The West Wind's Destination - Chapter 51
After listening to Aseph, Bea remained silent for a while.
Following the continued clinking sounds, Bea quietly opened her mouth.
“Do you know why an alchemist is called an alchemist?”
“To make gold?”
“Yes.”
It would be more accurate to say they are people who pursue the making of gold.
Bea spoke without stopping her hands from making the magic tool.
“It’s because we need money.”
Alchemists weren’t noble people. They weren’t like aristocrats sitting in towers made of gold, haughtily looking down on everyone else. If they were, they wouldn’t be digging the earth with their hands or rummaging through corpses to find something useful.
They wouldn’t kill for a piece of bread or a drop of water.
“We’re just trying to survive.”
People attribute too much meaning to the actions of alchemists.
Rebels aiming to overturn the class system created by mages. Villains who wish to rule humanity through fear. Pleasure killers who satisfy their desires by rummaging through corpses at night… People wanted to judge the emerging force of alchemists in such a direction. To some extent, they were right.
However, alchemists always emerged in barren areas. The first tools made by those with a bit of knowledge were of a limited variety.
To somehow gather and store scarce water.
To look for any organic matter underground that could slightly satisfy nutritional needs.
No matter where they went, they never parted with those basic survival tools. Like Bea, who carries magic tools for detecting organic matter underground and gathering water.
The magic tools alchemists always carry are just of that kind. It wasn’t to save someone else. They were just desperate results of trying to survive themselves.
“It’s just an act of trying to live. It’s not something grand.”
Bea’s expression as she said this was as dry as a desert. Just like the homeland where Bea was born.
“You…”
But rather Aseph, because of that, couldn’t take his eyes off her.
When the people of the mansion first saw Bea and said she seemed like a typical alchemist, Aseph had disagreed. Aseph knew the kind of impression alchemists had in public.
However, if alchemists were those kinds of people as Bea described, then Bea Westwind was the most alchemist-like person Aseph had ever seen.
Born in the West, the personification of the west wind who endlessly fueled the flame in his heart.
“When you fixed me, broken as I was, you must have had that expression.”
When she saved him, torn and dying, she must have been focused on one thing day and night with that face. The face he saw faintly while hovering between life and death, the image of Bea he had only imagined, became even clearer.
“You say it’s nothing, but perhaps it’s the dry wind like you that spreads the fire more easily.”
Bea lifted her head. Maintaining her usual expressionless face, she opened her mouth as if stating something all too obvious.
“Low humidity is a good environment for a fire to start, yes.”
Aseph’s eyes widened, then he softened his expression and smiled gently.
“You’ve already set a fire in my drenched heart.”
“…”
Bea stared at Aseph’s face for a while before finally speaking.
“Your words are hard to understand.”
Aseph couldn’t help but laugh at Bea’s all-too-characteristic response, forgetting the seriousness of the situation for a moment.
Sometimes, even a man in love needs to set aside romantic rhetoric.
“Bea, I have a lot of money. If you marry me, all of it will become yours too.”
“…What are you suddenly talking about?”
“I’ve been pondering about how to win your heart.”
Bea’s gaze wavered as she looked at Aseph.
“Did my words finally have some effect?”
“That’s absurd.”
No matter what Aseph thought, Bea soon frowned and bowed her head again. That expression was more comforting to Aseph than anything else.
❖
The rescue operation, proceeding steadily, picked up pace with the arrival of the people Aseph had called in advance. Most of those who arrived on the scene were knights, but there were also a few mages and alchemists among them.
While the Frieblanda Empire was a nation of mages and the western part of the empire was a breeding ground for alchemists, Vilkanos, situated between a massive mountain range, was neither here nor there.
It was a mix of mages who had been pushed out of the imperial social circles and alchemists who had moved to Vilkanos for a chance to make money where they were less ostracized. Originally, these groups wouldn’t have encountered each other in such a severe disaster scene if the guardian of Vilkanos hadn’t called them.
Though the war between mages and alchemists had ended, the emotional rift between them hadn’t been bridged yet.
However, strictly speaking, Vilkanos was as good as the final victor of that war. Regardless of their strained relations, they couldn’t afford to squabble here, so they pretended not to know each other and helped with the rescue operation.
While mages conducted the excavation work with their powerful magic, the alchemists, following Bea’s instructions, crafted magic tools to assist them. The alchemists, who had been floundering just looking at the magic tool formulas, quickly got the hang of it after Bea corrected them. However, they found Bea very strange or puzzling.
Working in tense silence, the atmosphere among them only began to thaw a little when the first survivor was rescued. Thanks to various reasons, the stiff atmosphere softened somewhat.
“Did you say your name is Bea? You seem very young but know a lot.”
“I’ve never seen anyone explain things so easily before.”
“…”
“Are you from the West? The tools you use seemed exactly like the Western style.”
Bea glanced at them briefly and did not respond.
If it was a question about magic tools, she answered fluently, but the moment they asked something personal, Bea’s mouth would shut tight.
