## Side Story 3: The Azure Knight and the Ashen Witch
### Chapter 2
We then decided who would live in which of the three dilapidated wooden houses.
After some discussion, we decided that Lopetrefer would live in the middle house, I would take the left house, and Sotetis would move into the right house.
Initially, I had suggested that Sotetis live with Lopetrefer and keep an eye on her, but Sotetis vehemently refused.
“You… you… you want me to be alone with that crazy psychopath?! Just let me live alone. I-it’ll be fine, she has the control device anyway.”
I had thought it would be fine even if they lived together, as Lopetrefer had the control device, but I eventually backed down, as they both needed their own space.
I opened the door to the middle house, where Lopetrefer would be staying.
It was a single room with a worn-out bed and a low wooden table, and there was a space that looked like a kitchen on the left wall. My house and Sotetis’s house were probably the same.
As Gushu had said, the inside of the house was cleaner than I had expected. Cleaner than I had *expected*.
“Get some rest today. You’ll be on guard duty tomorrow.”
I gently pushed Lopetrefer inside and untied the rope that had been binding her.
She didn’t react, as usual. I was a little concerned, but I didn’t want to force her to react, so I just closed the door and left.
I then parted ways with Sotetis and went to my own house. Sotetis to the right house, me to the left house. As expected, my house was no different from Lopetrefer’s.
I tossed my luggage on the floor and lay down on the bed, but it was so uncomfortable that I thought I would be better off sleeping on the floor.
“…Sigh.”
I sat on the bed and stared at the tightly closed window. I probably wouldn’t open it. I didn’t want to breathe in the toxins on purpose.
I had volunteered to come to the trash dump, but this place was even more of a “trash dump” than I had imagined.
I had been outside the barrier several times for monster subjugation missions. But “outside the barrier” and the “trash dump” were very different.
The world outside the barrier wasn’t entirely filled with poisonous energy. But the trash dump was like a stagnant puddle, where all the negative energy had accumulated and rotted.
Suddenly remembering, I pulled at the luggage bag sprawled on the ground. As I did, small glass vials filled with a transparent liquid rolled out from between a few clothes. I picked up one of them.
This was holy water that neutralizes poison. Commander Yuna had given me a bunch of these after I decided to go to the dump site.
‘Should I drink it now?’
I felt the urge. Like I would die if I didn’t drink it.
But for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to open the vial.
The face of Damon, who had tried to ruin my life, the numerous gazes I had encountered while following Gushu through the trash dump, flashed through my mind and disappeared.
***
***
I woke up before dawn.
*No, was it even dawn?*
I had to check the time on my pocket watch. It was 4 a.m.
The sun didn’t rise in this gray, desolate place. So it was essential to carry a watch. Of course, the residents of this place didn’t seem to care about time.
“Lopetrefer! It’s time to work! Wake up!”
I finished getting ready and banged on the door of the middle house as soon as my watch struck 5.
But as expected, there was no answer. She must have still been asleep. I stopped knocking and tried the doorknob.
“Lopetrefer! Wake…!”
But contrary to my expectations, Enzhe Lopetrefer was awake. I froze, my eyes meeting her lifeless black eyes, as she looked at me from the bed.
“…Say something if you’re awake.”
I tried to hide my embarrassment and walked towards her. But Lopetrefer’s soulless gaze remained fixed on the door.
“Get up, we have to go to the guard zone.”
“….”
“Your clothes… are the same as yesterday. I brought you a change of clothes. Why didn’t you change?”
“….”
“Aren’t you hungry? Should I bring you something to eat?”
“….”
“…Sigh, just stay here. I’ll go get Sotetis.”
I decided to retreat, feeling like I was talking to a brick wall.
“Haaaahm… Oh! Senior, you’re awake?”
Ariel, her hair a mess, was coming out of the right house, still half asleep, as I stepped outside.
She looked like she had perfectly adapted to the trash dump in just one day, her tears from yesterday forgotten.
“Sotetis, go help Lopetrefer change her clothes.”
“Change her clothes? I heard she can’t even dress herself.”
“I don’t know.”
I shrugged and leaned against the wall, my arms crossed, and Sotetis tilted her head, her eyes puzzled.
“Well… Okay, I’ll help her change. Wait here for a moment.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and just call me Ariel. I don’t like being called Sotetis.”
She said, and then the door to the middle house slammed shut.
“…Sigh.”
I sighed deeply, looking up at the empty sky. A bitter taste lingered in my mouth, it hadn’t gone away since yesterday.
After a short wait, the door to the middle house opened again. I straightened up, thinking they were finally ready.
But only Ariel came out.
“Why are you alone? Where’s Lopetrefer?”
Ariel, her face crumpled, replied,
“I don’t know. I dressed her, but she won’t say anything, and she won’t move.”
“….”
“I was afraid she would explode if I touched her, so I just came out.”
Ariel averted her gaze.
I left her there and went back into the middle house. And as Ariel had said, Lopetrefer was sitting on the bed, her posture unchanged, her face blank.
“Get up.”
“….”
No answer. No movement.
*Should I just leave?* It wouldn’t be a bad idea for Ariel and me to take turns standing guard for a day.
*‘No…’*
I shook my head and grabbed Lopetrefer’s thin arm, pulling her up. Her body rose higher than I had expected, and I was slightly startled, but I didn’t let go and pulled her off the bed.
I caught her with my arms before she could fall into my embrace.
“This is your job, stop pretending to be pitiful.”
***
The “guard zone” of the trash dump was in the center of the village.
It wasn’t really a systematically built guard zone, it was just the place with the highest frequency of monster appearances, chosen to utilize Enzhe Lopetrefer’s power. It was barely worthy of being called a “guard zone.”
“I heard from a senior knight that monsters only appear in the trash dump very rarely. That’s a good thing, right?”
Ariel, sitting on a rock amidst the ruins, said, sipping her holy water.
The guard zone, the center of the village, was filled with traces of monster attacks. No one lived here, and no one passed through here.
The residents probably knew that monsters frequently appeared here.
Lopetrefer was standing a short distance away from us, staring blankly at the sky, like a fool.
“She’s been like that for two years.”
“Huh?”
“Enzhe Lopetrefer, I mean.”
Ariel tossed her empty vial aside and continued,
“I heard she’s been living like she’s given up on everything.”
“Why?”
Ariel looked at me as if I was strange.
“How would I know?”
“….”
“Hmm, anyway, it’s a shame she’s clinging to life with that talent… She might have been better off with a death sentence.”
“…She shouldn’t be comfortable.”
“What? What did you say?”
“…Nothing, never mind.”
Ariel, thankfully, didn’t seem to hear me and just shrugged, then focused on cleaning her large wooden staff.
I looked away from Lopetrefer. My gaze fell to the damp ground.
*‘Yes, she shouldn’t be comfortable.’*
She was the woman who had ruined my family, ruined my friend, and killed a crown prince and her own family for her selfish reasons.
Someone like that shouldn’t be allowed to be comfortable.
That was why I had come here, to witness Enzhe Lopetrefer’s downfall.
At that moment, I felt a sudden tightness in my chest.
The air, which had been stale and heavy, stopped moving, and my senses started to go numb, as if time had stopped.
It was a sudden feeling, but sadly, it wasn’t unfamiliar.
A heavy, suffocating feeling, as if everything had stopped, as if I couldn’t breathe.
…*I knew this feeling all too well.*
“Ariel, grab your staff and stand up.”
I said, slowly drawing my sword.
“What? What are you talking about?”
But Ariel, still clueless, just looked at me with a puzzled expression. She seemed to think this was just part of everyday life in the trash dump.
But she soon realized that this wasn’t just “everyday life.” She had to.
I looked up at the darkening sky and mumbled,
“It’s a monster.”
It was the same feeling I had felt when I had encountered a monster during a subjugation mission. And as if to prove that my intuition wasn’t wrong, it appeared in the sky.
“N-n-no way…!”
Ariel jumped to her feet.
“No way, no way… They said it only appeared very rarely…?!”
“I guess today is that very rare day.”
I chuckled bitterly, looking at the imposing figure of the monster.
It covered the sky, like a giant shadow, like black smoke.
The only good thing was that it had something that looked like a head. Something that resembled a human face was buried in the black smoke, its eyes tightly shut.
*‘It’s a gaseous creature, but it has a vital point… B-rank, maybe?’*
“E-Enzhe! Do something about this!”
Ariel shouted at Enzhe Lopetrefer, who was standing in the distance, while I was assessing the monster’s level.
But it was no use.
Enzhe Lopetrefer was still staring blankly at the sky, her face as blank as it had been yesterday, as it had been earlier.
But she wasn’t looking at the black smoke floating in the sky, and she probably wasn’t even thinking about fighting it.
“Eeeenzhe! What are you doing?! You’re here to kill this thing, aren’t you?!”
Ariel’s face, flushed red, was contorted with fear, as she faced a monster for the first time in her life.
I was the first to break the stalemate.
“Tch… Ariel! We have no choice! We have to take it down ourselves this time!”
“W-what?!”
I ignored Ariel’s scream and charged forward, biting my lip.
“You stay back!”
I grabbed Enzhe Lopetrefer’s arm and threw her into a pile of debris, large enough to hide a person. She stumbled and fell.
I then raised my sword towards the black smoke floating in the sky and forced out a gentle voice,
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”