Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 28
Chapter Title: The Sofa Ride to the Rescue
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Calipan locked eyes with Aiel, who was gazing at him with a serious expression, and finally burst into laughter.
"It's real, bro. You caught me off guard in a way I never expected. I can't even move."
Aiel's eyes rolled in confusion.
"What is it? Why are you laughing...?"
"No..."
Calipan swallowed his chuckles and tightly gripped the red gem ring that had lost its glow.
His dark blue hair swayed faintly, and his sharp black eyes gleamed softly.
"If you have to wear that ring to go save people, then I'd look like a total idiot."
There was a peng! sound from Calipan's hand. The ring turned to powder and scattered.
Calipan yanked off the necklace hanging around his neck.
He held it out to Aiel, who stared at him in bewilderment.
At the end of the necklace chain dangled a ring identical to the one he'd just shattered.
It glowed with a vivid red light.
"Let's pretend that last ring never happened. Here, take this one instead—and save it for something personal later, okay?"
"But the Second Magical Research Lab right now..."
"Don't worry. A Jedkaizer knight doesn't abandon people in danger and run."
Calipan reached out, bringing his hand toward Aiel's head.
Before his hand could touch the small, round head of Aiel—who was much shorter than him—Calipan sucked in a sharp breath.
"I almost got killed by Mayches-hyung."
Calipan quickly redirected his hand to scratch the back of his own head. As if to defuse the situation, he hurriedly changed the subject.
"But the Second Magical Research Lab is pretty far from here. It's in another building... And I can't just carry you like luggage. What should we do?"
"I'm fine! You can carry me like baggage and run!"
"Sometimes... the person's own 'I'm fine' doesn't matter."
Calipan thought for a moment, then told Aiel to wait and turned away.
Before Aiel could ask what he was thinking, in the blink of an eye, Calipan had vanished.
She looked around, but no trace remained—not even an afterimage—of Ileneias's strongest swordsman.
Aiel decided to wait as Calipan had said. She mulled over his words.
'A Jedkaizer knight doesn't abandon people in danger and run.' She knew that. She knew they were that kind of people. That's why they charged into battle against magical beasts without holy water. On that frozen ground, they spilled their own blood to hold the defensive line. Because if they fell, the people behind them would be in danger. They might die, and it terrified them. But in the end, they didn't run. The knights of Jedkaizer carried that kind of pride. What Calipan had chosen, after pondering how to transport Aiel safely, was this.
"Hmm, theoretically, it should work."
Calipan called over a passing male student for a test run. When he secured the student's body with a curtain tied in place of a seatbelt, the student felt his heart pounding. When Calipan lifted the sofa and spun it down the hallway with the student aboard, the student instinctively spread his arms wide, savoring the wind. Calipan asked, "Any discomfort? Anything feel unstable?"
"Happy... no, comfortable... I could go all the way to the ends of Ileneias..."
Calipan was satisfied with the response. He set the dazed student down—hand on chest, dreamy expression—and picked up the sofa again. He returned to Aiel and confidently showed her the sofa.
"Get on."
What Calipan had overlooked was that Aiel had no romantic notions about a bizarre drive with Calipan Jedkaizer. Just minutes ago, her awe for the Jedkaizer house had her eyes misty, but his single word forcibly yanked her from that sentiment.
"The verb... feels wrong. Saying it like that makes the sofa sound like a vehicle."
"Let's call it a temporary transport."
Calipan spun the sofa in his hands—whoosh, whoosh—until the seat faced Aiel. The massive, heavy leather sofa—big enough for eight people—whipped up gusts of wind as it turned. Aiel felt her hair flutter twice in sync, and her eyes glazed over.
"Motion sickness?"
"No. I'm fine..."
Aiel experienced an astonishing ride as they zipped down the hallway. As expected, a sofa driven by the continent's top knight (not a chauffeur) was something else. Ride comfort: 5/5, safety: 4.5/5, weirdness: 80/5. Everything was smooth except for the students in the hallway parting like the Red Sea before Moses.
"Lord... Jedkaizer...?"
Someone's dreamy call to Calipan brushed past Aiel's ear and faded into the distance behind them with a whoosh. Calipan, who had said, "Sometimes the person's own 'I'm fine' doesn't matter," had chosen a method where the person in question was very much not fine. Feeling the curtain fabric flutter against her with every dash—shara-lang, shara-lang—Aiel just hoped this would end quickly. The open-top car experience, which felt like the longest time in her life, finally came to an end. Calipan and I arrived in front of the Second Magical Research Lab. We exchanged a silent glance, then looked at the lab's window. The door was tightly shut, but there was no need to open it. Purple smoke was seeping out, ominously blanketing the bottom of the window from the other side.
"Poison smoke? Did 'From Mayches Rudelriz, with utmost respect to you' go off?"
He says the full name so casually in the middle of this crisis. And phrasing it like that makes our Mayches sound like the black幕 villain... Anyway, the crisis's gravity instantly shoved aside any lingering aftereffects of the open-top ride. I shouted urgently.
"People inside...!"
"Twenty-seven of them."
I was just about to say we need to rescue them quick since there are so many... Calipan casually stood with legs apart. He was holding the ridiculously heavy sofa, and I was sprawled flat on it, peeking my face under from below. Calipan looked up at me, then stepped back a few paces from the door. He set me down on the ground sofa and rummaged in his inner pocket. Out came a single handkerchief and a tiny glass vial the size of his pinky finger. Calipan uncorked the vial with his teeth, tilted it over the handkerchief—and way more liquid poured out, gurgle gurgle, than the vial's volume should allow, soaking the cloth.
"Here, I've sprinkled it with holy water, so cover your nose and mouth with this, and you won't get poisoned."
"What about you, Lord Calipan?"
"Stuff like that doesn't poison me to begin with."
Ooh... that's kinda cool? I decided to take it obediently. If I passed out, it'd just add to Calipan's workload. While I pressed the handkerchief to my mouth, Calipan peered through the window at the classroom, frowning.
"It's not just poison—looks mixed with a curse. Lethal if left too long, but from the vibes, the students inside are just temporarily knocked out."
"Shouldn't we get them out quickly?"
"Can't, not without knowing the curse. Some curses are wildly creative. Get too poisoned, and you die if you don't keep breathing the smoke. Poison so you die if you keep inhaling, curse so you die if you stop."
What kind of filthy curse is that? What beef did ancient people have with life to invent such things?
"Th-then how do we save them?"
"Holy water can handle both, but I don't know if I have enough. I could ask Daluh-hyung to make more, but he's in his power-saving period right now..."
He was right. In the original story, Daluh spent days in the temple cave making "blessed water" that only saints could produce. That's why holy water supplies ran low when the Jedkaizers were in peril. Calipan shook the little vial of holy water, lost in thought.
"The only option now is to use this holy water as efficiently as possible. Just enough per person... so I'll have to monitor their conditions and drip it in little by little."
Even at his young age, Calipan's judgment was swift. He was calm like someone who'd faced crises many times, bold in making decisions.
"I'll need someone to help. Let me grab another person."
Calipan answered his own question, nodded, and turned to leave. Reflexively, I grabbed the hem of Calipan's clothes. Despite the split second, he turned back immediately. It couldn't have been my strength that stopped him; he must have sensed it like the master he was.
"You said it'd be fatal if left too long, right? I'll do it."
"...What?"
"Put me on the sofa and take me inside. The smoke's at floor level, so with the handkerchief, I'll be safe. Load the students onto the sofa, and I'll check their conditions while feeding them the holy water."
Calipan's face, calm until just now, crumbled in shock.
"Absolutely not!"
"Why? Don't underestimate me. I can walk just fine."
"Ants walk fine too."
"Did you just call me an ant...?"
"No way, Mayches-hyung's little sister. Ah... seriously, no. You stay here and wait. What are you gonna do in that condition?"
Forget the weird way you're calling me—consider how urgent this is. How long to find someone, explain, give orders? We don't even know how much holy water we'll need; bringing help means using more on them too.
"Don't worry. It's not like I'm just charging in blindly."
I snapped open my bag and solemnly pulled out "that potion" I'd been saving.
"I'll do it."
Calipan flinched at the glass tube in my hand.