Chapter 89 – #20_Solitude(2)
#87
1.
Amelia’s day began with a visit to Siwoo’s room.
She would pull back the blanket and wipe his arms and legs with a lukewarm washcloth.
She’d replace the gauze over his still hollow eye sockets and use magic to maintain the cleanliness of the rest of his body.
Truthfully, it wasn’t a necessary task.
Siwoo’s body was almost in a state of suspended time, and he barely produced any secretions from metabolic processes.
In the end, this was just another meaningless act of atonement.
For about fifteen minutes, she would ramble by his bedside as he lay there, seemingly dead.
It wasn’t anything special.
Just empty, rambling soliloquies, as always.
Afterward, she would head to the lab to begin researching new magic.
In reality, healing magic wasn’t a very actively researched field.
All witches, or apprentice witches, were spirits.
Their bodies, formed from magic and thoughts with a mark as their focal point, were relatively easy to restore compared to the intricately functioning human body.
Even if an arm was severed, it could be easily regenerated on the spot, and even if an organ was lost, as long as there was enough magic, ‘it could somehow be fixed.’
Problems like various tumors or viral infections weren’t even worth worrying about.
In this situation, who would dedicate themselves to healing magic just to perfectly heal a human?
Recovery magic for witches was at the 10th tier.
That was all that was needed.
If there was a field that even a witch’s spirit couldn’t easily heal, it was the ‘brain.’
The cluster of human intellect, reason, ideology, concepts, and thoughts.
The most complex organ that humanity, which had expanded the horizons of science to the point of being able to travel to the moon and back, still hadn’t fully verified.
The electrical signals and chemical reactions occurring in hundreds of millions of nerve cells couldn’t be handled by recovery magic of just the 10th tier, so even for a witch, brain damage meant death.
Not to mention the fragile body of a human…
She didn’t even know to what level she needed to raise her skills to make him open his eyes.
A sense of helplessness, with endless, towering walls blocking her path one after another.
Even in her heart, which wanted to give up so easily, Amelia didn’t consider abandoning her efforts.
“……..”
Back then, when she couldn’t do anything.
Compared to that day when her teacher left, this level of despair was nothing.
Unlike when she had to helplessly accept fate, now she had the means to struggle.
There was still a way to somehow make up for it.
How arduous and painful that path might be was not a consideration.
-Thump!
“Amelia!”
Just as she thought she heard the sound of someone running, the door to the research building burst open.
The person who appeared, with her long, flowing purple hair, was Sophia.
Amelia’s longtime friend and advisor.
“What’s going on?”
“I found it!”
Sophia couldn’t hide her excitement and was jumping up and down.
Even though Sophia was a bit frivolous compared to the average witch, this was the first time Amelia had seen her lose her composure and act so wildly.
Amelia’s eyes wavered.
“What did you find?”
“I found a witch who might be able to heal Siwoo, the assistant!”
“R-really?”
Amelia clutched her chest, her heart suddenly swelling with hope.
But it was too early to rejoice.
Sophia, as if in a hurry, pulled out two bundles of papers from her arms.
“I was rummaging through the discarded archives, and there’s a witch who wrote about brain regeneration.”
One was a thesis.
Amelia quickly took the thesis from Sophia and read the title.
The title was ‘Brain Regeneration through Human Body Molding: Interpretation of Multiverse Imagery and Entropy Restoration.’
Amelia didn’t fully understand it, but even a quick glance at the contents showed that it was exactly what Siwoo needed right now.
“The author of the thesis is ‘Smyrna.’ She’s a 19th-tier witch who is well-versed in human body molding. But there’s a bit of a problem…”
“I think I know.”
Amelia felt it as soon as she heard Sophia’s words.
The fact that this thesis was in the discarded archives.
That meant the author of the thesis was an exile.
“What’s the reason for her exile?”
“I haven’t met her myself, but… it seems she directly interfered with about ten citizens during an experiment. It was so long ago that there aren’t any accurate records.”
Amelia, who had been filled with joy, calmly clenched her clothes.
Originally, Amelia had no ill feelings toward exiles.
In the first place, there was no point of contact.
But after the recent clash with Ea Sadalmelik.
Having realized her cruelty and danger, the very word ‘exile’ evoked a sense of disgust and unease in Amelia.
Knowing this, Sophia spoke first.
“Don’t worry too much. Not all exiles are as evil as ‘Public Enemy.’ The Aquarius witch was a notorious psychopath among the exiles.”
“Do you know her location?”
“I found her workshop in the Northeast Greenland National Park. She’s given ‘clairvoyance’ to migratory birds all over the world.”
The feeling of anticipation deflated.
Amelia asked cautiously.
“Still, isn’t it too dangerous?”
Amelia couldn’t hide her concern.
It was Siwoo, not just anyone.
To entrust the task of restoring his brain, of all things, to another witch.
And an exile at that.
“Amelia, I know you’re trying hard, but… you might not make it in time that way. You know it too, right? Siwoo’s condition is deteriorating little by little. Even if you acquire the magic to heal the current level of injury, it might not be enough by then.”
Sophia was right.
What Amelia was trying to do was similar to an astrophysicist suddenly entering medical school and studying until they were skilled enough to perform the world’s most difficult brain surgery.
No one could guarantee that the patient would remain alive in his current state until then.
“Hasn’t there been any contact with Duke Keter…? She would be able to heal this much.”
“Amelia… you know that she hasn’t shown herself for 82 years now.”
Duke Keter, who had secluded herself in the Ivory Tower.
The oldest witch who had reached the 30th tier alone without ever inheriting or passing on a mark.
An object of reverence to whom all witches bowed their heads.
If anyone could twist ideology and reason, it would be her, and she would be able to restore Siwoo to his original state.
Amelia had immediately gone to Duke Keter’s Ivory Tower right after the incident.
However, Duke Keter was famous for being indifferent to worldly matters.
Amelia had requested an audience every day for a month, but the only people she met were dozens of witches camping in front of the Ivory Tower, hoping to receive even a casual piece of advice.
The ideological barrier spread out over the Ivory Tower rejected the footsteps of the uninvited, and Amelia had no choice but to return, sadly, without any results.
Since then, she had sent a pigeon every day, but there was no reply.
“We have to make a decision. What’s certain is that the more we delay, the lower Shin Siwoo’s chances of recovery become.”
Sophia was aware of Amelia’s concerns.
Amelia had a trauma from the experience of losing a loved one.
It would be a frightening and difficult decision to entrust the life or death of another loved one to another witch.
But earnestness and prudence don’t always lead to the best choice.
Now was the time for a decision.
Amelia’s silence was long.
This choice was to avoid any regrets.
She pondered and pondered, exploring all possibilities.
Amelia finally opened her mouth.
“Has… contact been made?”
“It was made this morning. I also asked Count Geminai about the temporary pass. He said he would actively help, and within two hours, he was even working on restoring her citizenship.”
For treatment, it was necessary to bring the witch named Smyrna directly to Gehenna.
Siwoo was not in a state to go to the mortal realm through a portal.
It was unprecedented for an exile to legally set foot in Gehenna.
What helped in that regard was Count Geminai, who owed his life to the apprentice witch twice.
He was even preparing the extraordinary reward of restoring the exile’s citizenship to treat Siwoo.
“I’ll have her do a preliminary examination first. I need to see with my own eyes what kind of skills she has.”
“Of course, you should. So, what should we do?”
“Bring her in right away.”
2.
The ‘Gate’ that connected the mortal realm and Gehenna.
Three things were needed to pass through the ‘Gate.’
Unpolluted, clean river water or seawater.
Gehenna citizenship.
A powerful psychic wave.
With these three things, one could enter Gehenna through the Gate from anywhere in the world, and conversely, move to anywhere in the world through the Gate.
In the VIP lounge of the immigration office, Amelia waited with her hands clasped tightly for the person who would come through the Gate.
It had already been three hours past the appointed time, and ‘Smyrna’ was nowhere to be seen.
Sophia had restored and developed the video she had obtained with clairvoyance, so she roughly knew what she looked like.
Although the video was very low quality because it was taken through the eyes of a migratory bird.
“……..”
However, even as several witches came and went, she still didn’t appear.
Could it be that she had become suspicious of the sudden invitation and disappeared?
Even though she was a spirit, she felt her throat parching.
Unable to hide her impatience, Amelia bit her lip.
Would it have been better to go and bring her in person?
Had she ruined things again with a hasty decision?
Amidst the anxiety that was spreading like mold, the gate opened.
“Ah….”
Amelia couldn’t help but gasp.
The person she had been waiting for had hesitantly entered the lounge.
As she had seen in the video, she was East Asian, but her skin was as white as snow, making the racial classification of yellow people seem meaningless.
Her flowing black hair was tied up in a chignon style that revealed her neck, and her dark, sparkling eyes couldn’t hide her anxiety as she looked around.
A plaid, old-fashioned skirt, a fur coat with old-fashioned floral patterns, and white boots.
It was a shocking fashion that would be hard for anyone to pull off, and she was carrying a backpack that was bigger than her upper body, filled with who knows what.
Is that… fashion in the mortal realm?
While Amelia was dumbfounded by her incomprehensible fashion sense, Yebin spoke first.
“Um, I’m new to Gehenna, so… are you Baroness Amelia Marigold…?”
“Yes, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Ah! I see…! I’m Yebin Smyrna. It’s my first time seeing a witch other than my teacher, so… should we shake hands?”
Yebin gave an awkward smile, wiped her palm on her clothes, and then offered her hand.
Amelia took her hand and awkwardly shook it as well.
“Thank you for inviting me. I heard there was a patient, so I came… which way is it?”
“We need to move through a portal first.”
“Yes, yes! Then this way? Is it this way?”
“It’s this way.”
Amelia, grabbing Yebin’s arm, who was completely out of it, returned to the residence with her.
