Ghost Bride
Ghost Bride
The desert sky, where no wind blew, was clearer than the sky on a day after the rain.
Stars that looked like they would pour down.
Milli, who had come out of the tent because he couldn't sleep, was startled once by the silver sand dunes reflecting the starlight, and startled once more by the Milky Way crossing the sky above.
Sleep had completely vanished.
Lost in ecstasy, he stood in place for a long time.
Having stood there for so long, it wouldn't have been destiny no matter who he ran into.
"What are you doing not sleeping?"
Estelle's voice.
Startled, Milli tried to lower his head in a hurry, but he got a cramp in his neck.
"Ggaak!"
Thanks to that, Estelle was startled too.
Because of Milli, who suddenly sat down and complained of pain, several people had their night's sleep ruined.
The relief team tent, with the lights on in the middle of the night.
Once the cause of the excruciating pain was revealed, Milli's face turned red, and Estelle burst into laughter.
The local healer smiled awkwardly and looked back at his superior.
"Shall I give you some anesthetic?"
His superior was not Estelle, the person in charge of the Academy Institute.
The person who had a contract with the Academy Institute and always guided them through different routes.
A tanned beauty with dark green hair.
For some reason, she was a mage who was treated with more respect than the acting head of the Hasmon Merchant Group, the local power in this region.
"No. He'll have to eat a lot in the future, so it's not good if he already builds up a tolerance."
Estelle seemed to have become quite close with her.
"Asera-nim. The sun will be up soon anyway, shall we chat?"
Thanks to her cheerful suggestion, even Milli was treated to a tea table in the middle of the night.
It was a strange tea table.
From the shape of the cups to the taste of the refreshments, there wasn't a single familiar element.
Milli kept gasping in admiration while looking at the tea table, and an excited Estelle taught him the tea ceremony.
Asera watched the two with a satisfied smile before asking.
"Were you two close originally?"
Estelle recalled Milli's official position.
"Ah..."
She smiled awkwardly and said as if making an excuse.
"That's right. He's an Academy junior, and I think my dad sent him? As a monitor."
Then, because of Estelle, who was looking at him with narrowed eyes, Milli was startled.
He happened to be drinking tea.
"Cough!"
Seeing Milli choke, Estelle burst into laughter.
Seeing that, Asera let out a dry laugh.
It was a very peaceful atmosphere.
It was to the point where Milli briefly mistook this place for the clubroom of the Hyper-Archaeology Club.
But peace did not last long.
Around daybreak.
A guard entered the tent where the three had fallen asleep while chatting and shouted.
"Asera-nim! It's an emergency!"
Milli and Estelle came to their senses first.
Only when the two, with groggy faces, slowly lifted their heads to look at the entrance did Asera, who had been sitting still, open her mouth.
"Calm down. It's all a scheduled event."
The guard swallowed dryly with wide eyes.
Asera stood up and asked Estelle.
"Do you still want to see the sanctuary of the Isit Religion?"
Estelle was slowly grasping the atmosphere.
Although her face was still groggy, there was worry in her voice.
"Is something happening?"
Asera smiled bitterly.
The sound of an explosion heard from afar answered for her.
Thung—
The explosion, which had become dull from traveling a long distance, passed by, vibrating the surroundings like an earthquake.
Followed by gunfire.
Asera asked again when the shelling began in earnest and the noise reached its peak.
"The battle will be over in half a day. Shall we pass through? The sanctuary of the Isit Religion."
Now Estelle was completely awake.
In fact, her level of alertness was higher than usual.
It was natural.
Tududududung—
Kung
Kugugung
Although they said it was far, hundreds of large-caliber magic cannons were being fired in succession.
Would a stray shell happen to hit their procession?
While inferring the cause of the battle with such worries, Estelle could not suppress her anticipation.
"We have to go."
As she stood up with a determined expression, Milli looked at Asera with eyes that seemed to be asking for help.
But he had chosen the wrong person.
Asera was the one who had recommended that Estelle visit the sanctuary in the first place.
She already knew that a battle would take place today.
After the explosions ceased.
While the procession was preparing to depart, Estelle asked.
"Who is fighting?"
Asera shook her head and explained.
"It's not a fight, it's a sweeping operation. The Isit followers smuggled magic stones, so Karla's Expedition sent a subjugation force."
Seeing the scene they arrived at, Estelle and Milli understood at once why Asera had specifically used the word 'sweeping'."
In the ruined village, there wasn't a single decent weapon like a magic cannon or machine gun.
Half of the corpses strewn about were young children and pregnant women.
Asera, looking down at the victims from her camel, explained with a heavy face.
"Isit followers are basically a nomadic people, so people with stories usually gather in the sanctuary settlements."
It was an abstract explanation, but just looking at the tragedy unfolding before their eyes, they could roughly grasp what kind of feeling it was.
Gaunt old people and children.
Young women holding newborns.
Young people missing an arm or a leg.
Seeing such people struggling to rescue others in similar situations, Estelle wasn't cold-hearted enough to heartlessly go her own way.
Hop
Estelle got off the camel.
Milli, who was hugging his rifle and guarding the surroundings, was startled and stopped Estelle.
"Sunbae? Let's just go for today, okay? We can't even conclude that the attacks are over yet..."
"No."
Estelle cut off Milli's statement with sharp eyes and then ordered her subordinates.
"Send a message to Karla's camp. Tell them we are starting an excavation, so please be careful with indiscriminate shelling like today."
After that, rescue activities followed.
The merchants of the Hasmon Merchant Group also naturally joined in and helped the people from the Academy Institute.
Because Estelle worked so enthusiastically, Milli, who was in charge of her protection, had no choice but to get busy as well.
When rescuing a child from a collapsed earthen cave, he got covered in dirt and went underground, and when amputating the tattered leg of a woman, he held her upper body and even got his forearm bitten.
Even though they saved hundreds of lives by going through such hell, the attitude of the Isit followers was cold.
A tent where they had hurriedly gathered the patients.
A man picked a fight with Milli, who was handing out water.
"You dog-like sea bastards!"
He knocked away the water Milli had offered, stood up abruptly, and started pushing Milli's shoulder with his only arm, and it was when he was about to swing his fist.
A creepy energy gathered between Milli and the man, and a bizarre phenomenon occurred.
An arm growing from the man's side.
At a glance, it looked like a human arm, but it was so black and crumbly that it didn't even look like a living organism, and it blocked the fist the man was trying to swing.
The man was terrified and fell backward.
The fierce eyes of the patients who had been glaring at Milli turned gentle, filled with fear.
The person who orchestrated this situation was Asera.
"You must distinguish between friend and foe."
She, who had entered the tent with a bright smile, moved her fingers as if conducting and controlled the 'black arm'.
Ududuk
The man screamed as bones broke.
Immediately after, the black arm grabbed the man's neck.
When the scream stopped due to the strong pressure, and only the sound of phlegm rattling and the sound of struggling echoed around,
"Asera-nim!"
With Estelle's voice, which sounded like a shout, ringing out, the black arm disappeared.
The fainted man.
The fluttering black mist.
Asera turned to look at Estelle, who was walking toward her with a sheepish smile.
"I've made a spectacle of myself. It's our own way of disciplining, so please understand generously."
Estelle stopped in front of Asera with a complex expression that showed various emotions besides anger.
Estelle, who stared at Asera for a moment in that state, turned to Milli and asked.
"Are you okay?"
Milli nodded blankly.
A while later.
When the rescue activities were roughly finished and people were gathered in twos and threes resting,
Asera approached Estelle and Milli, who were looking at the sunset without a word in front of the chapel overlooking the ruined village, and asked.
"Are you not going to the sanctuary?"
Estelle pursed her lips and pondered.
Milli asked back with a look of disgust.
"Wasn't this place the sanctuary?"
Asera laughed as if it were funny and pointed to the Stone Mountain in the direction the two were looking.
"The sanctuary is inside there. This place is just a village where the destitute who haven't qualified to enter the sanctuary gather."
Estelle asked.
"Asera-nim, are you an Isit follower?"
Asera shook her head.
Estelle, who widened her eyes as if it were unexpected, asked another question.
"What is the qualification to enter the sanctuary?"
"We don't know."
"Then how do you enter?"
"You can tell if you stand at the entrance. Whether you have the qualification or not."
"Are you qualified, Asera-nim?"
"Yes. Thankfully."
"But you said you aren't an Isit follower?"
"Yes."
Estelle, who pursed her lips again, looked toward the sanctuary.
And with a deep breath, she let it out.
"Let's go. Before the sun sets."
Milli, who had been listening blankly, closed his eyes tightly in misery.
Because the weather was so clear, it looked close, but the distance to the Stone Mountain was over 10 kilometers.
Milli was already exhausted to the point of collapse, but he had never once succeeded in stopping his club senior's runaway behavior.
This time was the same.
Milli's suggestion to rest until morning was neatly ignored, and Estelle and Asera headed toward the sanctuary with only one guard in tow.