The West Wind's Destination - Chapter 4
BOOM! CRASH!
While the bombs seemed to fall randomly, a careful observation revealed a certain pattern. Particularly, they seemed to be avoiding to damage a small area, so Bea slowly shifted her position.
Rather than recklessly trying to escape and risking capture by an alchemist, Bea decided it was better to seek a safe haven. She hurriedly ran towards that area.
And there, she ended up facing them — the very perpetrators of the bombardment that had attacked the trading company.
“A slave, huh.”
It was only then that she realized she had taken the completely wrong path.
A red-haired individual at the forefront gazed down at Bea, or more precisely, at the rod she held.
“What’s that in your hand?”
“It’s… it’s nothing.”
His eyes narrowed.
“People don’t just carry ‘nothing’ of importance with them.”
“…I picked it up because it looked valuable.”
“Hmm.”
Whatever appealed to him in her answer, he seemed intrigued.
“You a mage?”
“No.”
“I thought not.”
Mages were special people born with innate magical powers. They didn’t hide their identity as mages. Being overwhelmingly powerful, they were always confident, never reduced to a miserable state of slavery like this.
“So you’re not a mage, yet you boldly picked up something that looked valuable even after seeing that huge transmutation circle above.”
“…”
“How did you find this place?”
“…”
Bea tensed up. Fearing that one wrong word might lead to her death, she carefully chose her words before replying.
“I noticed where the bombs weren’t falling and came here.”
“Ahh, you figured it out by watching the array, did you.”
“…”
“An uneducated slave, no less.”
He scrutinized Bea, then his gaze fell to her feet, stained with blood from stepping through the carnage.
“I almost missed something useful. Follow me.”
His command, spoken as if obedience was a foregone conclusion, left no room for refusal. She had nowhere else to go anyway.
Afterward, Bea came to call him her ‘master’.
❖
Bea had a talent for alchemy. Above all, her lack of emotional fluctuations allowed her to perceive situations as they were, which was her greatest gift.
Learning alchemy from her master and roaming the battlefields, Bea even earned her own nickname. Not only did she no longer starve, but her life changed as she gained her master’s trust.
However, it didn’t last long.
The Empire and the coalition of imperial mages, annoyed by alchemists roaming the world, launched a massive purge. Especially, the alchemists’ practice of using just any human for experiments provided a significant justification.
The mages brought out a special weapon, even feared by the alchemists, and its effectiveness severely weakened the alchemists’ forces, including Bea’s master.
In the midst of the battlefield, Bea lost her master and suddenly found herself alone again.
The long-standing war between mages and alchemists came to an end with the death of her master, known to be one of the most vicious of them all.
Bea fled.
While everyone else enjoyed the peace and prosperity that followed the chaotic era, Bea, in her solitude, withered away.
Her master was dead.
—Protect yourself from all threats.
That was the only duty her master had given Bea on the last battlefield.
Bea had failed to fulfill it. Overwhelmed by the chaos, she retreated from the world, hiding herself away. As a fearful year passed and several tumultuous seasons followed, Bea watched the snow and rain moisten the earth numerous times, yet her life remained parched.
Then one day, realizing no one was pursuing her and no one remembered her, Bea ended her wandering.
She seemed to have found a way to accomplish the last task given by her master.
The greatest threat to any living being was death. If she could pull her master from the clutches of death, then she could fulfill her duty.
According to her master’s teachings, an alchemist could create anything. Be it a magical device that allows ordinary people to use magic or a chimera that defies the natural order crafted by the gods.
Why should her master’s life be any different?
Some say that human bodies and souls are special and that resurrecting people is something that should never be done.
And how are people any different from animals? After all, Bea had lived her life treated as less than livestock, a mere slave.
Mages were contradictory. If human lives were so precious, then they should have abolished slavery first and foremost.
Bea made up her mind.
She would resurrect her master.
Once she had decided, her progress was swift. Most of her life was spent in her master’s shadow, and the rest hiding, but finding a place to immerse herself in research was not difficult. She used everything at her disposal to create a space-distorting barrier and set up a makeshift laboratory.
And there, Bea devoted herself to research, barely eating enough to fend off hunger and hardly sleeping to keep herself upright.
She lost track of when the sun set or the moon rose. While the seasons changed markedly outside, inside Bea’s barrier, it seemed as if time had stopped, immune to such changes.
It was when she thought she had made some progress in her research.
Clang!
An ominous noise that should have never occurred disrupted her research.
The strong barrier Bea had constructed was breached. The barrier could never be penetrated unless someone would forcibly shatter it with a magical device.
