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Chapter 36
“What do you mean, it’s impossible?”
Bellakshina asked.
But the other two, Redek and Ingrid, understood exactly what Avalkin meant.
Redek lowered his head in despair and muttered,
“You already transformed today…”
He stared hopelessly down at Margareta, while Ingrid looked on the verge of fainting.
“Explain it to me. Why can’t you turn into a unicorn? You even saved that dying child earlier.”
“That’s precisely why.”
Avalkin spoke with a pained expression.
“I can only become a unicorn once a day. I can’t transform again until dawn.”
“…!”
Only then did Bellakshina understand the situation.
The unicorn’s magic — powerful enough to save even someone on the brink of death — could only be used once a day.
Well, it was far too powerful a gift to be used freely whenever one wished.
“If we can just keep her alive until tomorrow, I can save her.”
Avalkin said it, but he knew as well as anyone how difficult that would be.
Water hemlock was a deadly poison. Depending on the amount consumed, most victims did not survive past a single day. And in cases like Margareta’s, where she had already lost consciousness, it meant several hours had already passed since ingestion.
“Oh, Margareta! To think you’d leave us like this!”
Ingrid had already begun wailing as though Margareta were dead.
A heavy, helpless silence settled over the room, and Bellakshina stood there feeling strangely lost.
‘She’s going to die?’
Just earlier that day, she had still been alive.
A girl not even twenty yet — a maiden who perfectly fit the phrase “a flower bud not yet bloomed.”
It wasn’t entirely incomprehensible. Margareta had lost her future overnight and suffered heartbreak besides. Anyone might despair under such circumstances.
But Bellakshina still couldn’t accept this situation as real.
Die? That child was going to die?
“No.”
Bellakshina spoke as though entranced.
Even she couldn’t believe how shaken she was.
“No, this isn’t right. Something’s wrong. Is there really no way? Not even one?”
Even knowing it wasn’t really her place — that she, the person least connected to Margareta, had no right to press them like this — Bellakshina grabbed Avalkin and shook him.
“Water hemlock has no antidote.”
“I know that too!”
But even so… how could everyone accept this so easily?
‘Easily?’
At that moment, Bellakshina finally realized why Avalkin, Ingrid, and Redek were all accepting death so readily.
‘These people have experienced this before.’
For whatever reason, they had seen too many young lives — lives that should never have died yet — slip through their fingers like sand.
That was why they didn’t react as Bellakshina did, as though this were something impossible.
To them, this was simply a tragedy.
A tragedy for which sorrow was the only answer.
Bellakshina collapsed weakly to the floor and stared at Margareta’s face.
But how could she give up?
The girl was still alive — still trembling, still choking for breath.
“If Margareta can just hold on a few more hours, there might be a way…”
Avalkin bit his lip painfully.
“Then all we can do is pray for a miracle.”
Redek’s lonely murmur struck Bellakshina like a hammer.
A miracle.
A miracle.
‘…I have the power of miracles.’
Her heart raced frantically and her trembling body felt as unstable as a duet played out of sync. Bellakshina abruptly rose to her feet.
“…Wait. I’ll be back.”
“What? Right now?”
“Don’t go anywhere. Stay here. We can’t afford to miss each other.”
“Where are you suddenly going—”
“Answer me! Understood?”
Forcing a reply out of Avalkin, Bellakshina dashed off recklessly.
She vaguely remembered falling once or twice along the way, scraping her palms against the wall as she caught herself, but it all blurred together.
“My lady?”
“Where are you rushing off to?”
“Later!”
Bellakshina was searching for only one thing.
A book.
In the center of the lady of the manor’s room, a lavishly decorated book was thrown open.
She overturned a pouch of gold coins onto its pages.
The original twenty-four gold, plus another one hundred and twelve.
A total of one hundred and thirty-six gold.
“System! Hurry! Come out already!”
[What’s wrong all of a sudden?]
“Do you have an antidote for water hemlock? Or anything that can slow the symptoms!”
Sensing the urgency of the situation, the System silently flipped through the pages.
Bellakshina clasped her hands together and prayed.
‘Please, please…’
[There is!]
“How much? Can I afford it?”
[Wait. Water hemlock contains cicutoxin — even in my world there’s no antidote for it. The best you can do is slow the symptoms. Ugh, it’d be faster if I just made something new.]
The System rapidly tapped at the air with its fingers.
“Electrolytes, anticonvulsants, activated charcoal…” it muttered under its breath, though Bellakshina understood none of it.
[Done!]
Then a new page appeared.
Water Hemlock Poison Relief Potion – 136 GOLD (Not Covered by Insurance)
Reduces the toxicity of water hemlock, slows absorption, and minimizes the patient’s convulsions, respiratory distress, and cardiovascular effects.
Effect: Overall reduction of poisoning symptoms. Duration: 2 hours 42 minutes.
One hundred and thirty-six gold.
Exactly the amount Bellakshina possessed.
[Normally it would cost more, but I reduced the quantity to match the money you have. The duration is shorter because of it, but this is the best I can do right now.]
Bellakshina nodded.
“I’ll buy it.”
The moment she finished speaking, a round potion bottle appeared in her hand.
Relief washed over her, but she didn’t let herself relax. The crisis wasn’t over yet.
She immediately turned and ran.
“Hah… hah…!”
Her breath burned in her throat.
Bellakshina had never run this fast or this long in her life.
Just as her vision began to blur yellow and her strength started giving out, she spotted Avalkin at the far end of the corridor. It seemed he had come looking for her.
“Here!”
Bellakshina practically threw the potion at him.
“Make her drink it!”
The instant Avalkin caught the potion, Bellakshina collapsed onto the floor. Understanding the urgency, Avalkin sprinted back toward Margareta as fast as he could.
“Haa…”
Her head throbbed from lack of oxygen.
Sitting carelessly in the middle of the corridor, Bellakshina gasped for breath and prayed.
Please. Please let it work.
“O Lord of the Throne of Light who upholds the dignity of the heavens, with your merciful radiance drive away the shadows from this dark land and illuminate the abandoned soul…”
Bellakshina, who never normally sought the gods, desperately cried out their names in prayer.
Dawn broke.
Margareta drank the potion, and it worked.
The death that had crept over her like sleep during the dark night vanished with the sunrise.
When the unicorn’s aurora-colored magic brushed over Margareta’s trembling eyelids like a curtain—
As though by a true miracle, she opened her eyes.
“Margareta! Are you awake?”
Her blurry vision distorted the world into smears of color, but she could still recognize the warmth holding her hand and her grandmother’s voice ringing in her ears.
“Yes…”
It was barely audible, but everyone sighed in relief.
“You foolish girl! How could you do such a thing? How could you, how could you!”
Though Ingrid struck Margareta repeatedly, there was no strength in her blows.
Feeling the worry and relief in her grandmother’s touch, tears welled up in Margareta’s eyes.
“I’m sorry…”
After clinging to Ingrid for some time, Margareta finally noticed the others nearby.
“I apologize for causing trouble.”
She looked in turn at Redek, Avalkin, and Bellakshina.
Strangely enough, Bellakshina looked the worst out of all of them.
Her skirt was torn, her face covered in dust, and her hair completely disheveled.
“She’s the one who saved you.”
Avalkin said.
“…What?”
Margareta looked confused.
Not only was Bellakshina practically a stranger to her, she was also the very person Margareta had picked fights with.
And yet she had saved her life.
“She was the one who brought the medicine that slowed the effects of the poison. Without the few hours that potion bought us, we wouldn’t even have had the chance to try unicorn magic. You would’ve crossed the Angelus Mountains long before then. So thank her.”
At those words, a chill ran through Margareta.
‘…I almost crossed the Angelus Mountains.’
According to the long-held beliefs of the Elampsis faith, when a person dies, their soul crosses the Angelus Mountains into the World of Light.
“Th-thank you very much, my lady.”
Margareta bowed her head deeply.
Bellakshina wanted to answer with her usual sharp sarcasm, but somehow she just couldn’t bring herself to today.
She was simply too happy that Margareta had survived.
So she spoke very gently.
“If you dare pull a stunt like this again, I’ll whip you until you beg me to kill you. Keep that in mind.”
…Only her tone was gentle.
As if he had expected nothing less, Avalkin pressed a hand to his forehead.
“You truly don’t know how to say anything honestly, do you? Is that really what you say to a girl who just came back from death’s door?”
“Hmph.”
Bellakshina crossed her arms viciously and turned her head away.
On her face were fresh scratches that hadn’t yet healed.
‘When I saw her earlier today, her skin was smooth and flawless like white jade.’
How desperately must she have rushed?
How little regard must she have had for herself?
It was easy to picture exactly what kind of effort that delicately raised noble lady had gone through for her sake.
Margareta lowered her head as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I will never waste the life that my lady saved.”
