Chapter 64
“Aaaaargh!!”
My mother’s rough hands pinned me down as she injected a syringe filled with golden liquid into me.
As a child, I had convulsed under an indescribable pain.
—One with the blood of our kin.
She had told me I carried the blood of the elves.
Raindrops struck the window of the swiftly moving carriage with soft thuds.
With that sound as a backdrop, once my thoughts began, they sank endlessly deeper and deeper.
Why does this scene keep coming back to me?
Is this really elven blood? Does that mean I really have elven blood in my veins?
I don’t know.
Honestly, it’s not even something I need to know. I could just go on living, ignorant as before.
And yet… why does it feel like there’s more to it?
A sense of déjà vu kept nagging at me.
I bit my lip. For some reason, I felt like I had to visit the Chelcia Imperial Palace.
“Asilla.”
I was lost in thought so deep that I flinched when I heard my name.
Across from me in the carriage, Calios was watching me with his red eyes glimmering.
The large carriage rattled as it rolled along.
At present, thanks to the Emperor’s assistance, we had safely left the Elium Forest in the Cantana Empire and were traveling through the woods toward the Western Tower.
Perhaps because of the aftereffects of prolonged exposure to the elves’ barrier, Calios couldn’t properly command the spirits. In the end, we had been unable to reach the tower as planned and were forced to ride a carriage instead.
Still, it was a relief that he had regained consciousness compared to the first day.
—Asilla!!
Right after we escaped that bizarre elven space—one I still didn’t understand how I’d unfolded—the first thing I saw was Calios shaking me, trying to wake me.
And as soon as he confirmed that I was conscious and recovering, he collapsed to the side like a puppet with its strings cut.
I had been shocked to see Calios unable to even hold himself upright, let alone wield mana or command spirits.
That he was even able to move now was practically a miracle, given how he had been wracked with illness.
“…Hm?”
I finally responded to his call after staring into those flickering red eyes.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I blinked.
[Stupid human.]
[When he was the one lying there unconscious.]
The butterflies whispered, criticizing Calios as usual.
“…I’m fine.”
Whatever it was he thought was off about me, Calios continued scanning me for quite some time, as if inspecting me for damage.
Eventually, the spirits lost patience, darting forward until they hovered right in front of his nose, shedding streams of light. Only then did he finally look away from me.
“Oh.”
It was then I remembered something I had forgotten to tell him.
The elf. And his warning.
—I will warn you, child of man. If the corruption has seeped even here, to a place that was once the elves’ home, to the point it could consume me, then this is no trivial matter.
When I’d regained consciousness, Calios had been collapsed, and while he was recovering his strength, neither of us had the time to discuss what had happened in the forest.
“…An elf, you say?”
Once I finished explaining everything, Calios—who had been sitting quietly listening—dumbly repeated my words.
“Yes. In their old homeland, there was still elven magic left. But it was deemed a threat because of the monsters, so a barrier was erected.”
“…And so, I…”
I nodded and elaborated, and he slowly nodded back, seeming to understand.
But when I relayed the elf’s final warning, the vacant expression on his face hardened into something serious.
“So, in the end, we lost track of the one who tampered with Retrakan.”
Ah. That’s where his mind went.
“Seems so.”
After rescuing the elf—one shrouded in magic almost identical to the Emperor’s—he had said he would sleep again. The barrier that had covered the forest also vanished.
The reason: there was no longer anything threatening the homeland.
Which meant the one who had corrupted them had either fled or moved on.
The crisis had passed, but we hadn’t captured the true cause. And according to Johan—whom I’d contacted via artifact mid-journey—the plague situation still hadn’t been resolved.
Yes, the Emperor and the elf had been shrouded in magic far stronger than any plague, but that didn’t make this any less worrisome.
For ordinary people, the miasma given off by monsters was lethal.
I felt a heavy, unsettled knot in my stomach at this unresolved problem.
“Asilla.”
Calios, seemingly deep in his own thoughts, lifted his head and called my name again.
His red eyes met mine directly.
“Have you tried contacting Lazerdin?”
I stared into those flickering red eyes for a moment before shaking my head.
The communication bracelet I wore for him was still on my wrist.
Before entering the Cantana Empire, I had infused mana into it to call Lerdin, but he must have been busy—there was no response.
After that, everything had been so hectic I hadn’t thought to try again.
“Why?”
I blinked at the sudden mention of Lerdin, which had nothing to do with what we’d been talking about. Calios frowned, resting his chin on his hand.
“No, it’s just… back then…”
Back then?
I furrowed my brows this time, and noticing my expression, Calios ruffled his hair irritably.
“I’m not sure I remember right, but I’m pretty sure Lazer—Lazerdin—once told me the place where he lost control was in the elves’ forest. It’s probably unrelated, but it just came to mind.”
“…He lost control?”
The location aside—Lerdin?
Calios blinked several times, his red eyes silently saying, You didn’t know?
“It’s fairly well-known. Even though he’s contracted to a nymph famous for her gentleness, he once went berserk.”
Well, it was a long time ago, so maybe it’s not strange I never heard.
He added that and then seemed to drift back into thought.
“We’ve arrived!”
When we disembarked and headed for the tower’s entrance, Calios said nothing the whole way.
Following silently behind, I spotted the shadow spirit peeking out over his shoulder—it seemed his strength had recovered a bit.
Good.
I’d been a little worried; normally Calios would be brimming with energy and summoning spirits at every opportunity, but he’d refrained from doing so this whole time.
But just as soon as I noticed the spirit, Calios suddenly spun around and grabbed me by the waist.
“Wha—?!”
The dizziness lasted only a moment—then I recognized Calios’s office.
“…Ack!!”
Right then, Johan—about to enter—yelled in surprise and fell backward, scattering the pile of documents he had been holding all over the floor.
Ignoring Johan’s silent, anguished scramble to gather the papers, Calios strode to his desk and sat in the chair.
“Johan, where exactly has the plague broken out?”
I bit my lip.
I already knew from the artifact that it wasn’t confined to Cantana.
Johan, looking thoroughly disheveled and with his glasses askew, raised his head. The shock on his face faded into a complex expression.
“Cantana, Morjay, Lutikhan, Chelcia, Perden. Those five, broadly speaking.”
I flinched slightly at the familiar name Chelcia, then recalled what those five nations had in common and swallowed.
The west and the north.
It had reached the northern region.
I was beginning to understand why Lerdin hadn’t answered my call. If the plague had reached the north, they’d be at least as busy as the west—if not more so.
The north had many stations that required constant garrisons and frequent duties.
And it was vast. Like the west, yes—but unlike the west, the north had many densely packed countries.
Damn.
I bit my lip again.
Could we really cure all these people?
“The numbers?”
As if he already suspected the answer, Calios’s expression didn’t change.
“Impossible to estimate. We’ve labeled it a plague for convenience, but we can’t figure out how it works. Some people give off such a vivid miasma that spiritists can sense it easily, while others have such faint traces that even spirits struggle to detect it. The symptoms are all different.”
Some collapsed at the exact same time each day and suffered horrifying hallucinations—clearly unnatural symptoms—while others displayed nothing more unusual than the common cold.
With no consistent symptoms, unless one could directly sense the miasma, there was no way to identify it.
To make matters worse, even when treated, the miasma never fully vanished.
This was serious.
Calios’s grim face told me he thought so too.
“Whether it can be healed or not, all the tower’s water spiritists have been deployed. All we can do is wait.”
Johan sighed, finishing his report.
Knock knock.
Just as a heavy silence settled over the room, there was a knock—and without waiting for a reply, the door swung open.
“What the—”
Calios, about to protest, blinked at the unexpected visitor.
“Asilla.”
A familiar, refreshing scent filled the room.
“…Lerdin?”
It was only after a long pause that I managed to say his name.
And then I froze.
Compared to the last time I’d seen him, exhaustion was etched deeply into Lerdin’s face.
And then—
“…Would you come with me to the Chelcia Imperial Palace?”
—because of the words he spoke.
