Chapter 51 - Volume 2 (1/2)
Her amber eyes shining with gold, Clementine immediately puts her hand on Filmina’s wound. A faint silver ray of light is fired from that hand. It slows the force of the bleeding, although only a little. Unable to do anything, Agedilus simply watches.
What Clementine has cast on Filmina is a type of light magic classified as healing magic. It’s not as effective as using spirit magic from crystals, but if the injured party is affected by demons, light magic must certainly be effective. Analyzing that so calmly it’s strange, Agedilus sensed something in himself.
‘What – you – should be doing.’ He internally ruminates over Clementine’s words, once again looking down at the person in his arms. At the sight of Filmina’s face color, much worse than before, he’s completely at a loss for words. Those eyes shining golden look at Agedilus, and Clementine declares:
「You have to help too, quick! Or do you mean to let my beloved friend slip away from me?!」
「—! Like hell I’d do that!」
Her usually calm voice is harsh, and Agedilus reflexively yells back at her. Then, finally, 『what he should do』 falls into him with a thump.
——Ah, yes. That’s right.
He’s not the same now as he was that day when he was young, when all he could do was act recklessly with his magic. For who was it that he had devoted himself diligently to the study of magic since then? All that and all this, everything had just one purpose: to protect Filmina, now in his arms.
He wanted to protect her from everything, just because she was the one that wouldn’t obediently let herself be protected, just because it was her who said she wanted to stand beside him. He had overestimated himself, thinking he had become capable of protecting her.
Agedilus now realizes too late, that he has been an idiot. How can he protect her at all? Far from protecting her, he didn’t even notice that she was cursed, and on top of that she protected him in the last moment; he put her life in danger, close to death.
His sunrise-colored eyes look at those amber eyes that look golden, glaring at him, and also look at those reddish-brown eyes that are looking at him too. What runs through his mind are those words Filmina once happily told him, 「You finally made friends too.」 Back then, he had replied, 「They’re not that great.」 But now, he has no choice but to accept it. Accept that now, his world isn’t just limited to Filmina and his foster father. Accept that he has already received a new world.
「Idiots.」
Perhaps it’s for the better that those words he mutter go unheard by everyone. He does think they’re idiots, getting so desperate for his sake. But Agedilus finally understands that the one who’s even more of an idiot is none other than him. 「You really are so dense.」 Agedilus feels like Filmina is saying that to him.
The rampaging magic gathers back to Agedilus. The raging storm stops, and all that is left afterwards on the ruined lawn is Alhelm, sitting and breathing out a sigh of relief, Celves who is finally completely free, breathing wildly on the ground, and then Clementine who is spending all her energy on treating Filmina.
Clementine tries to cure Filmina, sweat on her brows; Agedilus puts his hand on Clementine’s. She raises her head and looks at him, but immediately returns to healing again after seeing his expression. Agedilus too, refines his magical power and begins to release it from his hand.
He doesn’t need any long, tedious chanting. He sets up all the magic theory within himself, casting healing magic without chanting. Essentially, when using healing magic, it would be best suited to use a water spirit’s power through spirit magic, instead of Clementine’s light magic or Agedilus’s magic from his own magical power. But that theory doesn’t apply to Filmina. The scars she bore on that day when they were young, from a high-ranking fire spirit, reject healing from crystals. It may be possible for small everyday injuries, but it’s a huge difficulty for Filmina now with her serious wound.
Then, that isn’t the only problem.
「Alhelm! Make Ronein say how to break the curse! Doesn’t matter how you force it out of him!」
The curse cast on Filmina uses her dreams as an intermediary. Even if her physical wound heals, whether she wakes up or not depends on whether the curse is broken or not.
Agedilus yells that while casting healing magic on Filmina. Celves is still on the ground; he doesn’t even have the energy to resist anymore, his shoulders heaving with breaths. Alhelm blinks at Agedilus’s words, having tied up Celves again with the magic-blocking rope that knights always have ready. Alhelm looks like he wants to say ‘why now?’ but he doesn’t question further, raising up Celves’s upper body.
「…….Well, ya heard him. Though, I’m gonna be really grateful if ya spit it out right now.」
Celves keeps his silence, doing nothing but taking rough breaths. Alhelm smiles broadly at him, the same way he smiled at Agedilus earlier.
「Besides, Filmina is my buddy too. If she’s about to die, my bad but, I ain’t gonna go easy on ya.」
Those red-brown eyes look like they’re just smiling, but there’s a surprising cruelty in them, piercing through Celves’s azure eyes. Breathing wildly, Celves gulps, then finally mutters something, breaking the air with his words.
「……Can’t.」
「Hm?」
Alhelm furrows his brows at the very small, whispered words. Celves keeps his eyesight to the ground, he doesn’t dare to look at Agedilus who is busy casting healing magic, and at Filmina being held in his arms. As he does, he speaks as if groaning:
「I said, I can’t……!」
「Stop messing around!」
Agedilus hears Celves with his sharp ears, raising his head from Filmina and glares at him with those sunrise-colored eyes. On his beautiful face is an unhideable impatience.