“…”

Let’s make a hypothesis.

If she had been there without knowing this fact, could Charlotte have returned to normal?

Forget returning to normal—how much would she have been corrupted by demonic energy in that state?

She had to admit she had chosen the worst possible wrong answer, with no room for excuses.

Meanwhile, Erika’s vision flickered again.

This time, the subjugation was still ongoing in the Tveshar Lowlands.

The familiar giant rats, Giant Kud Rats, came into view.

Junon, not yet recovered from the battle with the berserk Charlotte, was running somewhere.

Rats were gathering in masses at the place he was running to.

“No way…”

Those things, alone?

That crazy act, no different from suicide,

-Over here, you damn rat bastards!!

He was carrying it out himself.

***

The Tveshar Joint Training could be treated as merely a children’s playground level, and the training site, Tveshar Lowlands, had the worst conditions.

Kud Rats, thoroughly pickled in demonic energy, had grown gigantic and were running around everywhere, and human corpses began to roll around, the original training nowhere to be seen.

With human casualties, it was no longer training.

It was an emergency situation where it wouldn’t be strange to quickly report a disaster.

In other words, it had reached the stage where a large-scale subjugation operation needed to be attempted.

The Kud Rats, containing a high concentration of demonic energy from the solution flowing through the waterways, possessed at least C-rank power. It was bound to be a considerably tough fight for students who had just taken their first steps in mana response or who had trained primarily in offensive formations rather than defensive ones.

However, one vanguard lures the gathering Kud Rats.

He buys time by throwing as much Mysteris solution as possible, which he had made when producing magical herbs.

He, who might not even be able to handle a single one, let alone face them alone, is subtly luring them while shouting “you damn rat bastards.”

No one at the scene could see this.

Except for one person.

Erika, who strictly maintained an observer’s perspective.

The momentary time that Junon had bought created time for the students who had joined Tembris to catch their breath and recover using Erika’s divine power.

Just 5 minutes.

But a long, long 5 minutes.

After that time passed, the Kud Rats were noticeably weakened.

Blue flames and lotus explosions covered Tveshar, and soon after, the arriving army cleaned up Tveshar.

The Great Tveshar Subjugation.

The full story of that subjugation, which was thought to have started and ended by Tembris’s hands, was like this.

“…”

If that one person hadn’t been there.

If that person hadn’t made and thrown those potion bottles.

If those 5 minutes hadn’t existed.

Before the imperial army arrived, no one knew how many lives Tembris would have lost that day.

Erika felt her breath catch as she saw herself rebuking him, asking why he alone was so injured.

And then.

Whoosh-

“Ugh…!”

Again, her vision flickered.

As if refusing to give her time to reflect.