Chapter 21
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Blood Pact and Decay
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At Luon's warning, Quen folded the finger he had extended and smiled playfully.
“What a shame, Amella. The deal is off.”
“Quen, that's enough. This deal is between you and me. Don't drag others into it.”
“I only stated what I want.”
His expression turning serious, Quen now pointed to Kyle's shield.
“Then how about that? An artifact that disrupts magical wavelengths is quite appealing.”
“Are you asking to die? Do you have any idea what this shield is!”
Amella extended an arm toward Kyle, who was so agitated he'd gripped his dagger, as if to calm him, and cut in.
“Quen, stop.”
Glaring at Quen with piercing eyes, she bit her lip and continued.
“The deal must only involve things related to me.”
Just then, Kyle interjected.
“Amella, I don't know the details, but do we really have to reinforce this seal? Can't we just hurry to the Magic Tower?”
Quen grinned.
“It seems your companion has yet to grasp the severity of the situation.”
Then, he looked straight at Kyle and said.
“This child cannot last more than a week in her current state. Before that, her very essence will be consumed by that stone.”
“What does that mean… Amella, is that true?”
“…”
Seeing Amella's silence, Kyle's expression instantly became complicated.
Quen offered him a cynical smile before turning his head to look at Amella.
“This was always your problem. Amella, for all your outstanding abilities, you were always too hasty. How many times did I tell you to think about the consequences before trying to solve something immediately?”
As if she didn't want to hear any more, Amella held up her palm and said.
“I'll make a blood pact. Will that suffice?”
At those words, Quen's eyes curved into crescents. Watching him smile brightly, as if he had heard the answer he wanted, Luon found it hard to shake the thought that all his previous unreasonable demands for the holy sword or the shield had been intentionally leading to this moment.
“You know what that means, don't you?”
“I do.”
Quen offered a short-bladed sword to the nodding Amella.
Taking the sword, Amella unhesitatingly gripped the blade with her palm, and fresh blood dripped from it to the floor.
She immediately moved her lips. The blood that had fallen to the floor floated into the air as if defying gravity, then transformed into a red circle composed of letters as small as millet seeds.
Amella gently extended her arm forward. The red circle followed its trajectory, flying slowly ahead.
Quen snatched the red circle from the air, smiling as he nodded.
“Received and confirmed.”
As he spoke, the red circle was etched into his palm like a tattoo.
“Hey. How about you stop glaring and hand over that lump of stone.”
At Quen's words, Luon looked at Amella.
When Amella nodded wordlessly, he tossed the stone slate over. Quen caught it easily and said.
“Enough dragging this out. Let’s begin immediately.”
As he spoke, a bright light erupted from his hand. The slate began to shake violently as a mixture of blue energy and crimson sparks poured out from within.
Quen thrust his other hand into the churning energies, and as he twisted and pulled, light flooded the room.
A moment later, when the light subsided, Luon could see Amella lying unconscious and Quen's hands, both charred black.
“…Belducias.”
Quen muttered softly, then handed the slate back to Luon.
“When Amella wakes, will you tell her? This stone is now practically a holy relic of Belducias. I've continued the work she started, but it will only last a fortnight at most. You'd best hurry.”
Luon silently lifted Amella onto his back, looked Quen straight in the face, and said.
“Move.”
Only then realizing he was blocking the way, Quen raised his hands in an exaggerated gesture.
“Ah, my apologies.”
Without a backward glance, Luon and Kyle left the room, exited the mansion, and passed through the rusty iron gate.
Kyle, who had been holding his shield up tensely the whole time, let out a sigh of relief and lowered his arm.
“Shit, with the way things are going… I’m definitely not going to live to a ripe old age.”
He looked at Amella, folded over Luon's shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and asked.
“Will Amella be okay?”
“If she wasn't going to be, she wouldn't have bothered with a deal in the first place.”
With that dry response, Luon started walking down the dark alley, the sun still not having risen. Kyle followed close behind.
The old orphanage in Dumfries was a notorious eyesore. Because its land ownership was officially documented, it couldn't be forcibly demolished, and so its infamy persisted.
Quentinuus, known publicly as the owner of the property and the director of the orphanage, watched Luon and Kyle disappear out the thorn-covered window and smiled faintly.
His hands were still charred black, but he paid no mind to such trivialities, his gaze shifting to his palm with an amused expression.
Gazing at the red circle that looked like a seal, Quentinuus said.
“Until we meet again, Amella.”
***
Amella’s eyes fluttered open as sunlight tickled her face. As she felt the clean flow of magic circulating within her, she was startled to realize someone was watching her.
“How long have you been there?”
At her question, Luon shrugged.
“Five minutes? Not long.”
“Did I sleep for three days or something like that?”
“Nothing like that. We just would have had to pay an extra fee if we stayed past noon. Neither Kyle nor I wanted to waste more money on this dreary inn, so we were only going to watch over you until then.”
“Ah,” Amella said, sitting up. She stretched, loosening her stiff body, then looked at Luon, who was silently assessing her condition, and asked.
“You must have a lot of questions.”
Luon countered with a sullen expression.
“Is there something you need to say?”
“About the orphanage, about the elf who called me his daughter, things like that.”
Luon scratched his chin.
“Well? If it were deeply connected to me, I might have pried. But as you said yesterday, isn't that a matter between you and that elf?”
Seemingly pleased with his answer, Amella gave a faint smile.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For coming with me.”
“It was noth—”
As if embarrassed by her words, Luon scrunched up his face and walked out. Amella quickly straightened her clothes and followed.
***
The old gravedigger, tirelessly swinging his pickaxe into the ground next to a rotting corpse swarming with flies, raised his head at the sense of a presence nearby.
With the clatter of hooves, three figures on horseback approached—two men and a woman. They glanced between the gravedigger and his shabby hut before dismounting and walking toward him.
The man with a large shield on his back spoke with a friendly smile.
“Good day, sir.”
“Who're you?”
“We're travelers. If it's not too much trouble, could we impose upon you for a night's shelter in your home? We'll pay you properly.”
The gravedigger hesitated for a moment at the polite voice before speaking.
“If you keep goin' down this road, you'll reach a village before half a day's passed. Might be better to go there instead of sleepin' near a place where corpses are buried.”
The young woman responded to his gentle refusal.
“Sir, the sun is already setting. Our horses are quite skittish, and we're worried that if we push our luck, we'll be forced to camp out in the open.”
As she said this, the woman offered a few silver coins from her pouch. The old gravedigger sighed and took them.
“I've got to finish my work. You folks go on in and rest. Might not be much room to sit, though.”
As the gravedigger turned and resumed his digging, the three tied their horses to a nearby tree and went straight to the house.
Pushing open the old wooden door revealed a simple but surprisingly tidy interior.
Kyle set his shield down on the floor and said.
“I expected it to be spookier, but it's not so bad.”
Amella chuckled at his remark.
“Did you think that just because he’s a gravedigger, his house would be like a coffin?”
“No, it's not that, but…”
After some idle chatter, the group roughly unpacked their things and sat around the table in the house. From outside, the continuous sound of a pickaxe digging into the earth could be heard.
Amella spoke.
“Thanks to our diligent travel over the past ten days, we've managed to cover a good distance despite the detour. It’s a relief.”
She added.
“Although it's unsettling, the fragment's seal is still holding. If we hurry, we should have the Clorensis Mountains in sight within a few days.”
Luon nodded.
“I see.”
At that brief response, Kyle narrowed his eyes.
“Luon, you look like you're getting antsy… Is it just my imagination?”
He's quick on the uptake.
Luon, who had been thinking that the past ten uneventful days of travel were getting dull, gave a slight shrug.
Just as before, he had little interest in things like when the fragment's seal might break or whether Belducias's minions were tracking its power.
Luon’s thinking was simple: if nothing happened, they would reach the Magic Tower as quickly as possible. If anyone got in their way, he would kill them and move on.
Just as Kyle was making a fed-up expression, as if having vaguely read Luon's thoughts on his face, the door opened and the gravedigger came inside.
He took off his coat, scooped several potatoes from a pot onto a plate, and set it on the table.
“It's not much, but…”
Amella waved her hands.
“Sir, not at all. We'll eat well, thank you.”
Though they were cold, the hearty potatoes were tasty enough on their own, and the group ate them without complaint.
Just then, Luon asked.
“The state of that corpse didn't look like a natural death. Has something happened nearby?”
The gravedigger, realizing a beat too late that the question was for him, answered quickly.
“It was so decomposed, it must've been hard to tell… You've got a sharp eye, mister.”
He swallowed the potato in his mouth, placed his clasped hands on the table, and leaned forward.
As if warming up to tell a proper story, the gravedigger's actions made the group hold their breath and watch him.
“How long do you think that corpse I was burying had been dead?”
Not waiting for an answer, he raised his index finger.
“One day. To be precise, not even two. It was so decomposed that maggots were crawling inside the body. Does that make any sense to you?”
Then he sighed softly and continued.
“In the span of a week, I've buried nearly twenty bodies like that. I know I get paid for this, but it's unsettling. When I asked what happened while collecting the bodies, the villagers told me… it was self-harm.”
“Self-harm?”
Kyle repeated, and the gravedigger nodded.
“That's right. People suddenly go mad, hacking at their own bodies with butcher knives, or shoving their faces into boiling pots. It started happening one after another.”
He coughed as if his throat was tight, then went on.
“It didn't start like that… At first, they'd just go wild. Then they'd suddenly start hurting themselves… and when they died, every last one of them rotted fast. The village is in an uproar, saying there's a curse.”
As the gravedigger finished his story and started munching on a potato, Amella asked.
“Where is this village where it's happening?”
“It's the place I mentioned outside. Straight down this road, less than half a day away.”
Hearing the gravedigger's words, Amella's face hardened. Luon asked.
“What is it?”
“…Could this really be a coincidence?”
Biting her lip, Amella said.
“Madness, self-harm, and decay. Those are all words that point to Belducias.”