HTWBB Chapter 17

Priscilla, who had been listening quietly, gently raised her hand. The girl flinched briefly at the gazes that fixed on her, but soon continued speaking.

"I was looking for a place to store medicinal herbs when I happened to discover this cave. I had herbs for stopping bleeding at the time, so I treated him."

"You saw that."

Priscilla nodded at Melian's words. Until that moment, Lycaon had been bleeding endlessly, looking as if he would die at any moment.

Various herbs had dried and stuck to his wound, but they didn't appear to be functioning properly. Without much hesitation, the girl took out the herbs she had been carrying.

'Right now, what...'

'Stay still. If you don't want to die.'

After returning to the cave and confirming that the wound, which had shown no improvement, had visibly healed, Lycaon's mother watched for a day or two more before returning to her homeland.

The girl who had saved her son was weak enough as a human not to be worth guarding against, yet compassionate enough not to overlook someone injured.

If she truly became a threat, Lycaon would instinctively counterattack, which also helped ease her worries.

After finishing her understanding to some degree, Rietta spoke.

"Why wasn't the medicine working?"

"Ah, it's because he was struck by a blade coated with blood of the demon beast."

"Blood of the demon beast?"

Demon beast blood, now difficult to obtain, caused lethal contamination symptoms even in small amounts. Continuous bleeding from the skin was a mild symptom—most people lost their lives.

Since it was a substance with properties literally opposite to this world, purification was considered impossible unless performed by a priest.

It was hard to believe that such a young girl had resolved that blood. At a glance, Priscilla appeared to be an utterly ordinary human with no talent for magic, much less the sword.

"Actually, I..."

Though the gaze felt emotionless, Priscilla, who had perceptively noticed it wanted an explanation, sat before Rietta after brief consideration with herbs and an empty bottle. The girl, who had mixed the proper amount of water and herbs, glanced at Rietta cautiously.

"Please promise you won't tell anyone."

"Alright."

The statement was made with full awareness of the villagers' actions, which were tantamount to abuse in mind. When Melian also showed his assent in response to Lycaon's hostile glare filled with distrust, only then did Priscilla grasp the bottle containing green liquid with both hands.

A very small murmur flowed from the girl with closed eyes. Rietta, listening intently, realized it was a passage from scripture she had heard at some point.

Soon, as the prayer-like incantation was completed, Priscilla's hands glowed white.

"That's...!"

Melian shot to his feet. Ordinary water that could be drunk anywhere rapidly transformed into medicine with the power of purification and healing. The way it shimmered in gold seemed almost mystical.

Melian stared at Priscilla in amazement. The creator herself seemed to treat it as merely effective medicine, but in reality, it was holy water that could only be obtained from high-ranking priests.

He could now understand the identity of the strange discomfort he had felt from the girl.

"You had divine power."

Rietta carefully examined the pure power still pooled in the small hands. Lycaon's survival of a mortal crisis wasn't thanks to his monstrous recovery ability.

The concentration of divine power that had suppressed the demon beast's energy and quickly healed wounds severe enough to expose bone was extremely dense. It felt strange that she hadn't sensed anything until the girl revealed her power. Without exaggeration, it was comparable to the highest-ranking priests.

Rietta surmised that the girl's instinct had arbitrarily concealed her divine power due to the unsafe environment. If she caught the eye of corrupt priests and entered the temple, what would happen to her was all too clear.

"I could heal Lycaon, so she entrusted him to me and left."

"Who else knows you can use divine power?"

"No one else. Ah, my father told me I must never let anyone find out. I didn't know it would turn out like this, but..."

Priscilla looked down dejectedly at her hand, from which the light had completely disappeared. Her father, who had supposedly died to a demon beast, couldn't have been unaware of his daughter's ability. Considering he hadn't regarded it as simply a good thing, he might well have been someone connected to the temple.

The girl, who had been lost in thought briefly, suddenly remembered something she'd forgotten and lifted her head with a start.

"P-please don't tell anyone that Lycaon is here either!"

"...You absolutely mustn't be discovered by the temple. Especially not in the north."

Melian shook his head. Lycaon's eyes sharpened as he keenly caught the sarcastic tone.

"What do you mean?"

"Well. You could take it to mean you're too naive, couldn't you?"

"It sounds like you mean something else."

"If that's how it sounded, then perhaps it is."

"...Are you messing with me right now?"

Whether the two boys bickered or not, Priscilla approached Rietta anxiously. The girl looked up at the indifferent brown eyes that felt devoid of emotion, clasping her hands together as if in prayer.

"Lycaon has never gone down to the village. I'll just heal him, and once he's recovered, he'll leave. You're looking for something that isn't here anyway, so you don't need to stay in the village anymore...!"

"What? Where am I going?"

Lycaon, who had been focused entirely on Priscilla, immediately stopped the argument and strode over to the girl. Priscilla's shoulders trembled as she took a step back.

The voice that followed was shaking much more unsteadily than when speaking to Rietta.

"You should go back to where you came from."

"Ah, to where someone who tried to kill me is?"

"Th-that's not what I meant!"

"I'm not fully recovered yet, and if I go back now, things will turn out exactly as he wants."

Lycaon, who pulled up his lips crookedly, continued speaking while blocking the girl who seemed to have more to say.

"And if I go back, what about you?"

The girl's expression hardened momentarily before she dropped her head. She looked utterly forlorn, as if standing in pouring rain without even trying to avoid it.

"...I'll be okay. I'll be fine..."

Lycaon, who had been watching Priscilla, touched his forehead in exasperation. His eyes looking back at the girl concealed his wounds and gleamed brightly. He looked entirely unwilling to do as she wished.

Rietta, who had been watching the entire conversation as if it were a play, gestured to Lycaon. Her rough voice struck the cave uncomfortably.

"So it's certain there's no Dark Moon here."

"I don't need that thing, I told you."

"What do you plan to do from now on? You can't run away forever, as she said."

The half-grown wolf declared resolutely.

"First, I'll return after becoming an adult."

"How?"

He was in a position where he couldn't undergo the coming-of-age ceremony and had even suffered a fatal wound. If things could go as planned, this situation wouldn't have occurred in the first place.

However, the tone was too certain to be considered mere determination. Lycaon continued speaking without taking his eyes off the girl who was still looking at the ground.

"Because I have Priscilla now."

Priscilla's head snapped up involuntarily. Her pale green eyes brimmed with tears. Lycaon clicked his tongue and reached out his hand, carefully wiping her eyes. The girl grasped his hand wiping away her tears with a bewildered expression.

"What do you mean?"

"Does it have to do with the coming-of-age ceremony?"

Blocking Priscilla's words, Melian asked abruptly. Lycaon nodded with a slightly puzzled look. Most species belonging to the forest became adults upon finding their mate.

The coming-of-age ceremony itself could essentially be seen as a ritual of bonding with one's mate in some way.

"Nymphs should be no different."

"...I had no idea."

"I wondered why you still weren't an adult despite having a mate."

Melian, who had been blinking while mulling over the boy's words, naturally looked at Rietta. She was watching them with a gaze as dry as autumn leaves. Melian immediately flushed and shouted. His voice was loud enough to echo in the cave.

"It's not like that! A m-mate? That's not... that's not..."

"I naturally assumed you were together like that."

"Naturally!"

"Otherwise, why would the proud nymph race..."

Melian hastily cut off the following words.

"A-anyway, so you can become an adult just by finding a mate?"

Lycaon shrugged at the oversensitive reaction, clicking his tongue.

"Yeah. Well, the details might differ, but generally that's it. If the bond is established properly, you become an adult right after a day passes."

"I see..."

The golden eyes that held the bonfire rippled in deep crimson. Having obtained a clue he'd been searching for relentlessly day and night, his mind must have been complicated.

Rietta withdrew her gaze from the boy who had already fallen deep into thought at some distance. Then she immediately made eye contact with the young wolf who had dropped his guard. As if it had been bothering him all along, Lycaon pointed precisely at Rietta's throat with his finger.

"Is that injured? There's too much roughness in your voice for it to be natural."

He was a beast with unnecessarily good instincts. Rietta directed her answer not to the impudent wolf, but to Priscilla, who was clasping her hands together desperately.

"Something like that."

"Then I'll fix it for you!"

"No."

The girl's face immediately fell at the firm refusal. Her confident voice gradually shrank.

"I-I can fix it! I'm confident in at least that..."

Rietta lightly shook her head, looking at the fidgeting fingers.

"It's not physical. I don't have a medium right now, so it won't work."

"A medium? But..."

"If you don't believe me, try it once."

When she grasped the girl's hand and placed it on her throat, Priscilla's stubbornly closed mouth crumbled with embarrassment.

However, after regaining her composure, instead of withdrawing her hand, she skillfully moved her divine power. It was practiced skill, but perhaps because she put strength into it, the amount was somewhat excessive.

Even as time passed, Priscilla's face showed no relief. As sweat began to seep from the girl's forehead as she bit her lips tightly, Rietta slowly spoke.

"Stop."

Priscilla, who had stubbornly kept her hand in place despite the voice that sounded like scraping rough metal, finally opened her eyes after a long while. Her eyes wandering in all directions looked extremely confused.

The girl, who had been looking down at her hands as if doubting her own ability, reached out her arm again with determined eyes. Rietta, who avoided it without difficulty, continued speaking.

"I said it won't work."

"H-how can this be? This has never happened before..."

"No one can fix this."

Among those who had heard her voice, quite a few had tried, and without a single exception, all had failed.

Renowned mages, physicians, alchemists, shamans. Every notable figure of the age had eventually shaken their heads and stepped back. It wasn't even a 'wound' that could be restored through such methods in the first place.