บท 75: The Necromancer and the Priestess (9)
"Ah, it died again," El muttered, his expression scarily cold and indifferent as he set down the scalpel in his hand, gazing down at the cut open corpse on the table. He took a nearby towel, wiping the blood on his hands as he sat down, leaning back with a weary sigh.
His surroundings were dark, barely lit with a single candle, as his gold eyes glowed in the writhing shadows. Blood pooled on the floor, seeping into his shoes as he seemed absent minded.
He had come here to get his mind off things, but his thoughts couldn't help but run around in a circle before falling back onto Celes.
"Why? Why did she do something like that?" He muttered, head in his hand as he clutched at his hair.
"Quickly," he stood up, slightly stumbling as he walked toward the door. "I have to quickly unseal him..." He didn't look back, raising a hand as the swirling shadows seemed to eagerly devour the corpse and blood, leaving nothing behind but the reeking stench of death.
A couple of days after Yu Na had been summoned, Yin Mei had yet to wake up. The Bishop made the decision to send Leon and Yu Na along with a group of elite knights and priests to Gloom Forest.
When they arrived, the forest seemed even more menacing than usual, the air heavy with miasma.
"What in the world is this? The miasma should have been purified pretty recently, so just how in the world is there still so much...!" The priestess, Naenia, exclaimed, covering her mouth in disgust. Just being near such heavy miasma was making the members of the group feel nauseous. The only one who was unaffected was Yu Na.
"It must be the evil creature," Leon said after a moment's thought. The evil creature was a creature made entirely of miasma. It wasn't so odd if it's existence resulted in this sharp increase in the density of the miasma in the air. It seemed that they would have to quickly take care of it or it would only grow stronger. If the miasma increased anymore, then they would have a large problem on their hands. Aside from the fact that stronger monsters would begin to appear, the likelihood of another evil creature appearing would also become higher.
"Ah! Naenia, can't you sense the high priestess's power?" A priestess said as she turned to look at the one priestess who served the high priestess that had come with them.
Naenia paused, and extended her senses. There really was the sense of the high priestess's power. "This should be her familiar? That's right! The high priestess had sent that slave girl Rosella into the forest. The familiar must be protecting her." Naenia said, drawing the attention of the nearby Kai. He was relieved that things were like what Leon had said - the high priestess really did make preparations to protect Rosella.
Although their main mission was to defeat the evil creature, there was no way that they could just leave one of the high priestess's people in the forest to fend for themselves. They quickly met up with Rosella, who had looked like she had gone through hell and back - she was smeared in dirt, blood, and leaves, her white robe now completely unrecognizable and ripped up in various places.
"Rosella!" Kai exclaimed, rushing over to the girl.
Rosella blinked several times in surprise, not having expected this. But now that she thought about it, since the previous expedition group had all died, of course they would have sent new people in to check out the situation right? "What's going on?" She asked. Seeing that they had actually sent Kai, and another priestess from the inner sanctum that she recognized, the situation should be pretty bad, right? She paused. Didn't she just think it - since the previous group had all died, of course the situation was dire! She felt a little silly.
Kai explained things in a soft voice, while Yu Na looked toward Leon in slight confusion. She didn't know who this girl was, but it looked like that handsome knight had recognized her.
Leon noticed Yu Na's questioning gaze, and replied with a polite tone, "That girl was sent to Gloom Forest by the high priestess with the expedition group a couple of weeks ago on an errand."
Yu Na blinked, and looked back at Rosella.
Leon approached Rosella, asking her about the status of the expedition group. "I don't know if anyone else survived. But... it's likely that not a lot of people did." Rosella spoke in a soft voice, and the atmosphere of the group grew gloomy as they knew that they had probably arrived too late to save the members of the expedition group. Rosella had the protection of the high priestess with her, but the other members didn't - it was highly unlikely that the others had survived.
Rosella was then approached by a couple of priestesses, who healed her up. Leon decided that they should set up camp for today, of which the girls all agreed - especially since they wanted to get Rosella cleaned up from all the dirt and blood that was covering her.
As they cleaned her up and gave her a new change of clothes, away from the gazes of the men, they explained what had happened while she was gone. Yu Na was not with them, and instead sitting nearby Leon, who was taking the time to teach her a few more spells while he still could.
"Is the high priestess okay?" Rosella asked in a worried tone. She didn't really care about this girl from another world, who supposedly had a holy affinity almost as great as the high priestess's. In her eyes, that little girl who kept on looking toward Leon with a pair of sparkling eyes and speaking in a high pitched voice could never compare to the high priestess.
"The high priestess is being taken care of by the Bishop. She should be able to awaken soon," Naenia said, and her eyes caught notice of the pouch in Rosella's hands. "Do you want me to ask Sir Leon for a storage bracelet so you can put your stuff into it?" She said. Because Leon was a space affinity mage, who were the only mages that could make the spatial storage bracelets, he had a surplus of them that he had handed out to each of the group members.
Rosella nodded, feeling that the black flower inside the pouch would be better protected if it was inside the storage bracelet. She would also not have to worry about it wilting, as the space that the bracelets were connected to were cut off from the influences of time - basically, things didn't age when they were placed into the bracelet.
Naenia interrupted Leon and Yu Na's conversation, and Leon smiled in a friendly manner as the two talked for a moment before he stood up and came with Naenia over to Rosella. Yu Na looked over in their direction, her eyes growing slightly cold before after a moment she put on a pouting and sulky expression.
"Here," Leon said, passing over a slender silver bracelet embedded with a clear blue sapphire. Gems made for good magic mediums, and were constantly used to imbed magic into an item.
Rosella slipped the bracelet onto her hand, and facing the gem toward the pouch that she had been holding this entire time, it flashed a bright light as the pouch disappeared from her hand.
Leon didn't ask much about what errand the high priestess had sent Rosella on, as it wasn't his business, but he didn't deny that he was curious. With how the girl had been holding that pouch this entire time, he wondered if that contained something that the priestess had asked for. But, he didn't know if his guess was on the mark or not. He wasn't the type to pry so only said a few more polite words of concern that matched their relationship as acquaintances before going back toward where Yu Na is.
"His relationship with that summoned girl is pretty good isn't it?" Rosella commented in a slightly indifferent manner. In her eyes, this Leon person should like the high priestess, like all people should, so she felt slightly miffed that he would so quickly change his affections toward this outsider like that. For some reason, she really didn't like this Yu Na girl - as if she would someday steal something very important from her.
Naenia didn't pick up on Rosella's thoughts, only feeling that the relationship between Leon and Rosella was juicy gossip. With Kai's appearance, a lot of priestess's were wondering if this would result in some sort of love story, but where disappointed when nothing happened. Then Leon appeared, and a few people jumped ship to Leon x Celestina. Because of this, seeing Leon so friendly with Yu Na immediately made Naenia's juicy story sensor go off. "I'm not quite sure either. Leon has been teaching her magic these last couple of days, and he was also the only one who worked with the high priestess on the summoning spell..." But now that she thought about it, although Leon was a very accomplished mage, it would actually be better for a priestess to teach Yu Na about magic right?
After all, Yu Na was of the light element, and not the space element like Leon. So Naenia did think it was weird that Leon was the one teaching Yu Na. Maybe it really was just because he and the high priestess had been the two to summon her, so now that the high priestess was unconscious, he felt a sense of responsibility toward Yu Na? She tilted her head. This explanation was a little boring, but she guessed that it sort of made sense? The other explanation was that he fell in love at first sight, or that he was confirming the results of his research, etc. etc.
"Hmm," Rosella murmured, her expression cool, as if she didn't buy into it. She normally wasn't the type to dislike someone at first glance, so she shook her head. The girl hadn't even done anything, so she shouldn't be so biased toward her.
The group set up a barrier and the knights assigned watch as Yu Na and Rosella went to sleep peacefully that night. The next day would start getting busier as they would begin to set traps and track down the evil creature.
The next morning, the priests expanded their senses to track down the center of the increasing miasma. It was difficult, as the density of the miasma kept on growing thicker, impeding their senses. It took all of them together to narrow down the location of the evil creature - right at the center of Gloom Forest, where the miasma was usually the thickest. It was the best place to spread its influence.
Leon discussed with the captain of the knights what the best plan of action would be. Rosella didn't care, as she would be in the back lines with the priests and priestesses. The main problem was that the knights would need to take care of all the monsters - with miasma that thick, it was guaranteed that there would be many strong monsters present.
They couldn't have the monsters interfering with them while they tried to take down the evil creature, but they also couldn't have the evil creature sabotaging them while battling the monsters. Because of this, they decided to split the group into two. A few elite knights and several priests and priestesses would accompany Yu Na to dispel the evil creature, while the rest would focus on learning out the monsters in the vicinity.
Around this time, Yin Mei had finally woken up and was thoroughly scolded by the Bishop. She stayed silent, his words going through one ear and out the other. In the end, her calculations were on the mark, so what was he so angry for? Though, she guessed that if she did fail, she would end up having to go to an even more difficult world... Okay, maybe she was a little reckless after all.
But it all worked out in the end, didn't it?
The priestesses all updated her on what had happened, and hearing their words, Yin Mei realized that Yu Na might be able to become her successor. Her first thought was that she would be freed!
And then her second thought was doubt. She had summoned an another world heroine, although this girl wasn't the protagonist of the main plot line, she was a little curious if she could still count as a newly introduced female lead? Her concern was, of course, the protagonist's halo.
If she transferred the seal to this Yu Na girl, it wouldn't come to bite her back in the butt again later, right?
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littlemist
littlemist I felt that I never really wrote out my villains to be very villainy (mostly because like I said, I wanted to avoid the classic possessive ML since those relationships end up writing as being fairly abusive), so I wanted to display El's villain side a little.
Song of the Day: Seoul by RM (RM recently released a few new songs, and Seoul is my fav :D Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8wI5ZosdRA)
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