Ch.75Fox (3)

My nerves were on edge as I felt the cold needles tapping against my eyelids, jolting me awake.

Yet even with my eyes open, the world remained as dark as if they were still closed, with pitch-black darkness spread across everything.

It must still be night.

Or perhaps I was dead.

As I regained my senses, I could feel cold droplets pricking my entire body.

I hugged my arms and shivered as the chill ran across my skin.

The coldness touched not just my body but my face countless times.

Rain.

It was pouring down.

Slowly turning my head, I spotted a very faint light nearby.

The fox-shaped flame created by my magic.

Curled up and hiding under a tree trunk, the fox had shrunk to the size of a palm, likely due to the rain, and the light and heat it emitted had noticeably diminished.

I slowly opened my palm to shield the fox’s head, and it cautiously peeked out before gradually rising and slipping under my hand.

Maintaining my hand position to block the rain, I slowly pulled my arm toward me, and the fox followed along my palm.

I brought the fox to my chest, hoping for even a little warmth.

Though the heat was faint, it was certainly warm against my body, and despite the dim light, it was enough to faintly illuminate Silvia’s face as she slept sitting beside me.

She had fallen asleep with her knees pulled up to her chest and her head bowed.

I gazed at her beautiful profile for a long while as she breathed evenly.

She must have been extremely exhausted to remain asleep despite the cold rain.

I wondered when it had started raining.

Perhaps because my body had cooled from the night rain, I was in a completely different state than before falling asleep.

‘…I feel light.’

It was a strange sensation.

My body, which had felt so heavy before sleep, now felt incredibly light.

Not that I had recovered—it was too light, unnaturally so.

It was as if I couldn’t feel the weight of my physical body.

Was I only feeling the weight of my consciousness?

I smiled at this peculiar sensation of my thoughts seeming detached from my body.

It felt like I was observing my body from a distance.

From this perspective, I could see my body and organs were saturated with magical contamination.

My heart, beating so weakly it was barely audible, contained a life flame that burned as faintly as the fox in my arms, ready to extinguish at any moment.

I instinctively realized.

I would likely not see the morning sun.

Rain continued to fall from the sky.

A rainy night in the forest.

The sensation of raindrops striking my body with their cold chill, and the ice-cold muddy ground beneath me.

A body that somehow still moved despite dying.

The image of death etched into my bones replayed itself.

“Ha… haha,”

I let out a hollow laugh at how similar the current situation was to the day of the carriage accident when I first entered this forest.

The day Laila died.

The irony that I would die in such similar circumstances was not lost on me.

I looked at Silvia.

I couldn’t tell if I had turned my head or if I had been looking at her all along.

I simply wanted to see her, and then I was looking at her.

Perhaps it was due to this strange sensation of my consciousness not quite adhering to my body.

Me dying in the cold rain, the faintly flickering fox-shaped flame, Silvia’s beautiful face.

The entire situation felt dreamlike.

Perhaps, just perhaps.

Everything that had happened to me until now was merely a pitiful dream of a dying man caught in a carriage accident, lying in the rain.

A hallucination seen through the fading life of someone thrown from a rolling carriage, brain matter and entrails spilling out.

Perhaps it was nothing more than a fleeting fantasy of being rescued by a beautiful woman and sharing love with her.

And now, finally, as my allotted time ended, I was forcibly returned to the cold reality of death.

I smiled slightly at these ephemeral thoughts.

“Ugh,”

Remarkably, my body rose.

I slowly stood up, supporting myself against the tree.

Thankfully, truly thankfully, it wasn’t a dream.

I had met Silvia, and we had shared love.

I loved her.

She loved me.

Could anything be more wonderful than that?

Could there be any greater fortune beyond what I deserved?

I looked down at her one last time.

As if understanding my feelings, the fox lingered near her face for a moment, illuminating it.

The fox stretched its front legs, yawned widely, and then began to slowly walk into the rain.

The small burning creature trotted into the darkness, then suddenly stopped and looked back at me.

As if telling me to follow.

‘Perhaps it’s guiding me to the place where I’ll die.’

I nodded with a smile.

Ah,

I had wanted to see Silvia make it out of the forest.

I had wanted to stay with her until my last breath.

But circumstances had changed during the night, making that wish impossible.

Since I couldn’t leave this forest anyway, I had to go.

Because all of this wasn’t a dream, I had to leave all the more.

I wanted to close my eyes by her side,

But no matter how selfish I might be, I didn’t want her to wake up and immediately find my corpse beside her.

Well, there’s no case where the death of a loved one isn’t sad, but I wanted to at least avoid showing her outright that I had died while she slept.

How much would Silvia blame herself?

“…I love you.”

Very quietly, in a voice so soft it was barely audible, I confessed my feelings to her one last time.

Then I slowly raised my arm and covered my mouth with a trembling hand.

It was to prevent any dry coughing sounds that might escape.

Honestly, I don’t know.

If this is the right thing to do.

What the correct answer is.

Perhaps following the guidance of the magic I created would at least be a small consolation to the time I’ve devoted my life to studying magic.

With that thought, I painfully moved my feet and followed the fox.

The fox maintained a distance of several meters ahead, adjusting its pace to match my footsteps.

My vision was blurry, and the fox appeared as little more than a small light, its form blurred.

Just like the day I first met Silvia,

I slowly advanced through the darkness, following the faint light that guided me.

*

“Mmm,”

Silvia opened her eyes, feeling a heavy pain in her waist and neck.

Judging by the brightness, morning had arrived.

Perhaps due to sleeping in an uncomfortable position, her entire body ached as if it would break.

The ground felt unpleasantly damp and muddy.

“…Rain?”

It seemed it had rained all night.

Good heavens.

They say one of the most effective ways to wake someone is to douse them with water, yet she had slept so deeply she hadn’t even noticed the rain.

Silvia felt disgusted with herself for such foolishness.

“Wait, Ash.”

The memory of Ash’s extremely pale face suddenly came to mind.

His condition was already critical from magical contamination, and now he had spent the night in the rain.

Silvia turned her head so quickly she nearly broke her neck as she looked to her side.

“…Huh?”

Silvia thought something must be wrong with her eyes.

“…Huh?”

She was so shocked she couldn’t even speak properly.

Like someone hit by a petrification spell, she remained frozen in place, staring blankly at the spot where Ash had been lying, only her wildly shaking eyes showing any movement.

After remaining rigid for a long while, Silvia slowly reached out and felt the place where Ash had been lying.

All she touched was cold, wet, squelching mud.

“…Ah, aah… huh?”

Her hand searching the ground became increasingly frantic and urgent.

Despite her eyes being open, her movements were like those of a blind person.

It was understandable.

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, couldn’t comprehend the situation.

After acting like a fool for a while, her face grew increasingly pale as the situation became clearer.

“Ah, aah ah. No,”

He was gone.

Ash was gone.

“Ah, aaah, aaa… no, no, Ash… Ash!”

Gone.

Judging by the coldness of the spot and the pooled rainwater, he had left quite some time ago.

In the middle of the night, in the rain, in his condition

He had walked away on his own.

Silvia understood what this meant.

“Aah, augh aaah,”

There had been times before when Ash wasn’t where he was supposed to be, but those were all due to terrible misunderstandings or timing issues.

But this was completely different from those situations, and Silvia understood that well.

For the first time, Ash had willingly left her side.

“Why, why… Ash, why? Why! Why?”

Silvia slowly crawled along the ground, feeling the place where Ash had been, muttering frantically.

It was a question that wouldn’t receive an answer, but she seemed to already know the answer.

Ash had left.

Anticipating his own death, he had dragged his dying body away.

“You, you told me…”

He clearly said he thought he could hold on.

He said we would leave the forest together.

Was it a lie?

Did the night’s rain make him feel like he would die immediately?

Why, why did he have to leave me in that condition?

Why, why specifically from me?

Why?

“You said… you loved me…”

How could you do this to me after saying such things?

Why?

Huh?

Something suddenly occurred to Silvia.

What kind of person Ash was,

How Ash had treated her.

When his gaze lingered on Silvia’s face

When his cooking entered Silvia’s body.

When the word “love” came from his lips,

When his lips accepted Silvia’s.

When his body slowly pressed against Silvia’s.

When his unremarkable strength held Silvia tight.

When he smiled and granted Silvia’s desperate requests.

In all those moments, Silvia could feel how much Ash cherished and loved her.

Ash clearly loved Silvia.

Perhaps not as much as Silvia loved Ash, but she could clearly tell he loved her as much as she loved him.

Why would someone like that leave her?

Yesterday, he didn’t seem to have lied about anything…

When she used her holy power to release some of the magical contamination in his body, she could clearly feel it.

That he wouldn’t die during the night.

If the situation had been that urgent, he wouldn’t have been able to use magic at all.

So why did Ash leave her?

After asking herself that question thousands of times in that brief moment, Silvia came to one conclusion.

“It’s, it’s because of me.”

He must have worried about Silvia seeing his dead body.

Whether he would die in a few days, or his condition worsened from the night rain, she didn’t know,

But he didn’t want to meet her as a cold corpse when she opened her eyes.

“…Fool.”

Silvia’s trembling arms could no longer support her body as she crawled on the ground, and she collapsed.

She pressed her cheek and forehead into the muddy ground where Ash had been lying, smearing herself.

That was all she had left of Ash right now.

Throughout all this, tears flowed ceaselessly from her empty eyes.

“…Too cruel, too… harsh.”

Silvia muttered as she looked around with empty eyes.

She knew she needed to find Ash, but she couldn’t muster any strength in her body.

She didn’t know where to start.

The rain had washed away any footprints, making tracking difficult.

No, no.

Those were all excuses.

Given Ash’s walking speed, even if he had left right after she fell asleep, she could have thoroughly searched the area and found him.

Though crude, she could have found him if she had tried.

She could certainly find him if she combed through the forest right now, but for some reason, Silvia couldn’t get up from the ground.

“…A… sh. Ugh, urgh,”

She simply couldn’t face it.

If Ash was really dead,

She couldn’t bear to see his corpse.

That was probably why Ash left during the night—he understood this well.

Silvia finally contorted her face.

“Urgh, ugh…”

No, not yet.

It’s too early to cry.

Silvia slowly pushed herself up from the ground.

A resolute determination settled on her face.

Even fallen, even in this state, even having lost courage through corruption, she was once called a hero.

Silvia gathered the last ounce of courage she could muster and held her hands together in front of her chest.

Then slowly, she began to recite a spell.

The tracking spell she had once used to find Ash when he disappeared.

The magic that had led her to him when he was being chased by a bear.

Today, like that day, it would surely lead her to him as he approached death.

Silvia tightly closed her eyes and uttered every last word of the spell.

If she waited just a little longer, a red mist that would track Ash’s traces would appear in the air.

“…”

After some time passed, Silvia slowly opened her eyes.

“…Ah,”

Nothing was visible.

The spell had failed.

The incantation had not been completed.

“…Ha,”

Silvia clearly understood what this meant.

It meant there was no target to track.

“Ah, aah… Ash…”

Silvia finally broke into childlike sobs.

.