Winter (6)
There were times I wanted to believe that everything was a lie.
That the desperate scene spread out before my eyes was nothing more than a dream, and that if I closed my eyes and opened them again, everything would be back the way it was.
But nothing changed.
Kalipa laughed. Even if the creature he had made was wrapped in mana, it was not something that could be cut down easily; even a Master would have trouble with it.
Was there such a thing as a sword that could sever darkness? Just as one could not cut water, darkness should have been the same kind of concept.
And yet, what was this sight before him? That darkness seemed to have a body at last, and it was collapsing before my eyes.
It had been split apart by a single strike, and now that enormous mass was toppling to the ground.
“...What in the world...”
The words would not come properly from his half-open mouth. He had not even been able to see the blade cut.
He had only registered that it had swung, and then everything was already over.
So he could only stare blankly at the knight standing before him.
That pure white mana, so plainly different from everyone else’s—what on earth was it?
I stared quietly at Kalipa.
The black shape I had just cut down had probably been created by this black mage. The thick mana I had felt at the instant of the strike—surely the darkness that surrounded this area had been his as well.
Then a chill ran through my eyes.
I remembered the black mage who had been laughing just moments ago. The face that had clearly planned all of this, yet still wore that expression as if he were casually planting despair into the world—I had burned it into my memory.
Tragedy. If that black giant had truly been his doing, countless people would have died.
The moment I cut it, I understood. The danger carried by that giant was beyond imagination.
If I had been even a little slower, that darkness would surely have swept over the duchy.
My eyes narrowed. My emotions surged, and I let out a ragged breath.
“Black mage.”
Kalipa trembled all over at the sound of Evan’s voice.
It felt as though the deep chill in that voice was seeping straight into his bones.
The words he had thrown at him—that if anyone was going to die here, it would be him, not that knight—kept echoing in his ears, and his feet, glued to the ground until then, began to twitch.
He had to run. He had to escape this place at once and cling to life however he could.
How could he not know that the white mana wrapped around that sword would soon cut him down too?
Whoosh.
From Kalipa’s fingertips, a dark blue flame burst to life.
Even in this dense darkness, it burned darker still.
Then it surged toward the knight advancing with his sword raised.
What had once been a small spark swelled quickly, spreading to fill the path ahead.
Dark blue waves. Evan stared at the flames and lifted his sword.
He knew that, just as when facing assassins, simply swinging the blade would not be enough to cut through it.
Thunk.
He felt mana begin to well up through his heart.
Hot mana, burning like fire, soon wrapped itself around his entire body.
For reasons he did not know, his mana was the natural enemy of black magic.
Disease, corruption, even that darkness—all of it shrank before his mana.
At last Evan leaned forward.
He kicked off the ground, both hands tightening around his sword as he drove himself toward the flames.
The white blaze housed in the blade mingled with the darkness and began to push it back.
Darkness feared light. It was a trait written into it from the beginning of time.
The dark blue flames vanished, and through the thinning blackness he saw the black mage’s figure disappear as it was cleaved away.
The collapsed giant still lay where it had fallen. Could that thing really not move anymore?
Evan looked at it for a moment longer, then turned and headed toward the black mage.
If he dealt with the black mage, it would surely vanish. Everything seemed to have been created by him.
The tragedy that had struck Yuris, the fact that he had discovered Irene’s light—everything.
If I had not been transmigrated into Evan Fried’s body, Evan himself would surely have been taken in by it too.
That darkness gnawed at a person’s body. It might not show at first, but if one were exposed to it for long enough, even the strongest would eventually be brought low by it.
Sir Chris too, and Ropena. They must have suffered under this darkness as well.
Was that why Irene had changed so much?
At some point I realized I was grinding my teeth. Why was I so furious? Why did my heart pound so hard, the hatred blooming in my eyes all aimed at that black mage?
Perhaps because I wanted Irene to never become like that.
I didn’t want her to become twisted before her heart had a chance to break, or to be trapped in darkness the way I had been and lose her light.
Maybe that was why I had grieved for her death as the villainess.
How could I not mourn the fall of someone who, in some sense, shared my fate?
My grip on the sword tightened.
The black mage had disappeared while retreating through the instant I pulled back the flames, but there was no way he could flee so easily.
The distance closed. So quickly that it seemed his breath might brush my face, and Kalipa’s eyes flew wide open.
‘Damn it!’
This was not the situation he had wanted.
Had he not planned to move his creature in secret and sow darkness where no one would notice?
This was supposed to be a commemorative day—the first grand step taken by Kalipa himself in the name of Jeol-myeol.
Ssssshh.
From Kalipa’s hand, dark mist spread out once more.
Corruption—the power to consume everything, to rot it away until nothing remained.
When that mist took shape and sharpened into arrows, Kalipa hurled them at the knight closing in on him.
Anything would do. If he could only widen the distance, even a little!
The arrows flew. Evan realized he could not dodge them all.
His body was already airborne, so he shifted to evasion as best he could.
At the same time his sword knocked one arrow aside, his body spun once in midair.
The one that lodged in his shoulder could not be helped. Then—
Ignoring the pain surging from his shoulder, he raised his sword again.
Kalipa’s eyes widened. He could not block it. There was no way to block it.
Slash. Blood burst from Kalipa’s shoulder as it was cut open in an instant.
The blood sprayed like a fountain, splashing over Evan’s face and blurring his vision for only a moment, and then Kalipa’s writhing body began to fall beneath the roof.
He sent the mana wrapped around his sword into his legs instead. White flames flared from his toes, and Evan threw himself after the falling black mage, diving beneath the roof.
“Don’t... come!”
Kalipa’s face twisted horribly. What in the world was that man?
He couldn’t understand it. He couldn’t understand how a knight of that level had appeared so suddenly, or how he had even been discovered in the first place within this darkness.
This darkness was his domain. A place no one else could intrude upon—his alone!
And yet why could that light split it apart? There was no longer any movement he could see.
Even if he was using black magic, the sword that had sliced through that magic was now pressing its blade against him.
Thud.
When he hit the ground, pain shot through his spine. He realized he could no longer move.
Any more struggling would only mean his own death. But perhaps he could still make one final effort.
Far away, he stared at his ruined creature. It was obvious it could still move once more.
The source of the disease moving at its core was still intact.
Waiting for one opening from that thing, Kalipa deliberately squeezed his eyes shut and made his body twitch.
As though his consciousness were fading, he waited for the moment the knight would finally let his guard down.
Step. As Evan came down to the ground, Kalipa swallowed hard.
He would not speak. Only the knight’s weakness—only that—could save him now.
“...Looks like it’s still alive.”
Evan frowned. The black mage’s twitching body had gone still.
All he had done was cut his shoulder, and yet the movement had stopped. Why?
Listening closely, he could still hear the black mage breathing.
“Hah.”
A dry laugh slipped out of him. Was he pretending to be dead?
If he wanted to exploit an opening, it would have been better to make him look elsewhere instead.
The mana rising inside him sharpened his senses.
In the midst of this stillness, the faint movement of something creeping along reached his ears.
Scritch. A tiny motion scraped against the ground.
Dust lifted again from the floor, turning into wind, and the brush of air against his skin told him which direction the movement was coming from.
Probably behind me.
He didn’t even need to turn his head. The wind was telling him where it was.
He simply had to raise his sword and block it.
Once more, white flames flowed along the blade, severing the darkness.
It was something he had done countless times in training.
Blocking all those attacks aimed at his throat, his heart, and his vital points.
It was familiar, because he had trained while blindfolded as well.
With just a few months of training it should have been impossible, but this talent made it possible.
Crack!
The sword he thrust out at last collided with something behind him and began to drive into it.
Most likely the giant’s fist.
The blade boring forward began to break the giant’s body apart.
Light that had pierced the darkness was slowly bringing its brilliance to the surface.
“Useless. Something like this.”
Bang—!
The shattered giant’s body flew apart in every direction.
Kalipa’s eyes, fixed on the black fragments scattered across the floor, had long since gone empty.
There was no hope left. There would be no way for him to survive this knight.
Evan looked into Kalipa’s hollow eyes and leveled his sword at the man’s throat.
I hadn’t intended to kill him, but I still had a mountain of things I needed to ask.
First of all: the organization he belonged to.
“Do you know of Jeol-myeol?”
“...J-Jeol-myeol?”
“The organization you belong to.”
“I-I don’t know anything like that! I swear!”
Kalipa shook his head desperately.
Jeol-myeol? That was only the name of the plan he himself had made!
“You truly don’t know?”
“I-It’s just the name of the plan I made! To spread disease here, I— That’s all it was, just a plan like that!”
...As I thought.
Evan’s eyes, fixed on Kalipa, turned cold.
The tragedy that had befallen Yuris was probably the work of this black mage.
To spread disease—perhaps that giant itself was that disease.
I had cut it with my sword, but there had definitely been something unnatural about it.
It was probably not something I could have cut down if it had not been me.
I couldn’t say exactly what this mana was.
And yet, for some reason, I was certain. Certain that this disease would never get the chance to spread now.
There was still much to learn from this black mage. If I studied that giant—
Then even if something similar happened again in the future, I would be able to overcome it.
That was surely how they had created a vaccine for the disease in the novel too.
“Hiiik!”
As Evan’s gaze fell on him, Kalipa let out a scream and felt the cold edge of the blade against his neck.
The blade bit into his skin, and blood began to flow.
When Kalipa’s eyes rolled white at the sight of that red spilling out, Evan slowly spoke.
“I’ve got a lot to ask you.”
Why he had done this, why it had to be Yuris, why—why in the world he had done such a thing.
But asking him outright would not solve anything.
Wasn’t there a proper way to pry information loose from a man like him?
I felt strangely hollow, but I had to accept that this was as far as I could go for now.
“But I doubt asking will do me any good.”
Torture.
“N-no!”
Torture
The word flashed through his mind, and Kalipa let out a beastlike shriek.
That above all else—he had to avoid that above all else.
He did not want to feel his flesh sliced away or his nails torn from his fingers again!
Green!
Kalipa writhed beneath those green eyes fixed on him. He wanted to live—he wanted to live—
“Goodbye.”
Evan looked at Kalipa quietly, then struck him across the head with the sword hilt.
Only after the writhing black mage collapsed with a final cry did he finally exhale a heavy breath.
Now there was no darkness. The suffocating darkness that had swallowed this whole area had vanished too.
The sky was showing its brilliant moon once more.
“...Haaah.”
I grimaced at the pain in my shoulder.
The arrow from before had gone straight through it, and blood was still flowing.
I’d told Irene not to get hurt, and now that I was the one hurt, I wondered what she’d say.
A laugh escaped me. It was absurd that the first person I thought of after such a fierce battle was Irene.
When had she become such a presence in my head? Still, it couldn’t be a bad thing.
That we had grown even a little closer, and that she too was now worrying about me.
When I raised my head, the moon looked strangely blue, and for a moment I closed my eyes and drew in a breath.
The sword in my hand felt especially heavy.
Was it because I had pushed my mana so far?
My shoulder trembled with the fatigue piling up in my body.
I wanted to rest.
Honestly.
#
“The moon’s visible now!”
The darkness lifted, and the knights who saw it erupted into cheers.
Evan Fried had done it. Even the knights who still barely knew his name threw up their hands and shouted.
“...Evan.”
Between narrowed eyes, blue irises finally began to regain their light.
The heart that had felt ready to burst from anxiety settled back into place, and I lifted my head with a shaky exhale.
“It seems Evan did well.”
“Thank goodness.”
Truly, thank goodness.
Sir Chris looked almost proud of him, smiling as he stared hard in the direction Evan had gone.
Had he been hurt anywhere? He had told him not to get hurt, but didn’t he also know how difficult it was not to be injured in a fight with a black mage?
“He’ll be fine. Evan is much stronger than I know how to put into words.”
“......”
My gaze remained fixed beyond that darkness.
Sir Chris said something about not worrying, but I couldn’t stop myself from fretting.
What if he had suffered a fatal wound? What if they had injured each other badly enough to die together?
Just as I was wondering whether I should move myself out of sheer anxiety, one of the knights’ voices reached my ears.
“Evan’s back! He’s captured the black mage!”
“Looks like he’s unharmed. Isn’t that a relief?”
And yet the unease did not vanish. Even as I stared at the faint figure visible beyond the darkness, the anxiety rising in a corner of my heart would not go away.
“Evan, you had us all worri— you.”
The moment Sir Chris saw Evan, his broad grin gradually stiffened.
My anxiety deepened. My brow furrowed a little more, until at last I could just make out Evan’s shape in the darkness.
Red.
The instant I saw the blood running from Evan’s shoulder, my eyes flew wide open.
My breath came short. It caught at my throat, and I let out a heavy exhale before murmuring softly,
“Evan.”
I told him not to get hurt, so what was all that blood pouring from his shoulder?
Before I knew it, I was already walking toward my bodyguard knight. I had said so confidently that he would not be hurt, that nothing would be different from before.
“...My lady.”
His face was worn down with exhaustion, and yet he still looked up at me and offered a faint smile.
I didn’t want him smiling.
What I wanted was not for him to smile at me. I only wanted him not to be hurt.
“Didn’t I tell you something?”
My voice came out colder than I intended. I hadn’t wanted that, and yet I was startled by how much anger had seeped into it.
Evan was still smiling. That smile made my chest ache.
“You told me not to get hurt.”
“...Then what is that shoulder?”
The wound was no small thing, not with the hole torn through it and the black stain visible beside it at a glance.
Had he been struck by black magic? I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them again and looked at Evan.
“I got hurt while fighting.”
“Don’t say it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I told you not to get hurt.”
“I’m sorry.”
My bodyguard knight lowered his head to me. Was this what I had wanted?
No, I had only wanted him to be safe.
I should have been grateful just to see him come back alive like this.
I clenched my teeth. Letting out a heavy breath through them, I quietly lifted my head.
Dong—
And then a bell rang. The bell that echoed through the city at midnight, the one that announced a new day had begun, sent one thought flashing through my mind.
His birthday.
Today was the day my bodyguard knight had been born, wasn’t it?
Emotion welled up so suddenly that I rubbed a hand over my face.
On the day I was born, he had stained his sword with blood.
I ought to have been grateful that he had returned to me while dragging a wounded body behind him, and yet I regretted the sharp words I had thrown at him.
In the first place, I wasn’t angry at all.
I had simply been so relieved that he came back like this that I’d ended up scolding him instead.
“If you wish to punish me, I’ll gladly—”
“Why would I punish you?”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. I no longer understood my own heart.
What was this strange feeling?
I was angry that he’d been hurt, and yet whenever I looked at his face, that anger melted away as if touched by snow.
I didn’t know what to call this confused heart, this feeling that seemed almost like some sort of spell.
So I could only whisper to Evan, who was looking at me still.
“...Happy birthday.”
I had many things I wanted to say, but for some reason, those were the only words that came out.
I wasn’t angry.
No, after seeing my bodyguard knight like this, I was certain I would never be able to get angry at him again.
No one would know why. Not until the day came when I myself could finally name this feeling.
No one—not even me—would know.
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