Through a hazy fog, Callan slowly regained consciousness.
Her body felt heavy, moving with a gentle sway.
In her blurry vision, a beautiful, snow-white expanse filled half of her sight.
The air she inhaled carried a faint scent of roses.
She couldn’t quite place where she had encountered that particular fragrance before.
This scent brought her a profound sense of peace.
It was also incredibly warm.
‘Hadn’t I already died…’
‘Could this be the realm of the gods?’
An itching sensation spread across the left side of her body and her hand.
‘…She remembered there was nothing left there before.’
‘It seemed the deity who brought her to this divine realm possessed a benevolent nature; restoring her body and hand must have been a mere trifle.’
“Don’t fidget… Hold on tight, you’re going to fall.”
“Just a little longer, we’ll be there soon…”
‘The god’s voice was so melodious.’
‘Yet, it felt oddly familiar…’
A figure began to materialize in her mind.
Hair as white as freshly fallen snow.
Eyes with irises of deep, burnished gold.
A face so captivating, it would mesmerize anyone who gazed upon it.
“If you wish to sleep, rest a while… I will carry you back.”
“You have already done enough.”
“You…”
Callan attempted to speak, but her throat felt as if it had been scalded by boiling water and then choked by stones, making it excruciatingly painful.
“Me?”
The voice chuckled softly, a sound mingled with the faint, weary breaths of exhaustion.
“If you’re asking for my name…”
“Konehl-Ghervil.”
“And if you’re asking for my identity…”
“I am the last nun of Solis Abbey, and beyond that… until that ‘s*ave contract’ is rescinded… I also serve as your assistant.”
“Heh…”
A weak laugh escaped Callan as well; suppressing her discomfort and pain, she rasped out in an utterly hoarse voice,
“You knew it was… a s*ave contract… yet you still signed it…”
“Utter another word, and you can walk the rest of the way yourself.”
Callan fell silent.
Her right hand instinctively grasped her left elbow, pulling it closer.
She rested quietly against the shoulder, allowing the snow-white strands of hair to brush softly against her face.
Approximately twenty minutes later.
She was gently laid upon a soft bed.
Her blood-stained, mud-caked boots were removed, followed by her tattered black outer robe; a pillow was placed beneath her head, and a thin blanket draped over her.
A cup of hot water and a cup of warm milk were brought and placed on a nearby table to cool.
Merely observing the young woman attend to her in such a manner, Callan felt her heart swell with contentment.
Her body remained immobile.
Simple movements, such as blinking her eyes, tilting her head, or slightly wiggling her hands and fingers, posed no significant challenge.
Another five minutes elapsed.
Then, Konehl-Ghervil gently helped her sit up to drink the water and milk.
Her throat no longer felt as agonizing.
“That’s enough for now. Tell me… what happened to my body?” She seized Konehl-Ghervil’s right hand, which held the cup, just as the young woman was about to refill it.
“Someone told me that vial of blood could save your life, so I made you drink it,” Ghervil replied, taking the cup with her other hand, setting it down, and settling onto the edge of the bed.
“Blood?”
“One of the two vials Helm had placed in my hand.”
‘So, it truly was blood after all…’
Callan silently watched the gloom outside the window.
Thanks to him, a final glimmer of hope had emerged.
“Were you already awake then?”
“Perhaps…”
“More or less, ever since you fed me that clear potion.”
“Why ‘perhaps’? And who told you about the blood’s properties…”
Callan sensed an indescribable change in the young woman, as if she had become a different person, emanating an aura of unfamiliarity and distance.
Was it because of those crimson eyes?
“The Dean informed me that the remaining vial of blood could both eradicate the plague and save a dying life.”
Callan froze completely, staring blankly at Konehl-Ghervil, utterly speechless.
‘Leaving aside the matter of Dean Anthea for a moment.’
‘Something capable of eradicating the plague and saving this city had been wasted on her.’
‘But to what end? Once those entities recovered and pursued them, they would still be forced into a desperate flight, ultimately finding themselves without recourse.’
“Why… just why?”
Her voice was feeble, yet words of blame for Konehl-Ghervil were the last she should utter, for that vial of blood had saved her very life.
‘Had she been more decisive, brave enough to taste that blood herself, perhaps the situation would never have escalated to this point.’
Her expression turned utterly desolate.
Her silent sigh was laden with profound self-reproach.
“This might require me to tell you about a dream I had…”
Konehl-Ghervil gazed at her calmly, and within her beautiful crimson pupils, another scene began to unfold.
“Good evening, Ghervil.”
It was night, and a woman in her thirties, clad in the society’s robes, paused by a white marble flowerbed, turning to greet Konehl-Ghervil.
Here, there was no mist.
The night sky was so clear that stars glittered brightly.
The evening breeze carried the fragrance of flowers and a profound sense of tranquility.
“Dean…”
Konehl-Ghervil felt disoriented, unable to comprehend why she had suddenly appeared here, in a garden.
“You seem to have encountered considerable trouble.”
“Yes!”
Prompted by the woman’s words, she rushed to her side, pleading for help.
“Please, save this city! The plague threatens to infect everyone within it!”
“I am powerless to help.”
The woman shook her head gently.
“But eleven years ago, weren’t you able to?”
“I was alive then, but now I am dead. The person you see may not be from this era.”
‘Not from this era…’
For a moment, she couldn’t grasp the meaning.
‘How could people from different eras converse, or even perceive one another?’
‘If all this could be explained by the power of dreams, then who had supplied the materials for the nightmarish revelations she had crafted herself…’
‘Was it an illusion, or merely a dream?’
Her thoughts tangled, crisscrossing.
Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced her head, and her consciousness felt as though it were being torn apart.
She heard someone speaking weakly beside her.
Someone else was gulping down something.
A voice within her consciousness urged her to awaken, to prevent certain events from unfolding.
She refused to witness anyone sacrifice their life for her.
Then, a hand pressed down on her shoulder.
“It is too soon to speak of such things. Perhaps you should first observe what has transpired in this city; it might help you discover a solution.”
The pain gradually receded, and the scene shifted accordingly.
****
A clearing within a forest.
She saw herself lying beside a roaring bonfire.
Two other figures were nearby.
The visual merged with the auditory.
“Stop at once…”
“Don’t do this…”
She cried out, desperately attempting to halt the man and woman depicted in the vision.
Yet, it was all in vain.
Her voice could not reach them.
The man was swallowed by a black shadow, while the woman lay beside her, on the verge of death.
The scene transformed once more.
They found themselves in a graveyard.
Corpses littered the ground everywhere, each having met a gruesome end, their heads pierced by sharp objects.
At the center, a man was bound to a cross, his limbs reduced to mere bones.
Before long, a black rain began to fall across the entire city, emanating from him.
Finally, the man put a gun into his mouth and shattered his own skull, temporarily bringing an end to a catastrophe that threatened to annihilate the city.
As if witnessing the little girl’s demise anew, Konehl-Ghervil once again dropped to her knees, retching violently.
The scene reverted to the garden, and everything settled into tranquility.
At that moment, the discomfort in her body and the resentment, despair, and regret in her heart all vanished.
The Dean knelt, helping Konehl-Ghervil to her feet, murmuring softly,
“Those two vials of potion found in the attic, if my memory serves, one of them contained blood, originally meant to combat the rat plague. I never imagined there would be any left.”
“What is its purpose?”
“Its purpose… to eradicate a plague, or to save a dying life.”
Konehl-Ghervil meticulously recounted these three sentences to the despondent woman sitting on the bed.
“So you met Dean Anthea in a dream, and she told you about the blood’s properties.”
“That is one way to understand it.”
An untimely warmth bloomed in Callan’s heart.
Callan knew this was no time for fanciful thoughts, yet she couldn’t help but dwell on them.
She wondered if she was more important to Konehl-Ghervil than the entire city.
But how did she truly feel about Konehl-Ghervil herself?
‘An assistant?’
‘A friend?’
‘Or perhaps…’
She recalled her initial purpose for approaching Konehl-Ghervil in Mistfall City.
It began with a calculated use, hoping to leverage the nun of Solis Abbey to find Dean Anthea and compel her to fulfill the promise of fully curing Callan’s illness.
If the Dean were truly deceased, then cultivating a good relationship with the nun seemed prudent.
At the very least, as someone from the Abbey, Konehl-Ghervil might possess memories of treatments for her ailment.
After a time, Callan’s perception of Konehl-Ghervil seemed to shift, and she gradually began to care about certain things…
****
A crash echoed from downstairs, the sound of things being overturned, startling her and breaking her train of thought.
A thick, viscous shadow enveloped the window outside.
The cup on the table fell and shattered.
The entire building began to shake.
“It’s time.”
“Where are you going?”
Callan instinctively grasped the hand of the young woman, who had risen to leave.
The tone in Konehl-Ghervil’s voice instilled a sense of farewell.
The young woman did not turn back, easily slipping free from Callan’s weak, powerless grip.
With a thud, Callan tumbled from the bed.
She yearned to pursue, but could not even stand, reduced to merely crawling forward, supporting herself with her hands.
Her pace was agonizingly slow.
“Ghervil…”
Amidst her feeble cry, the door softly closed, leaving the room with only one occupant.
Outside the door, the young woman paused at the top of the stairs.
Black shadows crammed the ground floor.
Windows and doors shattered, allowing the encroaching darkness to surge in.
It resembled an ever-rising, churning tide, extending countless slender arms that reached out to seize her.
Unalarmed, she calmly produced a transparent vial of potion, and in the final moment before the shadowy arms touched her, she drank its entire contents in a single gulp.
****
The conversation in the dream had not yet concluded.
“If this blood is used to eradicate the rat plague, will the residents in the streets, the sacrificed agents, and all those who died from the plague return?”
“There has never been such a precedent. What are the conditions for resurrecting a person… a complete soul, heart, brain, organs, or perhaps their sum? No one knows… perhaps not even the Goddess herself.”
“I wish to know the purpose of the other potion,” the young woman pressed, unwilling to give up.
The woman paused, then smiled mysteriously,
“To create a dream.”
“You can weave dreams into reality.”
“Just like—”
“How you came into this world.”
****
Callan, having painstakingly crawled to the door, reached out to grasp the doorknob.
The cacophony of sounds from outside urged her to summon every ounce of her strength.
The cries and wails of people, the gnawing of rodents, the collision of colossal objects, the screams of the dying…
She dared not imagine what horrors were unfolding beyond.
All she desired was to quickly open this damned door.
Finally, her fingers brushed the doorknob.
A tremendous force tore the door open, sending her reeling, tumbling repeatedly until she crashed against the wall.
A blinding flash of light streamed in.
She was forced to shield her eyes with her hands.
Ten seconds passed.
As the intense light softened, she slowly parted her fingers, peering through the gap.
She was utterly stunned.
Beyond her room lay a brightly lit corridor.
Birds chirped.
Light poured in through the windows.
Her strength returned, and she pushed herself up with the help of the table, gazing out the window.
Not only had the night vanished, but the mist had also been dispelled.
The sky was clear and bright, with clouds clustered at the horizon, as if the entire world had been completely renewed.
“Where is everyone…”
Snapping back to reality, she frantically rushed out of the bedroom, pushing open every door.
Then to the ground floor, then to the backyard.
Finally, she pushed open the house door, stepped into the front yard, onto the road, and into the world outside.
There was no one…
Everything was utterly empty.
The figure she yearned for was nowhere to be seen.
Falling to her knees in despair, she buried her head in her arms, plunging into darkness.
“Hmph…”
A faint, almost imperceptible breath reached her ears.
She turned.
She saw a white-haired young woman sitting by the door of Room 101, peacefully asleep, leaning against the doorframe.
Just as Konehl-Ghervil’s body swayed precariously, threatening to topple onto the grass beside the steps,
In the last second, a soft knee cushion appeared beneath the young woman’s head.
The commotion was still too loud.
Rubbing her eyes, Konehl-Ghervil opened them to a slit.
As Callan prayed, terrified and utterly still, the young woman’s hand slowly slid from her cheek, and her eyes gently closed once more.
Before long, the gentle morning breeze swept through, scattering her golden hair across the grass.
Bathed in sunlight.
Callan, too, fell into a deep slumber.