MHHC Chapter 121

What Can Be Done

A strange ripple surged through her—rising from the ground beneath her feet, climbing her spine, racing through her entire body.

The moment she felt red light pooling into her darkness-drowned vision, every part of her awakened. Down to the finest hair on her skin.

She could feel even the passage of time as slow traces left upon her flesh.

"……."

Everything in the world translated itself into sound.

The fierce scrape of wind. The deep light the sun exhaled at the horizon's edge. The collision of bent grasses. The writhing of soil beneath her feet.

All of it vivid as one immense resonance. In that trembling moment, Valentin asked in a calm voice:

"Do you see?"

She saw. Though her eyes remained closed, she perceived her surroundings without the slightest discomfort. More clearly, even, than when her eyes had been open.

A single bird perched on a branch. Ants crawling across the ground. A deer in the distance, ears pricked high. Ansgar's knights stalking their prey. She saw it all.

Resonance.

What other word could explain this moment? Adelheid gasped, her entire body trembling finely.

This was completely, fundamentally different from those rare "sensitive" moments she'd occasionally experienced before.

"Good, Lord……."

The instant her breath escaped in wonder, the world tilted toward her. Trees bowed their branches. Raindrops pooled in clouds began falling one by one toward the earth. The wind paused.

Everything around her leaned close to hear her voice.

"Ah……."

It was a sensation too vast for any mere human to bear.

When Adelheid's breath grew ragged as though about to break, Valentin slowly released her wrist.

"Remember this feeling."

At Valentin's voice, Adelheid barely managed to open her eyes.

He was watching her with the look of someone yearning for something lost.

As though he knew exactly what she was experiencing now. Exactly how it felt.

Of course he would. This was the power he had once possessed, and was now gradually losing.

"This is, Valentin, what you, meant……."

"Breathe. Slowly."

"The ground, this…… to the sky……."

"Yes. You will. It's a natural phenomenon."

"Ah……."

"Because you received an incomplete origin. Because all I could give you was something like this."

Something like this, he called it. As though he hadn't torn away part of his very life to give her. She glared up at him in protest, and Valentin smiled faintly.

"But don't worry. Thanks to its incompleteness, you won't be able to sense anything beyond this."

She barely managed to blink her tear-soaked lashes. Even this alone felt miraculous—and there was more beyond it? A realm human imagination could never dare approach.

When Valentin stepped several paces away, the resonance faded just as quickly.

As her heightened senses dulled, for one instant she felt as though every sense had been severed. Her knees buckled, strength draining away. Valentin moved quickly toward her.

"Careful."

Adelheid flinched away from his hand, startled.

She didn't want to resonate right now. Had he sensed that? His hand, which had reached to catch her, stopped in midair without ever touching.

He watched her steady herself alone, his eyes gone dark and heavy.

"I'm, sorry……. Not right now……."

Still braced against her knees, Adelheid caught her breath and finally managed to answer. Her stomach churned as though she were seasick. Nausea surged.

She pressed her right hand over her mouth and waited for the moment to pass. The horrible sensation of sky and earth inverting slowly returned to normal.

"It's, strange. Earlier, when you touched me, this didn't happen."

Valentin answered, his face pale.

"I used a bit of power. So you could feel it."

"Ah, that's why……."

"Now that you've resonated once, from now on your senses will grow increasingly acute. You'll need to control the intensity of the resonance yourself."

"I understand the, sensation. But how am I supposed to……."

"You give commands to everything you've resonated with. Tell them to protect you. Guard you."

"Commands."

"Once you're skilled, you can do anything. Raise the earth to create a barrier. Call down lightning to sweep away enemies. Or make a tree branch harder than steel."

What he described sounded exactly like magic. Was there truly any meaningful difference between infusing will into mana and commanding something you'd resonated with?

"What you're describing doesn't seem different from magic."

"It's different."

"Different?"

"Mm."

He lowered his gaze as though uncertain how to explain.

Adelheid ran her trembling hand over the wrist he had gripped.

That single handspan of skin where they'd touched directly—the sensation there still hadn't dulled. It remained exactly as it had been.

Proof that the impossible resonance she'd experienced was truth, not dream.

"If you master this, Adele, you will become……."

The gaze that had been fixed on the ground lifted calmly to meet her eyes.

His golden eyes, usually so vivid, had darkened under the shadow of twilight clouds—so deep they were difficult to read.

"……the master of the world itself. Capable of making even me kneel at your feet."

'Something's wrong.'

Adelheid exhaled, still half-dazed. Valentin's words were clearly contradictory.

He'd told her she couldn't become a god, yet now said she could become the world's master.

He'd said they could live together, yet persistently refused to discuss anything beyond the subjugation campaign.

'Though he did say he wanted to cherish this moment we have together more than worry about the future.'

Did he think humans had no chance of victory? Or did he have some other plan he couldn't share with her? She had absolutely no idea what Valentin was thinking lately, and the uncertainty frustrated her.

'He promised to be truthful, so he wouldn't be lying.'

Though she didn't know how much to trust a vow made so casually in passing.

Either way, she had no real choice but to believe him. If he'd been willing to explain when pressed, he would have done so already.

'Perhaps he meant the future isn't decided yet? If that's what he meant, it would make sense that his words keep changing…….'

Adelheid sighed deeply and stirred her completely cold stew with her spoon. That was when she heard the commotion outside.

Had the scouts returned? Adelheid carefully parted the carriage curtain. Almost simultaneously, she locked eyes with someone who'd been about to knock urgently on the carriage door.

"Your Grace! You were inside!"

It was Klaus who'd appeared so suddenly. She stammered, flustered by the man who'd burst in.

"Wh-what's the matter?"

"During patrol, one of the knights was attacked by a monster. The wound is quite large……. If you're willing, could you take a look at him?"

"I don't mind, but did the knight himself agree to this?"

Adelheid asked hesitantly.

While many people were certainly friendly toward her power, that friendliness was limited to simple recovery magic.

Occasionally, a few particularly anxious individuals still thoroughly hid even the slightest injury in her presence.

Because human blood and flesh had always been known as stimulants for monsters.

"That's……."

At her pointed question, Klaus hesitated, then finally shook his head.

"To be honest, no. But if we leave him like this, the flesh will start rotting before we reach the next village."

"Then I'd better take a look."

Adelheid set down her stew bowl and stepped out of the carriage. Margaret, who'd been boiling tea at a nearby campfire, rounded her eyes and hurried over.

"Your Grace. Are you sure you shouldn't rest longer?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Margaret, please gather some hot water and towels for me. There's somewhere I need to go with you right now. And…… wait just a moment."

Adelheid turned her back on the bewildered Klaus and hurried to the forest's edge.

If the herbalism book she'd read was correct, since there was a fir forest nearby, she might be lucky enough to find where lamtil grew.

After searching several spots beneath moss-covered rocks, Adelheid finally discovered a thick cluster of lamtil flowers.

She plucked one of the plants whose leaf tips showed purple, and chewed it with her teeth.

'Bitter, with a sharp scent. The sap is dark red…… It's definitely lamtil.'

Reassured, Adelheid gathered an armful of the lamtil plants.

"All right. Let's go now."

"What is that?"

"A plant that acts as an antidote when crushed and placed on wounds. I thought this would be better than applying healing magic directly."

"How do you know such things?"

At Klaus's amazement, Adelheid smiled vaguely.

"I studied herbalism. Self-taught from books, though."

"You taught yourself herbalism?"

"Self-taught, yes, but I actually picked various plants to dry them, and even experimented on my own body……. I'm certain this is lamtil."

"I had no idea Your Grace possessed such skills."

Adelheid considered an appropriate excuse, then gave up and answered honestly.

"I used to think I had no talent for healing magic. And I wanted to be useful to Ansgar somehow, by whatever means."

Klaus glanced at her with a peculiar expression, then said:

"Whatever the case, it's fortunate for him. Please hurry. We've delayed quite a bit already……."

Klaus half-snatched the kettle of hot water and towels from Margaret, urging her forward. As they followed Klaus across the center of the camp, several curious gazes trailed after them.