A magic circle, so scarily refined and polished, surrounded my injuries, and she began casting her healing magic onto me. Carlos acted as her assistant and provided aid, and Fol was eager to offer her support as well, but she was politely refused by the knight. The treatment took a few hours, and the sun that was high in the sky had begun to set by the time she was finished.
“I’m...done,” she said with haggard breath as she wiped the sweat from her brow.
To my disbelief, the pain throughout my body was gone. My body was covered in burns and scratches, but there were no more wounds. I was as good as new. The biggest surprise was my left eye; I’d given up on seeing out of it again, but I was able to make out faint images with it. The outlines were fuzzy, but the fact that I could see at all made the difference like night and day. My eyes were both darker than the void, but puzzlingly—and perhaps as an aftereffect of my injury—my left eye turned a bright jade as though all the dark color had been drained out of it.
In a fantastic twist of irony, my eye had turned the same color as the Wicked Whale’s. And it came as no surprise that my left arm was still gone. The knight was capable of wielding the most advanced healing magic that could regenerate limbs, but the mana that remained on my wound lingered like a curse and prevented my body from regenerating.
I spotted Carlos sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, his head bobbing up and down as he dozed away. He must’ve been awake all throughout last night in a frantic search for Fol and me within the ocean, so I couldn’t blame him.
“Well done,” I praised the knight. “You’re far better than I expected.”
“Oh, your words are too kind, my lord,” she said, with a smile, but then her face turned grim. “However, your left arm is still...”
“You need not worry about it. I shall have an artificial arm created.”
“Please wait before doing so, my lord. I shall ask the higher-ups and call for an even better wizard than me. I’m sure that they will be able to help you soon enough.”
“A wizard better than you? I’d love to meet them if anyone like that exists.”
I suspected that even the Church would struggle to find anyone better than her.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
The knight looked a touch melancholic as she averted her gaze. “I’m terribly sorry, my lord. As I’m an unnamed knight, I’m prohibited from revealing my name.”
Dark Knights were all covered from head to toe with black armor, and this sense of anonymity allowed them to conduct their work. Only named knights—those of high rank even within their order—were allowed to hold a name and introduce themselves. It was a privilege for a very select few.
“Of course I know that,” I replied. “But you’ve already shown me your face, haven’t you? Go on, tell me your name.”
The knight was silent for a few moments before she spoke. “I cannot possibly decline your request, my lord. My name is Yusurika. I shall be honored if you remember it.” She gave me a very elegant bow. “Please excuse me, my lord.”
“Very well. Thank you for your aid.”
As the sun began to set and the breeze blew through the broken entrance, Yusurika tried to step out when she suddenly froze and swiftly returned to my side, her armor clanking about. She drew her face so close that I thought she was going to bump into me.
“Wh-What?!” I stammered.
“I’m not sure if I’m supposed to tell you this, but I’m going to anyway,” the knight said. She paused before she went on, “Powerful mana has eaten away the left side of your body. I was able to remove most of it, but there are two areas where my efforts proved futile: your left eye and left arm. Like a curse, the mana in those places has remained. That is why vision in your left eye is strained, and why I failed to regenerate your left arm.”
“And?”
“To be precise, it’s not that I cannot remove the mana in your body. No matter how much I remove, more powerful mana keeps flowing into you as though someone is channeling it into you, my lord.”
“What?”
“That is why I compare it to a curse. For someone to remotely channel negative energy into your body is nothing short of a curse. I would like to be certain, just in case: Did you really finish that beast off?”
“Yes. I killed it... At least, I thought I did. Are you saying that it might still be alive somewhere? That can’t be... I didn’t give it a chance to regenerate; not a scrap of its flesh should remain in this world. How can it possibly still be alive?”
“Perhaps the monster was a deity of sorts—something that cannot be killed. Or maybe the monster was simply a familiar, and its master is elsewhere.”
“Hmm...”
Very interesting. I thought I’d killed the Wicked Whale, but what if the battle hadn’t ended? Even if its physical body was gone, it might not actually be dead, and just needed time to return to this world. If it had a master or a main body somewhere else, it might still be alive and well.
“I’ve done my best to seal that curse away,” she went on. “I’ve basically put a cork on the mana pouring into you and stopped it from coming out. This mana shouldn’t negatively affect you in the future, nor will it channel into your body. Now that I’ve stopped it, your enemy won’t know your precise location either.”
I didn’t expect my wound from the Wicked Whale to be so serious.
“Well done,” I praised. “I’d like to offer you some sort of reward for your work.”
“I’ve only done what is required of me as a member of the Dark Knights,” she replied. “It’s our duty to serve our master.”
“Your loyalty is astounding as well. Yusurika, would you like to become my personal guard?”
She looked clearly stunned by my offer. For some reason, her cheeks began to turn red, and she quickly wore her helm to hide her face. She took a few steps back, and this time, instead of her elegant, ladylike curtsy, she bowed like a stalwart knight.
“Should Lord Lightless give me his permission, I’d love to!” she cried.