Chapter 90 – #20_Solitude(3)
#88
1.
Outside Gehenna, in the mortal world, there are countless mentally ill witches who prey on young witches.
Yebin, who was not particularly skilled in combat, chose to go into hiding in a place where no one would find her as soon as she inherited the mark.
She turned her back on the benefits of civilization and the comfortable life she had enjoyed until then.
How tedious it was to absorb her teacher’s teachings for the next 10 years.
As usual, while fiddling with a smartphone that couldn’t even pick up a signal in her boring workshop on the frozen tundra, a bird suddenly appeared and made a tempting offer to Yebin in human language.
There was a patient in Gehenna, and they asked her to come and do a medical examination and treatment.
They offered to issue a temporary pass to Gehenna and, depending on the results, provide a huge reward and restore her citizenship.
It was welcome news.
In Gehenna, she wouldn’t have to tremble in fear of when evil witches would appear and threaten her life, and there was a concentration of vast research materials and supplies.
Most of all, it was possible to escape this boring place and go to the capital!
So, full of anticipation, she came to Gehenna, but.
The first person she met was a very beautiful blonde woman.
This was Baroness Amelia Marigold.
Should she say that she seemed to be of noble birth?
She felt intimidated by her princess-like, picky demeanor.
Amelia was uncomfortable because she just kept walking ahead without saying anything, so Yebin tried to make conversation.
“My clothes are a bit much, right? Actually, it wasn’t a problem when I was in Korea… There aren’t any real clothes where I live… haha…”
“It’s fine.”
“Seeing you, Baroness, dressed so nicely, I should have stopped by the city… But I tried my best to dress up.”
“No, it’s really fine.”
However, Amelia’s mind was so complicated that she didn’t have the energy to respond to Yebin.
Amelia just brushed off the questions and didn’t say much to Yebin, and Yebin, who soon gave up on the conversation, looked around Gehenna with wide eyes.
It took about 30 minutes to return from Border Town to her lodgings using the portal.
Yebin’s eyes widened as soon as she saw the lodgings.
It was a beautiful mansion that was hard to find even in Korea, let alone in the majestic but barren Greenland National Park.
The sophisticated and antique scenery that could be seen as soon as she opened the door was like a work of art in itself, and it was hard not to be impressed.
“Wow, is this really a house?”
“It’s a lodging.”
“I’ve only seen this on NetXflix. It’s amazing…”
“Net…Xflix?”
“Yes, don’t you watch it, Baroness? Oh, I guess there’s no signal here? Well, I have to go to the gas station in the city to download and watch it.”
“Signal? Gas station? Download…?”
Amelia, who was blinking her eyes at the incomprehensible words, asked something she had suspected from their first meeting.
Yebin Smirna said that it was her first time in Gehenna.
An exile was, literally, a witch who had been stripped of her citizenship in Gehenna and expelled, and the price of that sin was passed down to the witches of the lower generations.
Then…
“How long has it been since you inherited the mark?”
She must be the successor of the Smirna who was originally exiled.
Yebin, who had been distracted by a fancy vase, answered Amelia’s question.
“It’s been about 10 years.”
A feeling of “Oh no” washed over her.
The witches, who were in a hurry to save Siwoo, had hastily proceeded with the invitation without checking properly.
It was not planned for a young witch who had only inherited the mark 10 years ago to come.
It usually takes an average of 10 years to fully inherit the knowledge of the mark, so it was like inviting a doctor whose license ink was just drying.
“Before I inherited the mark from my teacher, I was in medical school in Korea. After inheriting the mark 10 years ago, I hid in a workshop in the national park to avoid the eyes of other witches.”
Yebin added an explanation, thinking that her explanation was insufficient because Amelia’s reaction was ambiguous.
“I see…”
“I heard a lot about Gehenna from my teacher, so I really wanted to come here. Thanks to you, Baroness, I was able to come here. More than that, I’d like to check on the patient soon… Which way is it?”
To summarize, she was originally in medical school (?) in Korea, spending her time as an apprentice witch, and then hid in a remote place to avoid the nasty exiles.
It was not uncommon for exiles to kill each other.
To be honest, she was disappointed.
Even if she was an exile, the previous generation of Smirna, who had accumulated a lot of experience, was more trustworthy.
It was more frightening to have a doctor with poor skills than a doctor with a bad personality.
“Follow me.”
“Yes.”
Anyway, she was going to have them do a medical examination first even if the previous generation had come, so it was worth a try.
Amelia suppressed her disappointment and led Yebin to the room where Siwoo was sleeping.
Yebin quietly opened the door and entered.
Amelia was on high alert.
Although it was unlikely, if Yebin tried to do anything to Siwoo, she would immediately intervene.
Amelia’s trust in exiles had reached that level of distrust.
“Is this him?”
“Yes, as you can see, he’s human.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
A man with gauze over his eyes was lying on the bed.
He was emaciated and pale, but he had a pretty decent appearance, and he was even an East Asian man!
“Is he Korean by any chance?”
“Yes, he is.”
Yebin was surprised.
Yebin, who had packed her bags and rushed to Gehenna in a day, naturally thought that the patient would be a witch.
This was because the guarantor section of the temporary citizenship certificate she had received had the seals of the Jemernai Baek family, the Marigold Nam family, and the Aveneu Nam family.
In the first place, it was unprecedented for a temporary citizenship to be issued to an exile, and if it was a person that three noble witches were trying to save, she naturally thought that it would be a young apprentice witch.
But what was this?
A Korean, and a man at that.
Seeing a fellow countryman for the first time in 10 years, even if he was in a coma, stirred up a bittersweet nostalgia.
But now was not the time to be caught up in the joy.
Yebin had to completely recover this patient in order to achieve her escape from Greenland + entry into Gehenna.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the general situation. He suffered severe brain damage through his left eye. There are scars left by magic, so the eye cannot be regenerated. His biological clock has been slowed down to the extreme to prevent his condition from worsening.”
“Can I check it myself?”
“Yes.”
Amelia nodded with difficulty at Yebin’s question.
Yebin took off her floral sweater to lighten her clothes.
With a thin cotton t-shirt underneath, she chanted an incantation to completely eliminate the surrounding bacteria and pollutants.
“Then, I’ll take a look.”
“Please be careful.”
Amelia, who was tense and holding her hands together.
Yebin, who had learned about romance through dramas, could tell what kind of feeling it was.
This man was probably something like a lover that Baroness Marigold cherished.
There was a lot of circumstantial evidence.
Anyway, when she removed the gauze, a roughly mangled eye socket appeared.
The clotted blood and pus had been removed, so the damaged gray brain that had pierced through the skull could be seen clearly.
Even at a glance, his condition was not normal.
Well, that’s why Gehenna, which was said to have so many great witches, had invited an exile.
Yebin was confident in her skills.
She didn’t even blink an eye at the terrible wound and created a sense of touch from her fingertips.
The magical sense of touch that wriggled from her fingertips and entered Siwoo’s eye socket.
Yebin’s sense of touch, which could see the wound while minimizing the impact on the patient’s body, was more precise than any modern device.
“……..”
Her eyes were filled with a serious light, without the frivolousness that could be seen in young witches, so Amelia was a little surprised.
Unlike her unreliable first impression, she showed a high level of concentration as soon as she started the diagnosis, as if she were a different person.
The diagnosis itself didn’t take long.
After examining the condition of his entire body, focusing on the frontal lobe, for about 30 minutes, Yebin carefully withdrew her sense of touch.
“How is it?”
Amelia, who wanted to ask Yebin right away but was afraid of disturbing her, was burning with anxiety.
The biggest concern was that Yebin’s expression after the diagnosis was not good.
“Could you leave me alone for a bit? It’s my first time doing an examination with someone else around…”
Leave her alone?
In a situation where she didn’t know what the witch she had just met would do to Siwoo?
The impatience and anxiety made even Amelia lose her composure.
Amelia urged Yebin in a desperate voice.
“What’s his condition?”
“I can’t tell you completely because the exact mapping isn’t finished yet, but it’s serious… The frontal lobe is completely damaged, so it’s beyond what can be done with ‘healing’. The magic circuits throughout his body are short-circuited. The structure of his nervous system is also damaged…”
“I know that, is there anything more specific?”
Amelia’s eyes were not filled with tears, but she looked so unstable that she seemed like she would break down and burst into tears at any moment.
Yebin avoided her gaze as if she was in trouble.
“It seems like it might be possible to do something if I use the regeneration technique that my teacher used to research… but I need to look at it in more detail. I need to get a bigger picture…”
Amelia, seeing Yebin’s troubled appearance, finally calmed herself down.
Well, she had just arrived here.
She had waited for three months, so couldn’t she wait a little longer?
Let’s trust Smirna for now.
Judging by her skill in handling touch, she was as skilled as any other witch.
Amelia took a step back.
“I’m sorry for rushing you. Should I go outside the room?”
“Yes, I would appreciate it if you would.”
“……..”
But it was unsettling to leave him and the exile alone in the room.
Wasn’t it because Amelia had run away that Siwoo had ended up like this?
Even though the situation was completely unrelated, Amelia couldn’t bring herself to leave, remembering what had happened that night.
“Please, take care of him.”
Amelia respectfully put her hands together and bowed to Yebin.
This was all she could do for Siwoo right now.
“Please… save him…”
“P-please don’t do that, Baroness.”
Yebin was startled by Amelia’s 90-degree bow and replied.
Yebin had heard a lot of slander from her teacher about how sharp and high the noses of noble witches were.
Even though she knew that some of it was an exaggeration mixed with jealousy and inferiority, her image of nobles was not very good.
In fact, in Korea, where she was born and raised, the class system was quite old-fashioned and unfair.
But she never imagined that a baroness would bow her head for a mere slave.
Suddenly, she felt twice as responsible.
Amelia, who had left the room with a heavy heart, leaned against the door.
Amelia, whose legs had given way and slid down, felt tears flowing like a burst dam.
She thought she had accepted it by now as time had passed.
Was it because she had seen a glimmer of hope in the darkness?
Or was it because she had read a sense of foreboding in Yebin’s stiff expression?
Her heart was pounding as if it was the first day she almost lost him.
What if all this hope disappeared?
If Siwoo also left for a place from which he could never return, like the day she lost her teacher?
Could she endure the pain of that loss again?
And if it was caused by the sin she had created with her own hands, could she endure it?
Amelia, who was covering her mouth and swallowing her sobs so that the sound wouldn’t leak out and disturb her, shook her head.
There was no need to be sad yet.
Let’s think good thoughts, let’s think happy and joyful thoughts.
Things they could do together when he woke up.
Explain and apologize for the pain he had suffered because of Amelia.
He would definitely be angry.
He might yell and shout, just like he often did in her dreams.
But that was okay.
Even if she was never forgiven, it was okay.
Everything else was a secondary issue.
But if he did forgive her, what would she do next?
Let’s go to the mortal world with Siwoo.
Let’s hold hands and travel together to his hometown, which he wanted to go to so much.
And then, let’s say it for sure.
“Please… stay with me… forever…”
Yebin’s examination lasted for more than 5 hours, and Amelia waited like a stone statue for her to come out.
It was a long wait.
