153 – Alice (4)
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No matter how outrageous something may be, if it happens repeatedly enough, it becomes familiar.
I was used to clearing up Sylvia’s misunderstandings, and Sylvia was also used to realizing her own misunderstandings through my explanations, so we were able to have a fairly calm conversation.
As I tried to explain to her earnestly that it was just a misunderstanding due to the angle and that I had never done anything bad that should have been shown to Sylvia, Sylvia’s murderous spirit quickly subsided despite her evil eyes.
“… It’s really nothing.”
“I was just looking at Ash’s legs. What the hell were you looking at to come up with such a stupid idea?”
“Anyone who sees it would misunderstand it…”
“… The old you wouldn’t have misunderstood things like that. No, the old you wouldn’t have even thought about it in the first place. You weren’t that kind of character.”
“…ugh,”
Sylvia blushed and shut her mouth tightly.
As I watched the nuances of what the two were saying, it seemed that the old Sylvia had no interest in things like dirty jokes.
She’s very different from the Sylvia I know.
At least the Sylvia I knew was capable of telling a bit of a dirty joke and was incredibly good at creating a dirty atmosphere.
At this point, I was starting to wonder what Sylvia looked like in the old days.
Sylvia glanced at me for no reason and started to get angry.
“Ash, you’re the problem. Why do you keep making me anxious?”
“Oh, I really didn’t do anything! Look at this, my knees are definitely better than before.”
I squatted down in front of Sylvia and stood up repeatedly.
After Sylvia’s treatment, I was able to walk and miraculously run, but my legs still creaked because they had been completely destroyed once. When Sister Alice used her divine power to heal them to some extent, their condition improved noticeably.
The angle of my body, which had been strangely crooked, straightened up, and it felt a little awkward.
Sylvia glanced at Alice and said, looking at my legs like that.
“I knew that Ash’s leg wasn’t normal. I had done everything I could, so there was nothing I could do. However, since it was already in such a long state, I didn’t expect it to be fixed, but I guess the High Priest is different.”
“It’s still not completely healed. Some of the slightly twisted joints and parts have been repositioned, but the bones that were crooked have already healed and are still the same. In fact, it’s a miracle that Ash can run now. It’s easy for it to break again.”
“Isn’t it completely impossible to fix?”
In response to Sylvia’s question, Sister Alice folded her arms and looked at my legs.
“Hmm… I guess the misaligned bone could be fixed by completely crushing Ash’s leg and then using divine power.”
“Oh… that way.”
Sisters Sylvia and Alice looked at me at the same time.
I shook my head, feeling goosebumps rise all over my body.
“no.”
“…”
“Don’t look at me like that. I would never do that.”
“Ash, I’ll break it cleanly and Alice will put it back together cleanly, so don’t worry…”
“Isn’t that too scary? Don’t even dream about it.”
“It’ll only hurt for a moment. No, you won’t even know it hurts. Sylvia will fix it as soon as she breaks it.”
“Ugh.”
I ran away screaming softly.
Sisters Sylvia and Alice just snickered at me as I looked at them, but didn’t chase me.
But somehow I had a feeling that those two people might break my legs and fix them while I was sleeping.
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After running, dodging, and performing various physical tests, Sister Alice’s test was over.
I said that I could show you the spirit liquor with Pia if you wanted, but Sister Alice shook her head.
The reason was that I didn’t know anything about spirits, so I didn’t know how to evaluate them.
With the words that she would first learn the role that a normal adventurer-level wizard would play, Sister Alice took a thin piece of charred firewood from the campfire and began to scribble on a palm-sized piece of parchment.
Pia was puffing out her cheeks to express her discontent, but unfortunately, her older sister Alice couldn’t see her.
“Hmm… There are a lot of variables, but for now…”
I glanced at Sister Alice’s parchment and saw that she was calculating something, writing down a bunch of numbers.
My older sister, who had been squinting her eyes and writing down the numbers, nodded after a while and began to mutter as if she had finished calculating.
“If there are no other obstacles, it would take about two weeks, or assuming there are battles every day, a month.”
“What are you calculating?”
“How long will it take us to reach the Demon King’s Castle?”
Sister Alice answered briefly, folding the piece of parchment.
I asked back in surprise.
“It only takes that much time?”
“Assuming we don’t encounter any annoying obstacles or that Ash’s steps don’t slow down.”
Although I knew that the forest of reclining trees where Sylvia and I lived was near the Demon King’s castle, I never once thought about where exactly it was.
It might be closer to something you didn’t want to think about in the first place.
To me, who was just an ordinary human, not even a warrior, let alone a hero, the very thought of the Demon King was a disaster so great and overwhelming that I instinctively wanted to avoid it.
It was a moment when I realized anew what I was going towards and why Sister Alice and Sylvia were so reluctant.
“…Huh? Wait a minute,”
At the same time, a question arose in my mind.
Sylvia had clearly said that after defeating the Demon King, she dragged her injured body to Millwood Village where the cabin was located.
So, does that mean that Sylvia walked for two weeks with her injured body?
No, it could have taken longer than that, as he was seriously injured.
You said I had strong willpower because I walked with a broken leg, but you said the same thing.
“It’s the full moon… It seems close, but it’s surprisingly far.”
“No, it’s close. The road is a bit rough though.”
“huh?”
“what’s the matter?”
Oh, no way.
“Sister, if I weren’t here, how long would it take to get to the Demon King’s castle?”
“Just me and Sylvia?”
“huh.”
“Well… if there are no interruptions, it shouldn’t take more than five days, right?”
The full moon was my standard.
“It’s three times the difference.”
“Well, that’s true. The training time was different in the first place.”
Sister Alice shrugged her shoulders and said.
Actually, I thought that no matter how badly Sylvia was injured, she might still be several times faster than me when I was fine.
That was the extent of the difference between me and Sylvia.
It was natural, since I was weak even among the common people and Sylvia was the best among the heroes of the reversal.
“…under,”
The final three expedition members to take down the Demon King.
Sylvia, who is in charge of the attack with overwhelming force
Alice continues her journey of recovery and journey based on overflowing divine power.
And I was in charge of the sandbags at this party.
“At that point, wouldn’t I just be a nuisance?”
“What, you said you’d do it and then you thought of something like that?”
Sister Alice glared at me as if I was dumbfounded.
“Ash.”
“… huh?”
“The Demon King’s castle is so close, just as I said, so why hasn’t anyone gone there until now?”
“…Uh, well?”
Alice slowly put down the parchment and the piece of wood and looked at me.
“Even if Sylvia didn’t know that the Demon King wasn’t dead, why didn’t I head straight to the Demon King’s castle last time?”
“… hmm,”
“The world is going to ruin every day, and my body is going to ruin every day too… Anyway, why did I tell you to train me for a month and then go get all kinds of supplies?”
Alice looked at me quietly, waiting for my answer.
If I gave a half-assed answer, those calmly burning golden eyes would burn my body to the ground with pity, so I slowly and carefully chose the words to answer.
“…because it required preparation?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“…”
“More precisely, because we could not possibly win without preparing. And you too, go into the preparations we need.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, at first I thought you were talking nonsense about taking me to the Demon King’s castle, but it seems like that wasn’t necessarily the case.”
After saying that, Sister Alice opened the small leather bag on her waist and started rummaging through it.
Then he slowly took something small out of it and handed it to me.
“what’s this?”
It was a bracelet made of a thin, flimsy-looking silver chain.
The thick decoration contrasted with the thin thread, and the unique design of a large blue jewel set in the center of the decoration caught the eye.
Jewelry with oversized stones was usually a favorite of older ladies, but it seemed unlikely that any lady would wear such an odd piece of jewelry.
At that moment, memories of this bracelet flowed into a corner of my mind.
It was definitely a bracelet I had seen in a book a long time ago.
It was a strange feeling.
I’m not a genius, so I don’t remember every book I’ve ever read, and this book wasn’t one I particularly enjoyed reading enough to be memorable.
A memory that literally passed before my eyes.
It was such a vivid memory that it felt strange somehow.
“I remember. I saw it when Ash was studying. There was a book that had something to say about this bracelet. Why, it was on the front page of Introduction to Magic.”
I know that Malice is a spirit sorcerer, but most people in this world know him as a wizard, so it wouldn’t be surprising if there was a record of Malice at the beginning of the Introduction to Magic textbook.
I just skipped over it because I was studying mainly for the exam, but Pia seemed to have read it carefully.
“Pia? You read the book?”
“Back then, Ash didn’t see or feel me. I read along with Ash when he was bored. Of course, Ash usually reads really boring books, so I usually quit right away, but I still remember this.”
Pia said, looking at the bracelet in Alice’s hand.
“It’s Malice’s bracelet.”
“Malis’ bracelet?”
As I muttered along with Pia, Sister Alice nodded and said.
“I see, you’re right.”
Sister Alice continued speaking, handing me the bracelet.
“I told you to look into Malice.”
“Ah… that’s right, but, is this… real?”
“Of course it’s true.”
“No, I told you to investigate. Who told you to rip it off?”
“Don’t do that, your brother worked hard to bring this.”
“older brother?”
“huh.”
Sister Alice nodded.
The moment I realized something, I opened my eyes wide and shouted.
“Brother Eric?”
“that’s right.”
“… Oh my god, how are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m a bit of a farter in the Thieves’ Guild.”
“Ah… That’s right, Eric… That’s the answer.”
After saying that, I slowly closed my mouth.
Of course, I was very happy because I never imagined that I would ever hear news from Eric.
It was surprising to hear that he was doing well in the crime guild, but somehow I had a feeling that Eric hyung would be more than capable of doing that.
While I felt sweet thinking about the hazy memories that took up a part of my childhood, I also felt a bitter taste in my mouth when I thought about Eric’s father, Uncle Hardy, who lost his life while helping me and Layla.
I just don’t feel like accepting the bracelet.
But Alice noticed my feelings and slowly put the bracelet on my wrist as she said.
“They say this bracelet has the power to bring the dead back to life.”
“… what?”
“But no wizard has ever been able to prove this fact. So most people think it’s just a legend. But if Malice is a spirit sorcerer as you say, then this might be working through the power of the spirits, not magic.”
“…”
“If, as the legend says, this thing has the power to revive the dead, then even if Sylvia and I were defeated by the Demon King, we would still have a chance.”
Contrary to Alice’s words, I felt no strength from the cold bracelet wrapped around my wrist.
“Don’t expect too much… I don’t feel anything.”
“I don’t know, when it might come in handy.”
“And anyway, my sister won’t die. Because of that incredible divine power.”
“Ash.”
Sister Alice said, gently wrapping her hand around my wrist, which was filled with bracelets.
“I’m dying.”
“… what?”
“I will die, soon, unconditionally. Maybe even on my journey to capture the Demon King… maybe even tomorrow… I don’t know when I will die.”
Just as my sister spoke firmly, her golden eyes were also looking at me with a firm gaze.
I looked into her sparkling eyes without saying a word.
In that gaze, there was a determination and resolve as strong as my sister’s armor.
And within it, a faint, sorrowful spark of hope was seen.
“But… Ash might be able to save me.”
“Sister…?”
.