Chapter 47
“Uh?”
Startled, Eluana quickly withdrew her hand.
‘Did I just hear a voice?’
If it wasn’t her imagination, it had said something when it saw her. Unconsciously, Eluana took two steps back and pointed at the statue.
“Kazar, th-this… what is this? Speak!”
“Speak?”
Kazar looked puzzled and placed his hand on the statue. All he could feel was the rough texture of the stone; no sound came from it.
“I can’t hear anything.”
They tried touching and tapping it, but it was useless. To Kazar, it seemed like just a well-crafted statue.
“You can’t hear it? I clearly said, ‘Hello, human.’”
Eluana cautiously placed her hand on it again.
[Waaaah! You can hear my voice?]
“Uh?”
Startled again, Eluana withdrew her hand and glanced at Kazar with a creaking noise.
“…I can hear it.”
The voice was audible. And it was oddly cheerful, with no tension at all, making it feel even more surreal.
“So, you can hear a voice when you touch it?”
“Yes. I think you can even have a conversation.”
Their eyes met.
“A talking statue… seems like we found the right one.”
Kazar placed his hand on the statue again and even closed his eyes, but no sound came. Slowly removing his hand, he nodded at Eluana.
“Try talking to it again.”
Eluana swallowed hard. She felt a little uneasy, but her curiosity outweighed her vague fear.
Cautiously, she touched the tip of her finger to the statue once more.
“I can hear your voice.”
[Wow! You’re the second person to hear my voice!]
“The second? Who was the first?”
[My friend! The first friend I could only meet in dreams. This is the first time I’ve talked directly with a human, so I’m excited. Will you be my friend too?]
“Friend?”
[Be my friend. I’m so bored.]
Eluana blinked rapidly. What was this innocent frankness?
“Who are you?”
[Me? I’m Cerus. You can just call me Cerus.]
“Cerus? How can a statue talk?”
[I’m not a statue.]
Not a statue?
“From the front, you’re a statue, and from the back too.”
Not only was it strange that a statue could talk, but now it denied being a statue, which made it even stranger.
[I’m not.]
“Then what are you?”
[I’m Cerus.]
Cerus answered cheerfully.
“Uh. Right. Okay.”
Eluana hadn’t really asked for a name. She realized she would have to adjust to this recklessly innocent perspective of the statue. Like when she spoke with Rui, she decided to ask simple, direct questions.
“Are you human?”
[Probably not.]
“If not human, what are you?”
[I told you, I’m Cerus.]
Eluana looked at Kazar and said,
“His name is Cerus. He says he’s neither statue nor human, and he doesn’t seem to know what he actually is.”
Kazar, who had been inspecting every part of the statue, asked,
“It doesn’t seem like a spirit inhabits the statue. Then why is he in the statue form?”
[I’ve been here from the start.]
Eluana’s eyes widened at Cerus’ response to Kazar.
“Can you hear Kazar’s voice too?”
[I’m trapped in a small room, but I can see and hear things happening nearby. It’s so boring here. There’s only trees. Sometimes a bird flies by, but mostly I’m alone. Ah, I really hate it when birds poop on my head.]
“Trapped in a room?”
The statue’s build was slender. If there were a room inside, it would probably only be the size of a palm.
“Really a fairy then?”
She had never seen one, but she had heard they could be palm-sized.
As Eluana studied the statue closely, Kazar, examining a wider area, discovered something hidden in the bushes.
“…It’s a magic circle.”
Turning to Kazar’s voice, Eluana also saw a pattern partially hidden in the undergrowth. As Kazar cleared the bushes, a massive magic circle appeared around the statue.
She had seen them in picture books, but this was her first time seeing a real magic circle.
“What kind of magic circle is this?”
“One moment.”
Kazar carefully inspected it. Since it was drawn in the ancient language, he couldn’t fully interpret it, but he could recognize a few words.
“I’ll need to check in detail, but it seems like this Cerus is sealed within the statue. It looks like a type of ancient sealing magic circle.”
“A sealing magic circle?”
“Yes. And it seems to have been maintained for hundreds of years.”
“Why would they imprison Cerus for hundreds of years?”
Kazar also found it strange. Why had the Fortuna royal family maintained this seal alongside the western mage tower, secretly for so long?
“If it can talk, then it’s not a monster, right? Does its voice sound evil or sinister?”
Eluana shook her head. None of Kazar’s descriptions matched Cerus.
“No. It just sounds like a young boy. About Rui’s age? If it’s a sealing circle, does moving the statue outside free Cerus?”
“It’s not that simple. Even if you remove it, the seal will hold for another hundred years. Anyway, it seems Prince Regis came here to maintain this seal. There are traces of the magic circle being repaired.”
Eluana’s gaze swept over the circle. Some of the winding letters had newer markings, as if recently touched.
“To understand what the magic circle does, we’d need a mage, right?”
“There’s someone we can ask.”
“Cerus, do you know about this magic circle?”
She touched the statue while speaking, and immediately the voice came.
[I don’t know. People come and crouch in front of me, mumbling. Oh, right. The red-haired one this time looked a little dumb.]
Cerus remembered Prince Regis. Eluana stepped closer to the statue.
“Do you remember what the red-haired person said?”
[He said he wasn’t happy. Even after leaving, if the prison door doesn’t open, he’d pull out the remaining eye of the servant.]
Regis.
“Kazar, it’s true that Prince Regis came here. Did Cerus hear anything else?”
[He just yelled for everyone to hurry, but no one answered. People don’t talk much when they come here. They come once in a while, but because of the red-haired guy, it was the loudest this time.]
Apparently, Cerus referred to hundreds of years as “once in a while.” Then…
“How old are you…?”
[Hmm? I haven’t counted, so I don’t know.]
“How many times have people come…?”
[Six? Seven? Speak more casually. We’re friends, right?]
At least six hundred years, then. Eluana noted her suddenly six-hundred-year-old friend and told Kazar.
“People have come here six or seven times.”
Kazar rubbed his forehead. Not many beings live for hundreds of years. Even if a seal slows the passage of time, there’s still a limit.
“A fairy, then? Or an elf?”
“Elf?”
But Cerus seemed too simple-minded for that.
Eluana had never seen an elf, but in books, elves were orphaned, nature-friendly beings. Cerus, however… well.
She decided it probably wasn’t an elf, but she couldn’t bluntly say so with Cerus listening. She pondered how to phrase that Cerus seemed a little unintelligent.
[Hey, since you’re my friend too, can you do me a favor?]
“Favor? Let’s hear it first.”
[I want you to tell my first friend where I am. My friend promised to save me, but I couldn’t tell him because I don’t know where I am. There are only trees around.]
“This is the northern forest of Aden. You can tell your friend if he appears in your dreams again.”
[Since that red-haired one came by, the dream connection hasn’t worked. He must be worried about me.]
The magic circle had weakened, allowing dream connections.
“What’s your friend’s name?”
[My friend’s name is…]
As Cerus tried to say the name, a chilling wind blew. Kazar suddenly adjusted his stance, gripping his sword with both hands.
At that moment, five masked men charged from inside the forest. Through the undergrowth concealing the magic circle, more masked figures appeared one by one.
Eluana felt cold sweat trickling down her back. There were over ten people who looked like assassins. What made her even more nervous was the murderous aura they openly exuded.
The tension made her body instinctively curl up. This time, she thought, they might really die. Her fingertips trembled.
“It’s okay.”
In a voice strangely gentle, Kazar stepped in front of Eluana. The skin-tingling aura vanished as if it had never existed.
‘If you can’t trust me, trust that you’re Cantio. As long as you’re Cantio, I won’t let you die.’
Seeing Kazar’s back, she didn’t know why those words came to mind.
But Kazar…
‘There are too many of them. We’re going to die.’
With death looming, her whole body trembled.
“If a fight breaks out, the Spes Knights will come. Just hold on. You’ll be fine.”
“And if I’m fine, what about you?”
In a brief glance, Eluana confirmed Kazar’s resolve. At the same moment, blood splattered on his face. Startled, she turned, only to see Kazar’s sword embedded in the neck of the attacker who had charged right in front of her.
More blood.
Every time someone charged, blood sprayed into the air. People were cut down right before their eyes. The trembling spread through her whole body. When Kazar drove his sword into the heart of the fourth masked man, a voice that didn’t fit the scene was heard.
“Seems you had a good dream last night. You even captured the Fourth Prince.”
The masked figure gestured, and the others stepped back. The speaker approached leisurely. Though their face wasn’t fully visible, Eluana could sense that he was calm, confident he could kill her and Kazar.
Kazar wiped the blood off his blade and smirked.
“You haven’t caught us yet. It’s still the dead of night.”
She didn’t know what ‘dead of night’ meant, but she felt the other was surprised. The black wrapping covered everything except his eyes, yet she could sense his emotions.
“I didn’t expect you to recognize us.”
“You need to know who your enemies are if you want to live long.”
Kazar replied calmly, every cell in his body taut with tension.
