Chapter 123: 123 News.

The void that embraced her consciousness stirred, piecing together the fragments that scattered away.

A breath stuck in her throat as dull pain kept pounding her skull relentlessly. Her eyes stirred open, letting a sliver of light enter her throbbing brain.

Lucya let out a silent groan, her voice hoarse. She looked toward an unfamiliar white ceiling. She pressed her fingers on the pulsated temple, shard and unrelenting.

’Ukh, where am I?’. Lucya clenched her fist, forcing her stiff body to move upward.

“Lucya, you’re awake?”.

A clear voice filled with relief breath pierced her aching brain. She turned to the source and saw Iris sitting on the wooden chair beside her.

Lucya swept her gaze toward the spacious room. It had four similar beds covered with white sheets.

In front of her was a white cabinet filled with medicine and potions. Her nose twitched as she could smell the bitter herbs wafting through the opened vial.

“Where is this?”.

The girl turned to Iris, who approached her side and helped her to sit upright.

“We’re in the infirmary.” Iris stood up and went toward the desk where the teacher in charge used to sit.

The Elven girl fetched a glass and poured sparkling water from the silver kettle before returning to Lucya’s side.

“Here, help yourself”.

“Thanks you”.

Lucya received the glass, its cold and translucent liquid faintly reflecting her appearance.

She was wearing a brand-new white loose T-shirt. Underneath her large eyes, dark circles clouded her expression, a testament to her reckless decision when she poured everything down the line last time.

The girl sipped the water, dropping a tip of a fresh taste of life into a barren land. Her eyes widened in shock as she downed it in a single breath.

With the water pouring into her parched throat, Lucya raised the glass to Iris, and the elves girl walked toward the desk to fill another batch.

Lucya glanced to her left, and behind the window glass, she spotted the sun slowly sinking.

Blazing skies stretched into the horizon, casting a warm glow on the land. The light filtered through the room, soothing her throbbing skull, which had started to dwindle.

“Here”. Iris returned with a glass filled with clear water.

Lucya stopped her hand midway from putting the glass in her mouth.

“Where is Silvia?”.

Iris scratched her cheek, brows knitted together in confusion about how to tell the princess. “Umm, she was here recently,” she said.

“What happened?”. Lucya’s eyes narrowed; she curled her finger, clenching the white fabric until it wrinkled.

The Elven girl exhaled sharply and began to fill the awoken girl. “This is what happened…”.

After the battle in the dungeon, Lucya and Jin, who were unconscious, were carried on Silvia and Iris’s back until they reached the third floor, where they passed with the teacher.

Then, Dannan and others escorted the four until they reached the surface and placed the two wounded students in the infirmary.

They talked about several things inside the place, but the teacher in the infirmary reached her patience and chased everyone out, leaving only Iris to care for the two.

“So, Silvia is currently being interrogated by the teacher?”. Lucya’s brows furrowed, and her anger flared to the roof. “What the hell are those teachers doing? Asking the exhausted student”.

“Yeah, I too protested at first, but Silvia talked to me first, so yeah, it is still infuriating, though”. Iris scoffed and crossed her arms on her chest.

Silence hung in the room; both girls dawned on their own, lamenting with knitted brows.

The fact that Silvia, who should be weary and needs a rest, sacrifices a bit of her time to shoulder the burden of being interrogated by the teachers.

Even Iris, who was older and experienced something similar in the past with Nina, had to be dismissed by Silvia’s pressure and bite her lips in frustration.

On the other hand, Lucya looked at her expression reflected in the water. The corner of her lips lifted, and she was unsure of what she was feeling.

However, one thing seeped through her consciousness as she recalled Silvia’s struggle in the past. ’You’ve grown so much, Silvia’.

’It must be great to have someone you are dedicated to’. Lucya gazed at the neighbor’s bed where Jin was sleeping, his body wrapped around by bandages.

The girl gulped the water in the glass, feeling all the stress and agony in her mind subsided.

“Ukh…”

Lucya and Iris jolted to the side, hearing Jin groan—his hoarse voice choking the two girls’ throats in seeing his vulnerable state, especially Lucya.

This was the first time she had witnessed Jin, who always seemed composed and could deal with anything the world presented to him, being so weak.

Iris walked to his side, taking the wet tower inside a silver basin. The Elven girl squeezed the water out and carefully draped it to wipe the sweat on Jin’s forehead.

Lucya peeled the sheet covering her body, shifted to the side, and let her toes touch the cold, hard floor.

She tensed the muscles in her body and pushed the gravity up, standing.

The girl dragged her heavy legs and sat on Jin’s bedside, startling Iris, who looked at her with widened eyes.

“Are you really okay?”.

Iris’s glare made the princess gulp her saliva. Walking for a couple of steps was enough to open the old wound in her mind.

But she shook her head and loosened her facial muscles, turning her soft expression at Jin.

“I want to look at him”.

The Elven girl’s ears twitched, and she noticed Lucya’s quickened heartbeat as sweat trickled down her temples.

Iris sighed in exasperation. Why did the people in her circle always push themselves for something trivial? Not that she had the right to say that, though.

A hand reached out to grab Lucya’s shoulder, making her flinched. Lucya saw Iris wipe the sweat on her face, using the wet towel that cooled her mind.

“Do you mind with this towel?”.

“No, thank you, Iris”.

Iris’s tender touch struck a chord within Lucya’s heart; it reminded her of when she was a child with a high fever.

Lucya’s mother, the queen, would always stay by her side, reading an adventurous book and caring for her.

The girl’s lips spread, revealing her white teeth. “Fufu, you are like a mother”.

Iris stopped, blinking her green eyes several times before resuming her task. “Well, I’m a mother, alright.”

“Fufu, what was that?”. Lucya giggled, breaking the heavy silence from Jin’s suffering.

The two were having a pleasant atmosphere in between. Then, the door in the room rattled, which shook both girls, and they turned toward the source.

It creaked silently, and a figure of a silver-haired girl entered, her azure eyes looking toward the three with raised brows.

“Lucya, you are awake?”.

“Um”. Lucya gave Silvia a brief nod before turning toward Jin.

“Are you done with the talk?”. Iris interjected in between, watching Silvia drawing a single chair and sitting opposite them.

A dark line formed on her forehead, turning the atmosphere grim with palpable silence.

“The talk was over, but the matter about Jin…”. Silvia dug her nail on the palm, her expression crumpled with anger and impatience.

“What is it?”. Lucya leaned forward, hand clenched into the sheets where Jin lay.

The silver-haired girl opened her trembling mouth and hesitated before closing it. She gritted her teeth to harden her expression and state the news clearly.

“H-He… Jin didn’t have much time to live”.

“!?”. Lucya and Iris stopped breathing, their brains refusing to process the words that entered their ears.

With a trembling body, Silvia bit her lip until it bled to harden her emotion, trying to convey what the nurse teacher had said after examining Jin.

“It was caused by the curse from the bite on his shoulder.” Silvia turned to the other two, her vision blurred, and tears started to stream down her cheeks.

“…Apparently, when he was bitten, not only his mana, but his life force was also being sucked by the monster”.

“N-No way”. Iris’ trembling voice resonated with every fiber within Lucya.

The Elven girl flinched as her feet turned soft like grass. She swayed before flopping to the floor with a resounding ’thud’.

“H-How long was he…?”. Lucya pressed, her voice stammered.

“…She estimated Jin would have five more years to live, kuh!”. Silvia couldn’t endure it any longer as she broke crying, but she just had one more pressing matter to discuss.

Her trembling fingers held a white envelope directed to Lucya. “This was from your father; I received it from the teacher earlier.”

Lucya accepted the letter, unsure of what emotion she had shown. She could feel it, but her expression was stiff and devoid of emotion.

The throbbing ache that tormented her brain returned, but the girl was numbed for everything as she broke the seal and opened the message.

“What!?”.

A single tear fell from her delicate jaw, reading the letter that her father had sent regarding her mother’s condition.

~”It’s painful for me to write this but…

…your Mother’s condition worsened…”~

Light disappeared from Lucya’s eyes, facing these two misfortunes that crushed her heart. ’Mother, Jin, …What should I do?’.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep