MHHC Chapter 77

The Forgotten Ruins

'Please.'

Adelheid pleaded desperately in her mind. Yet no matter how much she tried, she could feel no trace of life in Greta's pallid face.

Perhaps it was already too late—whenever such doubts surged up, Adelheid focused on maintaining the strength in her fingertips.

The room was drenched in blood. The pool spreading across the floor soaked into Adelheid's knees faster and faster, the warmth of it seeping through fabric like something alive and hungry.

Adelheid tried not to think about whose body all that blood had flowed from.

Instead, she gritted her teeth and poured every ounce of her magic into the effort.

'Please, just once!'

The moment she wished so desperately in her heart, astonishingly powerful magic surged from Adelheid's body.

The blue light gathering at her fingertips swirled more fiercely. Adelheid narrowed her eyes against the brilliance—so dazzling it was almost unbearable, like staring into the heart of something that should remain hidden.

Beyond that light, she could see Greta's wounds closing bit by bit. The joy lasted only a moment.

'...It hurts.'

Her hands felt as if they were burning. She trembled and moaned in pain, the sound scraping from her throat like something broken.

In that instant, she realized instinctively that if she maintained this power much longer, there would be no turning back—the magic would consume her completely, leave nothing but ash and memory.

But she couldn't stop here.

If she severed the magic before Greta's terrible wounds had fully healed, that last breath she'd barely managed to hold onto would slip away like water through cupped hands.

Adelheid bit her lip until it bled, steeling her will with the taste of copper on her tongue.

'Just a little, just a little more.'

The space around them rippled and twisted under the intense magic she'd summoned, as if reality itself were rejecting what she was doing. Adelheid maintained the power stubbornly even as agonized moans escaped her lips—sounds that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than her body, from the place where magic dwelled.

The back of her hand, her palm, her arms, her cheeks and the nape of her neck... it felt as if boiling water had been poured over her entire body.

Her shoulders hunched involuntarily against the searing heat—hot enough to burn, to brand, to leave marks that would never fade.

'This is strange.'

Suddenly, the flow of magic changed. It had definitely been maintained by her will at first, controlled and directed by her intention.

But at some point, it seemed as if the magic had gained self-awareness of its own—as if it had tasted something it wanted and would not be denied.

The magic refused to be severed, slipping beyond her control and beginning to greedily draw power on its own, ravenous and unrelenting.

'Ah...'

Adelheid felt fear and uncanny wonder simultaneously, the two emotions braiding together like smoke and shadow.

She felt terror toward the magic that wanted to drain every drop of her power, and astonishment at the sheer volume of magic pouring from her in response, endless as a dark ocean she'd never known existed within herself.

Just how much magic had been sleeping in her core? The depth was immeasurable—fathomless as a well that opened onto nothing, onto the void itself.

How long did this situation persist? Gradually, she began to feel strain on her core, the source of her power buckling under pressure it was never meant to bear.

Her magic reservoir couldn't hold out and slowly began to warp, like metal heated until it twisted out of shape.

'I can't cut off the magic.'

Beads of sweat pooled on her chin and dripped to the floor with soft sounds—drip, drip—marking time like a clock counting down to something terrible.

She tried several times to stop the spell, but each attempt ended in failure, the magic slipping through her mental grasp like something alive that refused to be caged.

The magic began exponentially increasing the amount of power it drained, as if she had offended it somehow, as if this were punishment for trying to escape.

It felt like her entire body was being wrung out alive, crushed in a fist that wouldn't relent. Tears streamed down her white cheeks in silent testimony to the agony she couldn't voice.

'It hurts!'

If the magic continued like this, before long, the one whose life would be in danger would be her—drained to nothing, a husk, a memory of warmth that had once been a girl named Adelheid.

But Adelheid knew nothing about how to control magic that had gone mad and wild like this. So what was she supposed to do...

[Adele.]

The moment that voice echoed from the void, Adelheid was seized by a terrible sense of relief—the kind that comes when you've been drowning and finally break the surface. It was him. Valentin.

Soon he emerged from the dim shadows and reached out, wrapping his arm tightly around her waist from behind, anchoring her to something solid and real.

She felt the tearfully familiar warmth and scent of his body against her back, and it was like coming home to a place she'd never known she'd left.

[Don't break your concentration. Keep it maintained and just think about releasing a little less.]

"I, I can't... do it..."

[You can.]

He transmitted his will into her mind. Fierce light and noise filled the space around them, violent and consuming.

It was so intense that human ears couldn't have heard anything through it. Valentin's broad, solid chest supported her back like a wall that would never crumble.

[Your will has become too deeply embedded in the magic, making it violent. You can't surrender control of the magic. Think of it like damming a flowing river.]

Tears streamed down her face from the pain. The magic rampaging inside her was tearing at her core indiscriminately, clawing and rending.

It was like a monster trying to force open cracks and devour her whole. Her vision was consumed by a deep blue light that swallowed everything like drowning from the inside.

She absolutely couldn't endure any more...

[Please, stay conscious.]

Her consciousness, which had momentarily flickered out, returned faintly at Valentin's voice, pulled back from wherever it had been falling toward.

A cool energy spread through every part of her skin that touched his, seeping in to calm her feverish body—a benediction whispered in a language older than words.

It felt like the most tender consolation, like being told that everything would be all right even when it wouldn't, even when it couldn't.

[Gradually reduce the magic. Yes, like that...]

He held Adelheid's trembling body tightly and encouraged her again, his voice steady as stone in a storm.

Tears pooled in Adelheid's pale green eyes and streamed down her cheeks in rivers that wouldn't stop, salt and grief in equal measure.

She no longer wanted to endure this pain. She wanted to let go of everything, to finally be at ease—to sleep and never wake up to pain.

'It's too hard.'

It was a complaint she only thought in her mind, half-unconscious, a child's plea to make it stop. Valentin paused for a moment, then tilted his head and pressed his lips to her temple—a kiss that tasted like shadows and promises.

[I know. But you have to endure it.]

'...I had so many things I wanted to ask you.'

[If you get through this, I'll tell you everything.]

'Everything?'

[Yes. Everything you want to know.]

It was strange. He'd clearly said he couldn't read her thoughts. Yet the conversation was continuing as if he could hear every word she shaped in the silence of her skull.

But soon even the luxury of wondering about that disappeared, swept away by the tide of magic and pain.

Valentin's energy, which had entered her body, gradually began to suppress the rampaging magic—firm and patient, like hands gentling a wild horse.

Adelheid added her strength as Valentin led her. She suppressed her magic as much as possible and returned it to her core, coaxing it home with promises she wasn't sure she could keep.

As she gradually plugged up her cracked core—like a broken glass with hairline fractures spreading through it—the magic that had been leaking out began to diminish little by little from a certain point, the flood becoming a stream, then a trickle.

[You're doing well.]

Slowly, very slowly. In the gradually subsiding light, Adelheid saw that Greta's wounds had completely healed, the torn flesh knitting itself together as if it had never been rent apart.

She could also see Greta's chest rising and falling shallowly as she continued to breathe. It was a fortunate thing—life clinging on by its fingernails, but clinging nonetheless.

From that point on, Adelheid completely relaxed and focused only on suppressing her magic, letting Valentin's steady presence guide her back to herself.

[It's almost over.]

Soon the golden light that had filled the room disappeared without a trace, leaving only shadows and the smell of blood. At the same time, Adelheid slumped like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Just before she collapsed to the floor, Valentin caught her. He firmly pulled her upright, his strength the only thing keeping her in the world.

"We have to go."

"Where..."

Before she could finish speaking, noisy human presence could be heard—footsteps and shouts echoing through the corridor, growing closer with every heartbeat.

She thought she heard him say something about explaining later, amidst the chaos—words that barely registered through the fog in her mind.

When Valentin swept his hand, a massive shadow surged up from beneath their feet like something summoned from the deep places of the earth. He melted into the shadow in an instant, becoming one with the darkness.

"Adele, hurry."

From beyond the shadow, his hand materialized again and reached for her, solid and real despite the impossibility of it.

The moment Adelheid grasped Valentin's hand, the door burst open and the holy knights rushed into the room, their white cloaks billowing like accusations.

Eyes that had gone round with mutual surprise met for just an instant—hers and theirs, recognition and horror passing between them like a current.

"...!"

Valentin's arm wrapped firmly around Adelheid's waist as she froze in place, his grip possessive and protective all at once.

Just before his other hand covered her eyes and obscured her face, she saw the knights rushing forward desperately as they grasped the situation, their expressions transforming from shock to fury.

"Wait!"

"St-stop!"

It was the instant when a muscular hand stretched out to grab her clothing. The scene before her eyes became tangled like colors mixed into mud—everything bleeding together until she couldn't tell where one thing ended and another began.

She felt herself being powerfully sucked somewhere, pulled by forces she couldn't name or resist.

Her entire body felt crumpled haphazardly, crushed and folded like paper in a careless fist. Every time she heard the sound of wind rushing past her ears—whoosh—the surrounding scenery changed incredibly fast, too fast for eyes to follow.

The main square, the street, fields, forests, lakeside...

Then everything stopped abruptly, violently. Her feet, which had been floating in mid-air, touched the ground softly, as if the world had remembered gravity only at the last moment.

Adelheid felt dizzy, as if she'd spun dozens of times in place, and collapsed forward into darkness that seemed eager to claim her.

"Be careful."

Valentin's strong hands caught her without wavering. Her vision swam. She covered her mouth against the rising nausea, tasting bile and fear.

"Urk..."

"What's wrong?"

Valentin frantically lifted her drooping head, his movements sharp with concern that cut through his usual composure.

His dry hand gently stroked Adelheid's cheek, wet with tears that hadn't stopped falling since the spell had broken her.

"I think I'm going to... be sick..."

"Then be sick. It's okay."

"How can it be..."

Adelheid started to speak but lowered her head to the ground instead, surrendering to the rebellion in her stomach. She dry-heaved several times, but perhaps because she hadn't eaten much, she couldn't even bring up stomach acid—just painful spasms that produced nothing.

Adelheid collapsed to the ground just like that, her legs giving out beneath her.

Her legs were trembling so much she couldn't stand properly—every muscle quaking like something about to shatter.

"I don't have... strength..."

"Of course not, since you used that much magic."

Valentin replied matter-of-factly and knelt down in front of her, his movements economical and sure.

Valentin's face, encountered in the bright light, looked just as exhausted as hers—shadows under his eyes like bruises, pallor making his features sharper.

When Adelheid looked at him strangely, as if seeing him for the first time, he lifted one corner of his mouth and spoke.

"Put your arms around my neck."

When Adelheid did as told, he lightly lifted her as she was. The hand supporting beneath her knees was strangely gentle, at odds with everything she knew about what he was.

She could feel the magic he released as naturally as breathing gently sweep over her entire body and invigorate her, warmth seeping into places that had gone cold and hollow.

They remained silently embracing each other for a while, two figures outlined against ruins and dying light. Eventually, Adelheid lifted her head, which had been resting weakly against Valentin, and asked.

"...Where is this?"

It was a completely unfamiliar and desolate place—like something from a nightmare that had decided to take solid form.

Had it been swept by a terrible conflagration? An endlessly spreading field of grass burned black and dead stretched before them, and ahead stood what looked like ancient ruins—a collapsed temple that time had forgotten or deliberately abandoned.

Around it, a forest incongruous with the season stood skeletal and bare, branches reaching toward a sky that seemed too far away.