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Isodor and Glenn merely napped a little through the night. Lowe eventually managed to sleep, but she didn’t feel well rested by the time the sun rose the next day.
And more importantly, the threat which Astraea warned of did not happen.
They had covered more than half the distance required to reach the end goal. So by noon of the new day, they finished the remaining distance and arrived at the end site.
They came in first place.
However, there was no grand celebration.
Only a lingering sense of unease.
A known professor came up to Isodor.
“Your Highness, congratulations to you and your team for achieving the fastest time this semester.” He said.
“I appreciate the compliments… has something happened? Why are there only a few people here?”
“Keen to notice.” Professor Toure “As you suspected, there was an incident last night.
“...Was.” He bit his tongue. “...nothing happened to my fiance… right? ”
“...I’m sorry, Your Highness.” He fidgeted as he spoke.
“Where is she now?!” Isodor felt his chest tighten. Why was he suddenly like this?
At times like these, Isodor would wish his intuition was wrong.
“Rest your worries, Your Highness. She is safe.” The professor tried to reassure him. “She had been seen by a doctor, and he had confirmed her health. She is likely now resting at her home.”
Isodor exhaled sharply. “I…see.”
Isodor didn’t know the extent of her injuries.
But regardless, one was clear.
She had become the target in their stead.
And… it wasn’t just that.
He realised that she came to seek help.
And he had turned her away.
He unconsciously tightened his fist.
He felt wronged, yet what could he have done in that situation? How would he have known the truth?
… You’re a prince with the most precious ice princess as your fiance for fuck sake.
Kairen.
He was with her. So what the hell happened to him?
Swallowing, Lowe timidly raised her hand. “Professor Toure… can you tell us what happened? Tiffany, from class 1-B… is she alright too?”
“Tiffany, that girl I believe is recovering in the infirmary.” Professor Toure spoke.
“Then how about Kairen?” Glenn asked, noticing the absence of a resolution to the other person.
“Kairen… that student.” Professor Toure hesitated. His expression mournful. “He will likely not survive to see tomorrow.”
“What…?” Lowe shuddered.“He…”
“Give us the details. Do you mean to say he’s actually dying?” Isodor struggled to make sense of this.
He took out a handkerchief and wiped off a bead of sweat coming down chin. “I have merely the rough picture, a detailed report will be issued once the investigation is complete. However, briefly from the account from student Tiffany—he attempted to save the young duchess from abduction. And In the end, he was the one to meet the end of the blade.”
Just like that? He died protecting the girl Isodor should’ve been the one to?
“Then he’s… still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know—”
“Blight.” Professor Toure confessed. “I don’t know if Kairen has succumbed to blight.
“B-Blight? H-How…” Lowe felt the world crumble around her. Something was amiss.
“I’m going.” Isodor, who had listened to enough, prepared to leave the field.
“Where to?” Glenn asked.
“I need to see Astraea.” Her name rolled off his tongue like bitter salt. Yet Isodor couldn’t deny that he had failed in his duty to protect his fiance.
Isodor looked at Lowe who stood there in a haze one last time. He shook his head—what the hell is he still thinking when his fiance was hurt—he departed and didn’t look back.
Lowe struggled to comprehend.
Kairen turned his sister into a slave. He was also the son of a man dealing with black money.
Her Grace Astraea had made it a point that Lowe avoided him at all cost, and obeyed she did for her own safety.
Yet, even though Her Grace Astraea treated him so harshly, he protected her at the cost of his own life?
Why?
Atonement? Heroism? Dignity?
“Where is he right now?!” Lowe asked, almost shouting.
“The Cathedral—Lutheran Church. Professor Aturina is with him.” Professor Toure answered.
“I need to go.” Lowe needed to find out the truth.
“Then I will follow.” Glenn said.
Lowe ran ahead, Glenn following behind.
Lowe felt like her heart was being crushed. Something inside her was screaming at her to save him.
Was Kairen already dead? If he was still hanging onto life, can she reach in time?
Somewhere somehow, she just knew that if he died—
… Something very, very bad would happen.
⌌✧ ⫺⪼▫◆▫⪻⫹ ✧⌍
Blood polluted by blight is tar black. Wounds also don’t heal when you’re under the curse.
Instead of it being a physiological reaction, the cause of these ailments was more so the crippling effects of a debuff-type spell.
Under normal circumstances, if the blight was well controlled within my body, through my bloodline I could regulate it safely.
But the excess of blight caused it to seep into my flesh. And having reached my organs, I was not much different from any regular person dying from blight.
My bloodline ability makes things convenient for me, but it has never been omnipotent.
I could reverse the effects of blight through breathwork and channelling, but that would require time. Time that I wasn’t sure I had.
It hurt so much I wanted to die.
Priests, nurses and doctors exist alongside healers, but for some odd reason this game had no such thing as a hospital.
The only place a patient could go to recover from life threatening illnesses or curses was the church.
As a student, under special jurisdiction of the academy, I was brought into a private room for treatment.
Laying on a white bed, the thick scent of medicinal herbs and fragrant oils covered the festing blood which continued to flow in trickles.
“Is there no other way?” Professor Aturina’s desperate voice could be heard out in the hallway.
“There are limits to what we can do for a patient cursed by blight.” The voice of a doctor or priest, I wasn’t sure. “He is considered incredibly lucky that this level of corruption hasn’t killed him.”
As their conversation steered towards uncertainty, I could feel the bedside nurses remove the shrapnel shards that were still embedded on my body piece by piece. Strong healing magic had to be applied just to close up one measly wound.
“Then do something to delay it somehow. I’ll get the elixir if it would somehow extend his life a little more.” Professor Aturina said.
“Ms. Aturina, I would suggest sparing him the pain. It would be much better that he ends his life peacefully as opposed to prolonging his life in suffering. Blight isn’t a curse that can cure itself through time.”
‘One day.’
That’s how pathetically short of a time the doctor said I had left to live. Yet I thought he was being generous.
I think I’ll die within an hour.
And if I really were to die, I needed Professor Atruina to listen to my last request.
There was something I needed to tell her—and it can’t be with the listening ear of anyone else.
This story had just begun, and I wasn’t sure if I would have another shot at regression if I died here.
I didn’t fight to survive for nothing.
I would not leave without giving one last piece of hope to this world.
‘Professor, promise me that you’ll kill…’
Yet somehow fate…
“Professor Aturina!” Her voice rang out clear, I felt my weak body tremble.
“Lowe, why are you here…” Professor Aturina’s surprised voice.
“Give me a chance. I can heal him.” Lowe sounded like she was out of breath. “Let me in.”
“Lowe, listen to me. It’s not a simple injury, Kairen is…”
“Blight.” Lowe announced firmly. “I can heal blight.”
‘... No. What…’
When even the high priests, skilled shamans, and most expert alchemists couldn’t do anything to reverse the effect of blight after centuries of trying, she was suddenly claiming the impossible. Everyone knew very well just how ridiculous a statement she had just made.
The hall went completely silent at her words.
The church will come to learn that she can heal blight, and the story will happen just as it had predicted.
‘If she proved her words here…’
I heard Lowe’s footsteps entering.
“Kairen…” Her beautiful voice suffered from uttering my name.
“GET OOUUTTT!!” I shouted.
The potential consequences of what will happen here if I don’t handle it currently would be severe.
Lowe was going to become the Saint. And if she became the Saint, the end of the world would progress as we know it.
I sat myself up, the sisters who were healing me tried to hold me down, I pushed them aside.
“Kairen, calm down!” Professor Aturina shouted, supporting the sister who I had just knocked away.
I struggled to breathe, the pain was unbearable. My throat burned, I could hardly talk.
I forced myself to open my eyes.
She stood there in her disarrayed academy uniform.
Her blouse was ruined by various colours of mud, skirt upturned, and socks that were torn. Her pink hair tousled a mess; pearl white tears forming in the corner of her eyes.
What was she feeling now? With that kind of innocent face?
Fear? Sadness? Regret? Pain? Remorse? Anger? Anxiety?
“Tell everyone to get out… I’m fine! Get out…!” It was happening all over again.
Even if I have to die… there’s no way I’ll let things go its way. This damned world and whatever ploy… I won’t let it.
I’ve already been through your hell.
Stop trying to torment me.
Let me die in peace.
“Lowe, you go out first. I’ll speak to him.” Professor Aturina said, holding Lowe by both shoulders. The rest went out one by one, leaving just her and Lowe.
“I won’t.” But the protagonist was adamant.
Lowe’s jewel amber eyes remained rooted.
“I’m sorry I misjudged you. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
Fucking stop.
It’s enough.
Don’t save me.
LEave me to die.
I don’t waNt to live that kInd of life a3ain.
EnoUGh.
Fuc/ oF:!!
eN0>Gh…!!
“I turned a blind eye to the people who bullied you. Ignore those who hurt you… I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you were struggling. Yet you were kind, you saved the one who did harm to you.”
… You have no idea, just how big of a role you play in this story...
… If you continue to nurture this power…
… That thing you’ll grow into if you continue going down this path…
I couldn’t say anything.
My broken vocal cords only whisk out air.
“So please just let me do this one time… I promise I’ll save you.”
Save me?
Why me?
WHY ME?
WhY oNLy mE?!
WhY tHe HeLL diD yOU chOoSE mE?!!!
She placed her hands on my chest.
I gave one last resistance. I restrained her wrist with mine—but I didn’t have any energy to push her away.
…It was too late.
“Kairen, let me save you.”
Same words. In a different location. Different time. And as a different person.
Their image overlapped.
—#####################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################!!!
⌌✧ ⫺⪼▫◆▫⪻⫹ ✧⌍
Lowe held Kairen’s body which had collapsed against her shoulder.
His skin covered in splotches of black and tints of purple had regained its brownish-gold glow. The blight which invaded his body had disappeared completely.
He was unconscious, but now very much alive.
“You know Kairen... I learned this magic from my mother to help people like you.” Lowe whispered into his ears, unsure if he could hear her. “But I’m still lacking in the ways of the heart.”
Saying that, Lowe found herself thinking about Astraea.
Though the princess may look intimidating and fierce, oddly enough, once she got to know her, Lowe realised that Her Grace was just someone she had misunderstood.
Her antics may seem odd sometimes but… she meant no ill will. And it would seem that the same applied to Kairen.
Still, to be caught up in the conflict between the two, and join a faction without realising it… Lowe was disappointed in her lack of compassion and unwise judgments.
Though she may not understand what happened, Kairen’s heroic deed had definitely touched something within her.
She may not be the princess he had saved, but to be the road-side girl who saved the hero was just as much of an honour.
Lowe found her thought process oddly twisted. Nevertheless, she thought it was simply due to her unique upbringing.
Lowe went over Kairen’s body once more with a thorough assessment of his condition, before laying him down.
Then she turned to Professor Aturina who had been standing witness to the miracle.
“How…” The shock on her face was clear.
“I told you. I can heal blight.” Lowe said with a troubled smile.
The doctors rushed in to witness the miracle which had just happened.
“Indeed his blight… is gone.” The primary doctors remarked promptly after a brief assessment.
“Gone? Not simply because of his bloodline ability?”
“No. It’s completely gone. It’s a miracle.”
“A saint…”
Realising the gravity of the circumstance, the priest and sisters turned to Lowe, overflowing with praise.
“What? Saint?” Lowe flinched. She quickly tried to deny their claims. “I’m not a saint, I’m just a student…”
“God have mercy! Goddess Privia has blessed the empire with a Saint!” The high priest of the church announced loudly, holding Lowe’s hand in reverence.
The consequences were irreversible now.
Lowe turned to Glenn, eyes seeking for help. However, this airhead was too busy clapping and cheering for her inauguration, wholeheartedly.
Cold sweat ran down her back.
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