“How daaaare you?!” Victor screamed. “I’m supposed to become immortal! Me!”
“Then you should’ve done your research the proper way, without making anyone suffer!” Shannon declared, swinging her wand downward.
For an instant, all was still. Then the light exploded. It covered the room, obliterating every shadow. The brilliant glow wrapped everything up, and the room was engulfed in a warm wind.
Then, without fanfare, Victor’s mansion crumbled from the inside out, swallowed by a torrent of light.
✦ ✦ ✦
Shannon used a suspension spell to pull Victor and his two subordinates out of the mountain of rubble. She let them thud clumsily to the ground, then checked them for injuries, just in case. Just before the impact of the Sanctuary spell, Shannon had cast magic to protect everyone in the room, and the spell itself wouldn’t have affected any humans anyway. Still, someone could’ve been injured from a fall or the like.
She checked the three of them thoroughly, but they were all unharmed—only knocked out. Somehow, they were also stark naked. Shannon laid them out on the ground and giggled to herself.
Sarah, on the other hand, had already woken from her own bout of unconsciousness. Dazed, she sat atop the mountain of rubble, staring at the town in the distance. The mansion had stood in the forest on the town’s outskirts, but people would have seen and reported the explosion of light. Soldiers and knights were likely on their way.
“You all right, Sarah?” Shannon asked, sitting beside her on the rubble.
“Yeah, somehow. Thank you, Shannon. How are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m immortal, after all.”
“That’s true.” They both giggled. Sarah’s expression was dark, however, and she murmured, “I guess, in the end, everything I did was for nothing.”
Shannon wanted to tell her that that wasn’t true—that it wasn’t her fault that Victor had taken advantage of her—but the things she’d done couldn’t be erased. Sarah’s quickest route to recovery involved accepting that.
“I wonder if my mom will die,” Sarah murmured.
“It’s a rare disease, right? One where she gets weaker and weaker?”
“Yes.” Sarah looked like she was holding back tears. “She used to be really healthy. Now she can’t water the flowers in her garden or cook her favorite foods...”
Sarah’s wish had been smashed to pieces, and her heart was broken, but Shannon had a hunch. The symptoms Sarah described reminded her of a certain little girl and doctor. There was no reason to hang on to what the doctor had given her for some future occasion; it was best to give it to someone who needed it here and now.
“Hey, Sarah. I want you to have something.”
“What is it?”
Shannon waved her wand, opening her sorcerous space, and Sarah gasped.
“Wh-What is that? That’s incredible... Ha ha, old magic is so cool.”
Shannon reached her hand inside and stuck out her tongue as she groped around. “Hmm, I think it was around here... Oh, there it is! Yeah!” She pulled out a small vial of transparent liquid and handed it to Sarah.
“What’s this?” Sarah held the vial up to the sun, looking at how the light passed through it.
“A doctor named Glim, who I met in Eldoa, made this. It’s the cure for saluena.”
“Saluena... W-Wait, what?! Th-That’s what my mother has!”
Shannon nodded. “I had a feeling. I can guarantee that this is safe for her to consume. I’m the one we experimented on to develop it.”
“You experimented on yourself?” Sarah laughed, and the tense look on her face vanished, leaving behind the gentle aura she’d had when she and Shannon first met. “That really is something only you can do.”
“Yep, because I’m immortal. You weren’t wrong to bring me here. Yeah, things didn’t go as Victor had planned, but because of my journey, I was able to help you. Thank you for that.”
“I’m the one who should be thanking you.” Sarah bowed her head deeply. Tears flowed down her cheeks again, but this time, her eyes were filled with happiness. She squeezed Shannon’s hands. “Truly, thank you.”
After a short while, Shannon recovered her bag and robe from the pile of rubble and started preparing to head out.
“Are you leaving already, Shannon?”
“Yeah. Victor wasn’t the one I was looking for, so I’m off on the next step in my journey to find a way to die.”
“I see. So that means we won’t see each other again?”
“Who knows? But if we do, then the next time we meet, you won’t be a greenhorn anymore. I’m looking forward to hearing about how you’ve grown.”
She grinned broadly, and Sarah smiled back. “I want to thank you somehow, but I don’t have anything on me at all.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I didn’t have any use for the medicine anyway.”
“But—”
“Fine, fine. If you really want to pay me back, then think of a way to kill an immortal being.”
Sarah’s eyes spun and her body swayed. “But how can I think up a way to kill a person I owe so much to? Isn’t that like psychological torture?”
“Don’t worry about it! Finding a way to kill me would just be repaying the favor. So one day, come find me and kill me, ’kay?”
The conversation had turned so absurd that Sarah had to laugh. “Okay, I’ll study up on a way to kill you.”
“Yay! Please and thank you!”
Just then, they heard the thudding of horse hooves from the forest. From the sound of it, there was more than one horse headed their way.
“Uh-oh, they got here fast. I’ll head out now,” Shannon said. “I can’t really explain things to them. Can I leave it to you?”
“Of course. Bye, Shannon. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
“Let’s! We didn’t know each other long, but I had fun!”
Shannon grabbed her bag and dashed off into the woods, and Sarah watched as she disappeared.