Chapter 79

After releasing their embrace, the three maintained an awkward silence for a moment before deciding to first relieve the fatigue of their long journey.

While Meisa took care of Bije, Turan soaked in the hot spring with Solif.

“Oh, this is amazing... It would be even better if it were just a little hotter.”

The place they were in was the hottest spring in this area, the same one he had entered with Rida in the past, but even that did not seem to satisfy Solif.

Well, after all, one of the two bloodlines latent in his body granted him the power to handle fire.

Just as Turan was born with exceptional senses of smell and agility, Solif had the ability to perceive various types of light and possessed resistance to heat.

Though, as seen from how the nobles of House Varaha were injured in the explosion, it was not at an absolute level.

As Turan quietly closed his eyes and enjoyed the heat, Solif, beside him, spoke in a low voice.

“Hey, Turan.”

“What?”

“That girl is completely into you, isn’t she?”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“You could tell just from her behavior earlier! Honestly, if I were a woman, I’d have fallen for a man who overturned an entire noble house to save me too.”

“That’s not the case.”

Based on his past experiences, when people felt what was commonly called ‘love’, their bodies emitted a scent similar to that of a beast in heat.

However, Turan had never once caught such a scent from Meisa.

Even during their embrace earlier, all he had sensed was a mix of joy and sorrow, a rather complex set of emotions.

Oblivious to this, Solif smirked knowingly and said,

“Come on, don’t be so stiff. You took a risk for her because you’re interested in her, didn’t you?”

“When I saved you, I also risked getting on House Varaha’s bad side. Don’t tell me you think I did that because I was interested in you?”

“No, that’s not the same thing...”

Hearing Turan’s response, Solif clicked his tongue in disbelief and soon changed the subject.

“At the very least, speak more casually. The three of us have similar statuses, skills, and even ages, yet you two keep using honorifics with each other. It makes me the only one who feels awkward.”

“If nothing else, saying our ages are similar is a bit shameless.”

Turan was nineteen, Meisa was twenty-two, whereas Solif was fifty-eight, nearly three times their age.

Of course, considering that high-ranking nobles lived close to three or four hundred years, the difference was not so great that they could not be considered the same generation.

Hearing Turan’s reasonable argument, Solif immediately burst out in frustration.

“If you’re going to treat me like an old man, at least show me some respect as an elder!”

*

After finishing their bath, the two dried themselves, got dressed, and parted ways to take care of their respective tasks.

As Solif was about to leave, Turan gave him one last warning.

“I already told you, but don’t ever hunt the monkeys here. They’re all Aikul’s family.”

“I got it, I got it. If I see any monkeys in danger, I’ll even rescue them, so don’t worry.”

Solif waved his hand confidently and walked off, and Turan, after activating his senses, set off to find Meisa.

While Solif went off to hunt for an impressive game for their meal, Turan planned to administer the nourishment in advance.

After all, it seemed like Meisa felt embarrassed showing the process to others.

Before long, Turan arrived at Meisa’s location and unexpectedly came across an unusual sight, making him stop in his tracks.

She was sitting with Bije on her lap, carefully massaging the base of her wings.

“How about here? Does this feel good?”

Bije chirped and stretched out one leg, writing something on the ground. It appeared to be words like “Feels good” and “A little more to the right”.

Since Bije’s facial muscles were not as developed as a human’s, she could not make rich expressions, but her half-lidded eyes were enough to tell just how much she was enjoying it.

After massaging for a few more minutes, Meisa lightly patted Bije’s wings and stood up.

“All right, that’s enough!”

[Do more!]

“I’ll do it later, later. Or ask Aikul to do it.”

[He’s too dumb to do it! He’s too strong, and his fingers are too thick!]

Bije stomped her feet as if urging Meisa to read the words she had written on the ground.

She usually did not act this petulantly unless Turan was not around, which meant she had grown even closer to Meisa.

Well, just like Turan, Meisa was also someone who "matched" with Bije.

Judging by the goodwill Bije had shown Turan when they first met, it was clear that there was a special bond between magical beasts and the humans connected to them by bloodline.

Turan watched their close interaction with satisfaction, but soon, a thought crossed his mind.

‘If Meisa were to inherit my soul contract, would she be able to use wind magic?’

Of course, he had absolutely no intention of abandoning Bije, but there was no guarantee that such a situation would never arise.

For example, if he found a magical beast that "matched" with the Zahar bloodline but his soul lacked the capacity to accommodate both, or if he were to die unexpectedly...

Lost in these hypothetical thoughts for a moment, Turan snapped back to reality as he saw Meisa successfully pacify the whining Bije and send her off to Aikul.

“You’re done with your bath, I see.”

Meisa greeted him.

“Ah, yes.”

After answering, Turan suddenly recalled his conversation with Solif earlier and spoke up.

“Let’s start speaking casually with each other from now on. We’re comrades. I already speak informally with Solif anyway.”

When he had begun speaking casually with Ashiz, it had not felt this awkward, but suggesting the same to Meisa somehow did.

“Huh? Ah, uh... okay. Turan.”

Meisa seemed to feel the same, as she responded with a strangely hesitant expression.

Ignoring the awkwardness, Turan moved straight to the main topic.

“Solif will be preparing dinner soon, but I think it’d be best to administer the nourishment beforehand. You haven’t eaten anything since we left, have you?”

“...Yeah. I tried, but it still doesn’t work well.”

Turan could see the self-reproach on Meisa’s face as she spoke.

He could guess that it was likely anger at her own weakness for not being able to overcome the trauma.

Instead of immediately telling her to begin the nourishment process, Turan placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke calmly.

“I don’t know how you feel. I’ve never experienced the suffering of being unable to eat. But Reto is dead, and as long as I’m here, no noble from House Zahar can sneak up on you.”

From the interrogation of Reto last time, Turan had been able to roughly deduce the reason behind Meisa’s eating disorder.

It must have been the lingering memory of suffering from poison, having ingested it along with her mother and younger brother when they were assassinated.

Turan wanted to reassure her that the one who had poisoned them was already dead, and that even if someone tried something similar again, he would be there to stop it.

However, instead of expressing gratitude, Meisa let out a faint groan and shook her head.

“That’s... actually, it’s not because I’m afraid of being poisoned.”

“Then what is it?”

Turan asked instinctively, though he half-expected her not to answer.

Meisa had always been reluctant to talk about that day.

But perhaps because the shift to casual speech had slightly closed the emotional distance between them, she hesitated for a moment before blurting out,

“I feel... so cowardly.”

Turan did not ask why she thought of herself that way.

Instead, he remained silent, instinctively sensing that she would explain on her own.

As expected, Meisa soon began to recount what had happened in the past.

Ten years ago, three people had gone on a picnic to a scenic hill near Morgen City.

However, while they were eating their packed meal, a sudden stomachache struck, and her younger brother, who had not yet awakened his magic power, was the first to deteriorate.

What saved him was Meisa’s magic artifact for healing, which she possessed despite her young age and the fact that she was already considered an heir.

Though it did not have the ability to remove poison, making it as futile as pouring water into a bottomless jar, it could at least keep him from dying immediately, even as blood poured from his body.

The problem was that, in the meantime, both her mother, who had magical power at the level of a low-ranking noble, and Meisa herself were also succumbing to the poison.

As her mother and younger brother begged her in agony to save them, all Meisa could do was shed tears of blood and alternate the use of the healing artifact to temporarily delay their deaths.

To make matters worse, the knights who were supposed to be stationed nearby for their protection had all disappeared, leaving Meisa unable to call for help.

Her mother and brother continued crying out for their lives while shedding tears of blood. The unbearable pain of poisoning burned through her entire body. Her magic power was gradually drying up...

“In the end, I used the little remaining magic power to heal myself. I was scared. I was afraid that if I kept treating them, I would die too. If I had just pushed myself a little harder, I might have been able to save them all.”

Meisa lowered her head as if she were a sinner, her reddish-brown hair falling over her face.

Hearing her full story, Turan realized that he had completely misunderstood the cause of her eating disorder.

The wound embedded in her heart was not fear of death, it was the guilt of having survived after abandoning her family.

What was the right thing to say here?

Turan ran through various responses in his head, but in the end, he simply spoke his honest thoughts without calculation.

“I don’t know if my words will comfort you, but you didn’t do anything wrong. No one can demand a twelve-year-old child to sacrifice herself to save her family. No one has the right to blame you. Not even the family members who were lost.”

After all, it was also at the age of twelve that Turan had lost his mother and fought a war with his village.

When he thought about how young and easily frightened he had been at that time, he could never bring himself to call her actions cowardly.

Hearing this, Meisa buried her face deeper into her hair and began to sob.

*

After a brief moment of comfort, Meisa gathered her courage and tried eating a piece of bread, only to vomit it back up. As before, she eventually passed out and had the nourishment administered while unconscious.

Later, after a meal of roasted rabbit prepared by Solif, Turan gathered his comrades and proposed they analyze the current situation and discuss their next course of action.

The first topic that came up was the four symbols embedded in the body of Badal, the head of House Aravion, which they had seen in Morgen City.

“Four bloodline abilities…”

“It’s probably wind, lightning, physical strength, and enchantment magic.”

“Then, does that mean the Thunder Lord resides within the body of the head of House Aravion? Wait, hold on.”

Solif glanced at Meisa as he spoke.

“I don’t know much about that god, but wasn’t the Thunder Lord a man?”

“That’s right. I mean, yeah, he was.”

She had agreed to speak casually with Solif as well, but it seemed she was still not quite used to it.

“Then that means he was planning to switch to a female body later? Just imagining myself as a woman is horrifying, but damn, that’s impressive. In more ways than one.”

“Well, after living for so long, maybe that kind of thing doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not like House Aravion has never had a female head before. Or maybe… it’s not actually the Thunder Lord himself.”

Turan’s hypothesis made both of them widen their eyes.

“What do you mean, not himself?”

“I mean, the body he’s inhabiting is of Aravion blood, so he can use the Thunder Lord’s abilities to some extent, but the soul itself might belong to a different god entirely. The ancestor of the Enchanter Bloodline is actually a more famous deity, after all.”

“The Lame Goddess…”

The name of the god who created Orem’s library, the Old Empire Roads, and various other relics came from Meisa’s lips.

“It’s also suspicious that the fourth bloodline, which was added just as he started making his move, turned out to be the Enchanter Bloodline. Maybe the head of the family’s consciousness is usually in control, but whenever he uses his power, the god’s consciousness takes over. The way he felt when he was in the background and when he stepped forward was completely different.”

“Well, yeah. He did seem like a completely different person. Wait, hold on. So that means a woman was inhabiting a man’s body? That’s... something else…”

Solif, who had been nodding in agreement, suddenly fixated on an odd point and began mumbling to himself, wondering whether it was stranger for the god inside the head of House Aravion to be male or female.

Turan knocked lightly on a rock to draw attention back to the discussion and concluded,

“At least there’s one fortunate thing, he can’t wield his power freely. If he could, he wouldn’t have needed to send a proxy in the first place.”

This meant that even if the three of them could not reach Badal’s level of strength, as long as they could hold their ground adequately, they had a chance of winning.

At that moment, Meisa turned to Solif and asked,

“The ancestor of House Varaha was the Silver Sun, right?”

“Yeah. So what four bloodlines do you think they have?”

“We might be able to guess based on scriptures and legends.”

At Meisa’s suggestion, Solif hummed in thought before recalling something.

“For this side as well, one of the four is probably a bloodline related to close combat. There are plenty of stories about warriors wielding swords of light to massacre goblins.”

Goblins were an eastern race known for their sharp, shark-like teeth and infamous for their fondness for eating children.

Of course, in modern times, like many other non-human species, they had been pushed to the wilderness by humans and were now nothing more than a dwindling tribe in remote areas.

“I wish I could go back and ask about it. Or at least dig through the family’s archives.”

Of course, if Solif were to truly return to House Varaha as he suggested, it would immediately turn into a war.

Turan, struck by a sudden thought, looked at Meisa and spoke.

“Maybe you also have the Enchanter Bloodline latent within you.”

“Me?”

“I originally only had two as well.”

It was possible that Meisa’s potential was even greater than Turan’s, and that when she reached her limits, a third bloodline could awaken.

If that happened, she might be able to stand against Badal.

Turan also considered the possibility that Solif might have similar latent qualities.

When he mentioned this, Meisa and Solif each looked at themselves and then at each other before tilting their heads in uncertainty.

“A third bloodline ability… do we really have something like that?”

“Is there any way to find out?”

“There is one. We could go to Orem’s library.”

At Turan’s words, Solif, having heard about the place before, nodded slightly.

“Oh, the one in the west?”

“It’s not too far from here, either.”

Even if the two of them could not communicate with the librarian directly, Turan could act as a mediator, which should at least allow them to determine their bloodlines.

Of course, whether the librarian would agree to help was something they would have to find out upon arrival.

And so, the group set their first goal: verifying Meisa and Solif’s bloodlines at Orem’s library.

However, they did not leave immediately, deciding it was best to wait until Meisa’s health had improved further.

With each day of proper nourishment, her body visibly regained its former state, and in time, she would become unrecognizable from before.

Eventually, even if she walked the world openly, House Aravion would struggle to recognize her.

They were looking for a skeletal, emaciated woman, and once Meisa had fully recovered, no one would associate her with her former self.

In the following days, they spent time exchanging various magical techniques passed down in their respective houses.

Starting with the Thought Acceleration magic that Meisa had taught Turan, Solif also shared several visions of House Varaha. However, since Turan had already mastered most of them through their joint training sessions, there was little left for him to learn.

If anything, he might end up taking on the role of instructor whenever the other two were too busy to teach.

“So, you do it like this... Damn it, it’s not working.”

One thing he did discover in the process was that, unfortunately, Solif’s aptitude for magic was slightly inferior to that of Turan or Meisa.

Of course, even that was only in comparison to them, by the standards of ordinary wizards, he was still a prodigy.

While Solif grew frustrated at failing to immediately succeed with the magic Meisa had taught, Turan calmly demonstrated it again in front of him.

“I’ll show you again, so try to follow. Like this... Hm?”

As he was demonstrating the spell, Turan suddenly froze, sensing two presences coming from the base of the mountain.

One of them, judging by her body shape and the amount of magic power she possessed, was undoubtedly Rida, a noble of House Lavitas.

Given that this place was a frequent hot spring retreat for her, her arrival was not all that surprising.

In fact, he had found it more unusual that she had not visited for the past few months.

From what she had casually mentioned in their past conversations, she usually stopped by at least once every few months.

What truly startled Turan was the noble accompanying her.

Someone with magic power two to two and a half times that of Meisa.

A monster possessing an immense amount of magic, though still not quite on the level of Badal, the head of House Aravion…

Seeing the tension visibly stiffen Turan’s expression, Solif looked at him curiously and asked,

“What’s wrong?”

“It looks like... we have an important guest.”

There was only one person who could wield such overwhelming magic and be visiting alongside Rida.

The head of the prestigious House Lavitas was coming to this place.