Chapter 15
Chapter 15
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Rookie Adventurer Bern (12) - Desperation
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After leaving the rough cleanup to Renya...
Bern escorted Blanca back to the inn where she was staying.
Right after the battle, Blanca had been utterly dumbfounded by Bern's words and actions, but as time passed, her expression darkened. Now, she was openly showing her melancholic feelings for anyone to see.
Bern scratched his cheek and spoke to her.
"You don't seem to be in the best shape today, so get some good rest, and we'll meet again tomorrow. I've booked the room next door to yours, so if anything happens, I can respond right away. So please, don't worry and—"
"Bern. Wait, can you spare me some time?"
Blanca cut him off, looking at him with eyes that seemed to have made a resolve.
Bern hesitated for a moment, then sat back down in his chair.
Blanca's story began.
Blanca's mother was a mage.
This wasn't some metaphorical expression like "parents seem like mages to children."
Her mother could really breathe fire from thin air and heal people just by touching them.
Magic was a precious discipline.
Even the most basic spells, treated as entry-level like Tree Burning Magic or Water Freezing Magic, were prohibitively expensive for commoners—too costly to even glance at. And even if they somehow got their hands on one, it was usually a fake.
In that sense, it was downright bizarre for a housewife from a rural village with no particular talent to handle multiple types of magic so skillfully.
But young Blanca couldn't easily recognize that strangeness.
Her mother's appearance was far too refined and beautiful for a simple countrywoman.
A father she'd never even seen since birth.
An old sword tucked away in one corner of the house, which her mother always cherished and maintained.
The reading and writing she'd learned as if it were the most natural thing, along with proper table manners.
Only after growing up, venturing into society, and gaining experience did she realize that none of it was "ordinary." But as a young girl, she lacked the insight to grasp the value of what she had.
The mother and daughter's life was reasonably affluent.
Blanca's mother, with her beauty and grace, stood out as an anomaly in the rural village, but her powers were too valuable to reject her.
In a village without even a temple for priests or a proper apothecary, who would turn away a mage who could heal with a touch?
Blanca's mother never charged for healing the villagers, but because of that, people willingly offered "gifts" in return.
There was no downside to befriending the only person who could heal you, your family, or your loved ones if they ever got hurt or sick.
The respect and goodwill toward her mother extended fully to her daughter Blanca, and Blanca vaguely sensed it too.
Blanca loved her mother, and her mother loved Blanca.
Their peaceful, happy daily life seemed like it would last forever.
But that happiness was abruptly stolen away.
A thick, venomous purple mist.
Horrific screams echoing through the fog.
The jolly hunter uncle who used to hand her wild fruits while laughing heartily now wandered the streets with viscous fluid oozing from his half-shattered skull.
The village headman's third son, who had boasted about leaving the countryside to become an adventurer, now gnashed like a beast and tore into his brother's throat.
The dead attacked the living, and those victims who lost their lives became perpetrators, slaughtering others in turn.
In the hellish village...
The one who became the focal point for the people was Blanca's mother.
The flames she used to bake pies for Blanca now incinerated the undead into ash, and the villagers clung to her, struggling to survive.
Finally, when all the corpses had been cleared and hope dawned on the people's faces...
As if it had been waiting, it appeared.
"What unexpected fortune. I merely sought to replenish my foot soldiers, yet I find fresh heart material in this backwater village."
A grayish-white skull. The lich, with eerie blue ghostfire flickering where eyes should be, spoke in an excited voice, as if he'd stumbled upon a coin on the road.
Blanca, her mother, and the villagers couldn't muster a rebuttal to the lich.
With a mere flick of its hand, the horde of undead they'd desperately defeated rose again.
Seeing it effortlessly undo their hard-fought victory, the villagers all despaired.
All but one. The only one who trembled yet hadn't lost her will to fight was Blanca's mother.
Gazing at her, the lich spoke in a gentle, almost affable tone, as if a fun prank had just occurred to it.
"Killing you all and claiming your flesh and souls would be simple... but I'm in a splendid mood right now. So, I'll grant you one mercy."
"If you offer your soul willingly, I shall spare the rest."
The proposal, cloaked in the name of mercy, was in truth a poison laced with vicious malice.
In magic, intent was crucially important.
A contract forced externally differed vastly in binding power and durability from one entered voluntarily.
Being killed and having one's soul taken by the lich was one thing, but offering it willingly created bonds thicker and heavier than any shackles.
It meant eternal enslavement to the lich.
Young Blanca didn't know such arcane knowledge.
But gazing into the lich's gleaming, insidious eyes, she instinctively knew she couldn't let it be.
Hiding in the house with the other children, Blanca rushed to her mother.
Clinging to her mother's legs, she begged her not to go, sobbing that she mustn't.
Whenever she later recalled that moment, Blanca hated her child self enough to want to kill her.
What good was throwing a tantrum at her mother? Exposing her mother's weakness in front of the lich—what an idiotic, foolish thing to do.
If she'd truly wanted to help her mother, she shouldn't have gone to her side.
If she'd fled in the opposite direction instead, lightening her mother's burden even a little, her mother might not have made that choice.
Her mother soothed her wailing daughter and handed her the staff she held.
"I'm sorry, my dear. If I'd known it would come to this, I'd have taught you more, sooner."
"Eat properly, don't speak rudely, and practice your magic diligently."
"I love you, Blanca."
That was the last image of her mother that Blanca remembered.
With the warm light emanating from her mother's hand, the girl fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke, it was all over.
The awakened Blanca pleaded with the surviving villagers.
"We have to save Mother. Please help."
The adults who had always doted on her didn't respond to a single one.
No, they tried to dissuade her, fearing she might provoke the lich's wrath with some rash act.
Disillusioned, Blanca appealed to the lord who ruled the territory the village belonged to.
"An evil lich has invaded the village. It's probably still somewhere in this territory—please, defeat it."
The lord wouldn't even grant her an audience.
The soldiers meant to protect the people instead noticed the value of her staff and sword, and tried to seize them under the pretext of inspection.
Somehow escaping the soldiers, Blanca returned to the village and sold everything except the staff and sword her mother had left her.
With the money from that, she went to the Adventurer's Guild.
"I want to place a request. Please, take down the lich."
The staffer—who would later become the eastern branch manager—looked at her complexly as she offered a pouch full of coins, but accepted the request anyway.
But accepting a request at the guild meant nothing if no adventurers took it.
Skilled ones knew how dangerous a lich was and refused; greedy novices fled without even facing the lich, let alone its undead minions.
After this repeated three times, the lich subjugation request became a worthless eyesore no one glanced at. Then, Blanca finally admitted it.
No one would save her mother unless she did it herself.
And so, Blanca became an adventurer.
There were plenty of adventurers seeking a valuable mage companion, and Blanca had her mother's staff.
Though her innate magic power wasn't strong, with the staff's aid, she could cast powerful spells easily.
She rose through the adventurer ranks remarkably smoothly and even teamed up with skilled comrades.
If things continued like this, just a bit higher...
Then she could truly defeat that cursed lich and free her mother.
That was when another misfortune struck.
Crack.
As she tried to cast her most powerful known spell against a massive orc, a ominous bursting sound rang from the staff in her hand.
The magic backfired, and the intense flames veered off toward a noble's hunting ground instead of the orc, causing a fire.
The comrades managed to fell the orc, but after that, Blanca's path was all downhill.
The noble whose hunting ground burned demanded enormous reparations, which became Blanca's debt.
If she'd been at full strength, she might have paid it off soon enough, but without the staff, her magic was a shadow of its former self.
Unlike Blanca, now limited to ice magic, Karina—who harbored subtle rivalry for Blanca's flames, healing, and buffs—seized the chance to recruit a new healer. Soon after, Blanca was ousted from the party.
Blanca didn't resist.
She too was shocked to realize her "growth" had been mere illusion, propped up by her mother's staff.
She tried to climb back with a new party, but it wasn't easy.
She lacked the ability for rank-3 adventurers, and rank-2 ones sneered at her fall from grace, acting superior.
Practical adventurers who weren't swayed by jealousy recognized her utility and tried to include her, but precisely because they were practical, they cut ties upon learning of her absurd goal: lich subjugation.
As her fortunes worsened and she could no longer even pay the interest on her debt, forcing her to take receptionist work...
Blanca found him.
A talent with both madness and skill, who might join her impossible quest.
"That was you, Bern."
After spilling a story longer than Bern expected, Blanca slumped her shoulders, looking utterly drained.
"Someone with outstanding potential, naive enough to say 'my dream is to be an adventurer.' I thought using a rookie like that, playing the senior role and saddling you with my debt... would help achieve my goals in various ways. Or rather, I thought it would."
Bern tilted his head curiously.
"Not anymore? You haven't shown any shortcomings, though."
Blanca let out a deep sigh before continuing with another tale.
"In the goblin extermination quest, I was just your sidekick. Even without goblin-repelling herbs or fire magic, you would've completed it somehow."
Reviewing the request confirmed it, leaving her dejected, but she didn't give up.
It was just the first quest. Do better next time.
With her experience as an adventurer, she could leverage that to be useful. That's what she thought.
But this incident showed her expectations were far off the mark.
"My old comrades have prickly personalities, but their skills are top-notch. They didn't reach rank-4 as a party for nothing. Yet you suppressed them alone, without a single scratch."
What rank would an individual be who could overwhelm a quasi-rank-4 party solo?
Optimistically, mid-to-high rank-4; worst case, nearing rank-5.
Meaning Bern was already near the pinnacle of the Adventurer's Guild.
Did rookie or veteran even matter to such a being?
Would her paltry "tricks" hold value for him?
Bern had asked for her adventurer knowledge and experience, but to Blanca, that alone could never balance the scales against his power and madness.
One thing she'd learned wandering the world after losing her mother: one-sided giving never ends well.
Bern seemed favorable toward her now.
But how long would that last?
If he saw her as easily replaceable, that was the worst outcome for her.
So, to prevent that...
Swish.
Blanca's cloak slipped down below her shoulders.
Drawing close enough to feel each other's breath, she spoke to Bern.
"Teaching you adventurer knowledge. Not prying into your secrets. That was all you asked before... but is it still? Do you truly want nothing else from me? Tell me anything. I'll do whatever it takes."