6 - Marquis Maron Episode 6
Episode 6
That night, we spread out the map Reikart had given us and held a meeting until dawn. What to buy, how much to buy. What was most urgent, how to bring it back.
Every time we solved one problem, another one popped up. Doraji's order to buy all the seeds in the world was rejected because of me being stuck in the Magic Brazier.
To bring the Magic Brazier, we had to minimize other luggage. I was strong for a human, but not as strong as an ox.
Minimum spices and wheat seeds, and hunting tools. Herbs and writing materials. And….
That's how the morning dawned.
"Be careful. Sorceress Hayley is a bit dim-witted, so don't pick up anything, help anyone, or follow anyone."
"Do you think I'm an idiot?"
"I'm sorry."
So, she did think I was an idiot.
After telling Doraji, who was bowing her head in apology, to just focus on growing potatoes, I spoke to Reikart, who had been silently watching us from the side.
"Lead the way."
Reikart Winter was a worn-out man.
When his family was destroyed by the evil Sorceress Hayley, he vowed revenge on her.
It was a sense of duty. He had to.
The 'perfect successor' created by the Winter Dukedom, he was a man driven by duty and responsibility, not sadness or loss.
Revenge was his last mission.
Hayley didn't go down easily. He wasn't the only one after her. They knew nothing about the forbidden magic Hayley used, so they were always helpless.
That's why many gave up. There were even crazy people who argued that Hayley should be recognized as the first Black Wizard and her magic should be accepted as a separate school.
Reikart didn't give up.
Revenge was the end of his life. He knew that once he killed Hayley, he would die soon after.
Some days he wanted to kill her, and other days he didn't. Some days he hated her with a passion, and other days he stayed up all night wondering what kind of person she was.
At some point, Reikart began to feel that challenging Hayley for revenge was a natural part of his daily life.
She always defeated him but never killed him. It would have been annoying for her that he kept challenging her, but she didn't avoid him and faced him silently.
"Why do you keep me alive?"
"So I don't forget what I did."
"Why? Do even someone like you feel guilt?"
"Would you like it if I did?"
With each failure, the sense of duty that had dominated him faded, leaving only curiosity about her.
It was ridiculous. She was the object of his revenge, but for the first time in his life, he wanted to know about someone else.
Time passed.
Hayley, who eventually murdered the King of Holt, was captured by the crown prince. The judges of the three kingdoms argued for hanging and burning, but the Order stepped in and insisted that Hayley should be thrown into the Contaminated Zone.
She was reportedly abandoned at Maron Keep under the escort of Order Paladins.
He couldn't believe it. That woman, who seemed impossible to kill, was not only captured by the Holt crown prince but even abandoned at Maron Keep?
Reikart had to choose.
Enter the Contaminated Zone, take revenge on Hayley, and die himself, or forget everything and live on.
It took him a full year to make that choice.
At first, he tried to forget her and live on. Normally, like others. He dreamed of forgetting his family, changing his name, and living a day-to-day life.
But Reikart was already too worn out, and nothing was left in his life if he excluded revenge.
Reikart realized.
He had no 'self'.
So he chose.
To kill Sorceress Hayley and die.
But then.
This woman couldn't be that evil sorceress.
"Who are you?"
Even as he was dying, tainted by the Magical Energy of the Contaminated Zone, he couldn't help but ask. The same face, the same appearance, yet he was suspicious.
Pale skin like white snow, a weak, staggering gait, an excessively thin body like a dry twig.
Bare feet, a simple dress, and a roughly woven straw hat.
When she found him, she screamed with a frightened face, and when he reached out his hand, she flinched and closed her eyes tightly.
Who is she? Is she not Hayley?
I didn't mean to scare you.
He lost consciousness as he tried to explain.
A lukewarm hand touched the back of his neck. He could tell it was that woman's hand even with his eyes closed.
The woman knew his name. Reikart Winter. She called him by his exact name and began to purify the Magical Energy.
A miraculous vitality returned to his body, which had been defiled to the point of death. Clean blood flowed from his heart, which he thought had hardened and stopped. Warmth returned to his cold body.
It sounds ridiculous, but at that moment, Reikart felt reborn. His past self died and disappeared, and a completely new life began.
All the terrible Magical Energy that had been in Reikart's body was absorbed into her body. Even after absorbing so much Magical Energy, she was not tainted in the slightest.
She still looked at him with a face like a white orchid and said.
I am the savior of your life.
Seeing her up close, she looked even more unbelievably helpless. There was not a trace of malice in her clear eyes. She worked with wrists that seemed like they would break, and lived with a small Tree Sprite.
Is she not Hayley?
Could there be another person with the same face?
The woman standing before him was not 'the evil Sorceress Hayley' but 'another Hayley who was falsely accused and imprisoned in Maron Keep'.
Since he couldn't figure out her identity, he became careful with his words. Asking her name, asking if she lived here, repeatedly asking if she was the one who healed him, didn't change anything.
He had been saved. By Hayley Maron.
Soon after, it rained. A clear rain that didn't suit the contaminated land. Even though the outside was still full of dirty Magical Energy, she said that life was beautiful.
She took off her straw hat and smiled, facing the rain with her bare face. It was a smile like the heat haze of late spring.
That image was etched into his mind as a single scene.
It was the first peace Reikart had ever experienced.
After looking around the purified Maron Keep, he went inside and found Hayley sitting on the bare kitchen floor, doing something.
Her small, thin hands moved busily. She was struggling to light a fire, holding a fist-sized stone with arms that looked like they would break if touched.
It was obvious at a glance that she was clumsy. He had never seen anyone use a flint like that.
When he asked what she was doing, she said she was lighting a fire.
With a very bright face, too.
Reikart then realized.
This woman, she must have lost her memory.
He didn't know how Sorceress Hayley could purify the contamination with a body that had lost its Mana, but she must be living here, having lost her past memories.
She was amazed by the dagger he took out, and even though she was the world's greatest sorceress, she didn't even know what a Magic Brazier was.
Is this woman really the object of my revenge?
Is it really right to condemn this child-like person, who knows nothing, by bringing up a past mistake that she doesn't even remember?
He was confused.
Everyone in the Winter family was dead. They were wiped out in a war-like battle between families, tricked by the cunning tactics of Sorceress Hayley.
Although they were people he hated, he came all the way here believing that it was his responsibility as the last survivor to honor their spirits.
To the woman who was eating sugar-glazed meat and tearing up, saying that she had never eaten anything so delicious.
Revenge?
The goal of his life had disappeared. It suddenly disappeared before his eyes. As if such a person had never existed from the beginning.
Then what should I do now?
Reikart couldn't easily accept the fact that the goal of his life had disappeared, and he couldn't bring himself to swing his sword at Hayley, rejecting it.
It was all in vain. All that long training and repeated defeats. He whipped himself to not lose his desire for revenge, and he associated with those who denounced her as an evil person. The more terribly they cursed her, the more justified his existence became.
But he was saved by such a person.
'I should watch her.'
He decided.
This might be an opportunity. He needed time to stay by her side for a while and judge whether his heart was right, or whether their words were right.
