Chapter 136
With a flash of light, Franz arrived at the 5th basement floor of the Magic Tower.
Even though the lights were brightly lit, its distinctly gloomy atmosphere remained unchanged.
As expected, it was a place he never wanted to visit again.
“Why do you look like…”
Zeni-ah, who had been kneeling modestly in front of the magical engineering device, widened her eyes upon spotting Franz.
It was a natural reaction, considering the person who had been perfectly fine when he left had returned looking like he was on the verge of collapsing.
It seemed the candy’s effect was quite good, given that she was able to stay perfectly fine despite everything.
“Just this and that happened.”
There was no reason to tell her the truth.
It might sound like he was needlessly trying to take credit.
Of course, once Seri-ah opened her eyes, she would find out whether she wanted to or not, but saying it directly from his own mouth was a completely different story.
Whether she had read Franz’s mind or she was just quick to catch on.
Zeni-ah didn’t ask anything more.
Huu-.
Franz let out a short sigh and took a step toward the magical engineering device.
Inside the magical engineering device, Seri-ah floated in the air with her eyes closed, as if in a state of zero gravity.
Looking at her completely exposed abdomen without a single organ inside, he felt an urge to avert his gaze.
Scenes of splattering blood and flying chunks of flesh were hard to get used to, no matter how many times he saw them.
Just then, Zeni-ah approached his side.
“Can you save her…?”
The expression 'save' might be a bit ambiguous.
In the first place, Seri-ah was in a state that was difficult to describe as either alive or dead.
A true mass of contradictions.
That was only possible thanks to the divine power emitted by the sealed artifact.
But if what Zeni-ah meant by saving her was whether she could return to her previous state…
“If my theory is correct, it’s possible.”
Even so, the reason he couldn’t give a definitive answer was that the core Franz currently held was the very first of its kind.
Since there wasn’t even a precedent, he couldn’t predict the probability of success.
It was a situation that could perhaps be called the gamble of a lifetime.
However, with Franz’s boundless knowledge and talent, he had practically grasped the winning hand in this gamble.
“Is there anything I can do to help? I-if you need my life, I’ll give it… to you.”
“There’s nothing in particular you can help with.”
The core was already complete, leaving only one step before the transplant.
There was nothing she could really help with at this point. He hadn’t expected it in the first place anyway.
Holding the Artificial Mana Core in one hand, Franz pushed his other hand into the device and continued speaking.
“If you really have nothing to do, just pray to the Goddess Luan over there. She might be a bit of an eccentric, but it’s certain that she’s a good god.”
Wasn’t the Goddess practically an archenemy to her, a cultist?
Finding it absurd even as he said it, Franz almost burst into laughter.
However, Zeni-ah knelt down without hesitation.
And she brought her hands together and began to pray.
He had only said it as a half-joke because he disliked the heavy atmosphere.
“…She must be quite sincere.”
What was the cult to them in the first place, and what was the Demon God?
Did they truly follow it, or did they have no choice but to follow it?
Soon, Franz erased all such thoughts from his mind.
From now on, it is time to focus on the problem at hand.
As the hand he had pushed into the device touched Seri-ah’s body, he felt a very faint flow of magical power.
As if refusing to die like this, the magical power was somehow trying to continue its circulation.
Franz began to analyze the wavelength of her magical power.
Form, nature, structure, and so on. Various pieces of information gathered and were stored in Franz’s mind as a single set of data.
And based on that information, he adjusted the wavelength of the mana core.
The wavelength the mana core originally possessed was Franz’s wavelength, so transplanting it as it was could cause a rejection response.
Fortunately, the process didn’t take very long.
Compared to making the core, it was an incredibly simple task.
'All that’s left is to transplant it.'
Franz pushed his other hand, which was holding the mana core, into the device as well.
And he carefully inserted the mana core deep inside her abdomen, behind her ribs.
Upon detecting the severed Mana Circuit and connecting it to the mana core, the empowered magical power began to speed up its circulation.
At the same time, a soft blue light flowed from the mana core, and the formulas he had engraved began to activate one by one, breathing life into her body.
“Is there no immediate rejection response…?”
But problems could arise at any time, so he would have to observe her periodically for a while.
The problem was that he had to do it himself since it wasn’t something he could entrust to others…
It was a bit bothersome, but he didn’t hate it.
Because this, too, was a form of exploration.
Anyway, everything he could do was finished now.
All that remained was to wait for her to open her eyes.
Pulling his hands out of the device, Franz rummaged through the bag at his waist and took out a piece of bread, a waterskin, and some jerky.
When he handed them over, Zeni-ah tilted her head.
“This is…?”
“Just use this to tide over your meals for now. I have to go somewhere else right away, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Because he had come here leaving Yusti-ah neglected.
He was already quite late, but he had to return as quickly as possible before it got any later.
“Why are you doing so much for us…?”
Zeni-ah said that as she took the food with hesitant movements.
Why, she asks…
Honestly, that question was hard to answer.
Thinking rationally, it would have been right to kill them back there.
It was an action unbefitting of a mage, and unbefitting of Franz.
“You’re alive, isn’t that enough? Does the reason matter?”
He was a bit reluctant to say it was simply a whim, so he just gave a vague excuse.
Fortunately, she didn’t ask anything more, so Franz was able to head straight to Yusti-ah.
Snap-.
With a flash of light, Franz’s figure disappeared.
Kneeling and blankly staring at the food in her hands, Zeni-ah muttered softly.
“What a strange person…”
If Franz had heard her, he would have grumbled inwardly about how people complain even when you treat them well…
But there was no one there to hear it.
* * *
Franz, who had been on the 5th basement floor of the Magic Tower just moments ago, arrived in front of Yusti-ah through Spatial Movement Magic.
“Franz, what on earth were you doing…”
Yusti-ah, who had been about to snap at him upon spotting Franz, trailed off and widened her eyes.
“Are you okay?! Just how much of whatever it is did you do…!”
“Nothing much, just a little…”
He couldn’t say that he had been struggling to save a cultist.
If Yusti-ah had been alone, he might have considered it, but since there were patients and clerics around right now, he just made up an excuse.
“Ah, this is a big problem.”
Franz realized that he had very little mana left in his body.
His trembling hands and feet, along with his blurry vision, were proof of that.
It seemed the problem was that he had used up a considerable amount of magical power on the Spatial Movement Magic.
Because the magical power required increased the further the distance.
It was the first time he had experienced this since his days in the Hero’s Party, so it was a sensation he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“Franz, you can hear me, right?”
“Yeah, I can hear you, but…”
“Are you sure you’re really okay? You definitely look strange…”
“I’m, fine.”
Franz said that as he brought his hand to his waist.
If he could just find something to help recover his magical power, whether it was an elixir or candy, and put it in his mouth, he would gradually get better.
“…”
However, his hand wouldn’t listen to him.
Come to think of it, in the past, he used to shove them into his mouth whenever he had a spare moment in the middle of a fight.
Because once he entered a state of magical power depletion, he couldn’t control his body properly.
“Yusti-ah, from… my bag…”
He had intended to ask her to take out an elixir or candy, but now his mouth had stopped moving.
If he had known this would happen, he would have eaten some beforehand…
It had been so long since he was in a situation like this that he had acted complacently.
“Franz…? Fran…z?! Fran…”
Yusti-ah’s voice blurred, as if he were submerged in water.
The world gradually tilted, and soon, only the cloudless blue sky could be seen.
His vision blurred before slowly being dyed in darkness.
Franz lost consciousness just like that.
* * *
Yusti-ah widened her eyes and approached the collapsed Franz.
“Franz?! Wake up-!”
No matter how much she called out, he didn’t answer.
Slap-! Slap-!
Even when she slapped his cheeks hard, it was the same.
'I knew he didn’t look well…!'
Something had been strange from the moment he arrived.
His entire body was drenched in sweat, and his eyes were unfocused and glazed over.
He had even been bleeding from his nose right before he collapsed.
A memory from the past suddenly flashed through Yusti-ah’s mind.
It was a memory from when they had faced the Demon Lord.
When the Party was on the verge of annihilation, he had stubbornly raised his failing body and used magic while pouring blood from his eyes, nose, and mouth.
The entire sky had been covered with his magic Circles.
They were radiant and beautiful five-colored magic Circles.
As a result, they were saved by him and managed to survive, and the Demon Lord was subjugated, but in exchange, he had been at death’s door.
Tears trickled down from Yusti-ah’s eyes.
No.
She absolutely could not let this man die right before her eyes.
“Franz-!”
Her cry pierced through the clear sky of the Western Region and echoed out.