OHNIR – Chapter 107
Chapter 107: Savior
Starangui had dispatched Kevit to lead a portion of the army to Seaside Town, and the forces scattered across the various coastal towns had also begun to converge on the destination. The situation was critical.
“She’s sealed off the Royal Palace.”
It was three days before Kelusta learned of Starangui’s military deployment. She now stood opposite Gloria, who had rushed to the Amirium Ducal estate at the first opportunity. Her face was grim as she frowned and said, “This way, Satrick is forced to stay outside the palace, unable to summon the forces under his command…”
“Seaside Town can’t wait for him, Ruth.”
Gloria sighed, her gentle voice interrupting Kelusta. She lightly raised a hand to stroke the deep, heart-wrenching dark circles under the brown-haired girl’s eyes.
This turn of events had been too sudden. Their engagement plans had to be temporarily shelved—even the Holy Light Magic Academy had failed to open as scheduled. The professors had barely returned to campus before the Queen ordered it sealed. Panic gripped the entire capital. The once-bustling Queen Street was now completely deserted, its desolation verging on terrifying.
It was a scene one would only witness in wartime.
Under these circumstances, Kelusta had begun to work day and night, dealing with every emergency. In just a few short days, she had worn herself down to a state of haggard exhaustion, and the brilliant gold of her eyes seemed to have dimmed.
“You should get some proper rest…” The silver-haired girl kissed her eyelid, letting Kelusta lean against her. Her slender fingers gently massaged Kelusta’s temples, and without realizing it, the faint, sharp pain in her head began to subside.
“No, Lux,” Kelusta lowered her eyes and wrapped her arms around Gloria’s, her fingers intertwining with the other girl’s. “As you said, Seaside Town is facing considerable hardship. Time won’t give me a chance to rest.”
To show his sincerity as a collaborator, Satrick had previously dispatched a number of his people to Seaside Town to support its infrastructure and distribute weapons and armor.
With their help, the prince’s well-trained squad could quickly organize the townspeople into a capable fighting force to resist the invaders, buying some time for those in the capital—but this was ultimately not a long-term solution.
The Royal Knight Legion, the first formal army established at the founding of the Nobili Kingdom, had been renowned since the era of Queen Newlinya. The moment such an iron-clad cavalry set foot in Seaside Town, it unequivocally signaled that the horns of war had officially been sounded.
—The Battle of the Seaside, the beginning of all tragedies in the original world line.
“…Even if the people of Seaside have an ingrained bravery and fear no challenge, they ultimately cannot face a real army in a head-on confrontation.”
Kelusta pressed her lips together in worry, her grip on Gloria’s knuckles tightening slightly. Her thoughts were consumed by an anxiety she couldn’t shake, so much so that she didn’t even notice the bones in their hands grinding painfully against each other through their skin.
But the silver-haired girl’s expression didn’t change in the slightest, as if she couldn’t feel the pain from her fingers at all. She simply kissed Kelusta’s forehead with gentle eyes and murmured, “I know, Ruth.”
“But you’ve forgotten that I’m here to help you,” Gloria said softly, lifting her free hand to brush away the fine strands of hair that had fallen across Kelusta’s eyelashes.
“In fact, all titled families in the Nobili Kingdom are permitted to train their own private soldiers, including the Amirium, Silentdis, and Hippol families… I’ve already asked Father to help unite the heads of the various houses. We’ve formed a coalition army, and as soon as preparations are complete, we will depart immediately for Seaside Town to provide support at the fastest possible speed.”
Kelusta froze, lifting her head from the crook of Gloria’s neck to look at her in astonishment. “This is what you’ve been busy with lately? …I had no idea.”
“I asked Madam Isabella not to tell you, my dear. You’re already tired enough.” Gloria smoothed her long hair and adjusted her posture so Kelusta could lean more comfortably against her. “These are things I can handle… so just leave them to me.”
The brown-haired girl hugged her, letting out a long breath. The heart that had been suspended high in her chest finally settled, at least for the most part.
“Will you be leading this coalition army to the west coast as well?” Kelusta asked in a low voice after a moment of silence.
“I believe so,” Gloria nodded. “The Silentdis family makes up the largest portion of the army. Father, Wend, and I are most familiar with them… If a leader must be chosen, then the three of us are the undeniable candidates.”
“Then we’ll have to be apart for a while, Lux.”
Kelusta lowered her eyes and wearily held Gloria, burying her head deep in the other girl’s embrace. Her voice sounded muffled, tinged with an unmistakable loneliness.
“The Condensation Spell must be completely fused with the ‘Gathering Magic Circle’ before it can be deployed in Seaside Town to summon the Holy Force Source. I have to remain in the capital for this task. Only after I’ve experimented and found a formation that can successfully absorb and condense the magic can I travel to your location to draw it on-site.”
Right now, Seaside Town lacked the necessary conditions and environment for such a highly focused task. No matter how worried Kelusta was for her family and her lover, who were about to face the Royal Knight Legion, she had to suppress her desire to face the war with them and mentally elevate the task of “experimenting with the formation” to the highest priority.
And Gloria clearly understood her completely.
Her deep sea-blue eyes shifted downward, and a lock of hair as smooth and soft as silk fell to her neck with the movement. Gloria lowered her head, leaned close to the worried-looking Kelusta, and smiled before lightly pressing her lips against the other girl’s.
“I’ll be waiting for you in your hometown,” Gloria said gently. “Don’t be hasty, Little Shell—the preparations you’ve made are more than sufficient. The coalition army is capable of protecting Seaside Town. Besides, don’t forget, your friend Kevit is still our loyal partner. He will certainly buy us enough time…”
“Trust me, and trust yourself,” she said in a low voice, kissing Kelusta. “We will all wait for you.”
Kelusta’s eyes grew hot. She forced back the lump in her throat, blinked, and gently returned Gloria’s kiss.
“Okay,” the brown-haired girl replied firmly, her voice trembling slightly. “I won’t let you down.”
After Kelusta decided to stay in the capital, Gloria, out of caution, created the illusion that Kelusta had accompanied them to Seaside Town. This was to prevent Starangui from making a move on her while the Amirium family’s defenses were weakened.
Thus, Kelusta lived in seclusion, spending nearly every day in a secret room of the ducal mansion, conducting experiment after experiment. Even Isabella rarely saw her.
The difficulty of creating a magic circle was linked to the level of the spell: the simpler the spell, the easier it was to integrate. Some families even purchased pre-made formations combined with cleaning spells; for just a few gold coins, they could hire a specialist to draw it and keep their homes spotless for a long time.
But now, what Kelusta had to integrate was a spell created by the Goddess of Light herself.
The difficulty was immeasurable.
After countless failures, the girl who bore this heavy responsibility was on the verge of collapse—
Finally, when the spell on the formation once again faded into nothingness, she threw herself into a nearby armchair, clutching her head, her face a mask of despair so profound she looked ready to die on the spot.
“The runes just won’t embed successfully.” Kelusta rubbed her temples, letting her full weight sink into the soft chair beneath her. Beside her lay a quill pen already infused with magic, the very “medium” used to draw the formation.
“When I reach a certain point and try to inscribe the next part of the spell, some inexplicable force always stops my hand,” Kelusta said, staring at the circular magic circle on the floor, which the System could retract at any time. She couldn’t help but frown deeply. “Yesterday afternoon, I was halfway successful… but in the end, the formation still rejected it, and even the runes I’d painstakingly written before vanished along with it.”
“Because this is a divine spell, temporary host,” the System explained. “In truth, if you weren’t using a reward issued by headquarters, but just some random blank formation you bought… it likely wouldn’t have even withstood the first symbol of the Condensation Spell. It would have exploded on the spot, unable to bear such immense energy.”
So it was a miracle that it had survived hundreds of attempts completely unscathed.
Kelusta sighed.
She was inscribing the Condensation Spell onto the formation with her own magic, channeled through the quill.
And that medium had to be re-infused with magic after every few uses. Over a hundred failures had resulted in an enormous drain; her magic had no time to recover before it was poured into another sunk cost. This truly infuriated and exhausted the brown-haired girl.
“So many days with no progress, and I have to drain all my magic every time,” she lamented, slumping in the chair. “I feel like a squeezed olive.”
The System let out a chuckle at the clever metaphor.
“Hey, Old Sy, you sound pretty happy about this,” Kelusta said, frustrated. “Although Gloria said in her letter two days ago that with Kevit working from the inside, the battle has basically stabilized into a stalemate… we can’t relax too much.”
She sat up a little straighter, her expression troubled. “What if Starangui realizes Kevit is stalling? She might go to the battlefield to see for herself.”
The System said, “Oh,” then added guiltily, “My apologies, temporary host. I didn’t mean to sound as if I wasn’t taking this seriously…”
“I know, I’m not blaming you,” Kelusta said, shaking her head to clear it. She pushed herself up from the armchair, her tone forgiving and gentle. “It’s good to relax a bit. If I try a few more times… surely one in five hundred will succeed, right?”
This declaration, which was hard to classify as either optimistic or pessimistic, seemed to make the System glitch for a moment.
One in five hundred. Heavens, what a deadly probability…
—Wait a minute, probability?
The System suddenly fell silent.
Just as Kelusta, having rested enough, was preparing to roll up her sleeves and get back to work, it spoke up. As she approached the formation, the System said abruptly, “I feel like we’ve forgotten something important.”
“Hm?” Kelusta picked up the quill she had carelessly tossed on the floor earlier, asking distractedly, “What is it?”
“Do you remember I once said that headquarters rarely issues tasks and rewards that are completely unrelated to the protagonist?”
“Of course I remember—the Gathering Magic Circle is a perfect example, isn’t it?” Kelusta paused what she was doing, puzzled. “Why bring this up all of a sudden?”
The System said, “Then, a second question… temporary host, do you remember the reward you received for completing the first-stage mission?”
The first-stage mission?
Kelusta paused, frowning in concentration as she tried to brush away the thick layer of dust from that particular memory box—
The first-stage mission was triggered right after she arrived at the Holy Light Magic Academy.
At the time, for the sake of the 【Sage】 achievement, Kelusta had held her breath and spent a month reading through all eight thousand-plus history books in the library.
And the reward for that mission… it seemed to have helped her a great deal with the second-stage mission, didn’t it?
It had allowed her to encounter Gloria multiple times and successfully raise the other girl’s notoriously difficult-to-earn favorability above the standard threshold—
That reward… what was it again?
Kelusta racked her brain for a long time before finally digging out the very first high-dimension term she had ever received from the System.
“Probability Increase MOD?” she asked tentatively.
“Correct. The Probability Increase MOD, with five uses.”
The System stated calmly, “The last time you used this item was after you and Gloria argued because of Satrick, and before you found the magic mirror. And that was the fourth time.”
“The fourth time?” The brown-haired girl was stunned.
The System hummed in affirmation, then continued, “So, if you need it, it can be used one more time.”
With this, the most pressing problem at hand could be solved!
Kelusta had clearly connected the dots as well. Her eyes flew open, the golden irises shimmering with unconcealed, joyous surprise. “So, I can activate the Probability Increase MOD while drawing the formation! Once the probability is maxed out at one hundred percent, I can increase the success rate and completely inscribe the Condensation Spell into the Gathering Magic Circle—”
“Completely correct, temporary host,” the System said gently. “Everything was already fated.”
Kelusta smiled and nodded firmly.
She flexed her wrist, which was sore and heavy from overuse, and stretched her stiff arm. The fatigue on her face was swept away, replaced by a renewed vibrancy.
“I could just kiss you, Old Sy,” she said with a grin. “In every sense of the word—you’re my savior.”
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