episode_0088

Like a living creature, the violently churning pillar of flame, seemingly a manifestation of Ariel’s hatred towards the Hero, slowly began to lose its power.

Despite being far away, the fierce heat began to slowly subside, so intense that the blood flowing down my skin instantly dried and hardened.

In the middle of the vanished pillar of flame, where only a few embers remained before the gentle forest breeze, traces of where the Hero had been were visible.

On the parched and cracked ground, where everything had been incinerated and evaporated, lay charred lumps of charcoal, and a few bone fragments scattered nearby, proving that the charcoal was once a human body.

“Really… did we really win? Against the Otherworlder?!”

Killua-nim, seemingly unable to believe what had just unfolded before her eyes, was just staring blankly at the Hero’s corpse, even forgetting that blood was still dripping from the sword wound inflicted by the Hero.

“Ki… Killua-nim…”

The moment the tension released from successfully killing the Hero… the will that had barely supported my body, which was almost a living corpse, weakened, and I collapsed weakly to the ground, pulled down by gravity.

“Jazel!!”

When I collapsed weakly, calling out my own name, Killua-nim suddenly snapped to attention and rushed to me.

But I was too exhausted to even turn my head to look at her as she ran towards me. Gazing at the ground barely visible through my blurry vision, with difficulty, I moved my blood-soaked lips.

“Ariel… with the potion the Hero gave… It might not be too late…”

“Ah… I understand!!”

Following my request, the sound of Killua-nim’s hurried footsteps echoed faintly in my ears, like an echo.

Were the effects of the pill slowly wearing off? The excruciating pain wracking my entire body transformed into weights of immense mass, beginning to crush my body.

The subsiding pain was a cause for joy, but instead, I couldn’t bear the crushing weight, as if it was trying to push me into a grave underground, and I could only close my eyes weakly.

Had I fainted? Or had I fallen asleep?

Along with the pain and agony I had felt until then, came a feeling as if my body was scattering into pieces, accompanied by a tranquility as if freed from everything.

Unable to even breathe properly with the clanking pain of my broken ribs, I gently inhaled, trying to embrace the tranquility that had finally found me.

*“Wow… That’s quite something, isn’t it?”*

Into that tranquility, an unwanted discord suddenly intruded, accompanied by a sudden jolt, like ice piercing my forehead.

“Er… Ermel?”

The moment I recognized that discord… my fragmented and hazy senses began to return, one by one, as if forcibly stitched together with sharp needles and tough thread.

My clattering bones, muscles on the verge of tearing, ruptured, tattered skin, the ceaseless flow of blood, and even the bubbling of boiling inflammation.

All the sensations I didn’t want returned to my body, one by one, and I began to feel them vividly.

*“This is my super special service because I like you and I don’t like the Hero. It’s an absolute secret from the Hero, okay?”*

It was none other than the succubus Ermel who stitched my consciousness back together, which was fading as if scattering into pieces amidst terrible pain and extreme fatigue, as if repairing a plush doll.

At her actions of forcibly rousing me from my fading consciousness, even using such an extreme method, I asked a question in a voice filled with disbelief.

“Hero… isn’t he dead?”

*“Would the protagonist die that easily?”*

As if my question was pathetic, Ermel casually blurted out a remark. Then, kicking my stomach, which had been forcibly stitched together with the strange needles and thread she had created, she spoke.

*“Witness your miserable fate yourself… or overcome that fate.”*

The moment her words ended, the cold, damp forest air rushed into my lungs.

“Jazel!! Snap out of it! Are you okay?”

Before my eyes, I saw Killua-nim’s face, with tear-filled, trembling eyes, gently caressing my cheeks.

“Ki… Killua-nim?”

“Thank goodness… I came back after treating Ariel, and because you were slumped over, I thought you were dead!!”

When I responded to her call, tears of relief began to fall from her eyes, which were brimming with tears.

In her overwhelming joy, Killua-nim stretched out her arms as if to immediately embrace me… but at my appearance, as if I would crumble at the slightest touch, she couldn’t bring herself to hug me and timidly withdrew her outstretched arms.

“Killua-nim… your hand…”

Killua-nim’s hand, which had gripped the Hero’s sword with her bare hand, which he had been trying to draw to cut me down when I suddenly attacked, still had blood dripping from it.

“This much is nothing! It’s just the kind of thing that heals if you just put some spit on it!”

It seemed quite deeply cut, and blood was still dripping from it, but perhaps hoping I wouldn’t worry, Killua-nim smiled casually and clenched her fist, hiding the wound on her palm from me.

While I was worried about her injury… I recalled Ermel’s words, who had forcibly roused me when I lost consciousness, and informed her that there was a more important problem.

“Hero… the Hero isn’t dead yet.”

“What…?”

At my words, Killua-nim’s face, which had barely begun to bloom with a smile, froze rigidly.

And with startled eyes, she looked at the Hero’s corpse, which had turned into charcoal.

As Ermel had warned, the Hero’s corpse, which had turned into charcoal and should have slowly disintegrated with the flowing wind, was subtly twitching, as if it were a living creature.

“No way… resurrection?”

“Is that possible?”

A dead being returning to life. I was speechless at such an astonishing phenomenon that brazenly mocked the laws and rules of nature.

“Otherworlders can do it. Because they are beings who create their own rules and force them upon our world.”

As if she had seen such cases more than once or twice, Killua-nim’s brows furrowed intensely.

“Killua-nim. Use my magic power.”

Fortunately, seeing that the Hero’s corpse was twitching, resurrection didn’t seem to be an instantaneous act. I didn’t know how long the resurrection would take, but there seemed to be enough time to prepare Killua-nim’s trump card magic, which could kill the resurrected Hero in one blow.

“If you use your magic power in this state… you could really die…”

Killua-nim’s magic was one that required the use of all of my magic power, Killua-nim’s remaining magic power, and even the magic power of the origin remaining in the pendant. In a state of severe injury where it wouldn’t be strange to collapse immediately, such excessive consumption of magic power, as if squeezing out one’s soul, was a dangerous act where it wouldn’t be strange to fall into eternal sleep.

“If we can’t stop the Hero… I will regret not dying now for the rest of my life.”

“……”

At my single word, filled with firm resolve, Killua-nim added no more words. She simply came to my side, sat down on the ground, and pressing her shoulder against my blood-soaked one, she spoke.

“Listen carefully. This time, we’ll change the method.”

Then, she gently embraced my right arm, which was clutching tightly as if never to let go of the pendant she had transferred to me, and raised it towards the Hero’s remains.

“I’m going to infuse my magic power into you. It’s not me who will activate the magic, it’s you.”

“But… how can I…”

Killua-nim, with her hand from which blood was still dripping from the sword wound, gently clasped my right hand that was gripping the pendant.

“Because you have more magic power than me right now. Transferring my magic power to you will make the spell activate faster.”

The Hero’s remains were violently twitching, as if to show that he was now alive. It seemed as if the abhorrent Hero would burst out of those remains any moment, grinning with disgusting greed.

“When you faced the slime monster. You used my magic, even if you were extremely clumsy with it, right? I’ll assist you, so channel the magic power according to the sensation you felt back then.”

“Understood.”

Trusting Killua-nim’s judgment and decision, I slowly circulated the magic power flowing through my body, centering it around my heart. As the circulation repeated, the speed and quantity of the magic power flow rapidly began to amplify.

“Good. Then I’ll transfer my magic power to you.”

Through our closely pressed bodies, a faint stream of Killua-nim’s magic power seeped into the flow of my magic power, which was circulating around my heart.

“Ah…”

At the same time, tears began to well up in my eyes. Immense guilt and apology, along with gratitude and desperation… In Killua-nim’s unfiltered, pure magic power that seeped into my body, the emotions she was feeling at that moment were also vividly conveyed.

The clearest and most intense emotion among them was the earnest wish for me to somehow survive.

Killua-nim, who had poured her magic power into my body, as if certain that I was feeling the emotions she was experiencing, tightly clutched my clothes and spoke.

“Can’t we… stop?”

Killua-nim, unable to hide her emotions by transferring her magic power to me, pleaded in a choked voice.

“If you use up all this magic power, you’ll really die… If the Hero revives, I’ll somehow try to compromise, so… Let’s stop. Okay?”

In Killua-nim’s words, pleading with tear-filled eyes, there was probably no falsehood or exaggeration. The fact that I was barely maintaining consciousness was also thanks to the power of the succubus Ermel. If I were to consume all my magic power, which was the power of my soul, in this state, I would probably never wake up again.

“Now, all I have left is Killua-nim.”

Because of the Otherworlder known as the Golden Empress, the merchant guild I had built throughout my life was gone. Because of the Otherworlder known as the Hero, even Ariel, whom I thought was my destined lover, had left my hands. If even Killua-nim, who was the benefactor of my life, possessed an upright humanity and considerate care unmatched by her exceptional abilities, and whom I believed deserved everyone’s loyalty and love, were to be taken by an Otherworlder…

…there was no way I would have the courage or will to continue living in such a terrible and abhorrent world.

Rather than living powerlessly and fading away meaninglessly, unable to die in the miserable reality of having lost everything…

“…I want to strike a blow against that Otherworlder to save Killua-nim, even if it means my death.”

“All I have left is you!!”

At my calm reply, stating that I would gladly welcome an overly splendid end for a humble supporting character, Killua-nim screamed as if possessed by rage.

“Just as a god exists because there are those who believe in them… I, too, was able to come this far thanks to you!! Thanks to you, who believed in me as the White Mage in any and every situation!!”

Her magic power flowing through my body violently surged, as if reflecting her turbulent emotions. Each time it did, her emotions and memories surged into my mind, as if gushing forth.

When she was thrown onto the bare ground, having lost everything, Killua-nim had felt such immense despair and frustration that she wanted to give up on everything.

But because I was there, believing in her as the White Mage and reminding her of it…

…to not betray that belief, she had hidden her despair and frustration and forced herself to smile.

Every time she wavered, I was always by her side, calling her the White Mage.

The White Mage. That word I had spoken to her had been what sustained her to come this far.

“If I could only regain my power… if I could only regain that power and return to being a true White Mage, I planned to splendidly grant your wish for everyone to see…”

In the end, Killua-nim couldn’t hold back the tears brimming in her eyes, and they dripped down, one by one, as she pleaded with me with genuine sincerity.

“As long as you’re alive, a chance will come someday. So… so let’s stop. Okay?”