Chapter 15 – Pendant
“Gasp…! Huff!.. Haah… Ha…!”
I run.
Shoes not made for activity in the snow are cruelly buried in ashes.
Staggering along aimlessly, I just move in the direction my eyes turn. After all, that’s all I can do now.
If my nose were functioning properly, I might have been able to discern direction, but now is not the time to hope for such luxuries.
I rapidly construct the magic formula and layout I had prepared in my mind.
“’The impotent steps that approach the essence of wind, grant me that fleeting moment’”
Basic reinforcement magic.
Acceleration.
One of the spells I had learned simply to stay alive, as I ran for my life across the snowfield under Rebecca’s pressure to lure the creatures.
My legs become lighter, and the resistance of the wind eases.
As I feel my body speed up, a sharp, tearing voice spreads from behind me.
“’May the mischief of the benign land spirit occur, so now, simply observe the rock that has begun to thunder!”
Rebecca’s signature phantasm.
That’s why I understood better than anyone what was coming next.
The ground thunders.
I swallow my breath and fix my gaze on the earth.
The moment the rock spear springs up, if you dodge it, you think you could get past it,
Such thoughts must have been careless.
“Gah…! Haak!”
… The first to reach you is an odd sensation crawling up your spine. Vision is whited out in a flash and the intense pain that follows sends chills shooting up your spine. You collapse on the floor with a short, involuntary scream.
The world before your eyes turns black and your body aches everywhere as if it’s been battered.
When you regain your senses, you find yourself buried in ashes.
“What the hell are you doing?? Can’t you see her? Go hold her down right now!”
“Rebecca! Cecilia seems seriously injured! Cancel her magic!”
“Hero! Step back!”
“Rebecca!”
“That b*tch… Cecilia’s lost her mind!”
“Rebecca! Cecilia’s bleeding…!”
“HeeeROOOO!!!!”
Rebecca’s voice pierces the air sharply.
“You saw Cecilia attack me, right! … I.. I saw madness in Cecilia’s eyes! Oh, poor Cecilia! It must be the effect of psychic magic! So, so the Hero
Why.
Why?
I don’t like it.
Stop it.
It hurts.
Rebecca didn’t do anything I disliked.
If told to stay away, I did, and if told not to speak, I stayed silent.
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Even when I was practically driven out of the village and suffered all sorts of contempt under the guise of “education” at the imperial capital,
Even when everyone in the 6th Sword Party mocked and ridiculed me,
Even when they chatted in front of the campfire about how repulsive my ears and tail were,
Even when I realized one morning that I had lost my sense of smell,
I patiently waited as time passed.
Even if my purpose was unclear, I would have been satisfied if they had accepted that they didn’t like me.
But why.
Why. Why. Why would they do this?
It’s not like I wanted to leave the village.
I never wished to travel with the hero.
I would have been satisfied with a normal day in the hut, waiting for the teacher to come with my mother.
So, at the very least, I didn’t want to die pathetically in a place like this.
I finally met kind people at a good school.
I may have secretly harbored hopes, thinking it was my last piece of good fortune.
If I were lucky, couldn’t I leave the hero’s party just like this, I often fantasized.
Teacher.
Teacher… please…
Why on earth did you leave me then?
Even now, I want to ask, but too much time has passed to remember the warmth of that gentle touch. Ah, my head is chillingly cooling off.
No longer can any thought be entertained.
My thoughts are jumbled, my memories fly freewheeling.
The faces and identities of Professors Nefertina and Freya, and of Undine, the student who aided me from Rebecca, now begin to fade. The school feels distant. The shanty where I lived as a child. Within the woods. And again. My mother. I yearn to see my mom. An expansive snowfield spreads out, under a sky that is increasingly distant. Ashes. Starting with a completely blackened field of vision, my senses, my senses, one by one, are slowly, shutting down. When even the previously acute pain had ceased,
at the very end, the key locked away in my memories is unlocked.
Bitterly.
As if by some type of magic.
Someone, or something, forcibly held onto the shattered and faded memories.
The face of the teacher whom I forgot, who was erased from my memory. His physique. His favorite clothes. His way of speaking. His voice.
And the professor… professor?
Is this an illusion? Or am I simply overlaying the images of two people?
The jingling sound is like a bell rustling in my ear, and a cold metal pricks my skin around my heart.
Ah, the pendant…I have the pendant.
The pendant…
-The incredibly special privilege that I give to my first disciple.
-It’s an amazing thing that you can carry with you and can call me, Professor Eugene Seo Nefertina, anytime you think of me.
The professor gave it to me, the teacher gave it to me,
-Yes, this is the last of it, so I guess this much should be done.
-Even if you forget… Yes, sleep well. And…
-If the opportunity arises, see you later.
“Teacher … please help me…”
I hesitantly let out the last word, which had become distant even in my fading consciousness, as if trying to grasp whether it came out of my mouth or not. It must be a dream. Even if it was an overlapping image, I was relieved that I could see it for the last time. So… “… Wow, you called quickly.”
***
The motivation behind making the pendant was purely for amusement.
At that time, I couldn’t even imagine meeting Cecilia again.
When Freya suddenly asked me what I would give to my first assigned student, I improvised that night, carving metal and adding margins.
I didn’t anticipate giving it to anyone as a gift.
The magic engraving was also a crude incantation.
It was a kind of toy with a mechanism that I could respond to only when a student called me, an incredibly bothersome contraption.
It was a booby trap purposely designed so that someone who became my disciple would treat it like a commemorative item and play with it.
This was why I didn’t engrave burdensome magic like location tracking or two-way communication.
Although now it seemed like a careless choice.
I know well that regretting it would be meaningless.
I trusted Ondine and Ignis, but at the same time, I wished Cecilia would use the pendant before it was too late.
When she finally called me, it felt as if my heart stopped beating.
Vital fluid spilled onto the white ashes.
That blood that stained the snow-covered ground was undoubtedly my student’s blood.
A lifeless body.
At the moment I saw Rebecca, who was stepping on the half-unconscious child’s body, my mind went cold.
“Get out of here.” Rebecca, who startled at my sudden appearance but quickly regained her composure.
“Ha! Scared by a simple illusion spell, me? Erasing the likes of you is no task at all… What…?”
Rebecca abruptly cuts off her words and twists forward.
It is logical to lose balance and fall if you lose your ankle.
“Huh? What…? Uh…?”
“Rebecca!!”
“Ah…Ah… Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh!”
The sight of her clutching her leg and writhing is utterly shameful.
As Rebecca let out a belated scream and was caught by the hero Kim Yoo-sung, I checked on Cecilia.
…her breathing is shallow. Her heart is beating.
The wound is deep. I sighed softly with relief, but I couldn’t help but click my tongue at the sight of the pendant she had tightly gripped in her hand.
“You won’t have an excuse when you create things like this.”
“Te… ach…?”
“Are you conscious?”
“……….”
Our eyes met the moment I touched her with my fingertip.
A strained voice mixed between her parted lips. Maybe she was conscious.
The light in Cecilia’s eyes looking at me was fading. Even as her voice diminished, she stare
A kind of emergency magic, fire healing magic.
A red flame, ignited from the touch of my hand, transfers to Cecilia’s body. The flame seeping in, revealing clean, new skin in its path. The externally visible injuries can be adequately treated with this.
The rest… tsk, I really didn’t want to do this.
Whoosh!
Red blood gushed from my hand, bitten into by my mouth.
I put my hand into Cecilia’s mouth and made her swallow the blood gradually. It’s a repelling method, but it’s the most effective given the circumstances.
“Just rest a bit now.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth, a moan escapes, her clothes tightening.
Despite properly swallowing the blood pooled in her mouth, Cecilia, her face filled with fear, let out a small sob.
“…No… I… don’t… please don’t…leave me…”
“I see.”
I gently brushed her drooping fox ears, collapsing from exhaustion.
“When you open your eyes, I’ll be there. This time… yes. I promise.”