Chapter 48
"Are you looking at that again?" Irina said, blowing out cigarette smoke.
She roughly pushed aside a corpse rolling at her feet and approached Ena, who was sitting on a rock reading a letter. Ena cleanly ignored her and smiled faintly.
She was pleased with the sentence written in the last line of the letter Acel had sent.
[I miss you, Master.]
"Ugh, so cringy," Irina muttered, resting her chin on Ena's shoulder.
Ena firmly pushed her face away.
"Get lost. You smell like cigarettes."
"Cigarette smell or whatever. You're seriously ill at this point. How many times a day do you read that letter? If Acel saw you like this now, he'd be so disgusted he'd run away."
"Acel wouldn't do that."
"What do you know?"
"What do you know? He's my disciple," Ena said and stood up.
She dusted off the stone powder stuck to her buttocks and turned her head towards the investigation team walking out of the forest.
Wearing heavy armor, they approached the two archmages, reeking of blood, not even bothering to wipe off the blood covering their entire bodies.
The empire's knights exuded a neat atmosphere.
The man standing at the very front took off his helmet and opened his mouth, "We've dealt with all the remnants inside the cave. As for the devil worshippers who fled..."
The man deliberately trailed off. Instead of answering, Irina pointed to a corpse lying on the ground with the end of her pipe. That was enough. The knight nodded and had his subordinates gather the corpses together. Then he used an ignition device to cremate them all.
Among devil worshippers, most mana users had traces of human sacrifices left on their bodies. If left alone or just buried, they sometimes resurrected through rituals, so they had to be killed thoroughly.
Fortunately, thanks to Ena pre-emptively turning several corpses to ashes with lightning, the cremation didn't take long to finish. The knight crushed the instantly skeletal remains underfoot and turned his head.
The cremation of devil worshippers who died inside the cave was also complete. There were no more devil worshippers left around the empire.
They were ones found by searching even lawless areas where no country existed. Having lived with blood on armor and swords for quite a long time, it seemed there would be no need to be wary of devil worshippers for a while. Of course, they didn't intend to let their guard down.
Devil worshippers were the kind that could crawl out from anywhere at any time. No matter how many were killed, they weren't eradicated, and sometimes they even had regenerative abilities.
A tenacity that was not just disgusting but tiresome. A level of persistence that even druids who received life from nature would stick out their tongues at. Devil worship groups were places where such beings swarm.
No matter how much cleaning was done, one couldn't be careless. The knight thought this and slightly bowed his head towards Ena and Irina.
"Thanks to you two, the subjugation ended much faster than expected. As the representative of the special task force fully entrusted with this matter, I express gratitude to Wyheim in the name of the empire."
"That's enough. More importantly, can we go back now? I'm a bit tired from killing those playing around near Wyheim and helping all the way here."
Although Ena and Irina were currently in a lawless area near the empire, they hadn't been here from the start.
After dealing with those around the city with Wyheim's mages, they received an earnest request from the empire and only these two were additionally dispatched. They handled the work since they received compensation, but they wanted to return home as quickly as possible.
Both had mountains of work to do back in Wyheim. Irina had to participate in a project run by the Alliance, and Ena had to leave to search for information about the devil of gluttony after seeing Acel's face for a bit.
Neither of them was particularly free. So they openly expressed their desire to disband now.
Since they had already finished everything instructed by the empire, and there were orders not to upset the archmages' mood, the knight obediently nodded.
"I understand. Do you have any intention of attending the banquet held in the empire?"
"No," Ena answered.
She put away the letter with an indifferent expression and fixed the slightly disheveled position of her hat.
"...?"
At that moment, she realized Acel was sending something to her.
It was a sudden connection. Ena felt the remnants of a teleportation formula in the faintly felt magical power resonance. Then she smiled gently.
"Acel wants to come to me," she said, looking at Irina with a triumphant expression.
Irina exhaled smoke with her pipe in her mouth as if to say, “So what?”
"He said he missed me, so I guess he couldn't stand it. You were wrong."
"What are you saying? Didn't you nag him?"
"No. Shut up."
"Can't you be nice to me like you are to Acel?"
"Get your own disciple."
"That's creepy."
Ena ignored Irina, who started stroking her forearm, and immediately responded to the magic Acel was sending. Then the faintly felt resonance changed to become clear, and Acel suddenly appeared in front of Ena and collapsed on the ground.
A strong smell of blood overwhelmed those present.
"Cough...! Ugh...!!"
Acel, who collapsed upon appearing, gasped for breath and vomited blood. The recoil from forcibly pretending to be fine in front of the necromancer and the magic he recklessly manifested were eating away at his body. Blood flowed from his mouth and ears, and his pierced hands trembled.
"Draw swords!"
The knights who mistook Acel's appearance for an ambush by devil worshippers simultaneously drew their swords. But Irina hardened her expression fiercely and projected magical power towards them.
"Stay still. If you don't want to die."
"Lady Yeonhwa...!"
"It's not what you think, so don't move."
Irina rebuked them like that and examined Acel's condition.
"...Ugh... Kuh..."
An ear half cut off. Clothes and face covered in blood. Organ pieces thickly smeared around his mouth. Both hands violently torn and gushing blood, and broken wrists. Upper and lower body dyed red due to bleeding pouring from his back.
With ordinary mental strength, he would have long since fainted from shock and died. It was strange that he was even alive.
In other words, it wouldn't be strange if he died right now.
Figuring out what happened where was a matter for later. Irina quickly came to her senses and sprayed recovery potion from her chest all over Acel's body.
While doing so, she shouted at Ena, whose lips were trembling, "Ena!"
"Ah, ah..."
"Ena, you crazy bitch! Come to your senses and move quickly! Are you going to kill your disciple?!"
Disciple. Death.
Those two words invaded Ena's mind. Something that should never happen had rushed into reality.
Acel's figure was reflected in her blue eyes. A precarious appearance as if he might die at any moment. Just looking at it made her breath catch and her mind convulse madly. Her reason as an archmage was utterly useless. Her brain heated up, and her tear glands malfunctioned as if broken.
Where, where did I make a mistake? Did I make a mistake in the process of resonating with Acel's magical power? Or why is Acel injured like that? What was he doing where?
Why?
Why?
"Why?"
"Ena!"
Her questions were cut off by Irina's voice. Irina grabbed Ena's collar and met her gaze head-on.
"I understand it's shocking, but if you want to save your disciple, come to your senses quickly. If you don't want to cry at his funeral, hurry!"
With her shout, light returned to Ena's pupils. Her mind, which had been hazy as if covered in fog, became clearer than before. She bit her lower lip until it tore and hugged Acel's body tightly.
It was cold. She could clearly feel life slipping away. Tears flowed from tear glands she thought had long since dried up.
Ena didn't even realize she had bitten her lip so hard it bled, and disappeared with Acel, becoming a streak of lightning.
"...Haa, shit."
Irina cursed after confirming this sight.
Acel, who was a being she cared for in her own way as someone without a disciple, had returned as a corpse.
Anger boiled inside her.
***
Her appearance was always sudden, as usual.
Moving by riding lightning, she had ghost-like mobility and an arrogant personality that acted as she pleased. A peculiar person who would suddenly come and demand information about devils or ask about the locations of devil worshippers she had found out.
But someone whose appearance was quite cute, and who couldn't be completely hated because she would look apologetic when she got seriously angry sometimes. A strange type of long-lived being who was a mage but didn't show much hostility even to clergy.
Ena Renatus.
Thanks to this, even when she flung open the doors of the cathedral and entered, there was no one who truly hated and disliked her. Rather, old clergy often brought her cookies or cake and chatted with her. Young and devout believers were the same.
So they smiled bitterly at the thunder sound that had become not just familiar but even intimate by now, in the middle of their prayers.
As far as they knew, there was only one person who could make lightning fall from a clear sky.
As if proving that expectation, the prayer room door flung open and Ena rushed in. The archbishop who was presiding over the prayer was about to scold her with a smile, but seeing the young man in her arms, he hurriedly ran out.
At this commotion, the gazes of all the believers who had been praying turned towards Ena, and Ena, not even noticing their gazes, shouted at the archbishop with tears in her eyes:
"S-save him. He's my disciple. Please, please save him. If you tell me to kill, I'll kill. If you tell me to destroy, I'll destroy, so please... just save my disciple once..."
"...Oh my."
The archbishop let out a regretful sigh.
To think that Ena would show such a broken appearance. Even he, who prided himself on knowing her for a long time, had never seen such a precarious mental state. It meant that her disciple was a being more precious to her than anything else.
It was something to celebrate that someone precious had appeared to her who had acted as if she would live alone for life.
But the situation was unfavorable. The archbishop checked Acel's condition after confirming that priests skilled in medicine were approaching from among those praying. At the same time, he manifested holy law.
Woong.
The golden energy blooming from his hands gently permeated Acel's entire body. Then his gasping breath gradually returned to normal, and some external wounds began to heal.
But it wasn't complete.
The archbishop let out a thoughtful sound and spoke to Ena. "He was attacked by quite a high-level necromancer. Because of this, it's impossible for me to heal this brother completely at once with my level. It seems we'll have to take turns with our order's priests to observe his progress for several days."
"You mean he needs to be hospitalized?"
"Yes. For now, there are a few empty rooms in the cathedral, so we can use those."
"O-okay. I'll pay a hundred or a thousand gold coins, whatever the cost, j-just please save Acel."
"We won't accept money. It's natural to treat a patient when one is before us."
The archbishop said this sincerely and had a nun guide Acel and Ena to a clean empty room. Ena followed her into the room, unable to settle down.
The nun undressed Acel, who was covered in blood, wiped off the bloodstains on his body, and changed him into suitable pure white clothes. Then she gently laid him on the bed.
"I'll stand by here in case of any unforeseen situations. Is that alright?" the nun asked while covering Acel with a blanket.
Ena nodded once and grasped Acel's cold hand with both of hers, pressing her skin and lips to it as if trying to breathe her warmth into it.
Not stopping there, she moved her hand to his forehead, cheeks, and neck, continuously transferring warmth. Until the falling tears pooled on the floor. Until Acel regained consciousness.
For a long time.