OHNIR – Chapter 38
Chapter 38: Crisis
By Swan Lake.
A sudden gust of wind whipped through Kelusta's loose brown hair. Willow branches swayed, the lake churned, and flying strands of hair obscured her slightly dim amber eyes. The clouds overhead were heavy and gloomy, as if a torrential downpour might suddenly break at any unknown moment, making one so anxious that even breathing felt a little difficult.
In truth, this discomfort was caused by Musen's magic fluctuation.
Often, when mages found it difficult to stabilize their emotions or were affected by some irresistible resonant force, the magic in their bodies would spill out uncontrollably, affecting the surrounding environment or people within a certain range, depending on their own magic attribute.
This unnatural wind that had risen out of nowhere was the product of Musen's magic fluctuation.
Kelusta frowned imperceptibly.
If the rampant magic were allowed to continue spilling out for a long time, it could cause great harm to the mage. She had to find a way to stabilize Musen's emotions as quickly as possible, or the consequences would be unimaginable.
The black-haired boy opposite her stood in the wind. Even in the plainest clothes, he exuded an unfathomable aura. His eyes, as black as the dead of night, were fixed on Kelusta, persistently waiting for her answer.
Despite his best efforts to hide it, his eyes still betrayed a hint of the irritable and anxious emotional turmoil born from self-denial.
“...Tell me, Ruth,” he urged in a low voice, so soft it seemed it would be blown away by the wind. Yet Kelusta could still clearly hear the undeniable confusion and fear within it. “Am I really the heretic they speak of? The Unclean One who deserves to be bullied? A member of the demon race on this land—one whom everyone has the right to kill?”
“...”
Kelusta didn't answer.
She didn't know why Musen was suddenly so convinced he was a demon... If a few idle words from others were enough to drive the future Demon King to such a state of collapse, the demon race would have been devoured by humans long ago. They wouldn't have been able to stubbornly occupy the Continent's Edge, recuperating and biding their time from a position of absolute disadvantage, successfully repelling the Nobili Kingdom's occasional attacks and standing firm for hundreds of years.
If that was the case, then where did the problem lie?
Amidst the increasingly fierce wind, Kelusta's nerves tensed. She stared at Musen without blinking. The trees overhead swayed as if they couldn't bear the strain, and a few green leaves, torn from the branches, swept past her eyes. They seemed to drift like heavy snowflakes, every vein and texture clearly visible.
Veins... patterns?
Kelusta drew in a soft breath and suddenly tilted her head up, staring at the leaves hanging from the willow branches. The slender veins extended toward the slightly serrated edges like the strokes of written characters.
—In a flash, the great lock on the door of her memory seemed to have been shattered by a bolt of lightning. A few fragmented images flashed through her mind.
In the library's secret room, the patterns crawling like vines around the frame of the mirror that reflected the cyan-blue firelight...
Beside the wall deep in the garden, the antique and intricate long-handled mirror held in the silver-haired girl's slender fingertips. The lines on its back were tangled and messy, yet possessed an indescribable rhythm, and it was pointed directly at the black-haired boy unconscious on the ground...
So that's what happened. Musen hadn't lost consciousness at all. Under the cover of Kelusta's back, he had seen and understood the demonic script on the mirror in Gloria's hand!
His subsequent "awakening" was probably because he couldn't hide his instinctive reaction to the shock and had no choice but to go along with it.
Kelusta sighed inwardly.
It was all because of Senior, for better or for worse.
To think that after all her careful planning, a mistake would happen over such a trivial detail.
“System,” Kelusta said hurriedly, her eyes fixed on Musen. She quietly extended a hand toward Swan Lake, ready for any sign of an attack. “Didn't you say you have a constant recording function? That time I saved Musen in the garden, did you record an image of the mirror Gloria took out before he woke up?”
To prevent unexpected incidents that might endanger the host's reputation and safety or disrupt the world line's progress, the System was equipped with a real-time recording function. Using the host's eyes as a camera, it would activate at any time outside the parameters of the privacy protection mechanism to record everything the host saw.
“...A long time has passed. The search will take a while. I will begin immediately. In the meantime, you must stabilize Musen's emotions.”
“How long will it take?”
“Ten minutes at most.”
“No problem,” Kelusta said. “As soon as you find it, translate the demonic script on the frame for me—for now, let me probe and see just how much he saw that he shouldn't have.”
She casually tucked her curly hair, which the wind was turning into a bird's nest, behind her ear, fully revealing her golden eyes. Kelusta forced herself to suppress the dual discomfort from the magic fluctuation and the demonic pressure. Gritting her teeth, she took a few difficult steps forward, closing the distance between herself and Musen.
He frowned slightly at her movement and seemed to hesitate, but ultimately made no aggressive move.
Seeing that he could restrain himself even while emotionally unstable, Kelusta felt her heart, which had been in her throat, settle slightly. She pursed her lips and, making her voice as gentle as possible, said softly, “I don't know why you've suddenly had such a strange idea, Musen. But I can tell you with certainty—you are definitely human. That is beyond question.”
“...You have no proof.” Musen stared intently into her eyes, the coldness in his gaze growing more pronounced. A hint of madness showed through, twisting his handsome features into a savage expression. “Without proof, it can't be called 'beyond question'...”
Sensing he was provoked, Kelusta frowned and stubbornly cut him off. “You grew up in the Nobili Kingdom, while the demons live on the Continent's Edge, miles and miles away from you. Black hair and black eyes are just a special genetic trait; who knows how many babies with your hair and eye color are born in the kingdom every year. According to all the history books, demons are cruel, bloodthirsty madmen who worship slaughter, but before you met me, you were just a poor little thing who couldn't get enough to eat and wasn't growing tall...”
At the mention of “wasn't growing tall,” Musen's facial muscles visibly twitched, and his gaze turned fierce for an instant. However, the oppressive aura around him lessened slightly, and the relentless wind finally softened, allowing Kelusta to take a comfortable breath before she continued her persuasion.
“Think about it. Isn't what I said the truth? ...If that's the case, what reason do you have to suspect you're some 'undercover demon' hiding among humans?”
The brown-haired girl seemed to find her own analogy amusing. She shook her head with an absurd laugh and, putting on a matter-of-fact expression, added, “Just because of a few slanderous words from others? Little Student Musen, it's not that I want to mock you, but if that's really the case... ha, an 'undercover demon'? You're thinking a bit too highly of yourself, don't you think?”
Though her words were bold and mocking, Kelusta felt uncertain. Her fingertips dug into her palm as she watched the black-haired boy's reaction without blinking, ready to manipulate the water and strike at the first sign of trouble, catching him completely off guard.
However, Musen didn't give her the chance to resort to violence. Confusion and bewilderment clearly appeared on the face of the bamboozled demon boy. He stood there at a loss, looking as if he had been convinced by Kelusta's logic, and stammered, “But... but that day, I clearly understood the writing on the mirror—”
He abruptly shut his mouth, his expression turning gloomy again as if he had awakened a bad memory.
Kelusta's heart tightened, but she restrained her impatience and deliberately put on a convincingly confused expression. Her tone filled with puzzlement, she asked, “What mirror? What writing?”
The System, busy searching for the recording, wanted to take a moment to applaud her superb acting.
Musen, a withdrawn boy who rarely interacted with others, was quickly fooled. He gazed at Kelusta's innocent expression, and after a long, conflicted pause, he seemed to make a decision. He sighed deeply and said to her in a low voice, “It was that lady who saved me with you last time... the mirror she took out.”
He paused for a moment, closed his eyes, and then continued, “I vaguely saw messy patterns carved on it, but for some reason, they were automatically translated in my mind into words like 'attempt' and 'unite'... I kept this buried in my heart until much later, when I was researching in the library and happened to discover that the patterned script I had seen, judging by its appearance, was precisely demonic script.”
In that instant, he thought of the scorn and insults he had suffered when bullied, and of the capital punishments inflicted upon the “unclean ones” throughout history... That was why he had fallen inextricably into intense self-denial and doubt.
...But now, the girl before him didn't seem to empathize with the panic and terror he had felt at the time.
“Oh—that compact mirror? I didn't think it was strange for a girl to carry something like that,” Kelusta said blankly. “Besides... what's wrong with the writing on it? Is there something special about it?”
Hearing this, Musen was taken aback. Looking even more bewildered than Kelusta, he said, “You... you knew there was writing on it?”
“Of course.” Kelusta blinked, a smile playing on her lips. Completely ignorant of the truth, she shamelessly took on the role of the Goddess of Deceit and declared with utter confidence, “I was the one who gave her that mirror! So, what do you think? Aren't my carving skills impressive?”
Musen stared at her in shock for a long moment before his brow furrowed. His dark eyes narrowed, his expression quickly turning suspicious, and he asked bluntly, “Since you gave it to her... then tell me, what language did you use, and what words did you carve on it?”
“...”
I can't call this kid dumb anymore, she thought. Look how sharp he is, getting to the point so precisely. Even I have to admit defeat.
The smile on Kelusta's lips stiffened. She struggled to keep her eyes from darting away guiltily. To stall for time, she put on an expression of deep thought and said hesitantly, “That was so long ago... What did I carve again? I just copied some lines from a history book. I thought it looked pretty cool at the time—it was probably demonic script.”
While putting on her act, she screamed at the System in her mind, “Old Sy! Hurry up, hurry up! This is an emergency!”
The suspicion in Musen's eyes deepened, and the surrounding wind, which had just subsided, began to stir again. Kelusta secretly swallowed, using the motion of brushing back her hair to wipe a few beads of cold sweat from her temple as she prayed silently.
...Goddess of Light above, Gloria bless me, please let the words on that mirror be something you can find in a history book—
“Found it, temporary host.”
The mechanical electronic voice sounded, and at the same time, a holographic image appeared before Kelusta. Though it was blurry from being recorded at a distance, the System had restored it enough that the complex carved patterns were clearly visible.
The ever-thoughtful Old Sy had even included the meaning of the demonic script next to the image—
Staring at the text before her, Kelusta's eyes widened. She stared blankly at the mirror's image, even raising a hand to rub her eyes. After staring intently for a long time, her golden eyes were still filled with utter disbelief.
“Oh, my dear Senior...”
She sighed blankly to herself.
“Where on earth did you get this magic mirror... Are you kidding me?”
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