If We Could Leave (7)
Archmage was jolted awake by the sudden throng of people bursting in.
“Guest! Guest!”
She spun around on reflex, thinking of the Demon Knight—and there he was, sure enough.
“The wounds!”
Only he had been half-dead when they carried him in.
“H-how in the world…?”
Through the slits of his crimson-wine vest, the white shirt beneath was soaked scarlet. Right around the heart.
Her own chest clenched hard.
“Everyone not needed for holding him still—back off!”
If the heart truly had been pierced, every second counted. Archmage tore the clothing open in a rush, sliced a bandage lengthwise, and checked the wounds.
One near the collarbone. Two around the heart. The edges were ragged, as if something uneven had stabbed him; blood welled and pulsed from the gouges.
“What in the…?”
Seeing the extent made her mind reel.
Judging by the blood loss, the shoulder wound had barely missed the subclavian artery—but the ones by the heart were unequivocally mortal. He was only still breathing because the strikes had not been direct hits.
“Cloth to stop the bleeding!”
She would do everything possible. Leaving only those needed to pin the limbs, she unfurled her magic.
How someone as strong as the Demon Knight had ended up like this did not matter right now. Saving him did.
“How… how did this man…?”
She pressed the wound sites until her white fur was soaked red, maintaining the spell. She had almost never seen him injured; the light armor she had always considered thin now felt bitterly inadequate.
Even if full plate like the Inquisitor’s was impossible, if only he had worn at least light armor… or at the very least a vital protector—
“…!”
Mid-cascade of thought, Archmage’s breath snagged.
There had been one. A protector.
One whose function was specifically to guard the heart.
…The one she had quietly stolen from the Demon Knight without his knowledge.
Her teeth clamped tight. The regret surging through her sprang from a branch of possibility she had never been free to choose.
“…If I had only known.”
Ah. If I had known it would come to this. If I had known he would be struck in the vitals. If I had known he would be stabbed near the heart and hover between life and death.
She would have… she would have…
No. She still would have taken it back.
Knowing an ambush was coming, she would simply have made him a new chest protector—or arranged things so the ambush never happened at all.
Therefore the regret boiling up now was worthless. The disaster and the fact that he had continued to wear that bomb called a protector were utterly separate matters; her remorse meant nothing.
Of course. How could she have known it would turn out like this when she took the heart protector?
She had merely hoped this man would not walk around with a bomb strapped to his heart. She had stolen it because she believed he would sooner detonate the bomb himself than ever give his heart to another.
Not because she wanted the injury to grow worse, as it had now.
So this was pure misfortune. Just as goodwill does not always yield good results, misfortune had simply outrun kindness this time.
That was all…
“O God.”
That was all, and yet—
“Bearing a demon was never this man’s sin. I beg you, show mercy.”
She still could not help painting the future in which she had never noticed, in which the protector—serving its nominal purpose—had lessened the damage.
“Grant him your grace.”
Sorrow spilled from the eyes of the seasoned sage.
Crack.
“…?”
In that instant a sound of something shattering reached her. Archmage’s wet gaze turned toward the source.
“Roll the shirt higher.”
Had they broken a bone while holding him down? Yet the sound had been far too clear for that.
She watched the one pinning the right arm peel away gauntlet, coat hem, and finally the shirt sleeve.
Whether the recovery magic would outpace the dwindling vitality was the real issue; shifting attention while the spell was already running posed no problem.
“…!”
But the arm beneath the cloth was fine. The trouble was the black fragments that had tumbled free from the sleeve as the shirt came off.
Shards of the sealing tool. She swallowed a low groan.
“Should we remove the bandages as well?”
“No. Leave those.”
Why the seal had shattered remained a mystery, yet without any sign of the demon running wild, treatment came first.
Besides, the bandages… they still stemmed the bleeding, and as long as they stayed in place, the secret the Demon Knight wished to keep was at least partially preserved. She focused on the wounds over the heart.
“Hhhk—!”
Yet before the flesh had even begun to knit, and less than ten seconds after the seal broke, the Demon Knight woke with a ragged breath.
The sheer volume of blood he had lost left his face deathly pale, so that he looked like a corpse rising—or a corpse into which a soul had just returned.
“Ah… this…”
“…! Don’t speak—no. Keep talking. Better than drifting off!”
“The child…”
Whether he had heard her or, in his half-conscious state, could only voice what he considered most important—
Either way, the Demon Knight coughed out words and blood together.
“Came… with me.”
“A child who came with you?”
That alone was too little to grasp the situation. She turned her eyes to those who had brought the Demon Knight.
“Was there a child with the Demon Knight?”
They looked awkward.
“W-well, it was a child who had escaped…”
“We… sent the child to the prison.”
“Escaped?”
“That child… also hurt…”
An escaped child? And the child was hurt as well?
“Bring that child here too.”
Hearing more would not make the picture any clearer.
But she doubted the Demon Knight would be pleased to learn an injured child had been packed off to prison.
Moreover the Demon Knight’s wounds somehow seemed entangled with that child. Better to hear the truth from the child himself.
Her hands never stopped pouring mana into the Demon Knight’s injuries.
“Y-yes.”
The bystanders were less than thrilled, yet none refused. Or rather, none could.
Only after Archmage had barked the order firmly did she glance at those hurrying off to fetch the child, then returned her full attention to the healing.
Watching them dawdle while every second mattered made heat rise in her chest.
“…?”
Yet one more headache still waited for her.
When she turned her head back to the wounds, a strange sight filled her vision.
Black energy—black mana—was gathering between the torn flesh.
“This is…?”
She wanted to know what it was doing, but there was no way to tell just then. She committed the sight to memory and concentrated on the treatment.
As she always had.
The Demon Knight clung to life with uncanny tenacity, and in the end he slipped free of death’s grasp.
—What do you make of this phenomenon?
In answer to the question, White Wind rolled her fingers thoughtfully.
According to Archmage’s account, his ordinary recovery rate was not especially remarkable.
Faster than a commoner’s, certainly, yet entirely within the expected range for a mana user.
But refusing to die from wounds of this severity was another matter entirely. Infusing the body with vitality through mana had its limits.
Were mana users monsters? He had walked for hours with the area near his heart stabbed open, no proper first aid, and still remained upright.
He had even lost that much blood and woken within half an hour to spit out words.
This was clearly abnormal.
“No result without a cause, and no end without a beginning.”
—…True enough.
“So there must be a reason for the Demon Knight’s stubborn hold on life… Could the demon itself be intervening in the body? Because if the Demon Knight dies, so does it?”
—I had the same thought at first.
“Hmm.”
But if that were the case… hadn’t it ended far too quietly? The demon could have seized the body in that moment, yet it had merely healed him and stopped. That hardly seemed demonic.
“You said the sealing tool shattered earlier?”
—Yes.
If the demon had truly been involved in the healing, it would never have finished so neatly. White Wind considered another angle.
“…Mana can substitute for the energy a body uses.”
Most of the times the Demon Knight’s seal had broken, the cause had been excess output. Of course, after many experiments he could endure a certain level now…
But given that it had still broken afterward, clearly anything beyond a certain threshold remained impossible.
So perhaps this incident was the same?
—Mana users do tend to have tougher life force than ordinary folk, but to this degree?
“That’s true of ordinary mana users. The Demon Knight’s mana capacity is off the charts, isn’t it?”
—When mana exceeds its limits… it can even postpone death?
“The greater the quantity of mana, the longer one can endure—that’s already been proven. We’ve simply never had a mana user as powerful as the Demon Knight before.”
—…Possible, then.
“Far more persuasive than the idea that the demon healed its vessel and then quietly withdrew.”
Given how close to death he had come, even if the demon had intervened it might simply have lacked remaining strength to seize control.
Yet one could equally hypothesize that the demon remained suppressed while the Demon Knight’s unconscious mind shattered the seal and drew on its power for survival.
Either possibility held water.
“We’ll need to ask him about this in detail when we can.”
Still—if the latter, good; if the former, dangerous.
White Wind wondered whether the Demon Knight would answer at all, then inquired after his present condition.
—Still asleep.
“Well, waking already would have been stranger.”
Waking briefly to say what he needed and then dropping off again had actually been the odd part. White Wind leaned back indifferently in her chair.
The seat brought from the Magic Tower was soft enough to ease the discomfort of the tribe’s floor-sitting custom.
“Ah, but why did the Demon Knight get hurt in the first place? Did a dragon show up? Or did he fight Sangun? Did they throw down?”
—…Nothing like that. He was hurt saving a child, apparently.
“The heart, of all places?”
—That is… ah. He’s waking. I’ll step away a moment.
“Sure.”
There was nothing else to do anyway. White Wind stayed put even though the link had cut, waiting for contact to resume.
Before long the communicator chimed again.
“Sooo?”
—Any spare sealing tools left?
“Huh?”
There ought to be extras—why look for sealing tools now? White Wind wondered even as she answered readily.
“Yeah, I have some.”
Having nothing better to do, she had brought a few more just in case she got bored and felt like improving them. Materials were in her spatial bag; she could even jury-rig one if needed.
“But why? Don’t you already have spares?”
—…He used one of the extras not long ago, it seems.
“When?”
—The day he was poisoned and slept half a day. It shattered then too, apparently.
“Really? Why mention it only now?”
—…I only just heard. I assumed it had been the snake that broke it, but maybe not.
Was that so? It felt as though the pieces still did not quite fit…
White Wind sensed the subtle misalignment yet could not pin it down, so she merely furrowed her brow.
“Got it. I’ll send one right away, then.”
But the thought lasted only a moment. White Wind was not especially interested in such details.
“Jatab still hasn’t given up, so who am I supposed to send…?”
Just then a knock sounded at the door.
“Excuse me. Your mages have caused another incident…”
“Berserk didn’t cause any incident.”
“Warrior-nim, please shut it. It isn’t that she didn’t cause one—it’s that I stopped her. Anyway, so… what’s with that look?”
By the purest coincidence, exactly the people perfect for the errand had shown up on their own.
White Wind smiled brightly.
“I’ll send those two.”
—Do that.
“What?”
The messengers were decided.
I had completely forgotten…
I stared at my mana capacity—well over two thousand—and sank into a complicated feeling.
It wasn’t as though I had truly intended to keep quiet and just get replacements from White Wind alone. That had only been a heat-of-the-moment thought back then.
But… after that I had forgotten entirely…
I checked my condition while guiltily watching Archmage out of the corner of my eye.
The bandages she had cut open for treatment had been restored, and I had put the unbuttoned shirt back on.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
The kid who had attacked me… well. The treatment looked decent. Bandages and splints were properly wrapped around the injuries. Somehow it looked worse than I remembered, but surely the kid hadn’t gotten more hurt after arriving in the village. Everything had been dark and chaos; I must have misremembered.
What actually bothered me was something else.
We’d returned to the village and the kid was injured, so if a guardian existed they ought to be here… yet with no one around, it really did seem there wasn’t one, huh. Hsss.
I started to reach out and stroke the head of the child crumpled in front of me, sobbing, then realized that would be character-breaking at dangerous levels.
Good thing only the kid had seen me slip into my real personality in the heat of the moment…
Still, you never know. While explaining the situation the kid might faithfully repeat every word I’d said—though no, that wouldn’t work. Different language.
For the first time I was glad we couldn’t understand each other. Whatever I said, they wouldn’t even know it was character-breaking.
But crying itself is universal. Now that that part had been witnessed, I still needed caution. Stroking a head was character-breaking too.
So I just gripped my right arm and leaned blankly against the wall. Maybe because the wounds weren’t fully healed. I felt oddly tired.
Or maybe it was from spending time near the waterfall without sleeping? Or because I’d blacked out from the injury yet woken after only a few hours, so the fatigue hadn’t fully cleared?
“We need to talk.”
Yet if I wanted to sleep off the fatigue, I still had mountains to climb first.
The karma of putting off the sealing-tool conversation had finally come due. Damn it.
“…Does anything… no. Are the injuries all right?”
You treated them yourself—shouldn’t you know better? I blankly checked my HP window.
After long experience I considered HP somewhat less than reliable, yet the numbers were still intuitive. At the very least, when it was full I wouldn’t die.
From that standpoint, I was fine.
The hole in my shoulder was only wrapped with bandage after herbs and ointment, the flesh around the heart had grown new skin that was visibly pink, and my HP kept dipping and rising in tiny increments!
But it wasn’t trending downward, right? That was enough. These were wounds that would heal with time.
Unlike scars carved into mind and heart, these would fade if time simply passed.
“…I heard the child attacked you.”
“And?”
Jumping straight to talking about punishing the kid, are we?
Of course, separate from my forgiveness, nearly killing someone was clearly wrong. Proper sanctions were warranted. Letting it slide now would only teach the kid bad habits.
But the punishments around here… I had a feeling they weren’t anything I’d like. This world was short on mercy and heavy on severity.
Attempted murder deserved punishment, yet since the kid already knew it was wrong, I at least wanted to avoid anything like the death penalty.
Ah, for real—no guardian? This kind of thing is supposed to be discussed with a parent.
“What would you like done?”
While I was fretting, Archmage—who had been carefully choosing words—finally asked. Unexpected. I had braced for “Why did you save the child?” or something of the sort.
“If we hand the child over to the tribe, they will likely decide the punishment themselves. Death is the most probable outcome.”
So Archmage also thought the kid would die, huh.
“I will follow your opinion. You are the one who was injured.”
Well. Hard to miss. The people who kept bringing things in and out had all tried to drag the child away, and there was no way she had failed to read the petty malice in their eyes.
I figured that was why she had cleared everyone else out the moment I woke, leaving only the three of us.
A measure to protect the child until the situation was clear.
“The child is saying sorry.”
Yet when I glanced at the kid while thinking such thoughts, Archmage seemed to take it as curiosity. It wasn’t exactly that.
Even without understanding the words, the nuance of language still carried, so I already felt what was meant.
“…Or are you curious why the child attacked you?”
“None of my concern.”
“Then…”
“Tell the child this.”
Above all, I…
“An apology is worthless.”
Of course I was curious about the reason, but the concept made asking difficult, and from the start I had never wanted an apology. Honestly, a child this young wouldn’t have drawn a knife on me for no reason.
So either I had done something wrong, or someone had put the kid up to it.
And I already had guesses for both. Considering the child had no guardian, it could be the child of someone executed because of me… or, for the latter, there was Atart, whose pride I had thoroughly crushed.
Therefore I simply… simply…
“There is no second chance.”
I hoped the child would receive a fitting punishment so as never to repeat this mistake—and through it grow into a better person.
As so many adults already had.
“You forgive the child?”
“If the child comes at me again, I kill. That is all.”
“…Then shall we hand the child to the tribe?”
“I said if the child comes at me again, I kill.”
“Is that so.”
I hoped Archmage would understand perfectly even when I spoke like an idiot, and tried Bluetooth-style communication.
You know, right? You must know. In a situation where handing the kid to the tribe means death, the judgment you need to make—something must already have formed in your head.
“…He says not to let the child waste time on apology, but to ensure the mistake is never repeated.”
“B-but…”
“Yes, yes. You’re wondering how forgiveness is even possible. But we understand your feelings too, don’t we? Right or wrong aside, your resentment is justified. Precisely because it is justified… we seek to understand.”
“…How can you people understand me? I—I lost everything…!”
“Yes. You lost it because of us.”
“And knowing that…!”
“Yet your parents tried to kill other people’s children.”
“……!!”
“That is why this one took up a blade, and why this one chose to save the weak. Those captive young children are the reason he interfered in your affairs at all.”
“…Th-that…”
I had no idea what Archmage was doing to make the kid cry even harder. What on earth was being said to stretch the conversation so long.
“I’m not saying don’t resent us. Whatever your parents did, we had no right to take them from you. You may resent us. Hating us is only natural. If you take up the blade of revenge again… I will understand. But… it seems to me you already know the answer yourself.”
“…I know. I know, I know… but I knew my dad and mom were talking about something all night…!”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Even so, even so I was so angry…!”
“It is not your fault. Your anger is rightful.”
“Dad…!”
I didn’t know what had been said. I also didn’t fully understand why the already sniffling child was now wailing harder.
“I’m sorry. We are sorry.”
Still, the child seemed to find some comfort, so I was glad.
“…Why must only the children suffer for the greed of adults.”
I quietly closed my eyes.
“Mm. Asleep, I see.”
Archmage confirmed that the wailing child had collapsed into unconscious sleep, then laid the small form aside.
Even afterward there was little left to do. The Demon Knight, too, had fallen asleep.
“Must have been exhausted.”
Ordinarily he was not one to close his eyes with others nearby.
She fetched a blanket that had been left in a heap and covered him with it.
The face of the soundly sleeping man looked neither like someone who had been stabbed through the heart nor like someone who had forgiven the one who stabbed him.
Yes. Simply ordinary. Like any young man of the pastures.
“…Even after nearly dying, he still grants one chance.”
Then did he mean to become a saint who wandered the world in a shepherd’s guise, matching that outward appearance? Or had he already become one?
Forgiving without even asking why the child had done it—such mercy was impossible unless one were a saint…
“Ha.”
Of course, it could not be so.
The merciless gods slew all who bore demon-kind, whether by choice or not. There was no chance a Demon Knight who housed a Great Demon would ever be chosen as a saint.
Yet if not a saint, how was one to explain his deeds?
She herself, upon hearing the circumstances, had either withdrawn the punishment out of pity or refrained from detailing it so he would not feel needless guilt.
But a man who forgave without even listening—what category did he belong in?
Foolishly kind? Well. He was no dullard. He must have guessed a fair amount and still chosen forgiveness.
Yes. He had known, and let it pass.
“Had you never become a demon’s vessel, we might have met in the temple.”
And so a question arose. A man who, even in this plight, still offered a child a chance—if he had lived a more ordinary, peaceful life, how much gentler a person would he have become?
“No. Without knowing your past I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. They say traces of sword training remain… perhaps you belonged to a knightly house?”
The musings continued, reaching the Demon Knight’s past.
Had he been this coldly kind even before becoming a demon’s vessel? Or had he once been bright and lively?
Thoughts that came from wanting to understand the Demon Knight as a single human being. Curiosities he would never hear—and that would likely remain lifelong questions.
Hmm.
Just then the communicator chimed.
“Ah, perfect timing. Would your tribe there be able to take in one child—?”
—Mm-hmm. I’ll ask. But first there’s something I want to tell you.
Archmage pricked up her ears at White Wind’s words.
“What is it?”
Surely nothing had happened to the young thief or the warrior she had sent? She tensed slightly.
—Chief Serhang says that during the Katina period, one absolutely cannot meet Sangun—or rather, the swamp priests who serve him. If anything goes wrong it could be seen as illegally seizing the great-chief position, so no matter what strings one has prepared, during the Katina period one is never, ever allowed to approach them.
“…Is that truly so?”
If it was true, then what became of the promise the Bigabol chief had made?
—How should I know? Whether they knew and still claimed they could manage it, or whether they were bluffing. But Chief Serhang and the priests both said it clearly. Implicit permission or not, the swamp priests permit no contact whatsoever during this period. So what now?
It was possible Serhang’s faction was simply weak and everything appeared impossible.
Yet it was equally possible the Bigabol chief had been lying.
“…I lean toward the latter.”
—You think it was a bluff too?
“Tch. We wasted nothing but time.”
If so, every moment they had spent here, every bit of help they had given the Bigabol chief, turned worthless.
Archmage shook her head, blaming herself for having been so fixated on the chance of meeting Sangun that she never once doubted.
“If we can leave, better to leave at once.”
—Yeah. Then we don’t need to head that way either. But what about the kids who already set out? No mage with them, so we can’t even contact them.
“…We need rest before we leave anyway, so they’ll rejoin us on their own from this side.”
—Got it.
They’d already left? Sometimes too much initiative was inconvenient.
With that thought Archmage calculated roughly where they might meet those who had departed.
Yet she too had been robbed of sleep.
Unable to fight the fatigue any longer, she cast only a light barrier and let her eyelids fall.
She would think after she had slept.