I felt something keep *gurgle gurgling* out of my stomach, and I sensed my body growing colder.
So this is death.
Mary must have felt this pain too as she died.
Even while feeling this pain, she left a will for me for her son. All I could manage was a strange *groan*.
Thoughts kept *flitting* through my mind.
Is this what they call a “passing light”?
No, it’s a bit different. A passing light shows the events of the past, right?
Anyway.
I thought this was how I would die.
“…I knew this would happen.”
Until I felt a warm sensation at my fingertips, and a sweet voice flowed in.
As if I had endured all this for the sake of hearing that voice, my consciousness immediately faded away.
At that moment, I really thought I was dead.
“Ugh…”
I woke up with a *groan*.
As soon as my sight cleared, I quickly assessed the situation.
I was lying on a bed. Judging by the ambiance of the room, it seemed to be a hospital room.
From my senses, it felt like I had just regained consciousness right after losing it, but the black sky outside the window told me that quite some time had passed.
Why is my finger so *slippery*? Did I get it wet somehow?
I struggled to turn my head to the side.
There was a constant *rustling* sound and a presence coming from the right side.
“How are you feeling?”
“Hah…”
As expected, it was Iris.
The moment I saw her smiling face, a laugh that felt like a sigh escaped me.
Did she use her special skill, the miraculous original healing magic?
It’s a spell that naturally consumes an enormous amount of mana and vitality, so I was grateful that she willingly used it to save me.
…Regardless of the reason for saving me.
“I’m alive.”
“Then that’s good.”
Iris flashed a smile.
Her healing magic isn’t omnipotent, of course.
It couldn’t bring back the dead.
And I was in a condition so close to death.
It was no wonder that my whole body still felt paralyzed.
If I rested for a day, I would probably be able to move again.
But the pain in my abdomen would still be there.
“Schlus.”
“Why do you call me?”
“You asked what future you saw.”
That was right.
On the first day of the semester. The moment I met Iris for the first time.
I rudely started talking to her and asked her what future she had seen.
At that time, Iris struggled to answer.
“Schlus. I saw your death in the future. You were bleeding from your stomach, dying miserably behind the event venue.”
“…”
“A future where you die alone fighting against a threat that no one knows about while no one else is aware. A future where you die in solitude.”
A future where I die.
If that were the case, then the future must have changed.
It seems that the future sight observed can fluctuate.
I realized for the first time, something I had never deeply considered.
“Iris.”
“Yes. What is it?”
“…Thank you.”
I turned my head and offered my thanks.
I never thought I would sincerely feel grateful to a character I created in a novel.
Of course, Iris must have had some purpose in saving me, but even so, I couldn’t help but feel thankful.
Iris is undoubtedly a benefactor of my life.
She’s probably the person I owe the second largest debt to after Mary.
“Anytime.”
“Did you wait until I woke up?”
“Well, it could be that. Or it might not.”
“…?”
Iris stood up from the bed with a smile.
It was a grin that felt very *off*, like a little devil.
Then I finally noticed.
Something was going wrong here.
“Schlus-kun! I heard you woke up!”
“Hainkel-chi! Do you remember what happened while we were stopping the terrorism?”
“I understand you had a confrontation with a suspicious person! Can you tell us in detail how you fought…”
The door burst open, and a flood of people poured in.
All of them were holding notepads and pens; they seemed to be reporters.
Wait, how did these people find out that I stopped the terrorism?
I quickly turned my head and glared at Iris.
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’
But Iris simply shrugged and walked out through the door.
So, she spilled everything.
That I disarmed the spell that was going to blow up the entire event venue. That I stopped a major act of terrorism.
If Iris hadn’t said anything, they would have passed by not knowing anything.
Now it looked like I was going to become a famous person.
I had been somewhat famous already, but…
“Iris! What the hell are you doing—”
“Schlus-kun! Please answer!”
“Hainkel-chi! How did you realize the existence of the spell…”
My frantic voice calling for Iris was drowned out by the reporters’ shouting.
And soon, Iris disappeared from my sight.
So this is how it goes.
“Haah… I can’t take this.”
I will get back at her one day.
I gritted my teeth and vowed.
*
“Hertlocker.”
“…”
“Hey.”
“Don’t talk to me. I’m in the middle of a reflection.”
Eric sighed and turned away.
Sometimes after experiencing a shocking event, Hertlocker would close his eyes and get lost in thought like that.
He would recall the battle situation and analyze every possibility that could have happened back then.
Hertlocker called that a reflection.
‘It was indeed shocking.’
Hertlocker lost.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the strongest assassin of the kingdom’s army lost.
Moreover, the opponent wasn’t even an Elster-class magician or a high-ranking knight.
A first-year student at the Imperial University. And a commoner at that.
To make matters worse, the opponent wasn’t even fully prepared, and Hertlocker had come armed only with a dagger to lose.
He would surely need some time to recover from such a shock.
Eric decided to leave Hertlocker alone for a while.
Meanwhile, Hertlocker was—
‘Why did I lose…?’
He clenched his jaw and desperately analyzed his defeat.
The moment he faced Schlus, he felt something off about the man.
But was that just a fleeting feeling?
That man with dead eyes always looked suspicious no matter when or where you saw him.
He truly realized something was wrong at the moment they crossed paths.
Although Hertlocker instinctively reacted to a dangerous feeling and moved his body, he still ended up losing the initiative.
This meant that he had known from the beginning that Hertlocker was the culprit behind the terrorism.
How could that be? By what means?
The such questions couldn’t find any answer even if he racked his brain hundreds of times.
It was incomprehensible how he had even disarmed the spell in the first place.
Anyway, Schlus knew from the beginning that Hertlocker was the culprit and had intentionally tried to stop the terrorism.
This could be acknowledged, even if it made no sense.
But the real problem was what happened after that.
‘Clearly I had the upper hand.’
Hertlocker was armed with a dagger.
It was brought into the venue in a form hidden using matter-disintegration magic.
In contrast, Schlus came empty-handed.
Empty hands versus a dagger—a clear victory unless external intervention occurred.
At least that was what Hertlocker thought at the time.
After all, Hertlocker had the optimal form for close combat that could appear once every thousand years.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he was shocked when Schlus could keep up with his movements.
Furthermore, there was one moment when Hertlocker was even overwhelmed in terms of speed.
If Schlus had been able to move with that much agility from the beginning, it didn’t make sense for him to have intentionally held back.
“Dammit…”
Hertlocker felt frustration along with humiliation.
Schlus completely dismantled all the magic that triggers Hertlocker’s specialty—hand-to-hand combat.
There were five light element spells designed to shoot towards Schlus from all directions; even if they were only basic spells, the computational speed was abnormal.
Hertlocker wished to believe that someone had secretly helped Schlus.
Because if it wasn’t for that, it would mean that Schlus had also overwhelmed Hertlocker in multitasking.
“Haah…”
Hertlocker sighed deeply while raising his bandaged arms.
The bones were set, so Eric said they would be fine after a few days.
This was the first time he lost the use of both arms during a battle.
In a state where he couldn’t use either arm, when Schlus had him by the face, he felt something he had temporarily forgotten.
The fear of death.
The realization that he might really die seeped in, and a passing light *flitted* through his mind.
But Schlus let go of Hertlocker.
He could have easily killed him with just a bit more strength.
Was he out of power? No, it was probably not that.
Schlus definitely had the intention to let me live.
But for what reason…?
Suddenly, Hertlocker’s mind became complicated—
“Forget it!”
He ruffled his hair and stopped reflecting.
No matter how much he thought, there were no better possibilities.
Hertlocker had made his best move.
And still, he lost.
He just couldn’t accept that Schlus was stronger.
‘Well, at least I took care of him.’
Nonetheless, he had succeeded in killing Schlus.
Even though Schlus must have let him, he was dead, and Hertlocker was alive, so it could be seen as a victory.
Such self-soothing thoughts were—
“Hertlocker! Hey! Schlus Hainkel is still alive!”
“What?!”
Eric’s urgent voice shattered that moment.
“It’s reported that he’s alive! A kngiht said so!”
“There’s no way! I stabbed his liver. There’s no way to stop liver bleeding using any magic out there.”
“Are you sure you stabbed his liver?”
“I’m certain.”
“Then why is he still alive?”
“…”
“I guess you had your day of making a mistake too.”
Hertlocker ground his teeth at Eric’s laughter.
There’s no way a man’s liver would fail to be pierced after stabbing it dozens or even hundreds of times. He wouldn’t mistake it.
The feeling was certainly the sensation of piercing the liver.
Hertlocker felt like he could go mad with the unfairness.
“Anyway, what should we do with Schlus now?”
“What do you mean?”
“We need to switch him from surveillance to assassination target.”
“Hmm…”
Eric pondered, resting his chin.
It was true that Schlus was a dangerous individual.
He possessed the ability to detect and dismantle a hidden massive spell.
Furthermore, he had close combat abilities that completely overwhelmed Hertlocker.
But that didn’t mean it implied he needed to die immediately.
“No, not yet.”
“Why not? His threat level ranks with Roman’s! We need to take him out at once—”
“Well, we don’t know yet. We can’t tell whether Schlus acted against us or if he was simply trying to prevent casualties.”
“…”
Hertlocker fell silent.
In other words, it meant they couldn’t discern whether Schlus was hostile to the Intelligence Agency or acting merely to save lives.
If it was the latter, Schlus might not be that much of a threat to the Intelligence Agency.
“To eliminate Schlus, the agency would likely have to anticipate a lot of casualties. So we hope Schlus doesn’t know much about the Intelligence Agency.”
“…”
That was wise.
Increasing the number of powerful enemies was never a pleasant thing.
However, Hertlocker felt a growing frustration in some corner of his heart.
The notion that Schlus was an enemy of the Intelligence Agency only grew stronger.
There was no concrete basis for that.
It wasn’t even a wish.
He simply felt that instinctively.
*
“Huuh…”
Standing in front of the hospital room door, Erica let out a deep sigh.
Just the thought of facing the person on the other side made her nervous.
Originally, she had been reluctant to meet him, but after seeing what she did earlier, that feeling intensified.
About 4 hours ago, after coming to see Schlus Hainkel, she had peered through the slightly ajar door.
“Hmm?”
“…”
What she saw was Schlus lying asleep.
And the scene where Iris was sucking on his finger.
Erica, taken by surprise, flushed and slammed the door shut.
But before she could escape—
“Where are you going, Erica? Didn’t you come to see Schlus?”
She was caught by Iris as she exited the door.
Even in this situation, Iris maintained a rather *significant* smile.
“What… what were you just doing? Did I just missee?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That you… put Schlus Hainkel’s finger… in your mouth.”
“Oh, that? You must have seen it wrong.”
She hadn’t misseen it.
No, then why…?
Erica cautiously removed her lips, carefully gauging Iris’s expression.
“Um, if it’s not rude… could you tell me why you did that?”
“Why, you ask? It was just a medical procedure.”
“Ah? What do you mean…?”
“My healing magic relies on saliva. The more it’s smeared, the more effective it becomes.”
“Ah! Aah!”
Erica, flustered, fanned herself.
So it was to maximize the effects of healing magic.
She felt ridiculously embarrassed for having imagined something strange.
‘But was it really necessary to suck his finger directly just to smear saliva?’
Some rational doubt arose in Erica, but—
‘Well, it must have been necessary for some reason.’
Embarrassment clouded her thinking, and she accepted it outright.
“So you were… treating him.”
“Yes. What did you imagine I was doing?”
“I thought the two of you were… no, wait. I need to ask this first. What’s your relationship with Schlus?”
“With Schlus?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I think it’s likely the kind of relationship you’re imagining.”
“The kind of relationship I was imagining?”
With Iris’s leisurely smile came a counterattack that made Erica feel dizzy.
And that was the last scene of her recollection.
Erica simply returned home after that.
After hearing that Schlus had woken up, she came back to the hospital room just now.
Thinking back, the relationship between Iris and Schlus seemed beyond ordinary.
The two of them looked so close, that it was hard to believe they had just met, and that one was a commoner while the other was a noble.
Perhaps their relationship is…
“Huuh.”
Erica shook her head and knocked on the hospital room door.
It was practically a certainty, but she pushed that thought out of her mind. There was something more important to focus on.
Even though the heroic deeds became possible by selling her lifespan to a demon, the fact remained that Schlus saved many people.
Madam Lichtenburg and her mother were in that venue too.
Though it was second nature to not like Schlus, she had to express her sincere gratitude for saving her mother’s life.
However…
“…?”
No sounds were coming from the other side of the door.
Feeling puzzled, Erica creaked the door open.
And in that moment, Erica felt her breath catch.
“Freeze.”
“…!”
Next to the bed where Schlus lay, a man in a black suit was seated.
Roman von Byrne.
The legend of the Imperial Army was there.
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