After a hearty breakfast, Hubert finally posed the question he had been waiting to ask. They were having dessert, mangosteens topped with condensed milk over grapefruit. Felix was utterly captivated by the bittersweet and sweet-filled taste of the condensed milk grapefruit.
“So, how can you, Miss Sylvia, use magic of different elements?”
Sylvia honestly answered his question.
“I don’t know either. That… maybe it’s because I engraved the magic circle directly on my body… I don’t know the reason myself.”
After finishing her answer, Sylvia stood up and bowed her waist.
“I’m sorry for deceiving you.”
Among the mercenaries who went monster hunting together, there was an unspoken rule to protect each other’s lives. There had to be trust and no secrets among them. Sylvia had broken this basic rule.
Of course, if one considers the situation when she first arrived here, not everyone was honest. But they were different. Even knowing she was of no help, they included her in the monster hunting and protected her. Yet, she had just kept her mouth shut, thinking vaguely that she had to hide it.
As Sylvia was apologizing, Hubert was about to say something when Felix, with a terrifying face, harshly put down the spoon he was eating the grapefruit with.
And then, looking as if glaring at Sylvia, he said,
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Huh?”
Sylvia asked back with a confused expression, straightening her waist. Felix spread his palm and harshly slammed it on the table, looking around at the mercenaries, and said,
“Don’t question it. If I’ve accepted and moved on, then that’s the end of it.”
Hubert saw the serious gaze of his lord and bowed his head.
“Yes, Captain!”
“Yes, we will do so!”
Excluding Hubert, all members rose briskly from their seats, placing their hands on their chests and responding loudly. Sylvia turned her head to look at Felix.
It was a stern expression she had never seen before.
With a low gaze, Felix scanned the members and naturally picked up the spoon he had set aside. Then, he started to scoop up a new serving of the condensed milk grapefruit for himself.
He seemed quite pleased.
Sylvia’s heart thumped at his protective actions. And, as if to not let anyone else have it, she sneakily smiled while watching him quickly finish off the condensed milk grapefruit.
‘Ah, who’s the really cute one here?’
Sylvia sat down and pushed the condensed milk grapefruit in front of her towards him. Sylvia whispered softly to Felix, who looked at her with wide eyes.
“Eat this too.”
The hand that took it looked natural, even in bewilderment. Then, noticing that Sylvia’s plate was empty, he pushed it back.
“Why aren’t you eating?”
Felix handed her the spoon and continued,
“Eat up, like usual.”
The overflowing emotions, like over-whipped cream, calmed down in an instant. Sylvia stabbed the spoon into the grapefruit with a cold glare. Just as she was about to put a spoonful of the yellowish condensed milk and pink grapefruit flesh into her mouth, something flew towards her.
Click! Roll.
A small stone landed in the middle of the table. Everyone who was eating dessert turned their gaze to the center of the table.
Then another stone flew towards them. Felix dealt with the stone aimed at Sylvia with wind magic.
“What’s this?”
Looking in the direction from which the stone came, Hubert answered Felix,
“Captain, it’s a person.”
They hadn’t had the chance to scout the lakeside they had hastily arrived at last night. Felix saw a few men standing a bit away.
They seemed angry but were in a sorry state. One wore a shirt with a torn sleeve, trousers with holes at the knees, and were visibly malnourished at a glance.
“What on earth…”
Sylvia was at a loss for words.
“Hand over what you have!”
Among the men, one who appeared relatively unharmed stepped forward and issued a threat.
“If possible, hand over some food!”
The threat came with a brandished stick rather than a weapon. Another man seemed to be trying to restrain him by pulling at his clothes.
“Are you mad! If you do that to a band of mercenaries, you could get killed! Why are you doing this all of a sudden!”
“My son is about to die, is that what matters now! If Noel dies, I couldn’t care less about my own life!”
“How can you say that after we’ve come this far!”
It wasn’t clear if they had previously agreed on this course of action, but they whispered angrily to each other. Then, the man holding the stick pushed the other man away.
Sylvia, who had been watching this series of events in a daze, suddenly stood up and marched towards the men. Surprisingly, the men were the ones taken aback by her approach.
“Don’t come any closer!”
The man waving the stick looked more pitiable than threatening. The thinness of his arms was more noticeable than the stick he wielded.
Sylvia stopped about five steps away and asked,
“Are you staying in this area?”
Expecting an attack, the man stuttered in response to her polite inquiry.
“We were just driven here by monsters late at night. We didn’t know there were already people here, so we couldn’t greet you properly.”
The unexpected polite reply left the men at the back of the group answering sheepishly without realizing it.
“Oh, no, if it was late at night then naturally… ugh.”
Just then, a man beside him elbowed him sharply and stepped forward, raising his voice.
“We were here first! So, you newcomers should leave! This is our land! Our village!”
His eyes were bloodshot, flickering wildly. He looked desperately on edge, as if backed into a corner with no choice but to fight.
Sylvia, intending to respond as calmly as possible, was about to speak when Felix approached from behind. His large stature and matching hair and eye color made it easy for the men to identify him as a warrior.
Felix understood why Sylvia was acting this way, but he couldn’t stand to watch them yell at her any longer.
They might be his people, so he decided to step in and continue the conversation himself. He had no intention of mindlessly letting her handle everything as before.
“Wait…”
The men, now stepping back with fearful eyes at Felix’s approach, were interrupted by a tearing scream.
“My husband! My Noel! Oh, my Noel… our son…”
A woman came staggering towards them, falling and crying out in despair as she approached.
“Oh, husband, our Noel, please…”
Out of breath, the woman couldn’t continue. But the urgency of the situation was clear to everyone. The leading man threw his stick aside and ran towards her, followed by the rest in haste.
Sylvia grabbed Felix’s hand.
“Let’s go see.”
Hearing her, Felix picked up Sylvia.
“Hey, what the…”
“I’m faster this way.”
Holding her in one arm, he began to run. Sylvia wrapped her arms around his neck like a daughter being carried by her father. The place where the people had hurriedly gathered was not far off. A makeshift shelter made of branches and large leaves was visible.
The woman and a man who had entered called out for the child loudly.
“Noel! Noel!”
Sylvia jumped out of Felix’s arms and darted into the hut before he could catch her.
“Who are you…!”
Before a man could finish speaking upon discovering her, Sylvia approached a child named Noel, who was sweating profusely and suffering. His whole body was burning up like a ball of fire. Sylvia didn’t know much about illnesses.
However, seeing the child’s emaciated body, swollen lips, and the fever far above normal body temperature, she knew the cause. Noel wasn’t the only one there; about a dozen children were all showing the same symptoms.
Noel seemed to be in the worst condition.
“Felix!”
Sylvia called out to him.
“Bring me my spatial bag, please!”
She asked for the bag she had left in his tent and grew bananas using plant magic. Bananas were the most suitable soft fruit to feed him immediately.
She quickly peeled them and mashed them with wind magic. She moistened the child’s lips and mouth with water magic and fed him the mashed banana bit by bit.
“Little one, you have to swallow.”
Sylvia cleaned the child’s grimy body and clothes with magic and dried him.
“Sylvia!”
Felix quickly returned with her bag. Sylvia then washed and dried all the lying children with magic before channeling magic into a plant magic circle.
A vine quickly grew into beds. She took out her own bedding to make places for the children to lie down. The adults around cautiously stepped back.
They didn’t say anything, but they could tell what she was doing.
“Noel…”
“Rose…”
They trembled and called out their children’s names.
Sylvia took out rice and eggs from her spatial bag. She took out a large pot, put in the rinsed rice first, soaked it in water for a while, and hurriedly put it on the fire. Then she took out jam and bread from the bag and made various juices on the spot.
“Felix, give these to the adults. I’ll watch the children.”
Felix quickly took them. The mercenary who followed him moved swiftly to distribute the food. Sylvia praised the child who was slowly moving his mouth to eat the mashed banana.
“You’re doing well. There’s still a lot left, so you need to keep moving your mouth. Understand?”
Sylvia fed another child the mashed banana and used ice magic to create cool water pouches. She placed one on each child’s forehead and stirred the porridge she was making with wind magic.
She squeezed only the clear juice from carrots, tomatoes, and oranges and dripped it into the children’s mouths.
The children diligently moved their little lips to eat. The adults also hurriedly ate bread with jam. They had juice to drink, so there was no need to worry about choking. Drinking the cool, sweet, and sour juice, someone burst into tears.
“Boo hoo, sob sob.”
They didn’t know how long it had been since they last had food. They trembled as they stuffed bread into their mouths.
Sylvia turned to see this scene and approached.
Leave a Reply