Chapter 79
Max's consciousness drifted through a darkness in which nothing existed.
If there were a universe where every star had died, would it feel like this?
A pitch-black world without a trace of light. He felt an urge to decorate it with sparkling stars.
Dazed.
His thoughts went on and broke off repeatedly, like a broken lightbulb flickering on and off.
‘···Am I dead?’
Was I going to regress after being given another chance? Or would I be sent straight to the afterlife?
Questions that had occasionally crossed his mind during everyday life surfaced only now.
When death had actually drawn near, he hadn't had the time to think about such things.
Were Flora and Ellen safe?
Salazar must definitely be dead, right?
Was my final spell beautiful?
‘I have no idea.’
His memories shattered like glass fragments and scattered across the pitch-black world.
The largest and clearest fragment caught his eye.
‘···Mother.’
Despite his mind being as hazy as could be, he felt relieved and grateful that he could still recall his mother's face.
It had always been that way.
Afraid that he would forget his mother's face, he turned it over in his mind every day whenever he found a spare moment. He had been desperate.
Because he believed that if he forgot his mother, he would truly be alone in this cold city.
‘I···.’
His train of thought could go no further.
A small light sparkled like a star before Max's eyes as he continued to drift, seizing his attention.
Driven by the urge to grasp it, he instinctively reached out his hand.
His consciousness rose, as if time were running backward.
Beep··· beep··· beep··· beep···.
He heard a repetitive mechanical beeping.
When Max forcibly lifted his eyelids, heavy as iron, a stark white ceiling greeted him.
“···?”
When he blinked again, two faces appeared and blocked out the ceiling.
Both faces were filled with worry.
“Big brother! Are you okay? Is anything bothering you?”
“B-Big bro! Say something!”
Flora and Ellen, unable to do anything but flap their hands helplessly after seeing Max open his eyes, pressed the call button attached to the hospital room.
Only then did Max realize it.
‘···I didn’t die?’
His life was still clinging to him. When he turned his head, he saw bags of medication hanging down and being infused into him.
He even understood that the place he was in was a hospital room.
Medical staff came rushing in after hearing the call from the room occupied by the heirs of a magical house, and carefully examined Max's condition.
They assured them that his prognosis was excellent and told them not to worry.
The medical staff who had crowded into the room eventually left.
Max gave a faint smile as he watched the two of them exhale in relief.
“You’re both safe.”
“···!”
Flora and Ellen's eyes shook violently.
The looser morality becomes, the more brilliantly humanity shines.
“I haven't been asleep for years, have I?”
When Max showed his curiosity while lying in bed, Flora and Ellen placed chairs beside him and sat down.
They had shed their Wasteland Runner outfits and were dressed as they had been in the city.
“It’s been exactly one day since you went down, big bro.”
“···Then where are we? This doesn’t look like the wasteland.”
“We had you admitted to Genesis Bio headquarters in District 6.”
Surprise flashed through Max's drug-clouded eyes.
Genesis Bio headquarters.
It was a place with medical technology that could somehow save anyone who was still breathing.
It wasn't the sort of hospital people visited when they were sick.
Even so, the only reason he could be admitted here must have been the two of them.
“Forget the location—how did we even get back to Haze in a single day···?”
“Mr. Domingo called a transport ship for us, so we got back quickly.”
“Apparently Mom secretly followed along, bringing Siki with her. Ha, seriously!”
Max pieced things together after listening to Flora's calm explanation and Ellen's grumbling interjections.
The fact that Domingo had been assigned to watch over them was shocking.
It had been a wide-open wasteland, yet he hadn't noticed he was being followed at all.
‘···The difference in skill must be that great. If I hadn't accepted this job, Domingo said he would have handled it.’
A specialist recognized by a magical house was indeed something else.
He felt painfully aware of how far he still had to go.
“Big bro. I’ll call Mother first and come back. She’s very worried after hearing the news.”
“Tell her not to worry, since I’m healthy and fine.”
Flora took her smartphone and left the hospital room.
The ward fell quiet. Ellen fidgeted with her fingers for a long while before tentatively speaking.
“Big bro.”
“Yeah.”
“Why did you do that back then?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“···You knew helping me might get you killed, didn’t you?”
“Oh, that?”
It was the question of why he had recklessly blocked Byron's spear.
To Max, in one sense, it had been the responsibility of the person leading the interns, and in another, it had been an action born from all the time they had spent together.
With that in mind, Max thought for a moment, but he couldn't come up with a neat answer that Ellen would find convincing.
So he put his thoughts directly into words.
“There was no rational judgment or purpose behind it. There wasn’t time for that, either.”
“···.”
“My body moved before I could think, so you don’t need to feel responsible for it, Ellen.”
Ellen lowered her head completely and felt around the hospital bed.
When her fingers touched Max's hand, she fumbled for a moment before gently placing her hand on top of his.
“Don’t do that again··· Do you know how scared I was···?”
Max answered with an apology rather than promising not to do it again.
Ellen still couldn't raise her head.
‘Ah! What the heck···!’
Ellen was flustered. She couldn't control the heat rising in her face.
Her heart pounded as if it were about to burst.
She had no idea what expression she was making, but she didn't want Max to see it.
*****
The hallway of Genesis Bio headquarters.
In the clean, spacious hallway, a red-haired woman paced in circles while speaking on the phone.
“Yes. I’ll contact you again.”
She had finished speaking with her mother, Enri Crimsonhowl, and her grandfather, Aizen Crimsonhowl, the acting head of the family.
Flora sat down on a hallway chair and let out a long breath.
“Phew···.”
The tension that had built up left her all at once, and she found it hard to move.
Her legs had no strength in them.
‘Thank goodness. Thank goodness.’
It was a relief that Max had regained consciousness without incident.
If Domingo hadn't been there, who knew what might have happened. Given what Ellen and Flora could do, they very likely would have ended up in the worst possible situation.
‘The academy’s greatest genius, my foot··· I was just baggage···.’
Flora realized how inadequate she was in every respect.
Until now, she had been a frog in a well—a frog that didn't even know the sea existed.
“···.”
How should she train from now on?
The world outside the textbooks had no predetermined path, and it was utterly daunting.
“You came back alive from the wasteland, yet you’re sighing like the world just ended.”
Flora raised her head at the voice that seemed to be referring to her.
What came into view was a beautiful dragonkin woman with fair skin and vibrant golden hair.
Bella Clemens, the head of House Clemens.
And one of her close aides, Domingo Clemens, stood behind her.
Flora jumped up from her chair in surprise.
She hurriedly composed herself and paid her respects.
“Flora Crimsonhowl pays her respects···!”
“Hehe, I hear you had a hard time in the wasteland? Come here, and let me praise you.”
When Flora approached, Bella Clemens's hand gently stroked her head.
“That’s right. You worked hard.”
“Th-thank you···.”
She finished her praise by giving even the perkily upright wolf ears a gentle rub.
“I heard Max Steiger has regained consciousness.”
“Yes. He just woke up and is resting.”
Flora answered, thinking to herself.
Bella Clemens was still beautiful. She hardly looked old enough to have a grown daughter like Ellen.
Her own mother was like that too, but the biggest difference was that Bella Clemens looked like Ellen and yet somehow didn't.
“I happened to be working here today, so I came by. I also need to give my daughter, who didn’t even contact me to say she’d arrived, a little smack on the rear.”
Saying that she needed to scold Ellen, Bella strode toward the hospital room.
Flora and Domingo followed behind without complaint.
No one here could alter her course, and no one could overtake her and walk ahead of her.
Just before entering the hospital room where Max and Ellen were,
Bella pulled Flora toward her while giving Domingo an order.
“Domingo. Stand guard so no one enters.”
“Yes.”
Bella swiped her master key across the scanner.
─Ziiing! The hospital room door opened, revealing Max lying in bed and Ellen with her hand over his.
Ellen had kept her head bowed to hide her expression, but it was plainly visible to Bella.
“Oh ho.”
Bella let out an amused exclamation at the interesting tableau.
“···.”
Flora said nothing and kept her mouth firmly shut.
In her exasperation, the corners of her eyes began to twitch.
And.
Ellen, her mind too muddled to notice them until a beat later, sprang up and knocked over the chair.
“M-Mom’s here!”