Editor 164

For an Imperfect Peace (4)

Arthur also became flustered and clumsily covered Cleio’s eyes.

Since he couldn’t touch the paper with the writing of ‘Prediction’, he tried instead to prevent Cleio from reading it.

“Move your hand, Arthur Leogran.”

“Hey, stop looking. How is this fair? This is cheating, it’s dirty!”

Even with Arthur’s all-out interference, Cleio skillfully held out and managed to read every necessary passage.

The ordeal that Arthur had to endure during those seven nights.

Vesna Driscoll was a monstrously cruel person. The time she spent tearing apart Arthur’s body and mind was, for her, the best moment of her life.

For she could punish, with her own hands, the one who persecuted her god.

Sometimes the crown prince stayed just beyond the thin wall of the torture chamber with the ventilation holes, seeing and hearing everything Vesna did.

At such times, the tingle of rapture hovered at Vesna’s fingertips.

The words Vesna, with her dark passion, spoke to break Arthur’s body and spirit were half lies and half truths.

At times she whispered that every time Arthur used ether to cast “Reinforcement,” his friends suffered terrible ordeals because of him; or that Chel had given in to his mother’s persuasion and betrayed them; or even hinted that Cleio was imprisoned in the same cell in a dying state.

‘And… Vesna came from the same temple as Arthur’s mother… What kind of trap is this?’

The prestigious House of Igraine, which produced two high priestesses, chose Theophila, who had stronger holy power between her and Vesna, as their adopted daughter.

The second blow for Vesna, who also suppressed her anger believing it was god’s will, returned like a pendulum ten years later.

Theophila, who broke her vow of chastity, treated both her priestess qualification and the title of Igraine as trivial.

All the values Vesna had devoted her life to.

Betrayed by god’s choice and with Theophila giving birth to the king’s child, Vesna lost her faith, and vented her anger on Arthur as if to claim compensation for her lost faith.

‘I knew what she did was overly cruel. With personal grudges on top of it, she drove Arthur even more mercilessly…!’

Grabbing Arthur’s hair, Vesna whispered kindly with a smiling face.

She brought her lips so close they brushed the fine hair by his ear, as if to sing a lullaby to a child.

‘If you refuse the “Covenant,” I could cut the wizard’s vocal cords and grind those delicate fingertips so you’ll never turn a page again. Your Highness, that would be your sin.’

Arthur had the rational thought that Vesna wouldn’t really treat the future archmage and Asser Corporation’s second son that way. But staring into Vesna’s eyes made his faith in reason crumble.

With no sleep, no ether circulation, no rest, not even darkness permitted, even Arthur’s keen judgment was shaken.

If only he could have fainted, but at the right moments she used magic to prevent him from losing consciousness.

Even in that state, Arthur held out for seven days without falling for Vesna’s tricks.

Scratching the broken tiles until his nails all fell off, his knees soaked in his own blood, convulsing in shock.

At last, the long ordeal neared its end.

Vesna clumsily channeled ether—not even worthy of being called sword energy—into an Albion army-issue ceremonial dagger.

The movement of the mass-produced weapon, unable to withstand the ether load, felt unbearably slow to a level 6 knight. As if time itself was forcibly stretched, prolonging the segment of pain.

The sentence recording Arthur’s wrist being cut by Vesna’s dagger was etched into Cleio’s mind as if pressed in hot type.

Sssst―

“―Time remaining / Time limit:

00:00:01 / 00:05:00”

As the time limit for ‘editor privilege’ ended, the manuscript and pen vanished outside the page.

There was no change in the world, Arthur’s memory, or his body. Because the manuscript hadn’t been touched.

It was the first time the precious “stigmata” was used solely for reading, without any intent to revise.

Had they tried to alter the relentless acts and Arthur’s ordeal described across several paragraphs, an even greater fracture would have occurred.

They could not hurt Arthur any more than this.

Suppressing overflowing anger, Cleio asked Arthur.

“How did you endure that? You must have known all your companions who could help you were taken away.”

“I just thought I could manage. It wasn’t even the time for hallucinations yet, so I figured I wouldn’t die so easily here.”

Arthur worried about Cleio as much as Cleio worried about Arthur.

Even now, he did.

Clothes that looked high-end at first glance but didn’t fit, the dark circles under his eyes almost black with blue, the nape of his neck bare from a sudden haircut.

The future archmage’s state didn’t look any better than himself, who had been tortured underground.

“Is that even something you can say?”

His words were brusque, but Cleio’s back was trembling. Arthur explained what he suspected more clearly.

“No, seriously. With Count Kishion gaining popularity among the border camp commanders, the royal regent couldn’t keep him tied down forever.

If there had been more time, Director Vesna wouldn’t have gotten her own hands dirty and pushed people so hard. So I actually thought we’d be released soon. Though I didn’t expect it to be this fast.”

Arthur’s words were nothing but the truth.

He truly felt relief at being able to reunite with his mage safely.

The night the Internal Security Bureau agents burst into the dormitory, Arthur realized his nightmare had become reality.

That girl, who wanted neither status nor honor, content with good wine and cats, had been dragged down to the underground with him simply for following god’s will.

Arthur couldn’t help but mind that fact.

So this was a much better ending than he had expected.

Though it didn’t seem Cleio thought so.

“If you couldn’t use [Reinforcement], you could’ve used ‘Total Hardening’ to get out.”

“…It would’ve been easier for me if I just survived for an hour or so, but Vesna kept saying cruel things, threatening other people’s lives, so it was hard to do that.”

“Your arm… was that to destroy the stigmata?”

“Oh, right. If the wrist is gone, the stigmata moves up, right? Apparently even that overconfident Internal Security Bureau director didn’t know that, she was so stunned she dropped her cigarette. Like an idiot.”

Vesna’s cigarette was extinguished in the blood Arthur shed, leaving a smoky, metallic smell.

But Cleio seemed unaware of that fact.

Arthur sighed in relief inwardly.

‘Well, the stigmata doesn’t reveal everything. It’s painful that she found out about the arm, though.’

Of course, being injured was extremely painful and shocking.

But since Vesna immediately used healing magic upon confirming she couldn’t remove the stigmata, there was no problem moving.

He stopped asking ‘why’ or ‘why only me’ about his misfortunes since the year his mother was murdered.

If you keep believing there’s a proper cause for every deprivation and pain, and try to fit reality to that idea, you’ll go mad.

Arthur took as a lesson the madness, that terrible hunger and desire that glimmered in the eyes of those called blood relatives.

He grew up seeing many wounded veterans in the camp. Having taken up the sword, he always thought he’d get hurt someday too.

The pain of wounds was nothing.

Rather, Cleio’s anger made him restless.

With his poor lung capacity, Cleio had to struggle to calm his breath just to speak clearly.

“Even so, Vesna’s only level 3, how could you let all that happen? I was relieved since it didn’t seem like she used the suppressor, you clueless idiot.”

“That suppressor was on the desk the whole time. It was a very well-made, high-grade piece.”

Cleio’s face darkened sharply.

The fact that the suppressor was used that way wasn’t even written in the manuscript.

Cleio found it hard to forgive himself for relying on the “promise” function and not understanding a bit of the hell Arthur was going through.

He felt a rage burning his insides black, though this was not the time for it, nor did he know at whom it was directed.

Arthur, abused to the limit both emotionally and physically. And even so, that boy, still not yet nineteen, worried first about his companions’ safety.

The world was as cruel to its chosen as to its adversaries.

Could their sacrifices be justified for the sake of realizing god’s desired history on this land?

Vesna’s grudge, Melchior’s conviction, god’s error.

All these elements declared: the god here was not an infallible being.

And yet, the fact that the only thing he could rely on right now was the magic received from the muse’s sister, and that he could not live outside god’s plan, was unbearably painful.

Arthur tapped his friend’s shoulder.

“Ray, you’re going to cry at this rate. I could tease you about this for the next fifty years, you know?”

“You really… Hoo, just shut up for a bit.”

Unlike his usual sluggish movements, Cleio’s hand shot out like lightning and grabbed Arthur’s right arm on his shoulder.

As he tore off the button and rolled up the sleeve, Cleio swallowed a gasp at the revealed disaster.

About a hand’s width above the stigmata of “Infinite Total Hardening” was a red cut line. Just as he read in the manuscript, it was the mark where the arm had been severed and reattached.

The magically reattached wound looked even more grotesque for not causing infection or necrosis in the surrounding tissue.

“…That must hurt.”

“No, not really.”

“Still joking at a time like this?”

The mage gritted his teeth so hard it made a crunching sound, and over the bright red mark of amputation, he layered the magic circles of [Mitigation], [Healing], and [Restoration].

Fwoosh―

Even under the double-burst’s harsh conditions, the ether concentrated to the size of two palms shone like the noonday sun.

Though his eyes closed at the cold light, Cleio’s incantation rang clearly in his ears. The voice was thin yet clear.

“[Affection makes us whole,

The power of death-bound destruction is feeble.

Death, helplessly scorned by boys,

That death will leave no trace, on the soul of the soldier

The gold of daffodils, the vein of sunset

The purity and radiance of the blue vault.]1)”

The material for Cleio’s spell incantation was our language.

Cleio always wove familiar words into new beauty.

Arthur found it wondrous that old words, passing through that clear voice, became the language of magic.

The light, brightening the inside of his closed eyes with pink, lingered long over Arthur’s wound.

Soon the pain and heat faded, and even the throbbing discomfort was all washed away. As if purifying the seven nights spent underground.

In the warm afterglow, Arthur opened his eyes.

Even after the spell faded, his friend’s brow remained furrowed in a severe expression. Cleio was only checking Arthur’s arm, as if thankful for the double burst’s result.

Unable to forcefully shake him off, Arthur also looked down at his right arm.

Below the elbow, where Cleio held, not only the traces of torture but all the scars Arthur had ever received were gone as if washed away.

Only the stigmata, imbued with ether, shone with its unique color on the back of his hand, now smooth as if it weren’t even his own.

It was as if he had been born anew.

In this moment, Arthur could not help but believe that god’s agent was with him.

It was not pure joy, nor was it only the displeasure of having his will manipulated—a strange, complicated feeling.

It was an emotion he could not yet define with his own words.

Thus, judgment was deferred a little longer.

Still in the radiance of the vault that ached behind his eyelids.

1) From “England The Mother,” Sonnets 1917 series, Ivor Gurney, edited translation.