OHNIR – Chapter 62
Chapter 62: The Present
Fifteen years later, to save her hometown from becoming a public target, Kelusta, with her System, resolutely embarked on the journey to clear the “Secret of the Gods” True Ending route.
Following the System’s world line prompts, she discovered Gloria’s identity as the mastermind boss and focused most of her attention on the noble and elegant duke’s daughter. For the sake of her mission and to curry favor with the main villain to lessen the threat to her hometown, she began playing the role of an innocent “little white flower,” trying her utmost to win Gloria over.
However, in the days they spent together, she, who had initially approached the situation with the simple goal of winning her over, was moved little by little by the genuine tenderness Gloria reserved for her alone. She found herself irrevocably caught in a vast web woven from threads of affection.
The room was dim, the temperature rising. Kelusta lay on the bed, her dark amber eyes fixed on the silver-haired girl whose forehead was pressed against her own. She sighed inwardly.
From that first childhood hug, Lux… had always been the most special one to her.
“I remember now, Lux.”
She repeated herself, a powerful wave of sorrow washing over her. The girl who had finally broken the seal and recalled her past closed her eyes. Her hands, wrapped around the other’s neck, tightened slightly. A single tear traced a path from the corner of her eye, leaving a distinct wet mark on the soft pillow.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice filled with sorrow. “I made you wait for so long.”
From the royal route, the demon route, the childhood friend route, to the magic origin route, she had made Gloria wait for far too long. The dark magic seal was no excuse to shirk responsibility. It was her fault. She had betrayed her younger self, betrayed the promise she had made, and allowed the solemn oath declared to the ocean to go unfulfilled.
…In the other world lines, how much pain must Gloria have felt, watching her slowly drift away?
Kelusta didn’t dare to imagine it, nor did she want to. The moment she entertained the possibility, a sharp pain would seize her heart, as if someone had viciously sliced it open with a razor blade, leaving it torn and bleeding.
Fortunately, however, Gloria seemed much calmer than she was.
Her long, silvery-white lashes trembled slightly, brushing against Kelusta’s cheek. Gloria’s gaze was weary and wistful. Her fingertips gently touched the brown-haired girl’s forehead, which was no longer scorching, and she said with a sigh, “I don’t blame you.”
“Ding. Gloria’s affection +5.”
Her pure golden eyes snapped open, still shimmering with a film of moisture, as mesmerizing as amber submerged in a deep spring.
The younger Gloria had indeed felt irrepressible anger and sorrow at being forgotten. The feeling that she was the only one left to cherish precious memories that had once belonged to them both was, without a doubt, lonely and difficult to endure.
But she also knew she couldn’t blame Kelusta. Neither of them was a prophet or the Goddess of Fate. No one could have predicted that the ocean, calm for ten thousand years, concealed both light and dark magic, or that a sudden Magic Fluctuation would trigger such a chain of events.
Perhaps it was a sign from the heavens… that they should never have made that ridiculous Ocean Oath.
As she grew older, Gloria had often lamented this pessimistically.
But after sighing, as if clinging to some lingering obsession, she continued to meticulously care for the beach rose Kelusta had given her. Even the Sea Blue Shell that had witnessed the Magic Fluctuation was carefully stored in a hidden compartment in her bedroom—
It was as if the part of her that denied their oath was a separate personality. Gloria was always contradicting herself.
Even Wend, born after her, easily saw through this series of behaviors once he was old enough to understand.
“You still miss her, and you’re hoping for a surprise reunion,” the silver-haired boy had once calmly remarked. “Those two things are beyond doubt.”
“…Perhaps that’s true for now,” Gloria remembered replying, her tone filled with a strange confidence. “Time washes everything away. Whether a memory is happy or sad, time treats it with impartial fairness.”
Wend raised an eyebrow and said sarcastically, “Fine. Let’s hope ‘time’ does as you say.”
Soon, as she grew older, Gloria no longer had the spare time to dwell on the past.
To protect her brother, she volunteered to be the one in her generation of the Silentdis family to bear the shackles of the Goddess of Deceit. She became busy, stepping into the public eye alongside the Duke, engaging in contacts and negotiations with the royal family, using Starangui as a pawn in her schemes within the palace, and secretly dispatching the ducal family’s forces to conduct a systematic search throughout Nobili…
The sheer volume of tasks nearly drove her to collapse. It even reached a point where the Goddess of Deceit herself couldn’t stand to watch, worrying that her capable follower might drop dead from overwork. The goddess had to endure her own impatience and feign magnanimity, urging Gloria to rest for a while and not to exert herself so much.
Thus, with her body and mind almost entirely consumed, Gloria had no leisure to reminisce about her childhood days in Seaside Town.
Under these circumstances, she naturally came to believe that she had completely let go of her closest and most special childhood playmate.
—And it was precisely because of Gloria’s subjective state of mind that the initial affection value displayed by the System was a pitiful “5.”
However, no matter how real this delusion felt, the moment she was actually faced with their reunion, Gloria had to admit she had never forgotten the girl from Seaside who had hugged her so gently, relied on her, and made a promise with her.
That moonlit night at the Holy Light Magic Academy, separated by the long flight of stairs before the library, the very first moment Gloria saw Kelusta again, she instantly realized that her long-standing self-assurances had been, to put it mildly, “absurdly wrong.”
For fifteen years, the brown-haired girl’s image had not faded as she’d expected. Instead, it was seared into her mind like a wax seal, branded there permanently.
“I don’t blame you,” Gloria repeated in a low voice. She lowered her head tenderly and placed a soft, light kiss between Kelusta’s eyebrows. “Let the past be the past… As long as you’re by my side now, that’s all that matters.”
This sentiment was the same one she had expressed to Wend while Kelusta lay unconscious in the medical room.
Memories were precious, certainly, but as long as this person was here before her now, it didn’t matter whether they had a shared past or not.
So, Gloria didn’t blame her in the slightest.
—She was both unwilling and unable to bring herself to.
The silver-haired girl gave a faint smile. A bead of sweat from her forehead dripped down, landing precisely on the mark left by Kelusta’s tear. She frowned, straightened up, and took a long breath under the brown-haired girl’s tense and worried gaze.
Although the dark magic bestowed by Persedoro was “false magic,” it didn’t mean Gloria would feel no pain from forcibly awakening light magic while her innate attribute was still dark.
Aching chest, sore limbs, a pervasive fatigue that wouldn’t leave her… The pain from the convergence of light and dark magic should have been far worse. But because Gloria had just used healing magic on Kelusta, the negative effects she experienced weren’t as intense or unbearable.
But a guilt-ridden Kelusta immediately leaped out of bed, showing no trace of the sickly girl who had been nearly delirious with fever just minutes before.
“You need to lie down!”
She frantically reached out, took hold of Gloria’s shoulders, and pressed her down onto the bed with a force that brooked no refusal.
Gloria froze for a moment, suddenly realizing she was enveloped in the brown-haired girl’s unique scent. The subtle sensation made her abandon any thought of sitting up. Instead, she lay quietly, like a model patient, watching matter-of-factly as Kelusta began to bustle about in a fluster.
“System, what kind of medicine should she take for this!” the brown-haired girl asked, kneeling before a drawer and rummaging through it as she sought outside help for her predicament.
“Partial fusion of opposing magic types, causing a degree of shock and impact to the host body…” The System, living up to its name, pondered for only a moment before providing the optimal solution. “In this situation, the most suitable medicine would be a ‘Magic Conduction Agent.’”
On the continent, water and fire, earth and wood, and light and dark were the three most classic pairs of opposing magic types. If any dual-attribute mage was unlucky enough to awaken one of these pairs, they would need several vials of Magic Conduction Agent to minimize the conflicting effects on their body.
“…” Kelusta stopped rummaging. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she asked as calmly as she could, “Do you really think I’d have something like that in my room?”
“Scan complete. The temporary host’s residence contains no Magic Conduction Agents or secondary recommended medications,” the System said after a brief pause. “However, there is one other thing you can try… Please open the third drawer from the top on your left.”
Kelusta snorted in annoyance but still obediently pulled open the indicated drawer.
When her eyes landed on its contents, she froze, a look of surprise spreading across her face.
“Huh, this is…”
The small space was filled with a deep red dessert, from which emanated a faint, elegant fragrance. It was sweet and fresh, rich yet gentle, enough to make anyone who smelled it relax instantly.
“Rose Pudding has calming and sleep-inducing properties,” the System said thoughtfully. “Because of the healing magic’s influence, Gloria’s symptoms of magical repulsion are quite mild. It’s fine even without a conduction agent. A good sleep will be enough for her to recover.”
“…Alright, I’ll go get it for her.”
Kelusta muttered, scooping a few puddings into her arms. She returned to the bedside and gazed at Gloria, whose eyes were half-closed in a languid expression. Unconsciously, her heart skipped a beat.
It wasn’t until those deep blue eyes focused on her that Kelusta quietly swallowed. She opened the wrapper of a rose pudding and thoughtfully offered it to Gloria, saying softly, “Senior, try some pudding and get some sleep… If you still don’t feel well when you wake up, I’ll take you to the medical room for a proper check-up. How does that sound?”
Gloria pushed herself up slightly, leaning elegantly against the headboard. She didn’t take the pudding, however, instead asking stubbornly, “What did you call me?”
“…Alright, Lux,” Kelusta said, trying to please her. “I’m just not used to it yet.”
Gloria blinked, satisfied. Only then, like a king bestowing a great favor, did she accept the small, deep red pudding from Kelusta’s fingertips.
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