MBOMEN 28

Chapter 28. The Beast of Kizel (5)
Olga brought Lila to what looked like a storage room.

To the average person, it was just a dusty pile of junk with no use. But not to Lila.

She could smell everything in that room. And more than that, she knew the value of each and every one. This wasn’t just a storage room. To borrow her mother’s words—it was a damned treasure vault.

It was so cramped that even two or three people moving at once was a struggle, yet every nook was crammed with ingredients that could be used for tinctures.

From common herbs to barely known plants, and even dangerous insects that could easily kill you with a sting.

Lila had only seen most of them in books—books said to have been passed down by her ancestors, the witches. But she had memorized every word of those books.

She knew what each thing could do, how they could be used as medicine—or deadly poison.

“How is it?” Olga asked.

Startled, Lila turned to her after being completely engrossed in inspecting the shelves.

“Is this enough for you?”

Enough? It was more than enough! When Lila nodded, Olga pulled out a tiny hourglass from her pouch—smaller than the pouch itself—and set it upside down on the window sill.

“You have one hour. That’s all I can give. My knights are holding that monster off from attacking further into nearby villages. But they won’t last long.”

“I’ll try,” Lila replied immediately.

She’d made paralyzing tinctures many times before, so it wasn’t going to be too difficult.

But those were only ever used on wild dogs or wolves she ran into in the forest. The amounts were small, and the ingredients were basic.

“Is there anything I can help with, Lila?” Yustar asked.

Lila looked surprised—she must have thought he’d gone off with Olga.

“You don’t have to go where the monster is?”

“I will. But I have to go with you. Otherwise, there’s no point in bringing you here, is there? Olga gave us an hour. So we have one hour. Let’s finish this quickly.”

Still, Yustar had no knowledge of tincture-making, so he couldn’t do much.

He helped by fetching heavy tools or materials stored too high up, and he ground down the things that needed to be pulverized. Even that was a huge help for Lila.

“What is this?” Yustar asked, staring into a stone mortar while holding the pestle.

Lila had told him to crush it as finely as possible. At first, it looked like some dried plant… but it had legs. A lot of legs.

“That’s a bug called Deer-Spirit Insect.”

As expected. Yustar frowned as he crushed the dried creature. Fortunately, it was completely dehydrated.

“Why is it called that? Deer-Spirit?”

“They only lay eggs in deer corpses. Not in any other animal. That’s why they’re called that.”

“So they don’t exist in regions without deer?”

“Exactly. They’re very rare. I’ve never seen this much of it all at once. Be careful, Yustar. They’re poisonous. Even dried and dead, better safe than sorry.”

Yustar glanced sideways at her and mumbled, “It would’ve been nice if you told me that earlier.”

Lila almost burst out laughing—but the fact that she felt amused startled her, and she straightened her posture quickly.

Then she said, “Would’ve been nice if someone told me what I’d go through when I got to the capital. Do you get how I feel now?”

Yustar spun around to face her.

“Lila, I swear I didn’t know. I had no idea my brother would say those things… If I had known, I would’ve warned you.”

“It’s fine. I’m joking. Well, not really, but now’s not the time for this talk.”

She turned back to her workbench, scanning her ingredients, measuring, and occasionally murmuring to herself as if trying to recall something.

When she needed something, she found it instantly by walking through the shelves just once or twice. She moved as if she’d visited this place hundreds of times.

The Lila who had stumbled and hesitated in the capital was nowhere to be seen. Seeing her return with armfuls of dried something, Yustar paused and put down the pestle with a curious expression.

“It’s all ready, Lila.”

“Great. Put it all in that cauldron. All of it.”

Lila was confident now, speaking to Yustar like he was an apprentice. Her focused demeanor was both new—and attractive.

“What now? Do we boil it?”

Lila replied, “People always think witches just dump everything into a cauldron and boil it, don’t they?”

Her words were teasing, but her tone was livelier than ever. Yustar felt a quiet joy at that—no, it was closer to satisfaction.

“Then what do we do?”

Instead of answering, Lila carefully poured a round glass bottle into the cauldron full of ingredients.

The clear liquid caused the contents to blend and darken into a murky purple. As she stirred slowly with a long stick, Yustar, watching with arms crossed, asked:

“Do you know what you just poured in, Lila?”

She flinched, her large red eyes flashing with confusion.

“Wasn’t it water?”

“It is. But it’s holy water. Consecrated by the former Pope, Wilnis. He was deeply devout, with incredible healing and blessing abilities. So…”

Lila’s mouth dropped open.

She knew who Wilnis was—he was the one who had cured five crippled people with a single blessing. When he died, all of Sierrow had mourned, even remote villages like Rizecus held fasting vigils.

She stared at the remaining water in the bottle, then at the cauldron.

“Will… Olga be mad about this?”

“She might be upset. But I doubt she’ll be furious. Are we done?”

Lila nodded.

“We just need to spray this onto the monster. But dumping it all at once won’t be effective. The best way would be…”

“To spray it like mist and make it inhale it.”

“Yes. But there’s no way to—”

Just then, the storage door swung open. Lila glanced at the hourglass. There was still time.

Olga stepped in.

“One side of the defense line collapsed. I need you to hurry up.”

“It’s done,” Lila said.

Olga looked down at the cauldron in relief. Then she noticed the glass bottle on the floor…

She stared at Lila blankly.

“Don’t tell me… you used Wilnis’s holy water?”

Lila looked at Yustar out of reflex, flustered.

“I’m sorry. I thought it was just water—”

“Yustar! You just let her use Wilnis’s holy water?!”

Her fury turned on Yustar. Naturally so. But Yustar simply raised his hands and shook his head.

“I thought it would help more this way.”

“Are you serious?! You can’t even get Wilnis’s holy water anymore—because he’s dead!”

“We have Beriela now.”

Beriela was the current Pope who succeeded Wilnis. But Olga just snorted, not accepting the logic.

“That rookie? Even if he does his little blessings… Dammit, that was the last bottle.”

That line made Lila visibly nervous. But Olga waved a hand as if trying to let it go.

“Forget it. At least you finished it in time.”

“Do you have a way to spray it?”

“What do you think this place is?”

Olga grabbed the handles of the cauldron. Lila was about to warn her to be careful, but Olga lifted it—several times her size—as if it weighed nothing.

“Follow me.”

Yustar said, “I’ll go with Lila near the defense line. She needs to see the monster. Its attacks and defenses.”

Olga didn’t slow down as she turned her head.

“You realize you could die, right?”

Yustar didn’t back down.

“You’ll help us, won’t you, Olga?”

“Damn it. I knew this would happen.”

Lila had no idea what they were talking about, so she stayed silent.

Olga set the cauldron on a large round table, in front of a strange machine with an open hole. It had crystals embedded from clear to deepening blue.

“I know what this is,” Lila suddenly said.

Yustar looked surprised, but Olga didn’t even glance over as she began adjusting the crystals.

“Of course you do. If you’re a real witch, there’s no way you don’t know the ‘Wizard’s Window.’”

“My mother told me about it. The one who made this was…”

Only then did Olga look at her. Not warmly.

“A witch from the Dark Age. Yeah. Back when real witches still mingled with wizards. Thanks to this ‘window,’ those wizards could hole themselves up in caves without ever stepping outside. They just watched the world through it. It was perfect for their lazy, reclusive nature. And that’s when they started inventing twisted, creepy things.”

At first, Lila thought Olga was just sharing her knowledge. But listening closely, she could hear a distinct bitterness and hatred in her voice.

Yustar interrupted, cutting Olga off.

“Enough. This has nothing to do with Lila.”

Olga scoffed.

“It’s not unrelated. Come here, little witch. This is your first time seeing the ‘Window’ for real, right? Take a look yourself.”