Chapter 125: 125 How Things Escalated.

Days passed by as Jin underwent his rehabilitation, not exactly a rehabilitation, but the girls insisted that he must take proper rest for the week.

Jin stayed inside the mansions in the Dorean Kingdom. It was around the northwest side of the town.

The mansion was the one Duke Sullivan and King Armando had rented for their daughters to stay.

As for the daughters, they were leaving the home and wandering around the town, telling him they had a business to do.

Several maids lived inside the house. They were tasked with taking care of the house according to their lord’s order.

Thanks to the academy’s policy of not imposing too many restrictions on its students, every holiday or any day was also fine.

The students could stay within the properties they hired or owned within the town circle.

However, they must get a permit from the school, which the girls in his group always did when the week almost came to an end, to stay in this place and spend their nights together as friends.

“How was the tea, young master?”.

Silvia’s caretaker, Julia. Her shoulder-length black hair fell from her ears as she swiped it behind her ear.

Her large, swirling black eyes were a bit eerie, but that had been her trait since she was little.

“It was good as always”.

Jin, who sat on the wooden chair, took the silver cups filled with steaming black tea. Its mild fragrance calmed his nerves as he took a sip.

He turned to the plate beside him, brimming with fresh-baked cookies. The boy took one of them before tossing it into his mouth.

Once he took a bite, the crisp texture melted, spilling a sweet taste in his mouth, causing his lips to loosen in joy.

“I heard Lady Lucya would return today”.

“I see”.

Jin exhaled, shifting his attention toward the opened window to his left. A vast, carefully arranged garden bloomed in beauty.

It has been several days since Lucya decided to visit her homeland. She had mentioned there was some business to take care of, but she kept the details hidden.

He was curious about what had happened within the Kingdom to have her take a leave of absence.

’Should I ask about it?’. Jin shook his head, dismissing the thoughts. ’Let’s wait for her to open herself’.

A warm breeze swept over the place and carried an earthy smell that entered Jin’s nose.

The garden bloomed with quiet grace. Its various flowers and grass rustled gently in the passing breeze, creating a soft tune that cheered Jin’s mood.

Jin took the silver cup and downed the tea in one gulp.

“I’ll take a walk around the town”.

“Understand and be careful, young master”.

Julia slightly lowered her head, bowing with her hair cascaded down and blocking any sight of her expression.

“Ehehe, Lady Lucya will be home”.

Unnoticed by Jin, the woman’s expression broke into an ominous grin as she leaked out a bit of black aura, with red fluid dripping from her nose.

***

The sky above the academy rumbled as the massive airship slowly descended. Its massive body cast a shadow that engulfed the entire field.

Steam hissed from four sides of the whale’s body. Then, metal pillar-like feet emerged to hold the whale’s body as it landed on the ground.

A part of the airship’s body cracked before crushing the grass beneath, revealing a staircase with a girl descending.

“Lady Lucya, we bid our farewell”. One of the crew stood near the open hatch and watched his majesty’s daughter safely land on the ground.

“Yeah, good work everyone, safe travel”.

Lucya’s voice sank as the staircase lifted, and the four fins with propulsion began to spin furiously, lifting the massive whale into the air.

The girl turned her back and walked toward the academy before stopping midway. “Right, today was a holiday”.

After pondering momentarily, she walked toward the academy’s gate, seeking clear air to distract her clouded mood.

Since the day she read that letter, her mood has hit rock bottom, never showing any sign of staggering up.

No matter what she did, her thoughts always submerged into self-deprecating nonsense, which brought her into the pit of the abyss.

The girl stopped before the gate to show her Student ID.

“What’s your purpose, student Lucya?” a young man wearing a teacher uniform greeted her. He leaned through the opened window post.

“Nothing, just want to buy some stuff for my face”.

The man’s eyes narrowed as he noticed dark circles were visible behind the thick makeup. “…Alright”.

He agreed and began to move his hand to finish the procedure. It wasn’t the first time a girl of that age would go to the town to buy some makeup to cover their tiredness because of studying.

“You may go, remember the gate closed at six”.

Lucya nodded and darted away from the academy. Her brows knitted in a frown when she was alone as she recalled the recent memories.

She was inside the infirmary, watching Jin lie helplessly on the bed. His pained groan was like a whisper, telling her this was all her fault.

(…If you weren’t slow at that time, Jin would be saved from his life-threatening crisis…)

(…This is because you, who lay down at a critical moment, made Jin suffer faith worse than death)

Those words kept repeating themselves like a curse inside her heart. It shredded her heart to pieces.

Also, the matter regarding her mom, whose body got inflicted with unknown curses.

The girl couldn’t bear that every time she visited her place, a part of her body turned bloated blue, with scales and monster parts growing in it.

It was as if her mother was cursed into a monster.

Her father, the king, had tried everything at his disposal to hire a renowned healing magician, a potion, but all of that wasn’t very meaningful.

Lucya could only watch her mother’s life slip away from her grasp with each passing time.

An Elixir was the only thing that could cure her mother’s and Jin’s lifespan.

A legendary potion that had been lost from the world.

She walked around the buzzing town. Its merry voices were like knives in her ears, turning her throbbing mind into swirling madness.

Her blue eyes stared vacantly at the ground, wandering through the town until she reached the city center.

The place seemed desolated compared to earlier. Lucya dragged her heavy feet toward the fountain in the middle and flopped onto the benches around it.

A golden light graced her body with its warmth, but Lucya felt the opposite; it was cold and unbearable.

Her body shivered on the benches as she pressed her chest on her thighs.

Lucya kept staring ahead. The light had disappeared from her blue pupils. Her eyes shook as she couldn’t bear the misfortunes that stabbed her relentlessly.

She was just a kid, not even close to adulthood, but the world seemed to loathe her for being gifted as a princess and a holder of a rare talent: Magic Saint.

’Is this my punishment for being too greedy?’. Lucya muttered in her heart.

She was forgetting that there was also someone who resembled her, blessed by two gifts from the heavens but doing absolutely fine.

From the corner of her eyes, Lucya’s blurred sight caught the figure of a black-haired person tip-toeing around the town.

’Sereth?’. The boy held a glass vial filled with crimson liquid that shone with vitality in his hand. ’Is that!?’.

Lucya snapped back from her daze. Her large blue eyes blinked as she witnessed Sereth, a classmate who should have his hand severed, regain both hands.

Strength returned to her dull eyes; her body sprang up from the benches and ran toward the boy, who flinched upon seeing her coming with a bloodshot glare.

“Hieeeek! Please spare me”. Sereth shrieks while crouching down, holding his trembling body.

“Sereth, the thing in your hand?”. Lucya’s shadow loomed over the shivered boy.

Sereth gazes up, watching the beautiful girl corner him. Her golden hair flowed gently, casting soft shadows that covered his bright sight.

“Y-You mean this?”. Sereth stammered but managed to deliver his words.

The girl nodded. In her mind, she kept repeating the words, ’Please be Elixir. Please be Elixir…’

She once read in a book that two types of Elixirs once roamed around the land.

One was divine, a pure Elixir called the nectar of God. It had the tremendous ability to cure any illness or ailment.

Some said this elixir could resurrect the dead. But of course, there are some limitations to it.

The other was a crimson Elixir that had the same effects as the divine one. But it had limitations, such as it couldn’t bring back death, only cure a person in a near-death state.

Besides those effects, for a healthy person, an elixir could prolong one’s own life.

That’s why Lucya was so desperate to find out if the things in Sereth’s hand were the original or just a false hope.

Unaware of Lucya’s thought, the boy gulped his saliva for their close distance.

“Yeah, this was an Elixir. I bought it from someone I knew”. Sereth averted his gaze, noticing the girl was staring at him.

Lucya’s sight blurred; she couldn’t hold the overwhelming relief that dawned on her.

The weight chained down her consciousness shattered as she welcomed a new light that parted the cloud in her heart.

She inhaled deeply to calm her throbbing heart and spoke. “Is there still some stock available?”.

“Y-Yeah, only two more”. Sereth nodded, scratching his back head.

“Good.” Lucya grasped the boy’s hand and dragged him toward the way he had walked earlier. “Is it this way? Hurry, don’t slow down; properly escort a lady as beautiful as me.”

“U-Understood”.

Lucya, whose mind was born anew. She was unaware that the shadow behind her spread his lips menacingly, like a wolf that got its prey after a lengthy hunt.

The crimson fluid inside the vial stirred; it almost spilled its black mud that wriggled ominously.

However, away from both of them, a blurred figure stood on top of the building, watching them with a sharpened gaze.

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