A Pure Fool
Selphy...
Did Selphy really betray me...?
Was there truly no reason at all...?
My thoughts grew increasingly hazy.
Along with my heavy eyelids, the vision in one of my eyes felt particularly dark.
Just as I felt I might drift off to sleep if I let go of my strength even a little—
"He's a patient! I'll leave the money here!"
An urgent female voice rang out, accompanied by the sensation of my body being dragged along.
Thud.
My back was laid down on something much softer than the dirt ground. At that exact moment—
"I'm going to inject mana into you now! Keep your wits about you! Understand?"
...Inject mana?
My mind couldn't connect the dots to make sense of what she was saying.
But then, a warm hand touched my lower abdomen.
Whoosh!
A refreshing coolness spread deep inside my lower belly.
It was cold, but not freezing.
Like a stream of water, the energy spread along the pathways inside my body, branching out like tree roots.
Crack, crackle!
The golden energy that had been tearing through the walls of my pathways, destroying them from within—
Whoosh! Shatter!
—was frozen and shattered all at once by a translucent, sky-blue energy.
"Gasp...! Cough!"
As if suddenly pulled out after being submerged in the depths of a deep well, my airway cleared, and my consciousness snapped back into focus.
"Not yet. It's not over yet, so don't move."
"...?"
Hearing the voice, I turned my head to the side. I saw a woman with both palms pressed against my lower abdomen, sweat dripping from her fair forehead as she concentrated.
Hummm!
I understood immediately what she was doing.
The mana that the Hero... that bastard who took Selphy away... had forced into my abdomen.
Whirrr!
"Ngh...!"
This woman was pouring in her own mana to suppress the destructive energy raging inside my mana roads.
But why?
This wasn't the kind of treatment one would perform for a stranger.
Infusing mana to attack someone is as easy as dropping a single drop of poison.
But neutralizing it requires a massive amount of mana, like pouring a bucket of water.
"Whew... I think it's stabilized now."
Why was this woman going to such lengths for me?
I stared at her as she wiped the sweat from her brow, then looked around.
It was a typical, worn-down wooden inn room.
It seemed to be a single room, as there was no furniture other than the bed I was lying on.
Since the last place I remembered was the front of the inn where Selphy and the Hero were staying, she must have rented a separate room and brought me here.
"Thank... you."
The gratitude slipped out reflexively.
She had essentially saved my life, so it was only right that I look her in the eye and bow properly to express my gratitude.
"Thank you... for helping me..."
Yet, all I could manage was a faint murmur as I stared blankly at the ceiling.
"If you don't mind... can I ask what happened?"
At those words, I finally turned my head to look at her.
"I did help you, after all. I think I've earned the right to hear that much..."
She spoke grumblingly, but her eyes were filled with genuine concern.
She's a kind person.
Come to think of it, she had mentioned that the Saintess was her companion.
If she was Selphy's companion, then she belonged to the Hero's party.
According to the rumors, the Hero had filled his entire party with women for the journey to defeat the Demon King.
The Hero's obsession with women was notorious enough for the common folk to know. There were even rumors that his all-female party was merely a harem he was assembling for himself.
Perhaps this woman, too, was one of the Hero's women, just like Selphy.
"Ha..."
A hollow laugh escaped my lips.
Did any of that even matter to me now?
I had lost the woman to whom I had dedicated my entire life, the one with whom I had dreamed of tomorrow.
Moreover, as I had been sensing for a while, the vision in one of my eyes was blurry, and I couldn't put any strength into the opposite leg.
It seemed that as the Hero's mana tore through my body and destroyed my mana roads, it had severed my nerves as well.
I had truly become a useless wretch, unable to do anything.
"Well... you see..."
It didn't matter who she was.
I just wanted to vent.
From the day I first met Selphy long ago, falling for her smile and promising to dedicate my everything to cherish her.
"...She called me a madman. The last words I heard from her mouth before were that she would love me forever, and that I shouldn't even look at another woman."
How could she say that and then throw herself at the Hero?
"*Sob...* I lived like a complete fool, didn't I? I spent my whole life looking only at one girl, giving her my absolute best... only to be called a madman and left lying here like this."
Though I tried to laugh it off, my voice cracked, soaked in the boiling resentment inside me.
I wanted to be called an idiot. I wanted to hear that I had lived the life of a pathetic pushover.
I wanted that kind of criticism.
It felt like no amount of comfort could make anything better.
Slide.
"...?!"
I felt a hand grasp mine.
Squeeze.
She wrapped both of her hands around mine with surprising strength.
"No. That is not a life to be looked down upon at all."
She stared at me with unwavering purple eyes.
That was not the face of someone merely offering empty words of comfort.
It was a face filled with absolute, grounded conviction.
"I was born with many gifts without having to earn them. So, in my own way, I've lived trying to help those who are struggling and suffering as much as I can, but..."
Releasing my hand, she reached behind her head with both arms.
Rustle.
As she pulled off her hair tie, her bound hair cascaded down like the silken robes of a goddess, a waterfall of light-blue tresses.
"This is the first time I've ever seen someone who has lived their entire life so purely for the sake of another."
Having said that, the woman slipped off her jacket and proceeded to remove her top as well.
"...Excuse me?!"
Left in nothing but her undergarments, she made me completely forget the gravity of the situation.
"I-I have no choice! If I use my mana to its absolute limit, it will ruin my clothes."
She spoke with a flushed, embarrassed face, then—
"Let's hurry before your mana roads become completely unusable."
—instantly shifted back to a serious demeanor as if nothing had happened, extending her arms toward me.
But what did she mean by my mana roads becoming completely unusable...?
It was already a given that I could no longer use them.
The Hero's mana had riddled the pathways of my mana roads with holes. In a short while, they would all be clogged with blood.
"I will use my ice crystal mana to seal all the damage in your mana roads."
For a moment, I wondered what on earth this woman was talking about.
It wasn't because I didn't understand the meaning of her words.
Having received lessons about the mana road from my father since childhood, I knew more about them than most people.
"Why...? If you do that..."
If simply circulating mana earlier was something one wouldn't do for a stranger, then—
—what she was trying to do now, precisely controlling mana to repair damaged mana roads, was something difficult to do even for blood family.
It consumed far more mana than simple circulation, and the resulting depletion of mana could even put the caster's life in danger.
"Because I believe that someone who has sacrificed their own for another deserves to be rewarded. Don't talk to me from now on."
From the body of the woman, who had now closed her eyes—
Hummmmm...!
—a blue aura surged, and circuit-like patterns of sky-blue light began to glow across the exposed skin of her pale shoulders.
It was the phenomenon of overflow, which occurred when the mana road was pushed to its absolute limit.
"Haaah..."
A white puff of breath escaped her lips, as if she were breathing in the freezing cold.
Crack...! Crackle...!
Clatter...
Shards of ice formed around her body and fell to the floor.
By this point, it wasn't hard to figure out who she was.
The members of the Hero's party were already famous, their names spread far and wide by bards and guilds.
Among them, it was easy to recall the Ice Swordswoman who wielded the sword of ice: Seria de Valstein.
The only noblewoman in the party besides the Hero.
The sole daughter of Duke Valstein, a genius who had awakened the 'Ice Soul' mana road, a trait said to have belonged to her ancestor, the Ice Sword Emperor.
They said she was as cold as ice, haughty as expected of a noble, and difficult to even approach...
I had felt this way for a long time, but rumors truly were not to be trusted.
Crack...!
"Ngh... Ugh!"
You couldn't call someone cold when they were risking their life to help a stranger.
...Someone who sacrifices their own for another deserves to be rewarded?
I hadn't been rewarded even by Selphy, to whom I had given everything, yet this woman was acknowledging me.
Freeze...
One by one, the holes in my mana roads were frozen over and filled.
Thud!
"Haa... It's... done..."
The woman—the Ice Swordswoman—said as she collapsed onto my chest, completely drained of strength.
"Seria de Valstein..."
"Just... call me Seria... Haa... it's too long..."
Far from haughty, wasn't she incredibly down-to-earth?
"Thank you... I will surely repay this debt..."
Whatever she asked of me, I would do it.
"It's not a debt. I didn't do it expecting anything in return. It's just something I wanted to do. That's all."
I flinched at Seria's words.
"Is that so..."
It brought back memories of the past.
The time I had cut away half of my own mana road to transplant it into Selphy and save her life.
Uncle Locke, who had performed the surgery, told me that giving away one's mana road to another was no light matter and that I should demand compensation by any means necessary.
But back then, I had said those exact words.
That I didn't do it expecting anything in return.
In fact, everything I had done for Selphy had been like that.
I hadn't done it wishing for a reward. I acted solely out of a desire to protect and cherish what was precious to me.
If Selphy just smiled for me, I felt as though I had received all the reward I could ever need.
Even now, when her betrayal as my lover was clear, I didn't feel a deep resentment toward Selphy.
I just felt pity.
I felt pity that the man Selphy chose was that Hero.
He was a man who could be considered perfect in every way—appearance, family, and the title of Hero—but he did not seem to cherish Selphy.
It was mere amusement to him. The thought even crossed my mind that he might have intended to leave my corpse in front of the inn, anticipating my death.
Probably because he was curious to see how Selphy would react.
To the Hero, the relationship between Selphy and me was nothing more than a stimulating source of entertainment.
But so what? What could I do?
Should I go to Selphy and try to persuade her to change her mind?
My words would never reach Selphy, who had already branded me a madman and chosen the Hero.
And the same went for me.
Even if I saw Selphy's smile in the future, it wouldn't feel the same as it did in the past.
Even now, when I tried to recall Selphy's smile from the old days, her face was shrouded in darkness, refusing to take shape in my mind.
It was over... It was truly over.
No matter how much I had lived only looking at Selphy, even I knew that much.
I just... I just felt pity. It would have been better if she had met a good person instead.
"Just in case, don't even think about going back to the inn where the Hero is."
As if reading my mind, Seria spoke while putting her clothes back on.
"..."
"The Hero... that man is incredibly possessive. There's no telling what he might do to you."
When I stared at her in silence, Seria spoke in a sharp voice, as if recalling something deeply unpleasant.
"Also... this might sound cruel, but the Saintess looked like the Hero's woman. They... shared a room many times."
Even as she spoke, she kept checking my reaction.
It was clear she was worried I might try to end my own life.
"It's fine... It's what Selphy chose..."
My own words tasted bitter.
I had always envisioned a future with Selphy, but from now on, I would have to speak of her only in the past tense.
"You don't look fine at all. Judging by your condition, I should stay by your side and watch over you a bit longer."
"My body is truly fine... And I've already received too much help to impose on you any further..."
Sway.
As I spoke, the focus of my vision wavered, and my mouth refused to move.
"You're dizzy, aren't you? It's only natural that the injured person has a harder time than the one doing the healing."
Her words sounded muffled, as if I were listening to them underwater.
"I have to go back. I need to urgently deliver information about the place attacked by the demons. But! I'll find someone to help you."
By now, I couldn't even make out what she was saying.
Brush.
She placed a hand on my forehead one last time, gently closing my eyes into darkness.
"Don't die, and let's meet again someday. It's never pleasant to hear bad news about someone you worked so hard to save. Got it, my pure fool?"
An unforgettable, beautiful voice whispered in my ear.