[CHAPTER 96]
“It is awakening pain.”
Since the day she first heard that shocking story from Biterion Parker, Mayna Winslet had often found herself thinking about it.
If someone awakens as an ability user, how would they even know?
It was not as if someone beside them would explain it, nor would a divine voice descend from the sky to announce it.
And only now did Mayna finally understand the answer to that question.
“Krrgh!
Grrr!”
Even as she watched the grotesque monsters howl without being able to cross the boundary.
“Young Lady…
This is an extremely powerful protective spell.”
Even as she heard Biterion’s shocked voice in this very moment.
It felt as though all pain had vanished and every sense had awakened.
Not only was the abdominal pain gone, but even the blood flowing through her veins felt clean and alive, like that of a newborn.
It felt as though fresh blue air was flowing through every pore of her body.
I feel like I could survive even if I drowned.
Looking up at the massive dome she had created, Mayna took a deep breath of the refreshing air.
When she quietly lowered her eyelids while listening to the monsters’ roars, other sounds began to reach her ears.
The sounds of life.
She could hear everything, from the tiny insects flying in the sky to the footsteps of mice moving underground.
Even while watching monsters baring their huge jaws in an attempt to devour people, she did not feel overwhelming fear.
The only thing she feared was losing the people she loved.
She feared them being hurt, both in body and in heart.
In the distance, she saw Caliph’s back as he faced the monsters at the front line.
Having paused the fierce battle, he was speaking with Sera Parker inside the barrier Mayna had created.
It looked as though they were sharing an extremely private conversation, cut off from everyone else.
Curden Lota, Adonis, and Hugo Motenson had all remained at the scene despite having no abilities, choosing not to flee through a portal.
Once again, a pure white light flickered from Caliph’s chest.
Turning his back on Sera Parker, he faced this direction and began walking through the chaotic crowd.
When Caliph came within arm’s reach, he stopped, exuding an oppressive presence.
His blue eyes, consumed by anger, quietly settled on Mayna.
Lips that seemed as though they would never open parted slowly.
“Mayna.”
Sera Parker did not lie.
That was one of Caliph’s certainties about her.
So there was a high probability that Sera’s claim, that Mayna had abandoned him in exchange for receiving something from Banze Motenson, was true.
Even when judged through the lens of logic, her argument fit together flawlessly.
And yet, he stood before Mayna, unable to let go of that slim chance.
Mayna Winslet.
He clung to a deeply personal belief that there was no way she would have betrayed him by making some sort of deal.
Like his father, who had been obsessed with gambling and bet on impossible odds.
Like that man who lost money, then his family, and eventually everything he had, even his own dignity.
Disgustingly, stubbornly foolish.
“You left me because you were exhausted, didn’t you.”
The sentence he spoke after calling Mayna’s name was missing many crucial parts.
Just like the vague words, he could not clearly articulate the turmoil in his heart.
Turning the clock back further, Caliph recalled the memory of the final night Mayna had spent at Renox Castle.
The day he had ended up in a fistfight with Curden Lota.
That was when he had said it.
“Your aide collapsed two weeks ago and was taken to the hospital.
They said inflammation developed inside her body due to accumulated fatigue.
…If it does not improve, they may have to remove her uterus,
and if it worsens, the inflammation could spread through her blood and rot her organs.”
So that was it.
It had not been an illness caused by stress from working by his side, but awakening pain.
Curden Lota, that idiot, had been deceived just like him.
“She told me not to tell you.
She said she was quitting anyway, so why burden you with something heavy.”
Keeping silent had not been consideration.
It had been a lie.
Because she could not allow anyone to discover that she would awaken as a healing mage.
Only Banze Motenson and Biterion Parker must have known the truth.
Mayna, hiding her dark intentions behind those innocent eyes, must have used her newly awakened ability as leverage to make some sort of deal.
Having passed beyond the peak of rage and become eerily calm instead, Caliph opened his mouth slowly.
“Since when have you been deceiving me?”
Mayna tried to let out a hollow laugh, but swallowed it down in fear.
“What are you talking about?”
She protested out of a sense of injustice, but Caliph was no longer listening to her words.
Come to think of it, the polite forms of address she had used meticulously until they shared holy water had long since disappeared.
What kind of emotional shift could have happened in such a short time for him to suddenly come here and—
“Did you hear something from Princess Victoria?”
Mayna asked a reasonable question.
But all Caliph saw before him was the anxious face of someone desperate to keep a secret hidden.
A face that poured oil onto his boiling anger.
Even on the day the gate opened in Drain Agency, Biterion Parker had been the one to save Mayna when she was in danger.
That day, he had stayed behind in the square to eliminate all the monsters before rushing belatedly to Drain Station.
At the moment he stared at the ruins of the destroyed station with not a single person in sight, suffering over the thought that Mayna might be dead.
Mayna had already been hospitalized with Biterion Parker.
“Since when have you been lying to me?”
Caliph spat out his cold fury once more.
Tracing his memories back again and again, he finally arrived at the very first moment.
The day she had thrown down her resignation letter.
“Sir Renox.
Let us stop seeing each other.”
Mayna’s face had looked as though she had finished settling her heart completely.
“I do not want to work as your aide anymore.”
“Hahaha…”
Caliph began to laugh.
Every day since she left Renox Castle, he had endured crushing regret that weighed heavily on his body.
The memories of how he had failed to cherish her returned across that long stretch of time as horrific torment.
But he had resolved to endure it.
Compared to the seven years Mayna had endured, his own suffering was nothing.
He had intended to let her go.
He had wanted to send her off peacefully.
But what if, far earlier than he had ever imagined, even before she threw down that resignation letter, perhaps from a very long time ago, Mayna had already intended to betray him.
“Answer me.”
At last, Caliph grabbed Mayna’s shoulder.
As if to shatter every moment the two of them had shared, violently.
