Chapter 31
Nelly woke up in the standard, cliché manner of a shipwreck survivor.
Waves crashed against her, waking her up. She was lying on her back on a shallow beach, with no idea where she was.
It was nearly dusk, and the sky was a red that looked as if it had been carelessly smeared by the most inept of painters. Nelly struggled to turn onto her side, and only then did she notice someone else beside her.
Even soaked and plastered to his cheeks, his pure white hair was inexplicably clean and dazzling. Kal’s eyes were tightly shut, his face extremely pale, his lips slightly blue. Although it didn’t look like he had drowned, his physical condition was clearly not optimistic.
Nelly immediately sat up and looked around. There was no sign of Melissa. All she could do for now was pour a high-grade healing potion down his throat and see what happened.
Before the potion bottle was even empty, Kal’s eyelashes trembled slightly, and his throat convulsed as he spit out a mouthful of seawater mixed with blood. Nelly clumsily took a handkerchief from her storage space, wiped his face, and gave him more of the potion.
After the third bottle of healing potion was finished, Kal finally opened his eyes, his gaze vacant and unfocused for a long moment. Nelly couldn’t help but wave her hand in front of his eyes, but to her surprise, he grabbed her hand with a strength that came from nowhere.
His fingers were cold, but they clung to hers tightly, like a creeping vine wrapped around a branch, unwilling and unable to let go.
Nelly couldn’t help but soften her tone. “Kal?”
His red eyes finally focused on her face, gradually clearing. Kal’s voice was hoarse. “Nelly.”
It was a familiar phrase. Nelly trembled slightly and lowered her eyes. “I’m here.”
“That’s good.” Kal’s lips curved slightly, and he murmured as he closed his eyes.
Nelly’s heart pounded. She felt his forehead, and as expected, it was alarmingly hot.
The fever didn’t seem to be something that could be cured with a potion, so Nelly decided to drag Kal away from the beach first. But as soon as she tried to stand up, she realized that her legs were in excruciating pain. Looking down, she saw that they must have been scraped by the sharp rocks on the shore as she was pushed ashore by the waves. From her ankles to her knees, they were covered in cuts.
But that was nothing. Nelly took a breath and stood up. Her head was a little dizzy. She held her forehead and took a few deep breaths, then struggled to support Kal’s head and neck, her arms under his shoulders, and began to pull him toward the end of the shallow beach.
It was a much more difficult task than she had imagined. After only a few steps, Nelly was already panting. She temporarily put Kal down and opened the system interface. As expected, the screen was filled with “CONNECTION INTERRUPTED.” The bright red words brought back unpleasant memories, and a chill ran through her. She looked down at the unconscious mage and bit her lip, hesitating for a moment.
But she quickly firmed her resolve. He did save her, after all.
Nelly once again resisted the urge to fall to her knees and bent down to back up.
“Need a hand?”
A voice suddenly came from behind, and Nelly was so startled she almost let go. She gritted her teeth and turned around. It was Gerard, draped in seaweed. He looked ridiculous, but his expression was calm, and he was actually more approachable than when he had been impeccably dressed on the ship.
Nelly’s gaze shifted between the two mages.
Gerard immediately let out a disdainful sneer. “I’m not so low as to attack him at a time like this.”
“Then I’ll have to trouble you.” Nelly didn’t stand on ceremony. She knew she couldn’t possibly drag Kal all the way up on her own. When she needed help, she would ask for it.
Gerard seemed to be uninjured. He was only slightly out of breath when he brought Kal to the end of the shallow beach, and he didn’t seem to be in any pain from any wounds. He disgustedly threw the seaweed from his head, tutted a few times, and stared intently at a spot beside him. With a point of his finger, a roaring flame shot up, and a bonfire, fueled by sand and stone, crackled to life.
“And the Lord Hero?” Gerard’s tone was once again tinged with a condescending mockery.
Nelly shook her head and opened the system interface again to check, but she couldn’t find the hero’s red dot on the map. “I don’t know for now. I’ll go look.”
Gerard took some clothes from his magic pocket, and in the blink of an eye, he was clean and refreshed. He once again showed that soft smile of a pampered person. “You should take care of your own wounds first.”
Nelly followed his gaze to her own calves and silently took out a healing potion and applied it carelessly. After drying her clothes by the fire, Nelly endured the rough feeling of the salt on her skin, stood up, and said, “I’m going to check the beach over there.”
But Gerard pressed his palm down. “Why don’t you leave it to Gerard?”
Nelly frowned.
“You don’t look like you can walk. If you leave rashly and can’t come back, it will only be more trouble.”
“Thank you.” Nelly knew he was right, so she thanked him.
But he just gave that smooth, feminine smile, unconcerned. “You saved Gerard’s life. The people of Karinthia repay a life-saving favor with three things.” He blinked slyly. “That was the first. This is the second. As for the third, you might want to think about it carefully.”
Nelly was momentarily speechless. Mages who hang around in court are really different…
Gerard twisted his fingers, and a green light appeared in his palm. He spoke in a commanding tone, uttering strange-sounding words, and the orb of light flew into the sky, spun a few times, and then fell back into his palm. He flicked his long, green hair and looked down at Nelly, a smile on his lips. “It seems the Lord Hero is unharmed. Please rest assured, Gerard will be right back.”
Only after the green-haired mage in his cumbersome long robe had walked far away did Nelly allow herself to show a look of surprise. Mages from Naxier really live up to their reputation! They can carry the wounded, find the missing, and start a fire. They’re practically a must-have for home, travel, and shipwrecks.
And then there was Mr. Kal, who coughed up three liters of blood after casting one spell but was very reliable when it mattered…
Nelly had to admit that there was no comparison between the two.
Gerard did indeed return quickly, carrying Melissa. She was also unconscious, her eyes shut. Just as Nelly’s heart began to pound, the mage calmly burst her bubble. “She’s just asleep.”
Asleep…
Nelly was once again shocked by her hero’s thick nerves.
“As long as she’s okay.” Nelly smiled and gave her spot by the fire to Melissa. She stood up, took two steps, and turned back to ask the bored Gerard, “Do you know where we are?”
He tilted his head. “I don’t know.” He looked even more innocent than Nelly. “Gerard is familiar with every inch of Karinthia, but I know nothing of the north. Even the elemental spirits can’t tell me our location.”
Incidentally, it seemed that in the eyes of the people of Karinthia, all of Wildia outside of their own land was the north.
It was even hard to tell if they had crossed the Sea of Mermaids. Nelly quickly thought of a solution. She couldn’t ask the system for help, so she could only find the nearest settlement, ask for their location, and then make a plan.
But in the end, this shipwreck was also too strange. The sea monster had never destroyed a ship so frantically before, not to mention dragging the hero to some unknown shore. Nelly was beginning to suspect that this was the system’s sick sense of humor, occasionally throwing in a low-probability hidden plot to test her abilities…
For now, all she could do was wait for Melissa to wake up.
Gerard paced back and forth elegantly for a few laps, then suddenly spoke up. “May I ask how you and the Lord Hero came to be with… him?”
Nelly gave a dry laugh. “The hero found him as a teammate herself. I don’t know the details.”
The mage’s cat-like yellow eyes narrowed slightly, and he smiled faintly. “Interesting.”
“Do you know something?” Nelly looked up.
Gerard said nonchalantly, “Gerard only heard that this imposter actually requested to leave the Sage’s Tower on his own initiative, but there was a problem with the teleportation circle at the last moment, and his whereabouts are unknown.” He gave a mocking smile. “Please don’t misunderstand. Gerard is in Nafaray not because of a teleportation circle error, but because the Lord Marquis had an important matter to entrust to me.”
Nelly was silent for a moment before she spoke. “About Kal… do you know anything else?”
Gerard’s eyes narrowed meaningfully. “Unfortunately, Gerard has no interest in getting to know an imposter in depth, so I cannot provide you with the information you want.” As if he had remembered something, he pinched two fingers together and produced a strange coin. He bent down slightly and presented the golden coin to Nelly.
It was a strange coin, with a green gem embedded in the middle, shining brightly. The edge of the gem was engraved with ancient characters, the meaning of which Nelly did not know. In terms of color alone, it was a combination of Gerard’s hair and eye color.
“I imagine you don’t have anything to ask of Gerard at the moment. So, when you think of something one day, you can come and find Gerard in Karinthia with this coin. As long as there is a mage, Gerard will know that you have thought of the third thing.”
With that, and without any further explanation, Gerard took a few steps back, spread his hands, and suddenly vanished into thin air, leaving Nelly to come to her senses after a long moment.
At that moment, someone suddenly grabbed Nelly’s hand.
Kal was awake.