Side Story 3: The Azure Knight and the Ashen Witch
Chapter 10
It sounded absurd, but it was true.
The air I breathed in wasn’t stale or bitter or foul. For the first time since coming to the Wasteland, I felt like I could breathe freely.
I unconsciously raised my hand to shield my eyes from the blinding light, and then I realized what had happened.
“Sunlight…”
White sunlight streamed through the clouds. The gray fog that had been covering the sky had cleared, and everything was bathed in a clear light. A flower bud bloomed on the barren ground, and a surge of life flowed through the dead trees.
Everything I saw, everything I heard, was warm.
And in the middle of the ruins, the woman who had created all this was standing there, nonchalantly. As if it was nothing.
“I won the game.”
Who?
I wanted to ask the ashen witch, her hair dancing in the spring breeze. But I didn’t.
Because I knew that no one had lost this game, regardless of who had won.
Enzhe Lopetrefer had saved the Wasteland.
No matter how many times I repeated it, the unbelievable words were reality, not a fantasy.
The residents of the Wasteland, who had been given a second chance at life after the stormy night, couldn’t believe their eyes.
They pinched each other’s cheeks, took deep breaths, and ran around the village.
But the more they tried to wake up from the dream, the more they realized that this was reality.
And then, the residents, finally accepting reality, started calling Lopetrefer “Savior” and worshipping her like a god.
Of course, Lopetrefer didn’t mind. She took it for granted, as they were praising her.
Ariel and I, and the other knights, were also stunned, but we thought it was a good thing, as things had turned out well.
Only the two of us, who knew magic, understood the gravity of the situation.
Halo, after regaining her senses, calmly put the magic control devices back on Lopetrefer’s wrists and ankles. Lopetrefer, surprisingly, didn’t resist.
“She’s crazy… She’s crazy…”
Ariel kept repeating the same words, as if she were hypnotized. One day, I asked her why she kept saying that, and she lunged at me, shouting,
“She’s crazy, so I’m calling her crazy! That woman is crazy! She’s a monster, a monster!”
“Why?”
“You don’t know what she did, do you?! And you don’t know what you did either?!”
I felt a pang of guilt.
But I didn’t know what Lopetrefer had done. I just thought she had used some kind of powerful magic.
But Ariel’s words were beyond my imagination.
“Enzhe Lopetrefer absorbed all the toxins in the Wasteland. Where? Into her own body!”
“What…?”
“She’s crazy, right? She’s really crazy, right?! But she’s alive! She’s alive! That’s what makes her a monster!”
Absorbed?
It took me a moment to understand what she meant.
She had absorbed all the toxins in the Wasteland into her own body?
“Is that even possible?”
“That’s why she’s a monster!”
Ariel pounded her chest in frustration.
“Normally, if you do something like that… No, even if you just try, you’re dead.”
But Lopetrefer was alive.
And not only was she alive, she was living comfortably, accepting the gifts of clothes, food, and jewelry that the residents were offering their “Savior.”
She should be dead, but she was alive. Even Ariel couldn’t explain why, and I, who wasn’t a mage, had no idea.
“…She can’t be a real monster, can she? It just means she’s that powerful of a mage.”
Ariel gulped at my casual remark and said with a serious expression,
“…What if she really is a monster?”
I patted her shoulder, trying to soothe her.
“She used to be a real monster. Let’s just think positive.”
Halo, who had planned to return to the Imperial Palace immediately after finishing her purification research, had been forced to stay in the Wasteland for almost two months due to the unexpected turn of events.
Her magic orb, which she had spent six years researching, had been shattered, I had deactivated Enzhe Lopetrefer’s control device, and then Enzhe Lopetrefer had purified the entire Wasteland with an unknown power.
Halo wrote a report, carefully downplaying the events that would have caused an uproar in the Imperial Palace.
And then, she had collected soil samples from the entire Wasteland to analyze the effects of the purification and to see if there were any mutations.
After that, she had created a temporary barrier around the Wasteland with Ariel.
She had said that the Wasteland was still outside the empire’s protection, so the toxins would start to accumulate again, even though it had been purified.
And the monsters hadn’t disappeared, so Lopetrefer would also have to keep creating the vortex and eliminating them.
“I’ll be back with investigators sooner or later. Please behave until then.”
I watched Halo, who had been working tirelessly to clean up the mess I had made, and I realized how reckless I had been.
“Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m actually grateful. It was just… all so sudden.”
Halo, her face pale from exhaustion, said, trying to reassure me and Lopetrefer, as we walked with her to the bridge to see her off.
“Oh, right, can you give this to Lopetrefer?”
Halo took out a small envelope from her cloak.
“I was so busy that I only just remembered. It’s a letter from Duke Fritz.”
Halo, as if she was getting her final revenge, left the Wasteland, leaving me with a ticking time bomb.
I immediately delivered the letter Halo had given me to Lopetrefer. Lopetrefer stared at the Duke Fritz’s seal on the envelope for a long time, then, without a word, went back inside her house.
A few more days passed.
Lopetrefer didn’t show any noticeable change, whether she had read the letter or not.
Today, she was, as usual, sitting on the dark green sofa, eating the cookies Aik had given her, enjoying the warm spring day.
And then, Senior Lionel, who had returned to the Imperial Palace with Halo, came back to the Wasteland less than a week later.
“I was ordered to supervise you.”
Not “you”, singular, but “you” plural.
Ariel, who had been vehemently opposed to Lopetrefer, was indignant, but it was too late.
“What did the Imperial Family say?”
“They said to keep a close eye on the criminal and make sure she doesn’t do anything reckless.”
“That’s all?”
It was strange that they had only sent Senior Lionel to supervise us.
Of course, what Lopetrefer had done was a great salvation for the residents of the Wasteland.
But to the Imperial Family, the Wasteland wasn’t a hell that needed to be saved, it was just a convenient prison for criminals. There were still many people in the Wasteland, like Aik and Lopetrefer, who had been sent here for their crimes.
It was as if an impenetrable prison had suddenly crumbled, and yet, they were just sending a single knight to supervise us, instead of trying to fix it.
Senior Lionel, reading my expression, clicked his tongue.
“The Imperial Family doesn’t have the time to worry about this place right now…”
“Don’t have the time…?
I frowned. But before Senior Lionel could answer, Lopetrefer suddenly clapped her hands and stood up from the sofa.
“…W-what’s going on?”
Ariel, who had been nibbling on a cookie, looked at her with anxiety.
Lopetrefer smirked at her, as if she found her reaction amusing.
“Let’s have a festival to welcome our new guest.”
At some point, Lopetrefer had become the de facto ruler of the Wasteland. Many residents worshipped her, looked up to her, and offered her gifts to gain her favor.
She was like a goddess, the ashen goddess who had saved them from their hell. The ashen witch.
So her every word had a huge impact on the Wasteland.
If Lopetrefer said she wanted to sleep in a better bed, a mattress filled with wool, which was impossible to find here, would be brought to her house. If she said she wanted to eat better food, a roasted chicken would be served to her the next day.
So throwing a festival was nothing. And besides, most of the residents of the Wasteland had never experienced a festival in their lives. So they were all excited when Lopetrefer brought it up.
And so, the preparations for the festival, held in the name of Enzhe Lopetrefer, began.
Those who had come from inside the barrier, those who had been sent to the Wasteland for their crimes, were the ones who had some experience with festivals, so they were assigned roles.
I helped Aik decorate the trees in the plaza.
The residents had told me I didn’t have to do anything, as I was the “Sir Knight,” but I would rather move my body than do nothing.
“A festival… I never thought I would be able to experience one again… It’s all thanks to you, Sir Knight. Thank you so much!”
Aik couldn’t hide his excitement as we decorated the trees. I chuckled, watching him.
Yes, Aik, at least, wasn’t the type to rot and die in this place. I was certain of that, and that alone was enough of a reason to save the Wasteland.
“Raines.”
Senior Lionel approached us. He looked at me and Aik, his face a little awkward, then said,
“Let’s talk for a bit. Just the two of us.”
It seemed like he wanted to finish the conversation we had started earlier. And I remembered how he had awkwardly changed the subject two months ago when he had first come to the Wasteland.
What was going on?
I left Aik in charge of decorating the trees and took Senior Lionel to my house. He had insisted on talking in private.
“So what’s going on?”
I asked, leaning against the wall, my arms crossed.
Senior Lionel, who had already stayed at my house during the two months Halo had been cleaning up Lopetrefer’s mess, casually sat down on the bed.
He sighed deeply, then took out something that looked like an envelope from his inner pocket and handed it to me.
“Here, take this.”
“…Is this for me?”
“Yes.”
I took the envelope, puzzled.
I had thought he was asking me to deliver another letter from Lopetrefer, but I realized that wasn’t the case the moment I saw the name on the return address.