## Side Story 3: The Azure Knight and the Ashen Witch
### Chapter 3 (Continued)
“Okay, Ariel. B-rank, we can handle it together. Calm down and grab your staff.”
“This is… This is impossible…”
Ariel was crying even more than yesterday. But she didn’t let go of her staff.
“That thing that looks like a face is its weak spot. We have to destroy it. You’re a special recruit, you should be good at magic! Just try anything.”
“Ugh… My magic isn’t meant to kill something like that…!”
She sounded indignant, but I didn’t care. Because her large wooden staff was already starting to glow, proving that she wasn’t a special recruit of the Imperial Academy for nothing.
*‘Is it attack magic?’*
Several large fireballs formed around Ariel, and she launched them into the sky.
The fireballs seemed to pass harmlessly through the black smoke that made up the monster, but the last one hit the monster’s head directly.
The monster, its weak spot attacked, faltered slightly in the smoke, then reappeared, seemingly unharmed.
“This time… Take this!”
Ariel cast another spell, and this time, a beam of white light shot towards the sky.
I didn’t know much about magic, but I could tell instinctively that the spell she had just cast was white magic, the monster’s natural enemy.
I had a feeling it would work this time, so I immediately climbed onto the roof of the tallest building, using the debris as stepping stones.
As expected, the monster’s movements became sluggish after being hit by the white magic. And as if the aftereffects of the fireball were still lingering, its weak spot, shrouded in black smoke, started to descend slowly.
I seized the opportunity and jumped, plunging my sword towards the monster’s weak spot.
The monster’s eyes, which had been tightly shut, snapped open. But it was only for a moment, the head-like object swelled up, then exploded like a balloon with a needle stuck in it.
And then, a black, inky liquid splattered everywhere.
The black smoke that had been covering the sky slowly dissipated, and the black liquid that had erupted from the weak spot started to rain down on the village.
“…Ha…”
I gasped for breath, my body covered in black liquid from head to toe.
I could hear Ariel whining in the distance, “This was my favorite outfit!”
*Why had she brought her favorite outfit here?* I didn’t understand.
*‘…But I’m in no position to say that, considering I brought my most prized possession.’*
I chuckled bitterly and took out the conch-shaped music box from my inner pocket.
A gift from my dearest friend.
“Sue…”
*Where are you? How are you doing?*
Even after all these years, even on the brink of death, I couldn’t help but think of her.
“…Ah.”
And then…
My eyes met Enzhe Lopetrefer’s, her black eyes lifeless, as she emerged from the pile of debris beneath the roof.
***
We returned to our houses, our bodies exhausted from the unexpected battle.
It was a chore to carry both Ariel, who could barely walk after using high-ranking magic, and Enzhe Lopetrefer, whose thoughts were unreadable.
When we arrived, I took Ariel to the right house first, then opened the door to the middle house and threw Enzhe Lopetrefer onto the bed.
She collapsed onto the bed like a broken doll. I looked at her, my face emotionless, and said,
“You’ll be fighting from tomorrow. If another monster appears, Ariel and I will run away. Do whatever you want, live or die.”
I turned around and grabbed the doorknob, but I didn’t open the door. I just stood there for a moment.
I still had something to say.
“You lost, Lopetrefer.”
And then, I opened the door, the creepy creaking sound echoing through the rotten wood.
***
As I had warned her, I dragged the still unresponsive Enzhe Lopetrefer to the guard zone the next day.
And then, I found a worn-out sofa among the debris, large enough for a person to sit on, and placed it in the middle of the ruins.
Of course, the only one who would be sitting on the sofa was Enzhe Lopetrefer.
The dark green sofa was torn in several places, and it was even covered in blue mold, but it was still a sofa.
Ariel had even said, “I want to take this home!”, her eyes sparkling, so it must have been a luxury item in this place.
Anyway, I sat Enzhe Lopetrefer on the dark green sofa and watched her from a distance with Ariel.
“Good thinking, Senior. I don’t want to go through what happened yesterday ever again. I’m going to run away as soon as those things appear. I decided that yesterday.”
I had said something similar to Enzhe Lopetrefer, but I had a feeling that neither of us would be able to run away if a similar situation occurred.
*‘It would be a disaster if we couldn’t eliminate the monster here.’*
I looked at Enzhe Lopetrefer, who was sitting alone in the middle of the ruins.
She was sitting quietly on the sofa, her blank eyes staring at the gray sky, as if she had lost her soul.
*‘She hasn’t changed at all, even after what I said yesterday.’*
The words that had declared her defeat.
I hadn’t said them to provoke her, but I had hoped that they would.
Was the cruel, arrogant noblewoman of the Lopetrefer family gone? Then who was the woman sitting there?
What was I even doing here, what was I hoping to see…?
A week passed, my heart filled with emptiness.
The monster hadn’t reappeared since the first day of guard duty.
So it was starting to get boring, spending all day in the central ruins.
The only thing we had to do was chase away the bold children who came to explore the ruins.
Ariel had even brought an extra blanket to the ruins so she could take naps.
“Haaaahm… Senior Soran was right, after all. Monsters don’t appear that easily, even in the trash dump.”
*Soran?*
“…Ah, you’re talking about Soran Halo?”
I asked, but Ariel was already fast asleep.
I sat down next to her, thinking about the “Senior Soran” she had mentioned.
Ariel was an Imperial mage, and the “Soran Halo” I knew was the Vice Minister of the Imperial Palace Magic Department, so the “Senior Soran” she had mentioned must have been Soran Halo.
Soran Halo, like Ariel, was originally a commoner, but like Ariel, she had been granted special admission to the capital because of her magic talent.
I didn’t have much of a connection with Soran Halo, but she had played a much bigger role than I had in capturing Enzhe Lopetrefer six years ago.
And there was another incident a few years ago that had made the name “Soran Halo” known throughout the capital.
It had been revealed that she wasn’t an ordinary commoner, but a resident of the trash dump.
After the downfall of the Lopetrefer family, her sponsor family, Soran Halo had been forced to reveal her true identity a few years ago, as she had no way to hide it anymore.
According to the rumors I had heard while I was in the Knights, she could have found a way to hide her identity if she had been alone, but she had wanted to bring her family to the capital.
*‘Well, her family must have been living in the trash dump too…’*
She was just a “classmate” I had barely spoken to, but after coming to the trash dump, I felt like I could understand her a little better.
***
Three days later, I was watching Enzhe Lopetrefer from the ruins when I couldn’t stand the boredom any longer and stood up.
I woke Ariel up and left the ruins, leaving her in charge of watching Enzhe Lopetrefer.
I had been thinking about exploring other parts of the trash dump since we had arrived, as we had been going back and forth between the house and the ruins.
I wasn’t trying to shirk my duties.
I thought it would be useful to be familiar with the geography of the trash dump and plan escape routes in advance, in case we failed to defeat a monster in the ruins.
I made up that excuse and started exploring other parts of the trash dump for the first time.
As I had occasionally felt, the trash dump was larger than I had imagined, and more people were living there than I had expected.
Children, adult men, women, elderly people… Even dogs and cats. There were people everywhere, except for the empty central ruins. Some even recognized me and greeted me, “Hello, Sir Knight.”
But no matter how many crowded places I visited, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were no different from the empty central ruins.
*Why?*
I walked along the smelly, gray dirt road, pondering the question.
*‘…Because they don’t seem alive?’*
*That’s right.*
The people living here didn’t seem alive.
The woman at the food distribution center, preparing a bland porridge for breakfast, the man, his face flushed from alcohol, chasing away a family of cats, the old man, lying on a straw mat, seemingly homeless, the children, always lurking around the ruins.
They were all living their lives, in their own way. But sadly, there was no life in them. Their faces were filled with the shadow of death, as if they were moving corpses.
Like Damon, who had invaded the mansion that day. Like me, who had tried to kill Sue Byron to escape from him.
“Mr. Gushu.”
I was about to head back to the ruins when I ran into Gushu at the bottom of a hill.
“Ah… Sir Knight, isn’t it? How are you?”
“I’m well, thanks to you. But what are you doing, Mr. Gushu?”
I asked, staring at the gray shovel in his hand. He had been digging a hole when I had called out to him.
“Can’t you see? I’m digging a hole.”
“Yes, but…”
“Ah, right, thank you for the other day. A few people would have died if it hadn’t been for you.”
Gushu wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He had a hearty smile on his face.
“Well, even if it wasn’t for that, I would still be digging a grave.”
“What?”
Gushu narrowed his eyes as I asked back, confused.
“You’re a knight, and you don’t understand? I’m digging a grave because someone died. This is where the dead will go.”
He said, poking the sunken space with the tip of his shovel.
“Someone… died?”
“Yes, his body was filled with bad stuff.”
I gulped.
“Because of the toxins.”
“Ah, yes, yes, that’s right.”
Gushu nodded.
“Anyway, he’s been dead for about two days. If I leave him any longer, his body will rot and it’ll get worse. So I’m going to bury him.”
As Gushu had said, the hole was big enough to fit a person.