72 The Beginning Of The End

Itsuo and Selene. As well as Sieghart along with the others gets a close view of how Christa's flame engulfed the storm circling around her and Eileen. As the fire and the surge of wind merged, Fiery flares spews out of the vortex, riding alongside the wind that is flowing outward to Sieghart's party and the neighborhood.

"Now it's all flames!"

Selene reinforced her shield once again to protect them against the storm of fire. While Itsuo wordlessly watches the giant ball of fire accelerating as it continue to circle around.

Sieghart and the others were shocked to see the blizzard suddenly transformed into a fiery storm.

"What in the world...?"

At that point, the giant ball of fire reached the limit of it twirling around. The gigantic fire let out a powerful burst upwards. The raging blizzard calmed down, the clouds vanished along with it. The fire dissipates into the air, revealing a marvelous starry night scenery.

Everyone's leg was stuck on the ground. They were all left in surprise that they couldn't bring themselves to move a muscle.

Their eyes were still glued overhead, until they caught Eileen's body falling over.

"E..Eileen!"

Sieghart hurriedly ran forward in an attempt to jump and catch Eileen, but before he could do so, someone else already got her hands on the falling lady.

"Ah...!"

Christa, the one who jumped and catched Eileen's unconscious body safely descends down on the ground, making sure that Eileen doesn't get anymore fatalities.

Christa lands right in front of Sieghart and the others before laying her body with great care.

"Alright..."

"Eileen!!"

Lira rushed out of panic to Eileen. She examines her physical state. Eileen's snow-white hair returned to it's light-orange flock of feathers. Lira carefully open's Eileen's left eyelid and found that her shiny crystal-blue eyes have reverted to it's purple pupils.

She almost went back to her original form. But the ice crawling from one of her arms and leg are still intact and can be seen to have cracks all over it. It's as if it is going to shatter if one mistakenly touches it.

"You... Don't you think you went overboard?!" Lira gave an irate look at Christa as the others approached behind her, watching Selene in her current state.

Christa puts her hands behind her head as she gave a reasonable response.

"Well, what do you want? A burned, injured living body, or a dead one?"

"...!"

"I don't really care much about how she wants to die, but I prefer not being part of her suicide mission."

Lira wordlessly looks at Christa as she doesn't have the right words to respond. What Christa did is probably the better outcome of what happened. If she did not fight back or even bothered trying, they might have seen them encased inside a giant unbreakable ice for eternity.

Sieghart cuts in between the elven girl and the girl with red clothes.

"Let's talk about this later. For now, let's tend to Eileen. Lira!"

"Right!"

Lira focused on Eileen as she summoned a green magic circle.

"Healing Vine!"

Green vines springs out of the magic circle, wrapping around Eileen. From the top of her head, to her ice coated arm, and to her leg. The vines turned into green bands of light. Curing Eileen's burned pale skin back to normal, wounds from around her body have disappeared.

The Healing Vine prove to be quite effective to Eileen's minor wounds and physical condition. But as Lira carefully observes Eileen's arm and leg, she noticed that the horrible condition of her limbs did not change since she started curing Eileen.

"Her arm and leg... It's not healing."

"What?!"

"My healing cannot cure her arm and leg!"

Eileen answered with a horrified look on her face.

"Almost every minor wounds and injuries she received have healed, but not the arm and leg. It must be the effect of continously using her blizzard storm that her magic is trying to consume her body to compensate for her depleted magic."

"Isn't there any other way to cure her?"

The sound of ice cracking from Eileen's arm and leg rang through everyone's ears.

"Eileen..."

"I knew it. Those flames are from you."

After the cracking ice from Eileen's limbs, a voice came from above.

Christa turned up and see Edle floating in the air together with an unknown person.

"Edle...? You again."

Edle released his grasp on the man's shoulder and took a short descent on the ground.

"I..It's been a while since we last saw each other, Christa Scarletblood..."

"Right. What made you come here?"

"Ah. We saw an abnormal formation of a storm cloud so we came to investigate. But on our halfway through, a surge strucked us, then we saw a burst of flames in the sky that incinerated the storm so we continued."

"I see."

"Are all of you Adventurers from Reilaea?"

Both Christa and Edle looks at the man who spoke and asked them if they were adventurers from Reilaea. Then suddenly, Jinrah screamed out of nowhere as he points his shaking hand at the man.

"You... Y-You're the King of Cartha, King Ordeus Magna Carta...!"

"What?!"

Everyone else gave the same shocked expression like Jinrah as he revealed the king of Cartha's name.

"Right, I am the King of Cartha."

"I-It's a pleasure to meet you, King Ordeus! I am Jinrah Stonebreaker! I live in the town of Sindra. And I'm one of the adventurers you selected to send to Reilaea 15 years ago!"

"You're being way too formal all of a sudden, Jinrah." David added while looking at Jinrah with a blank face.

"I see. I think remember you. You're the only one who decided to stay in Reilaea after the events 15 years ago to stay with your new party. The party consists of five adventurers that came from 4 different countries. And those other four are..."

"Us."

Sieghart comes in to indicate that he and the others are the five adventurers together with Jinrah that fought the demon. He proceeded to introduce himself and the others.

"I am Sieghart Banderas. This elf lady is Lira Lockwood, The one behind me is David Uruha. And... This is Eileen Hirstein."

Ordeus followed Sieghart's eyes as he worriedly gaze onto the unconscious Eileen. The girl's arm and leg caught most of his attention.

"Eileen. I remember her all too well. The one that tried to use a devastating magic without thinking about the others around her. It looks like she did the same and now she's like this."

David explained to Ordeus that it's the effect of overusing her blizzard storm magic even after all her mana has been depleted.

"Eileen is somehow far from losing her life. But the arm and her leg doesn't seem to recover no matter how many times I tried to heal it. If we try to move her, her limbs covered in ice will shatter. And she'll live with only a single arm and leg." Lira added.

"I see. So you can't cure her or even carry her to someone who can fix her. That's quite a problem."

Christa took a quick glance over Eileen's ice coated limbs. Then, a brief silence occured until Itsuo and Selene's voice echoed through Christa's ears.

"Christa!"

"Hey, Christa!"

"Hmm? You guys!"

Selene throws herself to Christa like usual while Itsuo follows behind and looks at them with a smile.

"You did it! I can't believe you defeated a diamond rank adventurer alone!"

"Indeed, as expected of Master!"

"Master?"

Edle watches the three in silence while Christa tries to remind Itsuo not to call her master.

"You're his master...?"

Selene lets go of Christa as Itsuo tells the prince about their daily training for about a month now.

"Well, Christa, Selene and I have been training together since last month. Thanks to her, we were able to improve and become stronger than we are before."

"We learned quite some useful stuff from her, just like flying using your energy instead of using a magic spell that uses too much of your mana to levitate." Selene followed.

After hearing them talking happily about training together with Christa, Edle felt a feeling of jealousy into himself. He wished he could also spend some time together with Christa while they train with their magic.

Asking Christa of letting him join them in training comes through his head. But he fears that he might be interfering them if they add another person to their group. Or much worse, she could declined his request, which would shatter him.

"Oh. Hey, a mother bee's honey should be able to cure her limbs, right?"

Edle stopped his thoughts as he heard Christa talking about a mother bee's honey to Lira.

The elven girl looks at Sieghart and the others before answering.

"Yes. It should. A mother bee's honey should be able to cure almost anything fatal."

"Then..."

Christa flies off towards the neighborhood in search of something.

"Where's she going?"

Seconds later, they see Christa flying back carrying a bag on her back. She flies down in front of Lira and Eileen then tries to pull out a small jar out of her bag.

"This is a mother bee's honey."

"Oh!!"

Everyone except King Ordeus felt both surprised and relieved to see Christa pulling out a jar of honey bee that can cure Eileen's condition.

She extends her hand holding the jar to give it to Lira.

"Try to apply it to her frozen arm and leg."

Despite hating Christa for what she's done to Eileen, she still takes the jar of honey bee Christa offered and thanked her.

"Thank you."

Lira began applying the honey bee around Eileen's ice coated arm, to her frozen leg. The people watches her carefully applying the honey.

"Well?" Sieghart asked.

Lira was done applying the honey. The mother bee's honey disappeared as if Eileen's limbs absorbed it. Then shortly after, the cracks around Eileen's arm and leg have slowly disappeared.

"The cracks are gone."

"Try lifting her arm."

Lira does what Sieg asked, she carefully lifts Eileen's arm. Slowly but surely. The arm did not crumble, meaning that applying the honey was a success. This brought a smile to everyone's faces. Especially Sieghart.

"Her limbs seemed to have been healed. But her skin are still coated with blueish ice."

"Don't worry, give it some time and her limbs will completely return to normal."

Christa replied.

"It's been a month since that mother bee honey had been harvested. So it's no surprise that it's not as effective as it still in the nest."

"Eileen..."

Finally, Sieghart and the others can let out a sigh of relief. Moments later, Sieghart approaches Christa and bows in front of her.

"Sorry."

"Hmm?" Christa's eyes flickers as she did not expect that Sieghart would come and apologize to her.

"This all happened because of me. I'm the one who promised to protect her, I'm the one who is closer to her, yet I failed to notice her trying to endure her pent up pain and grief all this time. Because of me, this happened. I apologize."

"Sieghart..."

Lira, David and Jinrah all looked at Sieghart with a worried look on their faces. The party leader keeps his head down until Christa speaks.

"Eh... So you're the one at fault, huh? That means you're the one who should receive a punishment."

"Punishment?"

"Christa...?"

Lira and Selene both reacted to Christa's words. While Itsuo, Edle and the others were curiously silent.

Without hesitation, Sieghart accepted whatever punishment Christa will give him. Lira tries to argue with Sieghart.

"What? Why do you have to be punished without doing anything wrong? What you did there is to save Eileen, not knowing that it would end up to this! You may have never noticed what Eileen really feels, but that doesn't mean you have to-"

"Shut up, Lira."

"S-Sieghart...?"

David grabs Lira by the shoulder to get her attention. The elf girl looks at the man as he tells her:

"That blockhead won't listen anymore. She's as stubborn as you, you know."

"But..."

Sieghart awaits Christa as she tries to contemplate the right punishment. It didn't take long for her to find one.

"Alright! Then, I want you to fight me."

Everyone was stunned, or perhaps confused as to why a fight with the strongest adventurer of Reilaea is the punishment Christa gave to Sieghart.

Sieghart asked, "A fight? That's it? Seriously?"

"Yes. I didn't mean we fight right away. We can pick the right place at the right time. I want to see the power of the strongest in Reilaea."

Sieghart looked and can see the passion in Christa's eyes. She's no doubt looking forward to fight him.

"If that's what you decided, then I won't refuse."

"Sieghart?"

The three looks into Sieghart and saw a bright smile on his face.

"To be very honest, the moment I saw you defeat the Mother Bee, I've always been curious about you. I want to know how strong you are, I want to fight you."

"So you're accepting my punishment. Or should I say challenge?"

"Yes."

After a short stand-off between Christa and Sieghart, the crimson eye turned to Selene and Itsuo who still couldn't believe that she challenges Sieghart to a fight.

"Y-you... you just challenged Sieghart to a fight."

"The strongest adventurer and the hero of Reilaea!"

"Yeah." Christa gave a calm look.

"You're way too calm for this!"

...

Meanwhile, on Sieghart's side.

"Are you sure about fighting her? It's not like you to accept someone's challenge to a duel." Lira remarked.

"Yeah. I don't know but, something in me is saying that I want to fight her. I don't know if it's instinct or whatever. But I'll do it."

"This again, huh? Well, what can we do?"

"Right, do your thing and beat her, party leader."

Jinrah and David followed.

"Let's take Eileen back home and have a talk with the Guild Master."

Sieghart and the others went on their way back to the Capital while Carrying Eileen. Edle and Ordeus watches them walk away.

"Except for the ruined terrain, it looks like things have settled. We should head back to the Castle, Edle."

"Please wait, King Ordeus."

Edle replied as he watched Christa grabbed the wooden sword. Their eyes meet with each other.

"Ah...!" Like usual, Edle gets flustered over Christa. But that changed after she saw her seemingly thinking about something.

The girl in red clothes seemed to have figured it out. Itsuo and Selene watches her from behind running towards Edle.

"Hey! I just remembered, there's something I need to talk... to you..."

Christa approaches and talks to Edle, but her gaze isn't into Edle, but to something behind him.

"Christa...?"

Edle turns around to see the outer wall of the capital. And on top of that giant wall are smokestacks rising up from all around the capital.