21 - I Healed the Male Lead's Trauma
Episode 21
4. A Senior's Guidance is Needed for a Junior (6)
Don't come? What nonsense.
I didn't have the luxury to keep worrying about that strange magical power or Kashiel's dissuasion.
Ignoring Kashiel, who was trying to hold me back, I rushed towards Akteon.
It was fortunate that the students here were quick to respond to issues related to Evolved Beings.
In response to the sudden situation, an upperclassman immediately ran off to call the medical staff.
The faculty members who had been conducting the entrance ceremony also hurriedly gathered around Akteon to assess his condition.
Among them, a familiar professor stepped forward.
"I'll take a look first."
He was a Guide in charge of Guiding-related classes, a B-rank like me, but renowned for his meticulous control in stabilizing magical power.
From Akteon's breathing to the pulse near his neck and heart, where the flow of magical power could be felt most clearly.
After checking, the professor immediately made a diagnosis.
"This is a Second Manifestation. But something is strange."
"Strange...?"
The voice that interrupted was someone I knew too.
It was my supervising professor.
"That requires a more detailed examination..."
"...I see. Guiding is the priority now."
Entering Guiding right here was dangerous.
There was no Control Stone Bracelet or anything else. So, permission was granted to move him to the Garden of Oath first.
Some quickly searched for a stretcher or disappeared towards the Garden of Oath.
Meanwhile, Akteon struggled, even with his consciousness fading.
He clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw looked like it would break.
When I Guided Akteon back then, his emotions had flooded into me.
I wondered if I could help, so I reached out my hand, but then withdrew it. There were too many eyes watching to do it here.
As I barely managed to gather my own senses while he was trying to control his magical power with his remaining reason, someone approached from the side.
"Hiakin."
"That guy, he seemed strange since this morning. I thought he was unusually nervous or just seasick like you."
Even though they didn't get along, Hiakin seemed concerned, unable to continue easily.
No.
I myself had vaguely noticed that he wasn't in good condition early on.
But with his Second Manifestation coming up, I didn't want to be too sensitive, so I dismissed it as nothing out of the ordinary.
Because I didn't want to get involved and die.
'...No, I won't die.'
Akteon's First Manifestation changed, didn't it?
I, who shouldn't have been in Brondearne, was there, and I helped with Akteon's sudden First Manifestation like today.
I already saved him once, so it can't be impossible to do it twice.
'And I don't want to push others in my place like that anymore.'
I recalled the thought I had as soon as I met Milia.
I didn't want to put someone else in a life-or-death situation in my place just because I was going to die.
It's not like all the events have to follow the original story. Just because he is the protagonist doesn't mean he won't die.
There were things I wanted to change but couldn't.
That was my desire not to regret.
Perhaps Liliope in the original story felt the same way.
'...Let's get a grip.'
In less than five minutes, the medical staff arrived inside the auditorium.
Among them were a couple of researchers, who, while the medical staff was talking to Kashiel, checked Akteon's Control Stone Bracelet.
Annoying, this isn't the time for that.
We need to move him to the Garden of Oath first.
I was about to speak to the two researchers, unable to wait any longer.
When an unexpected change occurred.
"Wait, I think I just saw a crack in the Control Stone..."
"A crack? It's supposed to suppress magical power beyond a certain level, how could..."
At the same time, the two researchers turned pale.
They jumped up and shouted.
"Evacuate the remaining personnel immediately!"
As the people inside the auditorium began to flee outside, a dense magical power spread rapidly throughout the building.
It felt similar to what I had felt before... like a drop of black ink falling into clear water, helplessly swept away.
Before he could even be moved to the Garden of Oath, Akteon's Second Manifestation had begun.
"Liliope!"
Someone grabbed my wrist as I rushed towards Akteon without hesitation.
"Are you crazy? You'll die if you get caught up in that!"
It was Hiakin, who was nearby.
I was so overwhelmed by his words that I tried to shout that there must be a way.
But before I could even utter a word, my vision went dark with a dull impact that struck my neck.
Did he just knock me out?
I wanted to be angry, but I couldn't.
As my body, unable to maintain its balance, collapsed, I caught a glimpse of Kashiel in my fading vision.
...His hands were trembling.
* * *
The feeling of being forcibly cut off from consciousness and then waking up is indescribably terrible.
It felt like someone had arbitrarily opened my head and flipped a switch I didn't know about to make me regain consciousness.
An unpleasant pain echoed in my head, causing me to groan involuntarily.
'What's going on...?'
It was daytime before I lost consciousness, but it was already dusk.
Damn it, no wonder it was cold.
I grabbed something in my hand and saw that it was a white school uniform jacket.
It didn't seem like Hiakin's, so was it Kashiel's?
As I struggled to gather my flickering senses, the surrounding noise came to me first.
"Currently, all the high-ranking Guides in the school are stationed at the base, so the number of personnel we can mobilize is limited."
"You're saying there's no one! So the highest rank we can mobilize right now is B-rank? B-rank is the best option we have?"
The angry shouting made my head throb, even just waking up.
As my vision finally cleared, I realized that the one shouting was the headmaster of this school, an officer trusted by the Crown Prince.
His evaluation of B-ranks is harsh.
Clicking my tongue, I raised my upper body and was able to figure out where I was. It was the open space right in front of the main building where Akteon was.
It wasn't a place used for training purposes, so the grass was lush.
Officials and some upperclassmen stood on the blue grass, watching the situation in the main building.
They're all Guides.
Like the headmaster, most of the upperclassmen were people I already knew.
Perhaps that's why I woke up here instead of the annex I use as an emergency shelter.
'Still, there was no need to call the students, right? When it comes to Guiding, professors are better than students with less stabilization experience.'
Besides, it didn't make sense that Hiakin and Kashiel left me alone.
The guys who knocked me out to stop me from running in left me in front of the main building?
But soon I was able to find out what happened directly.
"The response has stopped! Professor Heshion's magical power is no longer detected...!"
Professor Heshion was the one who had first examined Akteon's magical power flow earlier.
He had outstanding skills and experience, enough to be in charge of all Guiding-related classes.
He was evaluated as having higher capabilities than even an A-rank when it came to stabilizing the magical power of Transcendent Beings, but the fact that his response had stopped meant...
'...He's dead.'
I gasped as my heart sank.
Before I could cover my mouth, 'I' came to mind.
Even though I didn't want to think about it, the 'I' in the original story who died in the same situation.
With all the high-ranking personnel being dispatched to the front lines, the news that even the most outstanding Guide had died spread quickly.
The headmaster's panicked response and the resulting agitation of the faculty were directly transmitted to the students below them.
Anxiety settled on the faces of the students classified as Guides.
It was natural.
Everyone, including me, knew it.
Now that the best Guide had died, we would inevitably have to go inside, whether we wanted to or not.
'...Damn it.'
This wasn't good.
Unless an S-rank like Milia appeared among the First Manifestation Evolved Beings, they would try to hold down Akteon's magical power by sheer numbers.
Until high-ranking Guides came as support from the surrounding research institutes and the capital.
'And in that process, there will be more victims.'
I got up and tried to calm my quickening breath.
...The reason why Akteon is classified as an S-rank.
That was because of the way he handled magical power.
Most Transcendent Beings draw natural magical power and transform it into miraculous power through their bodies.
The Transcendent Being's body itself acts as a kind of magical power filter.
The magical power that the Transcendent Being draws in is refined into a weapon inside the body and expressed externally, taking the form of fire, water, lightning, or other powers depending on the characteristics of the Transcendent Being.
But Akteon's case is a little different.
He didn't need to imitate such natural disasters.
He simply materialized his own or natural magical power so that it could be seen.
The materialized magical power transformed into a form like mineral or gemstone crystals.
The fact that he could freely manipulate these crystallized magical powers was Akteon's most frightening ability.
The crystallized form of countless magical powers was sharper, more threatening, and more beautiful than any weapon in the world.
Because he had a natural ability to tear apart everything around him and devastate the area.
He could instantly grind people to dust with a single gesture.
'And right now, this academy is in danger of becoming like that.'
If we had been able to safely use the Control Stones in the Garden of Oath, such a worst-case scenario wouldn't have happened.
But that place was an empty auditorium with nothing to suppress Akteon's magical power except Guiding.
In the end, we're back to square one.
The efforts I made to avoid dying were useless.
After straightening my disheveled clothes, I was about to step forward to the headmaster when someone firmly blocked me.
"What are you trying to do?"
It was Kashiel, his eyes wide.
He must have remained here because he was Akteon's only family in the academy.
"What, why are you still here? What about Hiakin?"
"The professors cleared out all the First Manifestation Evolved Beings to the annex because they're not helpful."
Oh, dear, he must be sulking badly by now.
I could picture him arguing vehemently.
"...I don't know what you're trying to do, but just stay still. It's easy enough to sneak you out..."
"Kashiel."
I cut him off.
He wasn't the type to listen to reason with gentle persuasion.
"Stop being stubborn."
As I took a firm stance, his eyes turned cold.
He's quick-witted, so he must have realized that they were going to gather the Guides in the school and send them inside.
But even if he was a Brondearne, it would be impossible to sneak out a Guide in this situation, but he didn't seem to want to move.
It was obvious why he was trying to stop me so much.
The dead Claire Brondeahrn and the Guide who died because of her must have flashed through his mind.
It was both funny and frustrating that both he and I couldn't hide our anxiety.
"I told you, you accept reality too easily. What's the point of coming back saying you know what to do if you're the same as before, getting annoyed at me?"
"So? A professor has already died. What are you going to do by going in there? Just die a dog's death?"
"I've already Guided Akteon once."
I calmly retorted to him, who was bursting with anger, but Kashiel didn't care.
He bit his lip and grabbed my shoulder.
