Chapter 84
Chapter 84
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 84
Chapter Title: Defense - 2
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I’ve experienced mental breakdowns so many times that I’ve grown numb to them, and I’ve suffered through countless status ailments in the process, so I could tell exactly what was happening to Leventia and Evangeline right now.
And of course, I knew the cure.
But treating them now wasn’t an option, so I had no choice but to take them out with me.
“Let’s go.”
“Ugh... Oppa...”
“Ah... Hn...!”
Leventia clung to me like a child, whining spoiledly, while Evangeline flinched even harder the moment I took her hand.
The moment we came out with them, the ripples vanished, clearing a path.
“Leventia!! Evangeline!!”
Veronica, who had been sitting and waiting, charged at us with a roar of fury. Her pretty face twisted in anger, she immediately swung a fist infused with holy power.
Or at least, she tried to.
“W-Waaaah! Waaaah!! Unniii! Waaaah!! Scary!!!! Unni, I did wrong!! Leti did wrong!! Hwaaaah!! I said I didn’t wanna be a knight and that’s why I did wrong!! Waaaah!!”
The instant she saw Veronica charging, Leventia turned pale, collapsed to the floor, and began wailing as if her world was ending.
And then.
“K-Kill... me... Haa...”
Evangeline muttered blankly with a dazed expression before grinning creepily at Veronica.
Neither of them was in their right mind.
“...What? Why are they... like this?”
Only then did Veronica seem to notice their conditions.
Her eyes wide, she alternated between looking at Leventia and Evangeline before turning to me. I just shrugged.
“You can see for yourself.”
“They’ve... come down with some kind of mental illness?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“Waaaah!! I did wrong! I did wrong!! Waaaah! Aaaah!! Leti did wrong! Don’t hit meee!! Waaaah!! Oppa!! Oppa!!”
Leventia, sobbing on the floor, crawled over on her hands and knees and hugged my legs tightly. Unlike her, Evangeline stayed back from us, kneeling with a face full of humiliation as she muttered.
“Hn... Hnngh... I... I...”
At the sight of them, Veronica ground her teeth and raised her fist.
I grabbed her hand.
With the level of mental illness they had, nothing we did now would matter.
Which meant Veronica’s punches would just be a pointless waste of energy.
“And is it okay for a priest to hit the sick?”
“The Lord said it himself. Just beat the sinners. Beat them twice.”
“That’s one brutal god.”
Cecil approached from behind with a wry smile as she watched. She first coaxed and soothed Leventia, who was plastered to my side, prying her off before giving her a quick look and saying curtly.
“...She’s like the old Leventia.”
“The old one, huh.”
“As far as I know, she used to be this fragile. She liked dolls more than swords...”
“Yeah?”
“She started dreaming of being a knight... after her father—my uncle—passed away.”
In the story, Leventia had admired and followed her father, an outstanding knight, and after his death, she aspired to become an excellent knight herself.
If she’d regressed to her pre-knight days, then this tearful state wasn’t so strange.
“And her...”
“Haa... Haa...”
Breathing raggedly, Evangeline bit her lip hard. Her face was flushed, her body twitching nonstop.
Her eyes darted to me, Leventia, and Cecil.
Scanning us quickly, her breathing grew even rougher.
“...What’s wrong with her?”
Cecil didn’t know about Evangeline’s condition either.
Well, it was a mental illness that only afflicted a rare few among elves, so it was understandable.
“When an elf’s self-deprecation reaches its limit, they end up like that.”
It was the same in the game.
Of course, I’d need a proper diagnosis, but from the looks of it, Evangeline had the mental illness that struck when self-deprecation worsened.
She was probably afflicted with ‘Defeatist’.
And... it seemed she’d developed some weird fetish too.
“For now, both of them are out of commission for battle.”
“Yeah... probably.”
Leventia’s infantile regression went without saying, and Evangeline wouldn’t be able to fight either.
In Defeatist state, all attacks failed.
No, forget that—even things that could succeed wouldn’t.
She wouldn’t even be able to attempt anything.
Cecil looked pretty shocked by Evangeline’s change.
Which made sense—elves were generally full of pride and didn’t show such sights.
But when they fell, they plummeted endlessly, so it wasn’t odd.
I stared intently at Evangeline, who was grinning from a dark corner while watching us. The moment our eyes met, she snapped out of her daze and hurriedly bowed her head.
“Ah. Aaaah! Seriously!”
At their states, Veronica shot me an aggrieved look. Then she stomped her feet and threw a few punches at the air. She was cute when angry, but this would just build up her stress and cause problems.
“Ah... ?!”
So I grabbed Veronica, pulled her close, and hugged her.
An easy way to relieve stress was skinship with someone close.
There was that saying: just hugging and soothing someone steeped in depression a lot could greatly reduce it.
Like the skill usable when affinity with a comrade was high enough, I hugged Veronica and patted her back.
“I’m fine. Okay? Don’t get mad.”
Veronica, who’d been clenching her fists, hugged me back. After a moment, once she’d calmed, she rested her face against my chest.
“...Hug me tighter.”
She murmured softly, embarrassed. No reason not to, so I squeezed her tight.
“Ngh...! Tell me it’s okay.”
“It’s okay.”
“Say my name...”
“Veronica. I’m okay. So, alright?”
“...Hngh...”
With a low breath, Veronica’s body grew a bit heavier. Probably leaning into me more. I stroked her long hair. How long we stayed like that? Only after her breathing fully steadied did I let her go.
“......Haa.”
“Alright. Shall we keep going?”
“Yeah. But what about them?”
“What do you mean? They’re retired, so we leave them here.”
I pointed at Leventia, who was sniffling, and Evangeline, who had lifted her head again and was staring blankly at me and Veronica while twitching.
Leventia and Evangeline being out wasn’t a problem.
In this event, me and Veronica were the key, and we’d planned for just the two of us from the start.
The issue was their conditions worsening as we tried to leave them, but that wasn’t a problem either.
“Sleep.”
Cecil’s status ailment spell solved it in one shot.
As expected of Cecil. She had the makings of an archmage!
“But will that hold? They were in the hero party, after all... Won’t their resistance wear it off quick?”
“That resistance only works when their minds are clear. Alright. You all stay here and guard them.”
“How long will it take?”
“Who knows. Not too long, I bet?”
“You’re fighting demons?”
“With an excellent cardinal here, what’s to worry? Just trust Veronica and go.”
“Y-Yeah! Trust me! I’ll handle everything!”
I raised my hand to Veronica, who’d been even kinder to me lately—well, she always had been, but more so now. High-five.
Cecil, watching us, sighed and beckoned to the rear. The Duchy Knights looked anxious but followed orders and stayed, so only me, Veronica, and Cecil headed to the next trial.
“By the way, Sage. What about those two...?”
“What about them?”
“No, what are we gonna do with them...”
“Cure them.”
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
Surprised, Cecil and Veronica stared at me with wide eyes. Their reactions surprised me more.
“W-Wait. Why? You’re gonna... heal them, Hyunwoo?”
“Yeah... Is there a reason not to?”
Leventia and Evangeline were major assets on the battlefield.
Countless monsters they’d taken down.
Without them, the front lines would push back, accelerating chaos and delaying certain achievements.
So wasn’t curing them better?
“But!”
“Let’s set aside personal feelings for now.”
“I can’t accept that. They deserve more suffering...”
“Hey now. That’s not priest talk. Forgot the doctrine of mercy?”
“Inquisitors are sensitive to sin.”
“‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’ right?”
“You sound more like a priest than me...”
“Haha. Yeah.”
Sometimes I wanted to go wild without thinking, but oh well. It all helped with achievements.
I patted Veronica’s shoulder, and by then we’d reached the next trial.
“Hm... Three patterns this time. Means up to three can enter?”
“Yeah. But I should go in alone for this one.”
“Monsters attack like before?”
“Yeah. But only one comes, so don’t worry. You two can take it easy.”
Veronica could handle it solo, and with Cecil, even easier.
As I walked toward the ripples, Veronica gripped her mace and asked.
“But what’s this trial?”
“The Trial of Temptation.”
The one most players cheered for.
That illustration was just...
“...Hold on!”
Veronica’s face hardened. She rushed over, grabbed me tight, and said very seriously.
“I-It’s really okay, right?”
“Trust me.”
This was nothing.
***
As Hyunwoo entered, Veronica let out a heavy sigh.
Thinking back to what happened made her stomach churn.
Leventia and Evangeline, who’d tormented Hyunwoo so much.
She hated how they’d crumbled to mere mental illness and fled.
Hyunwoo had endured it a hundred times over—and still was.
Not long after he entered the trial, mana began filling the surroundings.
What about the other paths?
Veronica bit her lip hard as she glanced at the passage they’d come through.
“Nice expression. To think that’s a priest’s face.”
“...Leave me be. It’s fine for an inquisitor.”
“Hmm. That sage... he’s something else.”
“Yeah?”
Even in Veronica’s eyes. She’d taken such a huge hit coming out of her trial.
Just seeing Hyunwoo’s past had filled her with this much anxiety.
Yet his own story, and he seemed totally fine.
What was his head made of?
“Didn’t expect him to say he’d heal Leventia and Evangeline.”
“...Haa. I’m worried too. With hearts that weak.”
“To stay by someone like that, you’d need real steel resolve, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“.......”
“......”
Silence stretched.
No topic to fill it.
In the awkward air, Cecil glanced into the darkness and muttered softly.
“By the way... that was the Trial of Temptation, right? Hmm... Temptation. What kind? A woman? Hm... Wonder what the sage’s type is?”
Veronica thought a moment, then opened her mouth with a confident look.
“...From spending so much time with Hyunwoo, I can tell he likes big breasts and big hips.”
Cecil glanced at Veronica’s outrageously ample chest, then at her own—slender and charming, but definitely lacking compared to Veronica’s.
She barely unglued her stiff face and forced a smile.
“That self-centered sage having his type right there and doing nothing? Maybe the premise is off? Like... he prefers slender types. Not saying me specifically, of course.”
Veronica and Cecil smiled at each other.
But their eyes weren’t smiling at all, and they thought the exact same thing.
This woman.
Doesn’t sit right with me.
Author's Note
Hello, it's Malmulmalmul.
It's freezing, everyone crank up the boiler.
See you tomorrow! Bye~!