Chapter 6 – Bullying Within the Party (3)
Riv escaped to the surface, holding the unconscious Seoyun in her arms.
The place they escaped to was the Wasteland straddling the border between the Empire and the Demon Realm.
‘The Emergency Exit was supposed to be used only in truly urgent situations…….’
The original plan was to lure the party to the deepest part of the labyrinth, then return to the Demon King’s Castle with Seoyun through a Portal installed in the lower levels.
“I’ll go down.”
But now that plan had completely fallen apart.
Riv couldn’t fly for long.
Because around the Dungeon’s outskirts, the Empire’s surveillance network was densely spread to detect the Demon Race’s approach during Dungeon exploration.
Riv descended quickly.
Just before landing, she suppressed the Crimson Mana that had leaked out of her body.
The Fallen Department’s Disguise Specialist.
An advanced technique that disguises even the type and flow of Mana revealed outside the body.
Even if Seoyun was an expert in Mana manipulation, unless she directly saw the moment the Disguise was undone, it would have been difficult to identify her at once.
Moreover, Seoyun had lost consciousness.
Her memory probably stopped at the moment Riv cut off the Torture Magic.
“Seoyun.”
Riv carefully laid her on the ground.
“Seoyun, are you awake?”
“Ugh, ugh.”
Seoyun let out a groan and opened her eyes.
Her fingertips and toes still twitched uncontrollably.
“Where is this?”
“Outside the Dungeon. For now, we’ve made it to a safe place.”
Riv cast emergency healing magic.
Cold Mana swept through Seoyun’s body and temporarily stabilized the damaged circuits.
It was not a complete healing, but closer to emergency treatment that held the wounds from worsening further.
Seoyun instinctively examined Riv’s Mana flow.
Clear, calm healing-type Mana.
However, its flow was strangely smooth.
There was almost no trace of the subtle wavering that normally appeared in human Mana.
‘Her control is incredible.’
Her memory was hazy, but it seemed she had escaped from the Imperial Knights, and there had been a fight in the process.
A thought that something was suspicious crossed her mind.
But Riv had said her master was an excellent former priest.
If it was healing magic learned directly from a high-ranking priest, such precise Mana control would be possible.
Seoyun pushed away her suspicion toward the person who had saved her.
Just then,
From afar, along with a presence, she felt the movement of Mana.
The Imperial Knight Order had begun its pursuit.
“Damn, is this how it’s going to be?”
Riv bit her lip, recalling the operation she had ruined.
The anger toward the Hero’s Party from moments ago had vanished.
Despair and guilt filled its place.
“Like an idiot….”
Originally, she should have asked Seoyun about her intention to join, presented the contract terms, and even guaranteed enough time to think it over.
She had ruined all those procedures.
She was thinking that when,
“I’m sorry.”
Suddenly, Seoyun bowed her head to Riv.
“What?”
“Because I resisted Chloe… you got caught up in this too, Riv. I should have blocked the trap more thoroughly in advance.”
Riv’s eyes wavered as she looked at Seoyun.
The person who had just been tortured was apologizing first.
“No.”
Riv knelt before Seoyun.
“That path was a trap, and you clearly warned us, Seoyun.”
“But….”
“You did nothing wrong, Seoyun. You did nothing wrong at all. It’s all those guys’ fault.”
“…Do you really think I did nothing wrong?”
“Yes. Not even one thing.”
Seoyun looked at Riv as if she couldn’t believe it.
Since coming to this world, it was the first time someone had told her that so definitively.
“For now, let’s run. The Imperial Knights are chasing us.”
As Riv tried to move, Seoyun suddenly raised her head.
“It’s dangerous to go that way! I can feel Mana.”
Seoyun closed her eyes and read the surrounding flow.
“One from the east. One from the south… no, another one is coming from the south too.”
“Which side is the Imperial Knights?”
“I don’t know. They’re all strong. Are they all chasing us?”
Riv couldn’t answer.
The Mana felt from the east was definitely a signal sent by the Demon King’s Army rescue team.
But to Seoyun now, the Imperial Knight Order and the Demon King’s Army were the same.
An unidentified armed group coming to capture her.
For Riv to say it was a signal from the Demon King’s Army rescue team, she would first have to reveal her own identity.
“Not that way.”
Seoyun said, pointing east.
“A strong Mana keeps moving at regular intervals. It’s a search signal looking for us.”
“You can tell that?”
“I can see the pattern. Let’s go the opposite way for now. Riv, please… go this way.”
Seoyun pointed to the opposite side of the canyon.
Then she staggered to her feet.
“But Seoyun, if you move now!”
“Please. Trust me and follow me.”
Then she placed her hand on the ground and slightly twisted the flow of Mana.
The traces the two left behind mixed with the Mana in the ground and air, blurring in an instant.
She was manipulating the very flow of surrounding Mana to create a nonexistent escape route.
“Kuh….”
Blood flowed from Seoyun’s nose.
It was the price of forcibly using Mana with a body already near its limit.
Riv hurried to support her, but Seoyun shook her head.
“Riv, if we stop now, we’ll be caught. Trust me and follow me.”
Riv was astonished by Seoyun’s ability.
Even while wounded and exhausted, she shook the tracking network.
‘She’s kneading Mana like clay.’
Riv couldn’t help but admire her skill.
She felt she understood why Eileen wanted this person.
A genius.
There was no other way to explain it.
‘Why would the Imperial Knights treat such a precious talent like that….’
“Hurry! This way.”
The two hurriedly hid deeper in the canyon.
Shortly after, an Imperial pursuit squad in white armor passed nearby.
“The trail’s broken!”
“They can’t have gone far!”
“Commander Hadowk’s orders. Capture the Guide alive and kill the traitor!”
Chloe’s voice.
Until the sound of hoofbeats faded, the two couldn’t even breathe loudly.
Seoyun carefully stood up again.
“They’re really tracking us. We have to go.”
“If you’re tired, you can rest a little.”
“If we get caught, you’ll die, Riv. I… don’t seem to die, though.”
This time, Seoyun grabbed Riv’s hand.
“You….”
At that desperation, Riv couldn’t say anything.
The two walked through the Wasteland all night.
Seoyun read the Mana flow and chose paths without pursuit squads, while Riv kept casting healing magic to keep her body from collapsing.
But as dawn approached.
“Ah….“
Thud-
Finally, Seoyun’s legs gave out.
“Let’s rest now.”
“They’re still chasing us.”
“We still need to rest. If we keep going like this, you’ll really get hurt. You don’t have any Mana left either.”
Riv quickly spread a Barrier under a large rock.
Then she lit a small fire. A faint warmth wrapped around the two.
However,
Riv’s eyes, as she cared for Seoyun, wavered more with time.
‘Should I take out my wings and fly quickly?’
Then she could no longer hide her identity.
‘If not that, should I send a rescue signal to the rescue team?’
Seoyun would again judge that signal as belonging to the pursuit squad. She might even think Riv was trying to drag her away by force.
‘But if I reveal I’m of the Demon Race here, how would Seoyun react?’
Riv lacked field experience.
If she were alone, there were plenty of ways to escape.
But she couldn’t abandon Seoyun and leave.
Nor did she have the skill to open a long-distance Portal like Erica.
‘If only I were a little more capable….’
Sitting on a nearby rock, Riv let out a deep sigh.
Seoyun, who had been lying nearby resting, opened her eyes.
“Riv.”
Seoyun dragged herself closer to her side.
“Why are you helping me this much? We haven’t even known each other for long.”
“Th-that is.”
Approaching her at first was a mission.
Noticing her swollen ankle and carrying her tool bag for her were actions to gain her trust.
“Because you were right.”
Riv opened her mouth with difficulty.
“That safety comes first, and that the path was a trap. You were right about all of it, Seoyun.”
“Because of that?”
“No one told you that you were right. I couldn’t just stand by and watch.”
Riv carefully wrapped Seoyun’s wounds.
“I thought at least one person should tell you. That you weren’t wrong.”
Riv tried to tell her everything even now.
That she was of the Demon Race.
That she had approached Seoyun from the beginning to bring her to the Demon King’s Army.
But in the end, the words wouldn’t come out.
If Seoyun heard the truth and fled alone into the Wasteland to avoid her, surviving in her current condition would be difficult.
Keeping up the lie for safety itself felt like another excuse.
That was when.
Rustle-
A presence stirred just outside the Barrier.
Riv immediately gripped her Staff.
The detection network Seoyun had created didn’t ring.
Among the countless fake paths Riv had twisted into place, they were precisely finding the only blind spot and coming through.
‘Not an ordinary skilled person. An assassin from the Imperial Knights?’
Crrrack―
The Barrier was torn apart.
Riv gripped her Staff tighter.
“Who’s there!”
At Riv’s shout, Seoyun, resting nearby, also flinched.
From the darkness, a woman in black priestly robes walked out.
“My, my.”
The intruder entered the Barrier with a relaxed, smiling look.
“Our dear Riv has been playing hide-and-seek, even avoiding the rescue team.”
A relaxed, smiling look.
It was Erica, the Fallen Department Director.
“D-Director Erica?”
Riv’s eyes widened.
“Weren’t you on vacation?”
“I just returned… and as soon as I’m back, it’s another field trip. At this rate, I’ll really become rich.”
Erica, just back from vacation, smiled tiredly and then scanned Riv’s disheveled state.
Even while joking, Erica quickly checked Riv’s condition first.
“Where are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt. But Seoyun—”
“The medical team came too. First, let’s check you.”
Erica flicked Riv’s forehead with her finger.
“You barely have any Mana left, so why did you avoid all the rescue signals?”
“That is….”
“I trained you that on-site safety comes first. I’ll have to retrain that habit of trying to solve everything alone.”
Riv hung her head deeply.
Erica sighed and brushed the dust off Riv’s robe.
“Still, your Disguise is perfect. Even after all this chaos, not a single strand of Mana leaked, let alone wings or horns.”
The moment she heard those words.
Seoyun, who had been slowly rising inside, stopped moving.
Disguise.
Wings.
Horns.
Mana.
The small discomforts that had remained in a corner of her mind all connected at once.
‘She hid something?’
Riv’s Mana flow that had been too smooth.
The texture of healing magic that had no gaps for a human.
Mana that, as if another circuit had been layered over the surface, revealed no original core no matter how much she looked.
She had thought it was an advanced control method learned from a master who was a former priest.
However,
It was fake after all.
‘And the priest who is said to be Riv’s master is probably that priest….’
Her gaze turned to Erica.
Black priestly robes.
A priest once praised as a Saintess in the Empire, who one day vanished without a trace.
The Empire’s worst traitor, said to have sold her soul to the Demon King and Fallen.
Seoyun finally recognized the intruder’s identity.
“Priestess Erica….”
Seoyun’s hand moved toward the Dagger at her waist.
“Traitor who defected to the Demon King’s Army!”
When Seoyun drew her Dagger, Erica lightly raised both empty hands as if she had no intention of attacking.
“Traitor? I merely changed jobs fair and square.”
She glanced at Seoyun’s Dagger.
“I didn’t come to fight, so put that Dagger down. If you swing it in your current condition, you’ll only hurt yourself, Seoyun.”
Seoyun, wary of Erica, turned to look at Riv.
But Riv did not point her Staff at Erica.
Rather, she was hanging her head like someone who had committed a sin.
“Riv?”
There was no answer.
“Why are you just standing there? Was it really fake, a lie?”
“Seoyun….”
“No way.”
She had believed her, even if only for a moment.
Her betrayal—Seoyun’s voice trembled.
“Riv, you don’t mean…?”
Erica stepped one step to the side.
“You’d better hear that explanation from this person.”
Another sound of footsteps came from the darkness.
A woman walked slowly forward through the Barrier.
“It’s been a while, Seoyun.”
A familiar voice.
But her appearance was not the familiar ornate imperial dress, but a black suit easy to move in. Over it, a red coat and a small leather bag held in one hand.
And on her chest, instead of the imperial emblem, an unfamiliar name tag was attached.
[Four Heavenly Kings Eileen]
Seoyun’s eyes widened as if she couldn’t believe it.
The person standing there was the 3rd Imperial Princess, who had disappeared without a trace.
It was Eileen.