CH 72

“What, the smell of winter?”

The sorceress, Lia’s friend, was a girl who looked about 15 years old.

She had silver bobbed hair and was wearing a large red bun hat, and her bun hat twitched a little as if there was something inside her.

“It’s strange that you’re a human with the smell of winter.”

She said she needed the blood of a patient to make a neutralizer, so she drew her blood.

She then tried to pour straight into the ingredients, but she sniffed her flask with her nose, saying she smelled like winter.

The smell of winter, is that wizard a beast like Croa?

Psychke guessed so and asked.

“What is the smell of winter?”

“Oh? Oh, can I tell you?”

The wizard blinked her enlarged eyes. She pondered momentarily then asked.

“It’s just a little soul-crushing, or should I say, painful. It’s not going to stop you from living, so you’ll be fine.”

“My soul is torn and I am fine?”

“Yes, it’s all right. It’s my first time smelling it, and it’s unique. Young Su-ins’ will like it.”

After shaking the flask a few times and pouring the blood into the container, she began adding the ingredients she had prepared.

“You know, humans who smell like winter need to add one more ingredient. Because the soul is in an unstable state, the neutralizer may not work.”

“Which?”

“It is a bell-shaped trumpet yellow flower called, Dallua. But I don’t have it right now, it’s all gone.”

“Even in the warehouse?”

Lia, who had been listening beside her, interrupted.

It means that there are no warehouses used by the association for public use.

The red-hat wizard nodded her head.

“Yes. I took it for the Imperial Family to use at war.”

‘Imperial family?’

It was a casual tone, but Psychke was concerned.

The efficacy of Dallua was known even to her.

A type of sedative used primarily in times of war to relieve tension and boost morale.

However, overusing it makes it dangerous which maximizes emotions then make someone numb…

‘I heard that the northern monsters became strange.’

She heard that demons began to exhibit abnormal phenomena after the duke rejected the emperor’s proposal to break off their marriage.

‘I heard that they attack even on the verge of dying as if they don’t feel pain.’

She got to know it because she accidentally overheard Verndia and Isolet talking about it.

He said that the monsters had become more ferocious than before and that they were investigating the cause, but there was no result.

He also said that it is difficult to withstand Lia’s magic alone.

‘Is it too much to guess that the Imperial Family must have taken it to where the Knights are inevitably needed?’

Psychke bit her lips softly at her strange sinisterness.

Verndia, who had been quiet until then, intervened.

“So, are you saying you can’t make it?”

“I can make it if I get Dallua.”

“I’ll get you. What room is it?”

“Lia, you have to help me with this. I can’t make it today by myself.”

Lia, who was about to leave her seat naturally, stopped abruptly.

She took one look at Psychke, and she looked at Verndia’s feet.

And she said awkwardly.

“Yes.”

Unlike usual, she felt that Lia was distancing herself.

Everything was usual before yesterday.

‘Did they fight?’

Psychke identified Verndia with her squint.

Even when Lia was in cold sweat, Verndia didn’t care about her and asked a question.

“Where can I get one?”

“Over there.”

The red-hat wizard chinned the dark brown wooden wall on the other side of the doorway.

There were five doors lined up, numbered one through five.

“You know the rules, right? Don’t you know? Only one person can enter at a time. So, you decide who goes in.”

“What is that?”

“It’s like a passage that connects materials to the place where they grow naturally. Dallua just needs to open and close the door to room 3 three times.”

Psychke wondered inwardly at the words she couldn’t easily understand.

Does she mean to go into room 3 to save Dallua? Due to the structure of the building, there doesn’t seem to be a space behind the door.

‘Should he use magic?’

As she was staring at door number 3 while thinking that, Verndia opened his mouth.

“It would be nice if the Princess come. I want to go, but-”

He casts his gaze at Lia, who helps make the neutralizer.

He turned his head after meeting Lia’s eyes.

“I can’t believe it.”

Because he don’t know what kind of play will these people do while he was gone.

Actually, he didn’t talk to Psychke, but he had been reading books on neutralizers all night. He wants to be prepared for any eventuality.

The Wizard wearing a red hat, who misunderstood his words, was offended.

“You are the first person to openly disbelieve in my medicine.”

“I have its record so of course, I will be like this.”

“I haven’t even made a drug for you before. Look, I don’t want to joke around. Princess, are you going with him?”

The wizard’s red eyes turned to Psychke.

After lightly nodding her head in agreement, Psychke moved to door number three.

“Open and close the door three times, then go at the fourth one. Then you can take it.”

As the wizard said, she opened the door three times.

At the first time, there was only a gray wall. But the second time, she was greeted with a sweet-smelling pink world. For the third time, she saw a sky-colored world with a refreshing smell.

‘Amazing. I can use magic this way too.’

What kind of world is the fourth?

Since it is said to be a yellow flower, would it be a golden world?

Psychke turned the doorknob, imagining the scene that would unfold.

Because of that, she didn’t see the sudden black spark around her hand holding the doorknob.

It was the moment she turned the doorknob for the fourth time.

“…!”

She didn’t even force it, but the door was slammed open. She couldn’t stand the unexpected strong force and was pushed away.

A black gust of wind blew in from inside the door and threw the room into chaos.

Papers floated and instruments tipped over, making a cracking sound here and there.

The wizard, who held the table with one hand on the floor and the hat with the other, was startled.

“What have you done?!”

“I just opened the door-”

The backstory was unbearable. It was because a gust of wind shot around the room as if searching for something.

“–!”

She couldn’t open her eyes because of the wind pressure that her body was pulled into the door and there was nothing she could hold to prevent herself be dragged inside.

In the end, Psychke was helplessly dragged inside.

“Princess!”

Verndia noticed her and swiftly ran up to her and reached out to her. However, a black gust of wind blocked the front like a barrier.

Grinning at this, he raised a purple spark and suppressed the gust of wind.

But at that moment, Psychke was completely dragged inside the door.

Bang!

The door closed completely with a loud sound.

Verndia hastily opened the closed door.

She was nowhere to be found. Not even a black gust blew like it did before.

All he could see was the world that Psychke intended to go to, golden waves rustling in the breeze.

His blue tendon was formed in his hand as he held the doorknob, distorting his expression.

“The Princess, where did you send her to?”

Unintentionally, the vivid purple flesh pierced their lungs.

The two wizards froze.

* *

Psychke waited for the wind to die down and opened her eyes.

“Ugh.”

Her feet ached because she had been rolling lots of times and groaned.

The first thing that caught her eye was a gray blade of grass, grotesquely distorted.

‘What is this?’

This was the first time. She hadn’t seen anything like this even in the botanical garden, which was said to have collected all the plants of the continent.

She raised her gaze to look around her more to see where this was.

The grass on the floor, the trees around her, the leaves on those trees, and even the sky above her head were all gray and grotesque.

It was as if its vitality had been forcibly taken away.

Looking around her surrounding like that, she stopped when she noticed something a little further away.

“A tombstone?”

She headed to the tombstone.

It was a gray tombstone, worn at the edges by the passage of time.

However, it was not difficult to read the writing on the tombstone, and the clean writing seemed to have been maintained by someone on a regular basis.

「Silkisia Elizabeth, sleeps here.」

The part behind the name was damaged as if scratched with a sharp object.

A person who uses Silkisia as a first name rather than a last name.

And the imperial castle, Elizabeth.

‘Is she the first Silkisia?’

History books say that the tombstone of the first Silkisia does not exist, but why is it here?

Is the tombstone of the first Silkisia correct?

Psychke looked around for something other than the tombstone.

But there was nothing but an endless gray world.

‘Where is this really?’

She lifted her head, but didn’t know where to go.

As she was about to step trying to find the exit, creepy and eerie whispers from the tomb was heard.

「 … Heid beware.” 」

‘A ghost?’

Chills ran down her spine.

A person can be cut with a sword, but a ghost with no form cannot be cut with a sword which is even scarier. She grew pale and stepped back involuntarily.

However,

「 “Beware of Adelheid.” 」

Somehow, the sound from the tomb grew louder even her distance from it had increased.

At that moment, she pulled out her sword,

“Oh, princess?”

A soft voice caught her attention.

It was Shiona, with pink hair that reached her chest and orange eyes.

She was grinning horribly as if this was a windfall.

‘This.’

Psychke slightly frowned.

Verndia’s guess that Shiona was a worshipper with a brainwashing magic.

She raised her sword and aimed it at Siona to ward off the ghost.

Either that or not, Shiona showed no signs of being frightened.

“”What are you doing here? This is what a holy place looks like so no one came come and go as she likes. I’ve missed you so it’s fine. Do you want to come over?”

“…”

“A dangerous thing is of no use here, please come.”

She pointed at the straightened sword and smiled at Shiona.

But when Psychke wasn’t listening, she looked off into the distance and sighed exaggeratedly.

“Ah- I was trying to be peaceful, but it’s not working.”

And she ran hard.