Chapter 90
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 90
Chapter Title: Hail of Arrows
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The day the name Ruelverta vanished from the Meikahel Empire.
In the snowy expanse where flakes danced in the air, heavily armored imperial troops stood ready.
Tristan, the head of the Ruelverta family, had been slain by the hero Peter.
The family's forces had been thoroughly crushed by the hero's companions.
They had emerged victorious in the battle against the Ruelverta clan, which had devoured the empire.
But the soldiers could advance no further.
Their opponent was a single straggler.
Yet every soldier who had charged ahead had become a guest who would never return.
Caught off guard by this unexpected resistance, they had lost half of a brigade's worth of men.
In the end, they kept their distance, unable to close in easily.
Then, Cooperone of the hero's companionsarrived with reinforcements.
The divine archer renowned for his god-bow received the soldiers' salutes.
"Report the situation."
"Th-that is..."
Cooper surveyed the vast snowy plain with eyesight rivaling a hawk's.
What caught his eye were the countless imperial soldiers' corpses strewn across the snow.
And in the midst of those corpses, he spotted a lone figure standing.
"...So everyone who approached is dead?"
"Yes..."
"There's no way to think of them as merely wounded..."
At Cooper's words, the brigade commander bowed his head in shame.
After all, the empire's vaunted assault brigade was on the brink of annihilation at the hands of just one person.
"Ha... that guy..."
Cooper, who had been scrutinizing the enemy, couldn't help but admire them.
The figure was familiar to him.
"I suspected as much... the mad bitch from Ruelverta. To think she's still alive after taking my poison arrow just days ago."
"She's a complete monster... Sir Cooper. Why not just retreat? She'll freeze to death in the blizzard anyway. There's no point in fighting furtherbetter to withdraw..."
"No."
Cooper flatly rejected the brigade commander's suggestion.
"We must secure Tristan's corpse. We have to sever his head and hang it on display as an example."
"But..."
"I'll show you an example."
Cooper drew his bow.
Unlike ordinary bows, this massive one exuded an intimidating presence.
"The target isn't going anywhere."
Cooper lightly drew back the bowstring.
It was a bow that no one short of his monstrous strength could even hope to draw.
With a whistle cutting through the wind, the arrow vanished from his hand like magic.
By the time the soldiers noticed, the arrow had already struck home, piercing the distant foe precisely.
Yet the enemy didn't so much as flinch.
"She's not immortal. You lot, fire your arrows too."
"Yes, sir!"
The soldiers hurriedly drew their bows.
Cooper loosed another arrow into the air.
The shaftlonger and sharper than any standard arrowsliced across the snowy plain.
It pierced Helga's shoulder.
But Helga didn't budge from her spot.
She had to protect the man's corpse cradled in her arms.
"Count... I'm sorry I'm late... My legs aren't what they used to be... Heh heh..."
Helga smiled faintly as she spoke.
Her legs were a mangled ruin, bones protruding grotesquely.
She knew she would never stand again.
But it no longer mattered.
"Even after I said all this, you should scold me... right? Count..."
No reply came.
Another arrow thudded into Helga's back.
Yet she ignored it, gently caressing the face of the man in her arms.
"Did it hurt a lot...? Were you in so much pain...? Don't worry now that I'm here."
A hail of arrows began to fall.
They flew relentlessly toward Tristan's corpse.
But not a single one touched his body.
Helga's form shielded him completely.
"If only I could see your face one last time... If I could just gaze into those cold eyes once more..."
Helga's fingers traced Tristan's face.
She felt his eyes, nose, lips.
The poison spreading through her body had stolen even her remaining vision.
Not only thather sense of touch was fading too.
Time was running out.
Helga pulled Tristan's corpse closer.
"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you in this life..."
An arrow pierced her back.
Blood poured from her mouthperhaps her lungs had been ruptured.
Even so, Helga didn't stop speaking.
"Cough... But in hell, I'll protect you, Count..."
Another arrow embedded itself in her back.
"Please don't reject my feelings then..."
Helga strained to press her lips to Tristan's.
It was the fulfillment of a long-held wish, but tragically, she felt nothing.
The poison had numbed her lips as well.
The sorrow of it brought tears to her eyes.
"Sniff... Otherwise, you'd be... my brother would be so lonely... So... sniff... pitiful..."
Countless arrows riddled her body, but none hurt as much as these tears.
"So it's okay if I stay by your side until the very end... right?"
Helga endured the hail of arrows with her very being.
Until her life ebbed away.
That was Helga's end, as I'd seen it in the original story.
And now...
"Um... Count...?"
"Speak."
Helga looked at me with utter bewilderment.
"Do we really have to do it this way? I wouldn't resist you anyway..."
On a bed set up in one corner of the workshop.
Helga's limbs were bound with chains.
"Ha! Don't tell me you like this kind of play?! From now on, I'll be tied up in your bedchamber every night!"
She still seemed full of energy, judging by her words.
I pulled a palm-sized circular tin from my pocket.
Helga's eyes widened in recognition.
"Eek?!"
It was the same ointment I'd given her before.
Remembering that time, her face flushed red.
"You're going to do that sort of thing to me while I'm defenseless again?!"
She twisted her legs in flustered panic.
Ignoring her, I handed the ointment to Albert.
"Take a look at this."
"Hm? Ointment?"
Albert peered into the tin and soon let out a gasp of admiration.
"Ooh... Where did you get this? It's as effective as recovery magic."
"...Imported from abroad. Quite expensive."
"I see... The world is vast indeed. To think such a thing exists..."
Fortunately, my vague excuse satisfied him. Quite a convenient cover.
"But why show it to me? And why is the guard tied up like that?"
"There's something I want you to witness from now on."
"Hm?"
I slowly approached the bound Helga.
Helga, Tristan's loyal retainer, who stayed until the bitter end and met her fate alongside him.
Though she served the villain Tristan, her final moments in the original story had left a profound impression on me.
Since then, I'd been thinking about one thing.
The same events wouldn't repeat, but I wanted to repay her loyalty.
"Helga."
"Y-yes...?"
I placed my hand on her left cheek.
My hand slid up her soft skin and reached her left eye.
...
"...W-wait a minute! No way?!"
"Stay still."
Helga tried to grab my hand but couldn't due to the restraints.
I removed the eyepatch covering her left eye.
"...!"
The moment it came off, Helga turned her head away.
To hide her greatest remaining scar.
To conceal her one vulnerability.
"Helga. Turn your head straight."
"No... Count. I can't let you see this..."
"You belong to me. I'm saying I want to see what's minedo you intend to stop me?"
"But... this is uglier than the scars on my legs... I don't want you to see my ugly eye, Count..."
Tears welled in Helga's eyes as she spoke.
To her, the eye scar was a bigger complex than her legs.
She desperately wanted to hide it, but I wouldn't allow it.
"Don't talk nonsense. Are you daring to call something of mine ugly?"
"That's not..."
"Nothing I possess is ugly."
"...!"
"So, Helga. Show me your eye."
Her lips were pressed tight, on the verge of tears.
Finally, she parted them.
"Understood... If you say so, Count..."
Helga finally turned her head.
I could see the eye she'd hidden so carefully beneath the patch.
A pupil devoid of light resided there.
"Please don't stare so intently... It's embarrassing, so look quickly..."
Helga's left eye, lost to a mana surge in childhood.
Even now, the aftereffects caused mana to ripple within it.
She suppressed it with the eyepatch normally, but in battle, it leaked out unwittingly.
I gazed at the eye that had healed and reopened time and again, then spoke to Albert.
"Albert, can you heal this eye with the incantation you created?"
"What...?"
Using incantations for healing wasn't surprising.
Activating one on the wounded area was one of the most common methods.
Even artisans who weren't healers could do it easily enough.
It was simply applying the incantation to a living body instead of an object.
But Albert hesitated slightly, perhaps due to past events.
It didn't last long.
He began examining Helga's left eye.
"Hmm... Mana-induced injury. Stabilizing the mana isn't impossible... but even if treated, vision won't return. It's been neglected too long."
That was unavoidable.
The ointment I made could heal wounds at an astonishing speed.
It was even effective enough to regenerate severed limbs if treated promptly.
But Helga's wound was far too old for that.
Her eye, blinded and scarred repeatedly over the years, wouldn't regain its light even with my ointment.
That's why I'd considered one possibility.
A method beyond incantations.
Perhaps the only method.
I voiced it.
"If so, is transplantation possible alongside the incantation?"
"Transplantation? Well, that would restore vision, sure."
Good.
"But that's easier said than done. There's no donor volunteering, and hunting for one is outright illegal. I don't know what you're thinking, Count, but if it's unethical, I'll refuse."
"Don't worry. The donor is right here."
"A volunteer willing to give their own eye...? Here? Wait... hold on..."
Finally grasping my intent, Albert recoiled in shock.
"Count, you don't mean?!"
In a calm tone, I told him.
"Transplant my eye to her."