“F, Frey… Calm down…”
“Oh, are you leaving already? Then… see you later.”
Irina, who could not see Frey, who had been holding her hand for a long time and talking brightly, let go of his hand and stepped back, and he started waving her hand with a regretful expression.
“…Well?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Frey noticed Irina standing in front of him and said with an apologetic expression.
“Oh, Kania… I’m sorry. The ordeal made you look like my mother. What?”
Frey smiled and spoke as if it was nothing special, but Irina just stared blankly at him.
“Hey, you don’t have to worry? Rather, it was nice to see you after a long time. It seems that your mental health has recovered a bit. The first ordeal doesn’t do any harm to me.”
Then Frey, thinking that Kania in front of him had always been overly concerned, spoke in a calm voice to reassure her.
‘The first thing is… you really used the Haeju method…’
But then Irina, with a bluish face, was thinking about the effect of the curse she had cast to kill Frey.
The ’12 o’clock curse’, which Irina put on Frey for a year of exhaustion on the first day of her return, is one of the most terrible curses in the world.
The person who is the target of the curse will feel all kinds of pain that can be felt in the world for 24 hours, starting at 12:00 that day, and then die.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to heal the curse.
The only way to do it is to feel all the pain of the curse for 24 hours and then destroy the clock nearby one minute before 12:00 the next day.
Compared to the 12 o’clock curse and other terrifying curses located on the same level, it is a fairly easy and frustrating way to heal, but in reality, this is not the case at all.
First of all, the pain suffered for 24 hours due to the 12 o’clock curse is one of those things that can lead to death, so it is almost impossible to endure it with a bare mind for a day.
The longest lasting record in the literature was only 6 hours, so it was all over.
And, even if you somehow manage to break the clock, it’s not the end of everything.
The moment you break the clock, you will slowly share the pain you’ve suffered so far until you die.
Of course, most people would choose death rather than the choice of constantly suffering the pain they have suffered all day until they die…
“In just a few more days, the first ordeal will be over. So don’t worry…”
A person who has a reason not to die, such as a destiny to protect the world from the demon king, will have no choice but to choose the latter by crying and eating mustard.
“Kania, you’re a little weird today. Are you really okay?”
“Oh, yes… it’s fine.”
Irina continued to think about the curse she had placed, but when Frey looked at her with a worried expression and asked a question, she finally came to her senses and answered.
“Come on, eat this.”
“…yes?”
“It’s because your face looks pale. If you fall in a difficult situation, you’re in a lot of trouble.”
Then Frey, who looked at her with a blank look, quietly offered her a skewer of fish.
“Anyway, I don’t care if I just kill the Demon King, so your health is more important, so don’t hesitate to eat.”
“……yes.”
When Irina hesitated, Frey said with a stern expression, waving the fish skewer, and in the end Irina had no choice but to grab the skewer with trembling hands.
“By the way, what about the future? According to the newspaper I read earlier… I’m in my dormitory at Sunrise Academy.”
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Eventually, as Irina began to eat the fish slowly, Frey, who looked at her happily, sighed and began to mutter.
“You’ll need your stealth skills to sneak back to the dormitory… When do you think your black magic will recover?”
“Uh… it’s going to take another day or so.”
“Um, okay? Well, it’s just one more day to recuperate.”
In response to Irina’s words, Frey nodded and began to mutter while lying on the bed.
“By the way, Kania, what happened to the ‘Scroll Merchant’ that I ordered last time?”
“Scroll… you mean the merchant?”
When Irina asked in response to the word scroll, Frey began to speak with sharp eyes.
“Yeah, the ‘master’ who was the real culprit in the last ‘performance evaluation case’.”
“Oh, yes… We’re investigating.”
“Be sure to catch it. It feels strange for some reason.”
After finishing those words, Frey lay down on the bed snorting, and Irina, who looked at him like that, said in a low voice.
“Then, I’ll go outside for a while. Young Master, please wait here.”
“Yes, thank you, Kania.”
After speaking with Frey, Irina staggered and exited the secret base.
“ha…”
After a while, Irina, who had been walking alone in the forest for a long time, collapsed when she arrived at the river.
“I… I…”
Then, staring blankly at the fish passing by her feet, Irina began to mumble in a soulless voice.
“I just… just wanted to get everything right…”
When I first returned, I thought that this was the mission God gave me.
This is the mission that God gave because he had pity on himself for not being able to protect his friends, protect his empire, and kill the demon king.
So, without hesitation, he cast the most terrible curse he knew on Frey, who was as evil as the Demon King in the previous episode.
However, Frey was actually a hero who did his best to protect everyone.
And because of the curse that I put on him, it is not enough for him to experience an unforgettable and terrible pain in his life, so he has to feel that pain again during his short lifespan because of me.
“ha…”
Such thoughts kept coming to her mind and seemed to pierce her heart, so she clenched her teeth and bit her nails, then immersed her face in the flowing river for a moment.
“…puha.”
It was an action that was made with the intention of regaining his composure by cooling his head in the cold river water, but instead of becoming cold, his heart began to become more complicated.
Just like pouring water on a flaming fire doesn’t cool it down, it turns it off without a pulse.
‘Once upon a time… I played with Frey here…’
In Irina’s eyes, who had lost their vitality, memories with Frey began to flutter.
“Irina… Why isn’t there a fish on my fishing rod?”
“You idiot, you didn’t take the bait.”
After hours of fishing with no bait and full of anticipation, Frey cried and asked himself why, when he couldn’t catch a single fish until evening came.
“Afu! Abbey! Ma, magic is a foul…!”
Frey, who said that he was confident in playing in the water, rushed forward with excitement, then turned over and over again due to his water attribute magic, and when he drank water, he argued with a resentful expression.
“Wow… It’s delicious… But why is it delicious?”
“…a compliment or a curse word?”
Frey mumbled innocently with his eyes twinkling after taking a bite of salted grilled fish.
and…
“I’m not eating this kind of thing anymore… So you eat your heart out.”
One day, when he forcibly dragged him and offered him grilled fish, Frey spoke coldly and trampled on the grilled fish mercilessly.
“At the time… I thought it was just a momentary change from the shock of my mother’s death…”
And I was grilling fish by myself, thinking that it was just because I was shocked for a while, that one day we would laugh and play together again.
“Ugh…”
In order to somehow appease her heart, which was getting more and more depressed as she thought more and more, Irina started walking out of the river full of memories.
However…
“…f*ck it.”
Wherever she went, it was a place full of memories she had with Frey, so Irina eventually stopped and sat on the floor.
“In the future… what should I do?”
Only now can I drink the finest transformation potion in Frey’s room and stand in front of Kania in disguise as a mask.
However, sooner or later she will have to stand in front of Frey as she is.
I don’t know how to react at that time… what to say… No, was it right to pretend to know in the first place…
‘…I don’t know.’
Irina has lived her life with the motto of finding an answer when she has a question, but she was unable to fulfill that motto today.
It was because the confusion and chaos caused by the entanglement of self-rationalization and guilt was shaking her heart.
As always, Irina, who had been squatting, refusing to make the first decision instead of looking for an answer, suddenly frowned and raised her head.
“…what?”
From the forest in front of me, a strange magical energy was flowing out.
It was a meager amount of magic that an ordinary person could never detect, but Irina, whose mana sensitivity had risen to the limit, could feel the magic in quite detail.
“This dark and incoherent feeling… it’s black magic…”
Irina, who felt the magic for a long time, found out that it was black magic, looked around with a nervous expression, and murmured.
‘…Is Kania here?’
Irina, not yet ready to make contact with Frey or his allies, swallowed a saliva and stood up.
‘…what?’
Irina, who had stretched out her arms and felt the magical energy in a little more detail, soon frowned and began to tilt her head.
‘Isn’t that Kania?’
When the warlocks unleash black magic, it spreads irregularly in all directions unless intended.
However, the black magic that she feels right now is… flowing like a single flow.
As if to guide you somewhere.
“…gulp.”
With that thought in mind, Irina began to carefully move her steps to the place with black magic.
It was strange that she suddenly felt black magic in the ordinary mountain forest where she and Frey had played in the past, but it was because what Frey said earlier caught my heart.
‘Obviously… I said that the real culprit in the performance evaluation was the scroll merchant.’
Until now, I had thought that Frey was the culprit in the ‘performance evaluation kidnapping case’.
However, now that he realizes the truth about Frey, he can only think of him as an innocent victim.
Of course, there is no way that Arianne was the culprit… The culprit must be Arianne, who has very good magical knowledge, and a scroll merchant who created a scroll that deceived her.
And it is clear that such an unidentified merchant has some purpose.
The last thing I was faced with in the last incident was a terrifying entity called the Dark Golem who drove the Sunrise Academy into a state of disrepair.
So, there must be some reason for being sent here.
“Whew…”
After thinking like that, Irina quietly turned to the direction of the black magic and stopped walking abruptly.
‘…Dangerous.’
It is essential to focus on something in order to somehow turn the troubled mind that is tormenting you right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take the risk.
If there is a dangerous existence such as a ‘Dark Golem’ here, not only you but also Frey will be in danger.
‘For now… For now, retreat…’
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Eventually, Irina gave up chasing the energy and started returning to the secret base.
– Kurreung!!
Just as we arrived near the secret base, there was a sudden thunderstorm and it started to rain.
“…Ugh.”
Irina’s gloomy heart began to grow even more gloomy as it felt as if it was representing her current feelings.
“Young Master, you did well…”
Of course, Irina rushed into the secret base and froze at the situation in front of her because she had no intention of being drenched in the rain there.
“…where have you been?”
The bed Frey was lying on was empty.
Irina, who had been watching the scene frozen for a moment, ran out of the secret base with a pale and tired face.
– Kurreung! Kurung!!
“Young Master!!”
I cried urgently in the stormy weather, but her voice just came back as a meaningless echo.
“Fray!!”
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Even after crying out Frey’s name sadly once again, only the echoes came back, so Irina began to look around with an anxious expression.
But when the intensifying storm prevented visibility, Irina clenched her fists and began to mutter to herself.
‘I’ll still be around… If it’s now, I can do it… If it’s now…’
Soon, a faint light began to flow from her hand.
It was Irina’s trick, who, after experiencing mana exhaustion for several months, forcibly squeezed out the mana deep inside her body.
“Ugh…!”
However, since it was forcibly twisting and squeezing the mana mixed with the mana circuit in her body, serious pain began to haunt her.
‘At this level… No problem… There are many times that I burnt the mana circuit and cut it off… This amount…’
Of course, it was Irina who had been injured by the mana circuit in the previous car, but squeezing the mana circuit arbitrarily was too difficult for her, so her eyes were bloodshot and blood was flowing from her mouth.
“Huh… haha…”
After squeezing out all the mana remaining in her body for a few minutes with one hand, she muttered as she blown the sphere-shaped mana up into the sky.
“Fray… Find Raon Starlight… Find it.”
Then the spinning sphere began to scatter light and fly away.
Watching the light that had always given her victory in the hide-and-seek game with Frey as a child, which would revolutionize color magic in the future, moving with little mana, Irina began running with all her might.
“Fray! Are you there!? Frey!!”
Irina, who was screaming so desperately and running to the place the sphere was leading, muttered, hardening her expression at the sight that suddenly came into her sight.
‘This… is where I was before?’
Realizing that she had arrived again at the place where she had discovered black magic earlier, Irina saw the sphere rapidly flying toward the place where she could feel the black magic, and started running with a shocked expression on her face.
“Oh no! No!!”
Despite her earnest cry, the sphere continued to fly to the place where the energy of black magic was flowing, and Irina watched it with fearful eyes and muttered to herself.
‘If… If Frey was attacked while I was away… If not, if Frey, who was suffering from illusions, headed there…!’
Her hair was torn from the heavy rain and her clothes were damp, but Irina just ran and ran.
“Wow!”
Then, Irina, who stumbled and rolled on the dirt floor, grabbed her sprained foot and groaned for a moment before getting up, clenching her teeth.
“Fray!! Can you hear me!? Frey!!”
Irina, who was shuffling her injured foot and continuing to shout Frey’s name, stopped for a moment and began to catch her breath as she came out of the overgrown trees.
“haha…”
His arms and legs were all scratched and scarred, and his sprained feet throbbed.
The mana that was barely collected by squeezing out the mana circuit was only enough to use two fireballs to use the improved red color magic.
However, despite such a desperate situation, Irina staggered and started heading towards the sphere.
‘…here?’
Dragging her sprained feet like that, she arrived at the entrance to a cave hidden in a dark place.
– Shuh…
A sphere of light flies to the side of Irina, who is looking at the entrance of the dark cave, which is full of shady energy.
“…Whoa.”
After seeing the scene, Irina was prepared, stretched her arms straight in front of her so she could shoot a fireball at any time, and carefully started to enter the cave.
‘…It’s not Kania’s energy either.’
As she went inside and felt the evil aura more and more, Irina fell silently in her thoughts.
Although she was a warlock, Kania, who had a good heart, could not emit such an evil energy. In other words, the existence in front of this is not Kania, but an evil being.
Whether it’s a warlock hiding here or a monster… If it emits such a vicious energy, it must be quite powerful.
‘Can I win?’
I had such a question for a while, but soon Irina shook her head to shake it off.
It is impossible to predict what will happen to Frey if he resigns from here.
So, we have to get him out of here by any means we can.
Only thinking about it for now.
– Sharr…
With such a strong determination, she walked carefully, and as she watched the flying sphere melted away in front of the stone door, she swallowed her saliva.
There is Frey in front of me. Maybe it’s already too late, or there’s Frey waiting desperately for someone’s help.
Opening this door will make it irreversible. He will face Frey, who can’t be okay in any state.
– Profit…
But what would happen to Frey if the door was not opened like this forever, Irina carefully opened the door listening to her pounding heartbeat.
“…Young Master?”
Then, Frey’s back, standing still, came into her sight.
“Yes, Kania.”
And after a while, as Frey answered the question in a calm voice, Irina approached him with a slightly relieved expression on her face.
“What the hell are you doing here…”
“Are you meddling in my fantasies again? Because I won’t.”
“yes?”
Then, when Frey suddenly started making strange noises, she asked with a bewildered expression.
“I came out of the secret space for a while because I was frustrated… The forest that appeared in my dream last time, chased by Werewolves with Irina, was realized as a fantasy of ordeal? came out.”
“That’s right…”
Irina faltered for a moment and put together what she had heard from Frey, then frowned and asked a question.
“By the way, are you a werewolf?”
“Yeah. I don’t know about you, but from what I saw in my dream back then, Irina and I were chasing Werewolves. I don’t know why there were Werewolves in such an ordinary forest…!”
Then Frey, who was answering her, suddenly grabbed her head and lost her balance and collapsed.
“Do, Young Master?”
“Ugh… memories, memories…”
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Embarrassed, Irina flew away and tried to catch Frey, but Frey, who was moaning, lost consciousness and fell limp.
“Damn, what the hell is this…”
– Profit…
Seeing him like that, Irina, who had a bewildered expression on her face, reached out her hand with a puzzled expression when the stone door behind her suddenly opened.
“Kah, Kania?”
“…..!”
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Eventually, after seeing the person behind him, he froze.
“…why are you here?”
Frey’s younger brother, Arya Raon, Starlight, was staring blankly at her, who had been shattered.