It was a good thing that he hadn’t come here with Kristina.
This thought passed through Eugene’s head. If she had come with him all the way here, he would have had to make excuses for why he had immediately burst into tears when he saw Sienna like this.
But since they hadn’t entered together, there was no need for that. Eugene just silently allowed his tears to flow as he stared at Sienna covered in vines.
He was overwhelmed by a mix of several emotions. First there was disbelief and sorrow, and then relief and anger.
Sienna wasn’t dead. Though she appeared to be in a state no different from being dead, having been inflicted with a wound so grave that it wouldn’t be strange if she died at any moment, she was definitely still alive.
Tempest was keeping his silence. He too was feeling a surge of mixed emotions regarding this situation. Sienna Merdein was, as far as Tempest knew, an exceptional Archwizard — one of the most powerful in the world. Three hundred years ago, there had been no wizards who could outclass Sienna Merdein. Vermouth was also quite the amazing wizard in his own right, but in terms of their understanding of ‘magic’, Sienna was a few steps ahead of even Vermouth.
That very Sienna was now being kept in a deep sleep, with a hole pierced through her chest.
After letting his tears flow for a few more moments, Eugene scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Looks like I really have gotten old,” Eugene spat out with his mouth twisted in a sneer. “I don’t think I’ve ever shed as many tears as I have today.”
Or maybe it wasn’t that he had gotten older, but because he was still too young. At least, that was what Eugene was hoping. After all, this body he had been reincarnated into was still just nineteen years old. If not that, then… it could also be that this situation itself allowed for nothing else but tears.
Eugene snickered to himself as he shook his head.
“Can you hear my voice?” Eugene asked, checking if Sienna showed any reaction.
However, there was no response at all. Her closed eyes didn’t flutter open, the corneas behind her eyelids didn’t seem to move, and her lips didn’t twitch either.
Eugene didn’t feel disappointed by this, as he hadn’t been expecting much in the first place. After taking a few deep breaths, he once more stretched a hand out toward Sienna.
What if he broke something with a careless touch? Even as he felt this concern well up within him, he reached out to Sienna with as much care as if he were trying to touch a tender, young sprout.
Clink.
Eugene failed to make contact. The moment that he got close, a light went off between his outstretched hand and Sienna. He didn’t lose his cool and merely pulled back his hand calmly.
A green shell of light spread to cover both Sienna and the vines. Soon, Sienna and the vines connected to her were engulfed within a solid crystal.
Eugene tapped on the surface of the crystal with his finger. The substance felt hard, and it didn’t seem like it would be broken easily. And even if it could be broken, he felt like he shouldn’t try to do so.
[...It’s a seal,] Tempest muttered.
Eugene nodded in agreement. “Should be.”
Placing his hand on the crystal, Eugene closed his eyes and focused, sensing the flow of mana within. The huge amount of mana concentrated into the World Tree was being infused into Sienna’s surroundings.
‘....With a wound that left her so close to death… is the World Tree keeping her alive? What about the elves?’
Eugene still didn’t have a clear grasp of the situation.
Two hundred years ago, someone had intruded into Hamel’s grave. Sienna had sensed the destruction of her familiar and had immediately headed to Hamel’s tomb.
There, Sienna had gotten into a fight with the mysterious intruder. Their conflict was fierce, leaving Hamel’s grave in ruins. Everything except for the statue and the memorial stone had been destroyed. The intruder had then opened up his coffin and taken out his corpse.
But why?
He didn’t know what reasons they had for doing something like that. In any case, they had taken his corpse out of his coffin and sealed the Moonlight Sword on top of the coffin; meanwhile, Sienna had used the leaf of the World Tree to teleport here after being seriously wounded.
But what had happened after that? What had caused the city to be left empty, all the elves living here to be kept asleep and stored within the World Tree, Sienna to be sealed, and the memories of how to enter the territory erased from the minds of the elves caught outside?
“Couldn’t you at least have left a letter for me?” Eugene grumbled as he turned to look around.
Eugene was someone who could make a clear distinction between what he could and what he could not do. This seal wasn’t something that he could prod carelessly. Sienna’s wounds were serious enough that she had been left on the brink of death and Eugene wasn’t an expert on how to treat such wounds.
Well, he really did not know what to do about the seal, but there was an expert on injuries and how to treat them waiting right outside.
‘Were you crying?’
Under the usual circumstances, Kristina would have teased Eugene as soon as she saw his puffy, red eyes. However, she got the feeling that she definitely shouldn’t do something like that at this time. As such, Kristina locked her lips shut and kept her silence. She ignored his red, bloodshot eyes and the tear tracks on his cheeks. Even though she could see all these obvious traces of grief, Kristina didn’t say anything about them, instead deciding to say something else..
“...It’s like a cradle,” Kristina muttered as she walked past all the elves who were tied up in vines.
“It looks like people really do all think the same way. I got the same feeling as well when I saw all of this,” Eugene replied with a grin. His voice sounded the same as usual.
Together, the two ventured deep into the World Tree.
“...Ah,” Kristina gasped as she saw the woman sleeping within the crystal.
Even without Eugene telling her in advance, Kristina instantly recognized the woman. It was Sienna Merdein.
Kristina calmed her shaking nerves and slowly walked over to the crystal. There was no need to ask why she had been brought here — Kristina could see the hole going through Sienna’s chest and the vines of the world tree that had extended into the wound. She could also hear the faint beating of Sienna’s heart and her slow breath.
Kristina stood in front of the crystal and pulled out the wand hanging from her waist. A bright light surrounded her, and her eyes lit up as she scanned Sienna.
“...Her heart has been damaged,” Kristina reported while her eyes were examining the inside of Sienna’s body. “It’s not just the heart either, most of her major organs have been… contaminated.”
“...Contaminated?” Eugene repeated.
“Yes,” Kristina confirmed. “They might not be as damaged as her heart, but they probably won't be able to function properly.”
“But she’s still alive,” Eugene insisted.
“...Yes,” Kristina hesitantly agreed.
The fact that Sienna was still alive was something of a miracle, but Kristina didn’t feel the need to say this out loud. She felt like it might not be appropriate to put it in such a way.
“...It wouldn’t be strange if she had died. No, she already has one foot in the grave. However, this magic is somehow preserving her life,” said Kristina.
“Can she still be saved?” Eugene asked hopefully.
These words were filled with such weight that Kristina felt like she shouldn’t answer him carelessly. After hesitating for a few moments, however, she took a deep breath and nodded.
“I’ll do my best,” she promised.
Kristina raised her wand in front of her and closed her eyes. Every time that the blue jewel embedded in the center of the cross sparkled, the halo of light surrounding her spread out further and further, as if resonating with the jewel.
Eugen took a few steps backward.
At the center of her halo of light, Kristina licked her lips in concentration. A huge cross appeared below her feet and strange characters were scrawled around it, drawing a magic circle around Kristina.
The power of divine magic was determined by the strength of the caster’s faith. The spell that Kristina was casting right now was the highest level of revitalization magic, and even in the entirety of the Holy Empire, there were very few priests capable of casting it. The reason why the wealthy from other countries would donate astronomical sums of money to the Holy Empire every year was to ensure that this revitalization magic would be available for their use. Even if they were on their last breath, they could still be saved. It wasn’t much of an exaggeration to say that this grade of revitalization magic wasn’t just a spell, but a downright miracle.
Even with all that, beads of sweat were running down Kristina’s forehead. Her brows had furrowed above her tightly closed eyes as she focused all of her concentration and drew heavily on her divine power.
While it indeed wasn’t an exaggeration to call this spell miraculous, in the end it still fell short of a true miracle. Although the light shining from Kristina passed through the crystal and flowed into Sienna’s body, Sienna’s wound didn’t show even the slightest sign of being healed.
This was because it wasn’t just the visible areas of the wound that needed to be healed. The light emanated by Kristina wasn’t able to purify all of the unknown contamination that was infecting Sienna’s body.
No — it wasn’t that she couldn’t, but rather that it wasn’t necessarily a good idea to do it. Kristina instinctively realized this fact. This contamination wasn’t something that she should meddle with so carelessly. For the past hundreds of years, this contaminant had been seeping into Sienna’s body, binding itself tightly to her mana, until it had reached its current state where it was as if it had become an integral part of her existence.
‘Just what in the world is this…?’ Kristina thought in shock.
This was her first time seeing such a contaminated body. Could this be some kind of curse? But this was the Wise Sienna after all, so where in the world would anyone find a curse that could so thoroughly ravage the body of the greatest wizard in all of history?
Kristina withdrew her divine power. She pressed her lips tightly as she mustered all of her concentration. Her eyes were closed, but she could see everything around her clearly. In particular, she could sense that Sienna’s body was rejecting the light of her divine power. The miracle-like revitalization spell simply scattered into sparks of light without having any effect.
Watching from the side, Eugene’s eyes darkened. Kristina hated to see such a look on him. Even though she had so proudly declared herself a Saint, she had no choice but to look helpless at the moment when a miracle truly was needed.
Soon after they had first met, Eugene had mocked her by asking if turning crumbs into bread and water into wine really counted as miracles. He had argued that she should at least be able to do things like reattaching severed limbs. Now, if she really wasn’t able to properly perform a miracle when they needed one, she was sure that he would continue to mock her from now on as well….
Tching.
Kristina trembled. Was it really impossible?
In his heart, Eugene had already resigned himself to this fact. If it really couldn’t be done, then it couldn’t be helped. Kristina was casting the holy spell with all her might, even as sweat beaded on her brow, but Sienna’s wounds aren't healing.
But just when he was about to reach out to her and tell her that she could stop, Kristina suddenly showed a strange reaction.
“You did your best,” Eugene comforted her, reaching out to catch her when it looked like Kristina was about to fall.
Although divine power was based on one’s faith, it wasn’t an infinite source of power. Just like mana — if it was overused, it would eventually run out.
Bam!
His outstretched hand was suddenly knocked away by a surge of light. Eugene’s eyes widened as he looked at Kristina.
One, two, three…. Eight wings had manifested on Kristina’s back.
The wings were made of light, and they were connected to a body of light that slowly left Kristina’s. While half of the figure was still embedded within Kristina, it spread its eight wings and looked up at the ceiling.
It was an angel.
“...Anise?” Eugene unconsciously called out her name.
It was the same angel that he had seen back at the Black Lion Castle, while they were falling off the cliff towards Vermouth’s tomb. There could be no mistake about it. That hadn’t been an illusion.
The angel certainly resembled Kristina, but she was definitely a different person, and her face was exactly the same as Eugene’s recollection of Anise from three hundred years ago.
The angel lowered her head. With shining blue eyes, she looked down at Kristina, who was still connected to her, and then she looked at what was in front of her. There, she saw Sienna, who was covered in vines and encased in the crystal. After staring at this sight for a few moments, the angel turned her head.
The angel was now looking at Eugene. A smile appeared on her previously expressionless face. The way that her eyes and lips curled up, that thin smile, it was exactly the same as the smile that Eugene — no, Hamel had seen on Anise.
“...Anise,” Eugene called out once more in a shaking voice.
Anise didn’t reply. Her smile was indeed the same as it had been three hundred years ago, but her shining eyes and wings gave her a mysterious aura, and with how her figure was wrapped in light, she looked more benevolent and divine than she had at any time in the past, back when she was still called the Saint.
Her eight widespread wings shone with light. The wand held in Kristina’s limp hands floated into the air, and the jewel in the center of the cross radiated bright blue light, as if it was resonating with the light of their combined divine power.
Eugene couldn’t understand what was currently happening, nor guess what was about to happen. He had never encountered something like this in his previous life, and it was impossible for him to even begin to comprehend this even with all the magical knowledge that he had learned after being reincarnated.
However….
As the light spun around like a storm, he saw it engulf everything in their surroundings and overlay them.
“—”
A flash of light burst out, illuminating their surroundings. Suddenly, Eugene found himself watching a scene that he had never witnessed before.
It was a view of the elven city. All of the elves who should have been living there had left the city and had gathered in front of the World Tree. They all had desperate looks on their faces and seemed to be shouting something, but Eugene couldn’t make out what exactly they were saying. They seemed to be overcome with a fear that had left them with no choice but to desperately flee their homes.
The being that had driven them to gather here was floating high in the middle of the sky. It was a man wrapped up in a black cloak.
His appearance was familiar to Eugene. He had long, wavy hair, bright red eyes, and a twisted smile.
When the five Demon Kings had first risen up as a threat to the world, the very first race that they had fought against was the dragons.
Among the dragons, there was one who had betrayed his own race by splitting open the chest of the leader of the dragons. A dragon who had, for the first time in the history of dragonkind, committed the crime of murdering a member of their own race and had happily allowed the very depths of his being to be corrupted by demonic power.
This was the Black Dragon Raizakia.
Floating in the sky, he looked down on the elves gathered below. The area of sky behind him seemed to be bizarrely distorted, looking as if it had broken and was about to fall. With his back to the sun, a cloud of darkness was spreading from Raizakia. This expanding field of darkness transformed the sky of the elven domain from day into night.
Raizakia’s lips moved as he appeared to be saying something. These words seemed to set the elves in an uproar. Eugene still wasn’t able to hear anything that they were saying; however, he could clearly see the vicious twist in Raizakia’s smile.
The cloak covering Raizakia’s body fluttered as he abandoned his human form. In a burst of black light, a huge dragon spread his wings to cover the lofty heavens. His scales were discolored from corruption, and his huge red eyes look like they were filled with blood. As Raizakia spread his jaws wide, a dark ray of light gathered between his sharp fangs.
This was his Dragon’s Breath.
Something like that wasn’t complicated enough to be called a spell — any dragon could use the Breath by sheer natural instinct. However, Raizakia’s Breath couldn’t be compared to any ordinary dragon’s Breath. Though the world did not recognize him as a Demon King, according to Eugene’s memories, Raizakia was already a monster comparable to the Demon Kings.
Raizakia released his Breath. There was no way that the elves gathered here would be able to withstand the attack. In other words, everyone standing below was about to perish.
Facing this descending Breath, the elves sensed their impending doom. Everyone seemed to be prepared for the inevitable.
But the moment that the dark Breath was released, someone walked out from behind the elves.
It was Sienna. Fortunately, blood wasn’t flowing from the open wound in her chest, but her face was deathly pale, and she looked as if a corpse had been forced into motion.
When Raizakia had let out his Breath, Sienna had been standing behind the elves. When the Breath burst forth in an explosion of light, Sienna was already standing in front of them.
Sienna stretched out her hand, and the Breath released by Raizakia was prevented from advancing any further. Raizakia’s huge eyes lit up with astonishment.
Having blocked the Breath, black blood was now dripping out from Sienna’s lips.
The elves screamed as they tried to support Sienna, but black blood was also flowing from their own eyes, noses, and lips.
The roots of the World Tree suddenly reached out and wrapped around Sienna and the elves.
Wrapped in these roots, Sienna tightly clenched her outstretched hand. The entire space around Raizakia appeared to twist, and the darkness brought about by Raizakia was dissipated.
In response to this, Raizakia hurriedly spread his wings as he frantically tried to twist his body out of the way. Tens, hundreds of magic circles suddenly appeared around him as he tried to cast a spell. He seemed to be shouting something — no, he was screaming! Then, all the magic circles that he had summoned slowly faded away and disappeared.
With black blood still dripping from her mouth, Sienna stared at Raizakia. Something seemed to amuse her, as she shrugged with a smile and then lightly waved her outstretched fist at him.
Then she extended a solitary middle finger.
The moment that Sienna flipped him off, Raizakia’s gigantic body was sucked into a hole in the distorted space.
Eugene watched all of this happen, in awe.
Sienna stumbled and fell. The elves tried to catch Sienna, but they were also unable to walk more than a few steps. One by one, they all fell down.
“Knock-knock~[1]”
Eugene’s shoulders trembled as he was startled by the sudden voice. Until just a moment ago, he had been watching a scene that had taken place hundreds of years ago. But what was going on now?
“Knock-knock.”
Was this an illusion? A dream? Or was the Holy Sword playing tricks on him? Could it be the angel… Anise? His mind was in turmoil. Eugene let out a groan as he clutched his aching head.
“Knock-knock….”
What in the world was going on? Raizakia had disappeared. What exactly had happened to him? Why had the dragon been standing in the sky of the elven domain in the first place? What about Sienna? And the elves…? What happened to them after all that…?
“...Knock-knock.”
Then there was the sight that had now appeared in front of him.
“Aren’t you going to answer me already?”
Eugene couldn’t find any words.
“Stupid, idiot, asshole.”
At the foot of the gigantic tree….
“On top of that, you’ve even turned out to be a crybaby.
Her light purple hair fluttering in the breeze….
“I never thought that you would be able to cry so much.
Eugene opened his mouth soundlessly. “....”
“See what I mean?”
Sienna was sitting there with a smile.
“You’re crying again, Hamel.”
1. So the original line is the first line of a children’s singing game. Something like ‘Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake’ or the kissing in a tree song. It’s meant to be a bit childish and teasing. There didn’t seem to be an equivalent song that felt appropriate to the situation where someone was calling out to Eugene and trying to get him to respond, so I went with a knock knock joke instead. ☜
