Chapter 16

Chapter 16

One of them spoke again, apparently this stranger was talking nonsense without understanding the situation.

“You, outsider. You don’t know anything. He’s the one who decided on today being the day of his death.”

“Day of his death? Why would he decide that?”

“Because there’s no hope. He can’t be saved anymore even if our Elandos appeared right now. If there was a way, we’d have figured it out first.”

The Akarna did not exist for them. They didn’t even believe in divine power.

Jiwoo looked around in a cold sweat. All of them did not disarm themselves, rather they were more wary of her and aimed their weapons at her.

There seemed to be close to ten people, but Lanceil was not among them. It looks like he wasn’t here yet.

Jiwoo explained as much as possible.

“…You know Lanceil. You must know what condition he was in? I healed Lanceil’s wounds.”

This case was definitely of the miasma that the Akarna could remove. So she went on to say that it’s not impossible to heal. But they did not agree.

The tallest of them all, the blonde, spoke as the representative. It seemed like he had been running all night, but the blonde hair over his shoulders looked fine. As he got closer, the blonde hair that had clung to his shoulders cascaded down.

A look of tension was evident on his face. He spoke in a voice as calm as his neat impression.

“Then you will understand this quickly.”

“What?”

“He made Lanceil’s wounds.”

That was unexpected. Lanceil’s condition back then evidently looked like he was dying from wounds further eroded by miasma, and injuries like that were normally inflicted only by beasts.

“I thought it was the wounds he received from a beast.”

“His condition is not that different from that of a beast. I don’t know how you healed Lanceil. But it’s impossible to heal him.”

Jiwoo did not give up and continued to persuade them.

“…I mean, you don’t know yet whether what I’ll do will work or not.”

“And it’s also not sure what kind of danger will come back if there’d be any recoil. You know what happens when that energy explodes. So he has to be killed before he does any more damage.”

“But…”

“I’ve said it already. This is his dying wish.”

It was a cold, realistic, yet rational statement.

But she couldn’t give up the person who was so desperately clinging to life. It also helped that they didn’t look as bad as their first impression.

Jiwoo was a stranger whom they rejected and might mercilessly kill. If they really only cared about their own well-being and killed the weak, they would not persuade Jiwoo, but would have killed her along with this person named Helka.

And the fact that he clings to her like this adds credibility to one of Jiwoo’s guesses.

“Now… he’s getting better, a little bit.”

Even the man who reluctantly rebutted Jiwoo’s words agreed.

The man, who had been screaming all night, didn’t seem to feel any pain so severe that he groaned and moaned in Jiwoo’s arms. It was natural. The pain caused by the miasma, which was eroding the body, was more severe than the pain getting your limbs cut off.

And since the shock brought upon by this pain wouldn’t even cause death, people suffering from miasma would just cry out and beg for death while they lost their senses.

It was the same with this person.

The pain that the miasma caused was greater than the wounds they inflicted to kill him, so he should be screaming because of it now. However, as he was in contact with Jiwoo, the pain has been lessened to a certain extent.

“What if it goes wrong? It’s the same risk we have to take.”

“Can’t we just try?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Give me a blade.”

A dagger was thrown in front of Jiwoo together with the sheath. No matter how negative they were, they didn’t seem to want to abandon this man called Helka.

Jiwoo took the dagger out of its sheath and cut her palm.

Unlike their blood, which smells like a flower soaked in water, a metallic smell wafted from this human’s wound.

Grab!

“Ack…!”

And the person named Helka immediately reacted to the smell.

He put his mouth to the blood flowing down her palm. If he had been considerate of the wounded, he would have gently licked the blood, but unfortunately he already lost his rationality to do so.

“Uhk…!”

She frowned at the pain that could not be ignored. Helka was devouring Jiwoo’s blood while biting her palm and sucking it from the side.

“Uh, ahh. Huk… Huuk… Uugh…”

The effect started to appear. The vicious black mist that was creeping up from him began to dissipate. However, his body had already been eroded by miasma so strong that it could not be completely purified at once.

Spark! Buzz!

The purification happened like lightning flashes, but the miasma crackled around them. Fortunately, those around Jiwoo and Helka quickly avoided it.

Instead, the ground was hollowed out because it splattered to the ground. The grass nearby got charred.

Helka hugged Jiwoo tighter as if holding onto a lifeline.

“Haa… Ugh…”

It seemed that his rationality had not yet returned. Jiwoo gulped. And as she watched this, she looked up at the blond man in cold sweat.

“Um, does he look alright?”

“…My name is Callandein. You may call me Callan.”

‘Callan? I think that’s the name I heard earlier today.’

As Jiwoo thought his name was familiar, he continued.

“It certainly seems to work. But did you take the damage?”

“Damage?”

Callandein’s gaze was on Jiwoo’s hand. The palm that Helka had just licked the blood from was stained black. It looked just like a wound that was being eroded by miasma. But because Jiwoo was the Akarna, she did not feel any pain.

In fact, she was just a little surprised. It was the first time something like this had happened.

While doing her duty as the Akarna, she only healed the contaminated ground or the wounds of the sick. She had never dealt with a beast… or an individual who was in a similar state.

Jiwoo’s expression sank low. She has seen a lot of people die with their bodies turned black like this.

When she first saw it, it was hard to not even vomit, but now her body has become like this, it didn’t matter. Had her emotions dried up that much? As Jiwoo was thinking dark thoughts, Callandein said.

“…Do you want a reward?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You are an outsider. Someone that has nothing to do with us.”

The moment she heard those words, she felt a line snap somewhere in her head.

“…Hahaha.”

Jiwoo laughed.

Reward. A reward… It’s been a while since she heard the word reward.

The Akarna was merely someone who performed the duties of the temple. Dispatched at the request of the people of the empire, she was respected and revered, yet easily resented.

Whenever the Akarna arrived on time and would solve the problem every time she was asked to give a helping hand in an area damaged by beasts, everyone would instead praise the temple and revere the imperial family.

If she arrived a little late, people would cry out, saying, ‘Why didn’t you come earlier?’

Jiwoo’s work was neither a philanthropist nor a welfare worker. She was acting only on the duty she was mandated to follow. Literally, it was the God-given ‘duty of the Akarna’. She lived such a brainwashed life, she never even thought of being rewarded.

But, as they said, Jiwoo was an outsider. She had nothing to do with the empire now, nothing to do with the temple, nothing to do with the god of this damn world.

Maybe she had nothing to do with this world at all. The empire was not her country, and Jiwoo was an atheist.

The empire worshiped, supported, and praised the Akarna as God’s great emissary, and yet they did not give Jiwoo a fair reward.

Reward? What kind of reward would ever be given to someone who’s taken for granted?

The temple had not fully accepted Jiwoo as someone who’s one of them. They drilled it into Jiwoo that she needed to do the Akarna’s duty while emphasizing how her loyalties should lie with them, but in reality, they all treated her as nothing but an outsider.

From the moment she realized again just how much she was not someone who the crown prince would marry proudly. Jiwoo kept engraving into the deepest part of her heart that, at the end of it all, she was just an outsider.

Blood and lineage was important to nobles, and because Jiwoo suddenly fell from the sky, she would never have been able to obtain the position to marry the crown prince proudly.

On the other hand, in this place, they were clearly rejecting her and calling her an outsider, yet they’re offering to reward her because of that very reason. So, it’s only obvious that she’d laugh.

She had lived like a fool in order to be recognized as a member of this world, but, after all that, it turned out that it’s better to be treated like an outsider.

As she tried to hold back the laughter bubbling up inside her, tears came out. Wiping away the tears that leaked out, she said with a slightly trembling voice.

“A reward. It would be nice to have one…”

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