The Daughter's Defiance
“I’m terribly sorry for the sudden interruption. An urgent matter has come up. I’ll give you the medicine right away.”
I handed the prepared potion to the client I had been counseling. After briefly explaining the dosage instructions, I ushered them out and sprang to my feet.
“What happened?”
“Well, I’m not sure. There’s… there’s been an outburst. A fight, or something…”
Kasis stammered, her words tumbling over one another.
She was capable in many ways, but she had only been working here for a short time. It was understandable that she would be flustered by such an unexpected situation.
“We need to go at once. Ah, Draksan! Come with us, Draksan.”
“Yes!”
I called out to Draksan, who had been resting in the staff lounge.
Under normal circumstances, my psychokinesis and strength would have been enough to handle things, but there was a chance this disturbance was severe enough to require Draksan’s power as well.
‘It would be nice if Eris were here too, but…’
Eris had gone to the Magic Tower for research and had not yet returned.
‘What kind of research takes this long?’
I had heard that Eris was the central figure in this particular study.
Her work at the counseling office was essentially a hobby; her real profession lay with the mages of the Magic Tower. I could hardly complain about that, yet the prolonged absence still left me feeling strangely disappointed.
At any rate, the best reinforcements I could muster right now were Kasis and Draksan.
Together, the three of us hurried to the inpatient ward.
“Huh?”
The moment I saw the scene, my mouth fell open.
“Lena… Lena Caligus, you…”
Draksan, who had come with us, muttered under his breath. His voice trembled.
‘Draksan’s daughter, Lena Caligus…’
I calmly surveyed the scene and pieced together what had happened.
‘She attacked another client in the same ward.’
That was exactly it.
Lena Caligus, Draksan’s daughter, had assaulted another patient in the inpatient ward.
The victim was roughly the same age as Lena, and his condition was severe. His nose was broken, several teeth appeared to have been knocked out, and his entire face was covered in blood.
Lena, by contrast, looked completely unscathed. This had clearly been a one-sided beating rather than a fight.
“……”
A heavy silence fell.
Lena Caligus glanced back and forth between Draksan, me, and Kasis. There was no trace of remorse in her eyes, not even a hint of guilt.
‘She’s completely calm.’
She looked as though she had simply done what needed to be done.
How could anyone remain so composed and self-assured after something like this? What possible justification could make such violence acceptable?
Even if there was a reason, did that truly permit beating someone to this extent…?
While I was lost in thought, Lena Caligus broke the silence.
“He looked at me.”
“What…?”
“He looked at me. So I taught him a lesson.”
Lena continued, her chin lifted arrogantly.
“Is there a problem?”
Her words and attitude revealed clear psychological issues, but that was not the immediate concern. It could be addressed later.
“S-Sir, I…”
The real problem was Draksan’s condition.
Witnessing his daughter’s inappropriate behavior had clearly shaken him. His pitch-black eyes gleamed with a feral intensity as he stared at Lena. His face was contorted, jaw muscles twitching as he ground his teeth.
Intermittent Explosive Disorder!
The symptoms he had not shown for some time had returned.
“I… I must have raised her wrong. This is my fault… I’ll take responsibility…”
Draksan spoke haltingly, then drew the axe from his belt.
“Who disciplines their child with an axe, Draksan?!”
“In our tribe, this… this is how we do it. J-Just wait a moment, I’ll…”
“No, you will not! Kasis! Kasis!”
“Huh? Me? What am I supposed to do?!”
I grabbed Draksan to stop him. Kasis joined in.
Thud!
We failed. Draksan shook us off roughly and charged at his daughter, axe gripped in both hands.
Lena did not run. Her eyes flashed as though she intended to fight her father. She raised her index finger.
Crack!
Dust gathered at her fingertip and coalesced into a fist-sized stone. Magic—earth-element magic.
She prepared to hurl the stone at Draksan.
Most children would have been terrified to see their parent enraged. Lena, however, looked ready to fight him. That alone was deeply unsettling, but what disturbed me more was the clear hostility she directed at her own father.
And Draksan responded to that hostility.
His fury intensified. He raised the axe, eyes locked on Lena’s outstretched finger, clearly intending to sever it.
“Stop!”
I had to intervene.
I seized Draksan’s forearm with psychokinesis. Blood gushed from my nose; the strain was immense. Draksan’s raw strength was simply overwhelming.
I managed to restrain only his right arm.
His left hand still held the axe.
“Please, Draksan, don’t—!”
He ignored me. Or perhaps he could no longer hear me at all. There was no trace of reason left in his eyes.
Draksan swung the axe with his remaining arm. There was no way to stop him now. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Clang!
Instead of the sickening sound of flesh being cut, I heard the sharp ring of metal. I opened my eyes.
Draksan’s axe had struck a transparent, solid wall of ice.
Beyond the wall, Lena Caligus blinked in surprise, clearly startled by the sudden appearance of the barrier.
“What on earth is going on here, Doctor?”
A voice cut through the silence.
I turned toward the window.
She hovered in midair, black hair whipping around her as she looked inside.
“Eris!”
Eris had returned.
Thanks to Eris, the fight had stopped. I quickly took control of the situation.
Hiss!
I sprayed Draksan with sedative. I always carried it in case his intermittent explosive disorder flared up again. I had been too flustered earlier to use it, but now I finally had the chance.
‘Lena should be isolated in a private room for now.’
It was a precaution against further outbursts.
‘The patient she attacked needs to be transferred to a nearby hospital for proper treatment.’
Although the counseling office was technically a hospital, it lacked the facilities for treating serious trauma. I was about to arrange the transfer when Kasis spoke up.
“I can use a healing blessing…”
“Ah, that’s right.”
Before becoming the former prophet, Kasis had been a priest of the Sun Church. She could wield holy power.
“This level of injury should be manageable with my blessing.”
“You’re quite versatile, Kasis. I’m glad I hired you.”
“Hehe? Well, it’s nothing special. Any Sun Church priest can do this much…”
Kasis let out an odd little laugh, radiating unmistakable joy.
I decided to leave the patient’s treatment to her. Simple medical care could be entrusted to her from now on.
“Phew…”
Once the immediate crisis was resolved, I returned to the counseling room.
While I was catching my breath, Eris approached.
“I ended up returning later than expected. I made an interesting discovery during the research, so the work kept dragging on.”
“Really? I thought it was taking unusually long.”
“Did you wait for me?”
“Of course I did.”
Eris stared at me.
“Why?”
“No reason… I just didn’t expect you to answer so quickly. It caught me off guard.”
“What answer were you hoping for?”
“Never mind. Forget it.”
Eris sighed softly and sat down across from me—in the seat usually reserved for clients.
“You’ve hired more staff, I see.”
“I brought Kasis on board. She was a client I used to counsel—the former prophet.”
Eris merely nodded.
After a moment of thought, she spoke again.
“What happened earlier?”
“I’m not entirely sure myself…”
I organized the information in my head.
The situation could be summed up in a single sentence.
“Lena Caligus’s personality seems to have become severely twisted.”
“Lena Caligus is Draksan’s daughter, correct?”
“Yes. She used to be calm and polite. I can’t understand why she suddenly changed like this…”
I nodded.
Until recently, Lena’s demeanor had been impeccably courteous. Just as Draksan possessed more self-control than most barbarians, so had Lena.
Yet that same Lena had suddenly turned violent. She had brutally assaulted another patient simply because he “looked at her,” and showed no remorse whatsoever.
“She also displayed considerable hostility toward Draksan.”
As far as I knew, Draksan had never done anything to seriously wrong his daughter.
Hostility of this magnitude toward one’s own father was far from normal.
I had believed her condition was improving, but apparently that was not the case.
I still did not know why she had changed so drastically.
“I’ll need to counsel Lena and find out the reason. Before that, Eris, there’s something I’d like to ask you.”
I opened a drawer and took out my notebook—the counseling log where I recorded clients’ conditions. It contained information about Lena as well.
‘A few weeks ago, Lena awakened a talent for magic.’
She had shown particular aptitude for earth-element magic, the ability to manipulate stone and soil.
To nurture that talent, I had used funds from the counseling office to enroll her in the magic academy.
And now she had used the magic she learned there to attack another patient.
Even when Draksan, consumed by rage, had charged at her, Lena had responded with earth magic.
“Lena recently awakened a magical talent. What do you think of it?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, how talented does she seem as a mage?”
Eris fell into thought.
“She’s… decent?”
“How decent, exactly? Give me something concrete—how would she rank at the magic academy, for example?”
“At the academy level… I suppose she might place within the top five.”
“That’s what you call decent?”
“Well, I wouldn’t guarantee first place. I haven’t seen her performance with other types of magic either.”
Eris’s standards for evaluating magical talent were clearly different from most. Anything short of first place was merely “decent.”
Given her own abilities, perhaps that was only natural.
“So she does have talent.”
“If we’re talking presence or absence, then yes.”
“Understood. Thank you, Eris.”
I left the counseling room and headed to the inpatient ward, toward the private room where Lena Caligus was being held.
Knock, knock.
“I’m coming in.”
After the customary courtesy, I opened the door.
Lena sat on the edge of the bed, glaring at the empty air with a sulky, almost venomous expression. Even after I entered, she did not spare me a glance.
Scrape.
I pulled up a chair and sat across from her.
“Lena Caligus.”
“……”
She gave no reply.
A premonition struck me.
This counseling session would not be easy—not even for me.