Bandages Soaked With Returned Blood

――Time returns to the present.

Kaine, having regained consciousness, slowly opened his eyes.

He felt a pleasant touch and vibration, like an infant cradled in its mother’s arms.

“(Warm… the hateful pain of the blessing (curse) that eats away my whole body is gone… Is this heaven?)”

However—his vision was blurred and he could hardly see anything.

He closed his eyes and opened them once more.

His vision cleared a little.

After blinking several times, Kaine recognized a girl standing before him.

“――Frances?”

“Lord Kaine!? You’ve woken up!?”

“Florence…?”

Kaine murmured to himself that it seemed he was still in the living world.

“Why… am I alive…?”

Florence had Kaine’s head in her lap and continued touching his body while casting healing magic.

The two were riding on the back of a carriage as they traveled.

“That is…”

Florence slowly began to recount the sequence of events.

Kaine had activated the 【Holy Sand (Rust Dust)】 at the dungeon’s lowest level, and the storm of rust was of a scale that reached the first layer of the dungeon.

Florence, who had accompanied Kaine who went ahead into the dungeon to defeat Sid Ranorus and had been waiting at the entrance, worried for Kaine and began to enter the storm alone.

She cast protection magic over her whole body, kept healing magic active to shield herself from the rotting sand that burnt the skin, and reached the lowest level—where she discovered Kaine near death.

After retrieving the dungeon core, Florence pulled the saw-cleaver out of Kaine’s heart, stopped the 【Holy Sand (Rust Dust)】, and began treating him with healing magic.

One minute later—the dungeon vanished as a result of the core’s retrieval.

Kaine finished hearing the account that the two had been sent back to the surface and were on their way back to the capital in the Holy Church’s carriage.

“You went and did something unnecessary…”

Kaine, who had considered using the ultimate measure—the 【Holy Sand (Rust Dust)】—had intended, like the Apothecary Selva the other day, to fight Sid Ranorus alone.

Despite that, Florence insisted on accompanying him, so he permitted it on the condition that she wait at the dungeon entrance; he never imagined she would walk alone into the rust storm and reach the deepest chamber.

Her spirit of charity and her exceptional healing magic skill reminded him of her mother, Frances.

“That’s enough… get away from me.”

“No, the treatment isn’t finished yet!”

Florence stubbornly refused Kaine’s demand.

Keeping Kaine on her lap, she placed her hands on his chest and continued to cast healing magic.

Because of that, Florence’s smooth white skin had become ulcerated up to around her elbows.

Kaine himself knew well the pain of corrosion.

It was not the kind of pain a mere twelve-year-old girl could endure without screaming.

Nevertheless, Florence continued to cast healing magic on Kaine.

“(The 【Holy Sand (Rust Dust)】 is a divine miracle that pulverizes into dust regardless of whether one is a cleric. A little girl’s protection magic shouldn’t be able to do anything to stop it—but I see, it’s because of that one’s of Frances’s blood.)”

Because of his rot-afflicted constitution and eccentric appearance, Kaine had few close companions.

The only friends Kaine had were Selva and Frances.

When Kaine returned injured from a mission, Frances healed his wounds with healing magic without worrying about catching the rot.

Through those days, Frances also developed a resistance to the rot, though not as much as Kaine.

The reason Florence could survive intact through the ‘Holy Sand’s Rust Dust’ was that she had inherited Frances’s resistance to rot.

“Why… would you go that far for me…?”

“Because Lord Kaine has fought so many monsters and villains even with a body like this. And yet, the people of the Grand Cathedral avoid Lord Kaine—Isn’t that… too much!?”

“Ah, Lord Kaine, your arm’s injured! I’ll heal it for you.”

“Stop—don’t touch me. You’ll rot.”

“It’s okay, healing magic can fix it.”

“Why are you doing this for me?”

“Lord Kaine fights while enduring more suffering than anyone, and yet the others not only don’t thank him, they find him disgusting, right? They say God sees all our deeds, but people can’t be strong enough to keep going on that alone—But I am watching properly—Lord Kaine.”

――A distant memory suddenly resurfaced.

“So it’s that saying that blood can’t be helped, huh.”

“…Huh?”

“It means your mother is also—an odd one, like you.”

“You know my mother!?”

“…Just an old, tangled connection.”

Kaine had no desire to continue the conversation further—and closed his eyes.

“Fine, do as you like. But once my treatment is finished, heal your own wounds at once—if even the slightest scar remains, I will never allow you to come near me again.”

That, in other words, meant he would meekly accept Florence’s treatment.

“Yes!”

Florence replied cheerfully as she continued to cast healing magic.

“I’ll sleep a bit…”

“Yes, good rest—Lord Kaine.”

Kaine closed his eyes.

Kaine, who had always lived with his body’s corrosion, fell into a peaceful sleep in a body free from pain for the first time in a long while.

Hoping, if possible, to see the continuation of the dream he had just had…

＊＊＊

――After confirming Kaine had fallen asleep, Florence, while continuing to cast healing magic, recalled the appearance of the dungeon’s deepest chamber.

“(In the dungeon’s deepest part where Sid Ranorus and Lord Kaine fought—there was a human arm reduced to white bone. It was probably Sid Ranorus’s arm. However, the only bone in the dungeon was that single arm. It’s far too unnatural for only an arm bone to remain—probably Sid Ranorus is still alive.)”

Florence knew that once, in an S-rank Dungeon called 【Crimson Night Moon】, Sid Ranorus had gained the power of Vanargand.

Therefore she was convinced that the target of the hunt, the Shadow Necromancer, had fled using spatial movement ability and was still alive.

“(What should I do… Sid Ranorus is not the cruel person everyone thinks he is—the fact that he awakened as a Shadow Necromancer alone shouldn’t make him a target for murder, should it…? The killing of royalty must surely have had some extenuating circumstances…)”

Florence was conflicted.

Should she obey the Holy Church’s orders and kill Sid Ranorus?

But Sid Ranorus was also the one who had saved her life.

And defeating Sid Ranorus would go against Florence’s ideal world—the principle of abolishing discriminatory attitudes toward the Shikai Tribe.

No conclusion came to her.

To calm her wavering heart, Florence chose to concentrate her mind on treating Kaine for now.

Because that was all she could do at the moment.