[CHAPTER 63]
“What were you doing without receiving treatment when your body is in this state?”
Serena gritted her teeth and muttered.
The time of agony was stretching on.
Both Caliph and Serena began to look pale, as healing an X-rank Holy Knight required a massive amount of mana.
Watching the two fight another battle away from the battlefield, Mayna was seized by a crushing sense of helplessness.
‘I, I…’
A feeling she had had to endure during all the time she served as Caliph’s aide.
‘I can’t do anything.’
The stench of blood hung in the air.
Her chest felt like it was being ripped apart.
In Serena’s eyes, which were holding Caliph’s upper body without any gap, a sharp resolve briefly flickered.
With purely animalistic movements driven by survival instinct, she clutched Caliph by the back of his neck.
“……!”
Just as their lips were about to meet,
Mayna lowered her head.
For some reason, she could not bear to watch.
* * *
The situation was temporarily resolved as Goul carried Caliph and Serena out with several physicians.
Several hours later, at dawn, Mayna finally fell into a faint-like sleep after hearing that both were safe.
When the morning sun rose, the abdominal pain that had twisted her stomach subsided.
“Are you feeling a bit more alert, Princess?”
“How is your body?”
Due to her sudden hospitalization, according to the original agreement with Banze, Mayna was supposed to leave Renox Castle immediately upon discharge.
“I’m sorry, but could you give me just a little more time, sir?”
Hearing Mayna’s request that she still had things to settle, Banze graciously allowed her three more days.
In the afternoon, Hoji, Hoge Magia, and Babred visited the hospital room together.
“Ugh! Aide! What on earth happened?”
“Tch. Don’t make a fuss, Hoji.”
“How are you? I brought some food.”
Hoge Magia and Babred filled the hospital room with all the food they had brought.
“Here are the glasses you requested.”
When Mayna put on the new glasses Hoji had prepared, her previously blurry vision finally cleared.
While the staff from Renox Castle and Gigi came to visit one by one, Mayna gradually recovered, falling in and out of light sleep.
* * *
Finally, on the night before her discharge.
“You’re alive?”
The last visitor was Curden Lota.
Wearing a navy suit jacket over his arm, he carried an unusually bright yellow bouquet of roses.
Mayna, having closed her book, looked up at Curden with a surprised expression.
“Sir Lota! What’s with the flowers?”
“I was told to buy them. I thought bright colors would be better.”
“Who told you?”
Curden answered while nudging the bouquet under Mayna’s chin.
“Who else but Hoge Magia?”
“Haha. Of course….”
At Renox Castle, only Hoge Magia would have such meticulous attention.
“I thought the kitchen was empty.”
Curden let out a dry look over the food piled up in the room and plopped into a chair.
Mayna laughed awkwardly and buried her nose in the bouquet, inhaling the fresh scent of roses.
“It’s a hospital again, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
Mayna smiled faintly, looking down.
In just a few months, she had ended up hospitalized twice.
“I’m sorry, Sir Lota.”
“For what?”
“Even though you must be busy, I’ve caused you to visit the hospital multiple times because of me.”
Curden interrupted with another topic, as if the apology were unnecessary.
“Sir Hiaron was discharged two days ago.”
“…I see!”
Mayna brightened.
She had been worried about Adonis for the past four days.
“He was supposed to travel by train with me, but after arriving at the hospital, I haven’t seen him. Hoge Magia and Babred didn’t know either…”
‘I couldn’t bring myself to ask Sir Lota.’
Since witnessing him receiving healing from Serena, I haven’t seen him either.
“Anyway, I’m glad he was discharged safely-”
“He deliberately left without seeing the aide.”
“What?”
“He thought he would get angry if he saw them.”
Mayna’s expression stiffened instantly at Curden’s reply.
The scene at Drain Station came back vividly, as if it were only a few hours ago.
The moment Adonis jumped from the departing train, crying and shouting.
“I’ve heard roughly what happened.”
Curden said.
Mayna nodded.
“I see.”
“That scoundrel was captured by Lord Ouke himself.”
Mayna’s expression twisted.
She had been curious about his whereabouts but had refrained from asking; even saying it aloud was disgusting.
“Was it yesterday? Caliph personally captured and imprisoned him.”
“Sir Lota?”
Curden nodded once.
“So Sir Lota has been discharged as well?”
“I’d call it an escape.”
Curden shook his head.
“As soon as Goul and the doctors realized that guy disappeared, they chased him, but he opened a portal and vanished before their eyes. That madman.”
“……”
“Anyway, what Lord Ouke does later—by law or by fists—is another matter.”
Curden stopped speaking and stared at Mayna.
“I knew the aide was fearless, but she’s not reckless without reason.”
“……”
“Why is that?”
In new glasses, Mayna placed the bouquet on the nightstand.
“I’ve been thinking about it during my hospital stay.”
Why had she done something so reckless?
Like Caliph said, she was just an aide, not a knight, yet she tried to save the citizens.
“I’m not sure how to explain it.”
The years living like Caliph’s shadow.
Almost ten years close to him, yet she could do nothing on her own.
Even at the party in La Rundel Town, she could not save a single boy who had cried out for help.
“That day, at Zibrei Square.”
“Sir Lota first sent me and Sir Hiaron ahead. He had to stay and fight the monsters.”
“But?”
“Thanks to that, I safely arrived at the train station with Sir Hiaron. But……”
Thinking of Drain Station in chaos with rushing citizens, her emotions flared.
Closing her eyes tightly, Mayna forced herself to calm down and added with effort.
“All I could do was line up the panicking citizens. There was nothing else I could do.”
“……”
“Sir Lota, of course. And Sir Hiaron did his part perfectly, driving the car and handling weapons to save me.”
As she paused, the lingering image of Caliph and Serena embracing flashed again.
‘It was right here in this hospital room.’
Even then, she had to watch Caliph collapse, bleeding.
“I wanted to do something.”
She wanted to throw herself in to buy time for the people on the train to escape safely.
“Not just tidying up after Sir Lota.”
Though Caliph had once lightly taught her how to handle a revolver,
She remembered none of it clearly after all these years.
“I wanted to do something meaningful too.”
Mayna lowered her head weakly.
Curden said nothing, patiently waiting for her to regain composure.
After a while, Mayna raised her head and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Thank you.”
Having confessed the events of that day for the first time, a weight lifted from her heart.
“What is this?”
Once again, Curden made a teasing comment, implying no thanks were necessary.
Bending down, he picked something up from under the bed.
