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Hearing those words, Jiwoo glanced back at Enciertes, who was following them.
He was startled as if he had been looking this way all along. Then, holding on to his collar, he folded into himself even more. He averted his gaze, and even blushed, too.
She wondered if it would be possible to have a conversation with that person. He looked to be much too shy.
* * *
The place that Helka had prepared was the place where the alchemist would stay. There were long tables, various herbs, and glass bottles of good quality were lined up in rows. There was also some good quality paper and ink on the shelf, probably for recording purposes.
Helka first pulled out a chair and urged Jiwoo to sit down there. Then, he sat next to Jiwoo.
Even then, her hand was still tightly held by him. For some reason, cold sweat formed on her palms, but he didn’t seem to let go.
Enciertes sat quite a distance from them. In normal terms, it was just enough distance so they could still hear his voice.
No one was in the mood to speak first.
Helkainis was silent, and Enciertes kept cowering into himself.
In the end, Jiwoo had to step in first and open her mouth. The first thing she asked was the unanswered question among the questions she had earlier.
“The offer to send me back. If only five Akarnas returned in a total of two hundred years while the rest died, wouldn’t you say that the success rate is low?”
Enci raised his head and slowly opened his mouth.
“…I have never failed during any of my attempts.”
“Then?”
So how come there have been only five successful cases in 200 years?
“Because those imperial bastards tracked them down and killed them all.”
“…….”
“In the first place, an Akarna can’t live that long. They all die within a year. If you order them to do that, everyone would of course run away and get caught and die. It’s difficult to make contact with them before they die, and even if I make contact with them with difficulty, they’ll be tracked down and killed.”
“…But I lived in the temple for five years without any major problems.”
“You lasted for five years.”
Enciertes rolled his eyes and smirked. His white gloved hand pointed at Jiwoo.
“And in the end, you ran away, too.”
“……”
Nothing came to her mind. She really had nothing to say.
Leaving the silent Jiwoo be, Enciertes continued to speak.
“That place you call a temple is such a place where they can interfere in the affairs of other dimensions by forcibly distorting the providence of this world. And an Akarna like you…”
Enciertes’ sole silver eye stared at Jiwoo.
“Through such a place… An Akarna is an existence that is occasionally found by chance in various parts of the world.”
“In various parts of the world?”
As far as Jiwoo knew, the only place where Akarna appeared was the temple. The white altar.
Countless eyes looking her way. Akarna’s duty began from that time. There was no way she could forget it.
“Originally, there were many places like that. On the outer wall… there were more. Until the Empire destroyed them all.”
As the places where Akarna could appear decreased, naturally the existence of Akarna also decreased. As an Akarna’s existence, who can purify miasma, decreased, the beasts naturally became more active.
The beast’s land expanded. Instead, only the empire and the temple that secured Akarna were powerful.
“You know what? Even 200 years ago, an Akarna was treated like a god here. God doesn’t exist, but the foolish humans of Caranazion must have called them that. They were loved like the Elandos of El Ragnile. It has changed so much now…”
Jiwoo’s hand grew tense. Perhaps if she had clenched her fists by herself, her nails would have dug into her palms. However, Helka held on tight to prevent her from doing so.
“What the hell is an Akarna?”
“…It’s like a natural phenomenon. It is a phenomenon that happens by chance as the world spins. However, when the providence of one dimension and the providence of another dimension collide, the existence caught between them cannot overcome the impact and is torn to pieces. If the beings with a strong will to live to survive, they become an Akarna.”
A stranger who deviates from this world’s laws of nature, a being who instinctively knows how to cut off threats that deviates from the rules.
It was the ability to nullify anything that posed a threat to her in an unfamiliar world. The healing and purifying powers that manifested, could be explained by this.
Enciertes said in a pitiful voice.
“You were born with a strong will and vitality, but in the end, you’re just an ordinary person.”
“How did you forcefully summon someone like that?”
“You can replace that life force with something else. Maybe… whenever an Akarna was summoned, there must have been a big war. Many villages were said to have been annihilated by the beasts.”
However, the Akarna artificially generated in the temple was far inferior to how they were reputed 200 years ago. She didn’t go through the dimension with her own will, so this was only a given. And with that extent, the temple bound the new Akarnas, intimidating them and using them easily.
She reached a realization.
The temple announced that Jiwoo was the incarnation of a newly descended god, and immediately propagated that the god would take care of the war-torn empire.
It means they were at war.
A god dwells in Akarna to take care of this land of chaos!
A god has descended to save the people of this land suffering from the beasts!
The priests’ deafening shouts were still stuck in her head.
Right now, she was dizzy with so much information pouring in. She was also taken aback.
The heretics she thought she should avoid—the alchemists of the outer wall—were the only saviors of the suffering Akarna.
‘After all, you’re just an ordinary person.’
She could not help but feel suffocated by those words.
She didn’t want to do anything as the Akarna. She wanted to live a normal life. However, this alchemist acknowledges her vitality, but calls her an ordinary person.
She seemed to know what Helkainis was preparing for. He seemed to be thinking of replacing the life force she had to pay while interfering with the providence of the dimensions.
That’s why he must have said that he would spend all his life span extended for that, but it wasn’t something to take lightly.
As Jiwoo was looking down at the floor, Enciertes pulled something out of his inner pocket.
“What I ask of you is…”
Tap.
Enci put it on the table. It was something like a specimen covered with a round glass cover. What was inside was a dry branch without a single leaf. A small twig that was stained black like charcoal and was unsightly and withered.
But they looked at it fondly. So Jiwoo felt that it was like the rose that the Little Prince cherished.
“I want to see if you can… save this.”
“What is it?”
Helkainis, who had been silent until then, opened his mouth.
“Seo Jiwoo, our Elandos is sick. We crossed the Great Vortex and reached Caranazion to find a way to cure it.”
“Then, this is… Elandos? This little thing?”
They shook their heads at the same time.
“It’s a small twig of Elandos. It’s dry, but it’s still alive. This… This is the last. The last trace of Elandos that’s left for us…”
Even after putting it down on the table, Enciertes couldn’t let go of it easily.
The reason he didn’t want to come here in the first place, and the fact that he brought this here seemed very displeasing to him.
“I don’t know if you will succeed. None of the Akarna I’ve met so far has ever succeeded. But… since you’re an Akarna who survived here for over five years…”
They, too, gambled on something that was not certain.
“If you’re successful…”
Helkainis opened his mouth.
“Come with me beyond the Great Vortex to El Ragnile. Please heal our Elandos. In return, I will do anything you ask.”
Hellkainis’ hand, which held Jiwoo’s hand, gained more strength.
What he held was his lifeline. Could she be the salvation of the group he led?
* * *
Jiwoo accepted the offer, and said that she would think about what reward she’d like to receive.
“I need to prepare something, so please wait a little bit.”
Enciertes sent Helkainis saying that he was disturbing him. So he left Jiwoo in the laboratory. Jiwoo sat in the back, far away from Enci, and silently watched the clatter as he prepared something.
Cough, cough cough!
Enci coughed incessantly. She felt it from the first time she met him, but he seemed very unwell. The eyepatch covering his face and a coat tightly wrapped around his body. And the way he constantly changed his gloves didn’t look very natural.
Even if he touched the medicine, it was too much to change.
In the end, Jiwoo got very concerned and moved closer to Enci.
“Are you sick?”
“Uh, uwah!”
Enci was startled and nearly dropped what was in his hand.
“You… surprised me!”
Then, in an instant, he took five steps back from Jiwoo.
“Do, don’t come closer? It’s dirty…!”
She wondered if he was saying that she was dirty, but no matter how much he rejected strangers, he was still someone who’s one requesting such a huge favor from her.
“Damn. Damn… don’t look…”
However, she soon realized that she was mistaken. As he hurriedly put back the white gloves on, she saw his hands.
They were black, like burnt charcoal.