The West Wind's Destination - Chapter 10
For days on end, one hovered between life and death while the other recalculated, amended, and re-adjusted the alchemical arrays. Bea ignored the blood dripping from her nose due to excessive concentration; even the time to wipe it away felt precious.
When she finally created a perfectly fitting organ, she felt the tension that had gripped her entire body release.
Blankly observing the organ pulsate and move, Bea opened and restitched the body back together. Her hands trembled from the prolonged focus. There might be scars this time, but the sense of accomplishment from the successful completion uplifted her spirits.
How long had Bea been lost in her creation when Aseph, far more resilient in spirit and body, managed to rise after the anesthesia wore off?
The moment their mismatched eyes met again, Bea laughed involuntarily.
“Ha ha……”
It was partly because the successful result was right before her eyes, and partly because she felt a step closer to resurrecting her master.
And she quite liked the eyes looking back at her. They were pretty, after all.
Bea, with blood-stained hands, gently caressed the dazed Aseph’s face, then collapsed onto his body and passed out.
The tension sustained within her for several days had finally dissipated.
❖
Bea struggled to open her eyes. With a throbbing pain as if her eyeballs were being squeezed, the ceiling spun round and round. It felt like someone was wringing her head like a rag.
Reaching up to her throbbing forehead, she found a damp cloth laid on it. Only then did Bea realize she was burning with a severe fever.
She had felt close to death many times before, but even though she wasn’t on a battlefield, it felt like she was about to die right then and there.
As Bea moved and the cloth slid off, Aseph, who was beside her, re-soaked it in cold water and laid it back on her forehead.
It was too cold. Chilling.
“Take it off.”
Bea, shivering, brushed off the cloth from her forehead.
“You have a fever. Just bear with it a little.”
“Ugh… go away, leave.”
Already in poor nutritional state, Bea’s body had further deteriorated after being overworked for several days. Finally, it seemed to have reached its limit and shut down.
Aseph wiped her sweat with another cloth and touched her ear.
Bea’s body tended to swell when she had a fever, and her ears and nape, particularly swollen from the intense heat, were getting puffier.
Aseph brushed Bea’s hair behind her ear and inadvertently touched the earcuff she always wore.
“Just hold on, I’ll remove this for a moment. Your body is swollen. You might get hurt.”
“Don’t— ugh.”
Bea tried to protest, but his hand was quicker. The item wasn’t a mere ear cuff; it was a hearing aid for Bea’s impaired hearing. Once it was removed, sounds became muffled and indistinct.
With her head spinning, vision blurring, and now her hearing impaired, Bea was suddenly gripped with fear.
“Ah, uh…….”
She felt more tormented now than when she had been in the thick of war.
Losing balance in one ear, fear surged through her instantly.
As a child, when she had mistakenly ingested something toxic.
Hovering near death, utterly alone, crawling through the streets. She survived only to be transported as a slave.
That distant, dreadful sensation returned. Bea, startled by the cold compress touching her again, pushed it away.
“No, ah…!”
Everything touching her felt too cold, and her body shivered uncontrollably. Desperately seeking warmth, she tried to pull a blanket over herself, but the man interfered.
“You can’t. The fever…”
“Go, go away!”
Bea, already in poor nutritional health, had pushed her body too far over the past few days, leading to a complete breakdown. She hit and struggled against the man trying to restrain her, but quickly exhausted herself. Lying face down on the bed, gasping for breath, Bea faintly saw the man rise and leave the room.
Dizzy and nauseous, she closed her eyes, feeling the room spin from the fever.
Thinking that taking a fever reducer through alchemy might help, Bea groaned and tried to get up, only to feel the world spinning and collapsing back onto the bed.
“Ugh……”
While trembling and unable to rise, someone lifted her up.
It was Aseph, whom she had thought had left.
He held her and poured something into her mouth. It was a bitter-tasting fever reducer. Her body tried to accept it, but her quivering teeth clinked against the container, making it hard to drink properly.
Instead, Aseph drank the medicine directly, then quickly pressed his lips to hers.
“Mmph!”
Bea reflexively raised her hand, but this time she couldn’t strike him. She just tightly gripped his shoulder.
Using his tongue to carefully transfer the medicine without spilling, Aseph repeated the action until Bea had swallowed enough of it.
