Let’s think carefully. Yesterday, I definitely made the fire flare up.
“Blub. Blub. Ugh. Blub.”
I was using psychokinesis, almost like just throwing it out there.
“Ugh. Blub. Blub.”
How did the fire get bigger?
“Ugh. Blub. Blub. Ugh. Blub.”
Ah, I really can’t concentrate like this.
“Hey. Can’t you just give up and come down? You’re too noisy—I can’t focus.”
The red-haired magician struggling inside the water prison shot me a sharp glare even as she struggled.
“I-I absolutely… Blub. Blub. A-a-apprentice ma—Blub. Blub.”
There’s no way I can study psychokinesis with that noise in the background.
I walked into the cabin and threw open my master’s door with a bang.
“Master!”
Lying face down on the bed, my master cracked open one sleepy eye.
“Yaaawn. What is it? So suddenly.”
“Let her go already. She’s too noisy—I can’t focus.”
At that, my master’s eyes widened.
“Oh, right! W-wait, is it morning? She’s not dead, is she?”
If she’s worried about that, then the water prison must be more dangerous than I thought.
“I don’t know. She still looked fine to me.”
My master shot up from bed and hurried outside. I followed right after her.
By the time I opened the front door, my master was already lowering the water prison with her staff.
The water that made up the prison was sucked back into the cabin, leaving only the drenched red-haired magician collapsed on the ground.
“Hack. Cough. Guh.”
She kept vomiting up water.
It must’ve been everything she swallowed while trapped, yet no matter how much she expelled, more kept coming.
Master Avana slowly approached and gave her back a light tap with her staff. Instantly, the magician spewed out an incredible amount of water before going completely limp, as if she’d passed out.
Avana glanced at me, gauging my reaction.
“She’ll be fine, right? It’d be a real pain if she died.”
If she did die, Kalasta—who had at least maintained some facade of formality while retreating—would come back to finish things for good.
I might end up dead too.
“I doubt it. She’s probably fine.”
I stepped closer to the red-haired magician and pressed two fingers against her neck.
Thankfully, she had a pulse.
Then suddenly, her hand shot up and grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t… touch me.”
Her voice was weak and frail, but the will behind it was unwavering.
I pulled my hand back.
“I was just checking if you were alive.”
“Kill… me.”
“……”
“Kill me.”
Her swollen eyes, puffy from expelling so much water, barely stayed open. Even her eyelids seemed too heavy to lift.
Yet the determination in her gaze remained unbroken.
Master Avana spoke.
“If you agree to be my guest, I won’t kill you.”
The red-haired magician clenched her teeth.
“It’s not that you won’t kill me. You can’t. If you do, master will turn you into ashes.”
At this point, ‘pride’ or ‘stubbornness’ didn’t seem like strong enough words to describe her.
Master Avana crouched down, leveling her gaze with the magician’s.
“Sorry, but you attacked my castle first. Even so, I offered you hospitality. You refused. Under these circumstances, killing you wouldn’t be a problem.”
The red-haired magician took several deep breaths before speaking more clearly than before.
“I don’t care. If you kill me, you’ll die too.”
Avana studied her as if trying to read her thoughts, then stood up.
The magician stared at her, unwavering.
Finally, after a long silence, Avana spoke.
“It looks like you’ve already crossed the point of no return. You bear malice toward me and have no intention of letting it go. Either way, I’ll end up making an enemy of Kalasta. In that case, I might as well buy some time to escape.”
She raised her staff. Immediately, I grabbed it with both hands.
“Master Avana, wait.”
“What?”
“Are you really going to kill her?”
Her round eyes held no emotion.
No anger, no rage—making them all the more resolute.
I knew those eyes well.
Someone who kills out of emotion can be stopped by calming that emotion.
But someone who kills out of reason can only be persuaded with a sound argument.
The latter is always harder.
I glanced back slightly. The red-haired magician, faced with imminent death, shrank back in fear.
Well, she was a teenager with little experience. It would be stranger if she wasn’t afraid of dying.
But even so, she was clinging to her pride. In a way, it was impressive.
Master Avana asked,
“Why? Do you have a better idea?”
I swallowed dryly.
Then I turned back to my master.
“We take her hostage.”
“……”
“Kalasta can cross the ocean in a day, right? No matter how far we run, He will catch up eventually. Given that, it’s better to keep her as leverage.”
“……”
“When Kalasta comes, we explain the situation. Tell them this was the only choice.”
Luckily, my master’s grip on her staff loosened, as if she agreed with my logic.
“Hmm. You have a point. Even if we kill her and run, there’s no guarantee we’ll survive.”
“Exactly. Just keep her hostage. Who knows? Maybe over time, we’ll clear up our misunderstandings.”
Master Avana pondered for a bit longer.
Then, for a moment, something in her gaze shifted.
I wasn’t sure what change had occurred, but it seemed like she was willing to listen.
“Fine. I’ll go with your plan, Ran. But from now on, you’re responsible for looking after her. If you fail, I will kill her. Understood?”
“M-me?”
“You already know about water-related herbs, don’t you? She needs to consume at least half the amount I take daily. Otherwise, the fire magic inside her will revive.”
“……”
“Not that she’ll necessarily agree to eat it.”
With that, Master Avana turned and went back into the cabin.
Just like that, she left it all to me.
Was this really okay?
I turned to face the red-haired magician.
She still glared at me with sharp eyes.
I spoke.
“You heard, right?”
“……”
“Be honest. You don’t really want to die, do you?”
“……”
“I mean, you were in the wrong first. Right? How would you feel if someone burned down your home?”
At that, her tightly shut lips parted.
“…I’m sorry.”
Wait, she apologized? Just like that?
What was with this unpredictable personality?
I sat down, just like my master often did, to meet her at eye level.
She avoided my gaze, staring down at the ground instead.
I asked,
“Why’d you do it? Did Kalasta order you to?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“I just wanted to see her face, but she kept ignoring me. That pissed me off, so I burned it down out of spite.”
“We weren’t even inside.”
“I meant the high elf. She knew I was there but refused to come out. That annoyed me.”
Oh, right. She had mentioned something about abandoning an apprentice.
“And for that, you set fire to the place?”
“I told you—I’m sorry.”
“……”
“Why?”
My eyelids folded inward.
The red-haired magician looking up at me was clearly watching my reaction.
“No, I just don’t get it. If you were going to answer so easily, why did you tell me to kill you in the first place?”
The red-haired magician’s face suddenly twisted.
“Because your master treated me like trash.”
“And I didn’t?”
“Do you think I’m stupid? You tried to save me. I’m certain about things like that.”
I was similar in that regard, but not to the extent of being this firm.
“My master was trying to save you too. You were just being stubborn.”
“That was because she was scared of Kalasta. She didn’t mean it.”
“What about me?”
“You? What about you?”
“I could’ve saved you because I was afraid of Senior Kalasta too.”
“Why would you be scared of Kalasta? My master was trying to take you in as a disciple.”
Now I understood.
Since I didn’t have to save her but did anyway, I was being sincere.
Since my master had to save her, she wasn’t sincere.
Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind.
“Did Senior Kalasta talk about me a lot?”
“A ton! There was a high elf standing right there, but he just mentioned the high elf for a bit and kept talking about you. So I got curious—what kind of guy could be so impressive that a high elf didn’t even catch his attention? That’s why I secretly came to see for myself.”
“Secretly came? So your master doesn’t know you’re here?”
“Nope, no clue.”
She really was answering every single question.
How could someone be this straightforward?
No.
It’s exactly because she’s this straightforward that she set a house on fire just because she wasn’t welcomed.
Now that I thought about it, she really did look like a drenched rat.
“Are you really okay? Do you want something to eat?”
The red-haired magician shook her head.
“No point eating at my level. A potion would be nice, though.”
Potions were made by refining special ingredients.
If herbs were raw meat, potions were a cooked dish.
I remembered my master once saying that she didn’t know how to make potions, so he had to eat herbs raw, but that they’d be far more effective if consumed as potions.
“I don’t have anything like that.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Does a magician really live here? No potions at all?”
“And sorry, but I can only give you water-based herbs. If you recover your strength, I won’t be able to keep you as a hostage.”
“Then just let me go! Find my staff for me!”
Suddenly, her face was right up in front of mine.
Golden eyes.
Pale skin.
I instinctively averted my gaze and leaned back.
“Try to understand my position too. If I let you go, you’ll try to kill my master.”
“That’s true.”
“……”
She really was something else. In so many ways.
Since I stayed silent, the red-haired magician spoke.
“Don’t look at me like that. You try surviving in a water prison. If you last even thirty minutes, I’ll call you my master!”
“Was it that bad?”
“Worse than all my master’s trials combined. And since I use fire magic, it was pure hell. I’ll never forgive your master.”
Kalasta didn’t seem like the type to teach gently and kindly.
Which meant the water prison must have been just that agonizing, and her grudge against my master must have been just that deep.
Now I understood why my master had just wanted to kill her.
She’d already crossed the point of no return.
That expression fit perfectly.
“Stay put. I’ll go inside and talk to my master.”
“You took my staff. How am I supposed to go anywhere?”
For some reason, she couldn’t leave without her staff.
“Then at least tell me your name. I’m Ran.”
“I already know yours. I’m Speria.”
“Speria? Got it. Just wait here for a bit.”
After giving a nod, I stepped into the cabin.
My master wasn’t there—only Psyche, sipping tea at the table.
“Where’s Master?”
“She went to bed. What did she say?”
“She wants to be released. But anyway, she’s not as bad as I thought. She’ll even drink water-based herbs without a fuss. I don’t think she’ll cause too much trouble as a hostage.”
Psyche’s expression hardened slightly.
“By the way, why did you save her? She set the castle on fire. I was inside too.”
“If I killed her, who knows how Senior Kalasta would react?”
Psyche said nothing more.
But her expression made it clear—she was pissed.
She’d had that same face for the past month.
Right.
I rummaged through my coat.
Then, I pulled out the purple flower I’d found on the cliff yesterday.
Unfortunately, after all the moving around, it had gotten completely bent and crushed.
It didn’t look like a present at all…
“What’s that flower? A gift, maybe?”
Ah.
Psyche had seen my hand.
Now I felt guilty.
“Well, it was supposed to be. But too much happened along the way, and it ended up like this.”
Psyche stared at my hand in silence.
Stop looking at it like that.
It’s not like I wanted to give it in this condition.
“That doesn’t grow around here. Interesting. Where’d you find it?”
At least she recognized it.
“Near a cliff. I’d never seen it before, and it looked pretty. Thought you might like it.”
“……”
“Uh, I know I’ve been too focused on my psychokinesis training lately. Sorry about that.”
At my words, Psyche’s gaze shifted from my hand to my face.
She reached out, took the flower, and turned away.
“Not really. Anyway, thanks.”
Since she wasn’t showing her expression, I couldn’t tell if she’d forgiven me or not.
At that moment, footsteps came from the stairs.
I turned my head to see my master coming down, looking sleepy.
Her brows were deeply furrowed—she was clearly in a terrible mood.
“Didn’t you go to sleep?”
“I forgot we had a guest.”
Just then, the cabin door burst open.
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