Lina steadied herself at the revelation. Her body still trembled faintly from exhaustion, but her mind kept working. Thinking was easier than resting. Thinking felt safe. She brushed her thumb across the boy’s face, over the mark beneath his eye, trying to rub it off to see if it would come away. The boy winced in his unconscious state, but the mark didn’t fade. Whether it was ink or something like Vierna’s mark, Lina couldn’t tell.

  Vierna had received her mark when she became a Kagemori. Could this boy be the same?

  The thought sent a brief jolt through her, but doubt quickly followed. From what Leopold and Halwen had said, Vierna’s case had been an accident, something caused by a spell or by chance. The fact that only Albrecht had ever seen it, and that it happened inside Tsukiyama, made that seem even more likely.

  Still, the resemblance lingered in her mind like an itch she couldn’t scratch.

  She studied the boy more closely. Now that things had calmed down a little, she noticed his hair. Though most of it was black, streaks of white ran through it, the same pattern Vierna once had, only inverted. Vierna’s hair had been mostly silver with hints of black.

  He looked like someone who had been running. His clothes were torn and caked with mud, his breathing shallow even in sleep, his wounds half-treated as if done in haste. Whoever or whatever he had been fleeing from, he hadn’t stopped for long. Could it have been Yvlaine’s group? Or was there another faction out there altogether?

  Lina couldn’t reach a clear conclusion, but one thing was certain: from the way he spoke and his features, this boy wasn’t from around here.

  She recalled the bandage he had worn earlier. It had been a makeshift one, but the boy had clearly used herbs, which meant he knew what he was doing. That struck her as odd. How did he know about local herbs? He also understood that the mana beast, if that thing could even be called one, could sense mana and devour non-solid spells. That meant he had spent time in the forest or had lived in a village near Schattwald for quite a while.

  If he had learned to treat wounds with what the local forest offered, then he might know about Hairon root which was a local plant. Perhaps he knew what countered its effects or what could reverse the harm it caused.

  While Fengworth extract was often used to ease the intense pain caused by mana use, Vierna didn’t have the other symptom it cured, insomnia. Then again, the one who felt the pain was Moony, not Vierna, so it was her spirit that suffered.

  Maybe Kagemori reacted differently to it than normal humans did. If only she knew for certain that the boy was a Kagemori, and not part of Yvlaine’s or Rolbart’s factions, even if he was a spy, then maybe she could safely ask him about the cure, using the fact that she had saved his life as leverage. She hated the thought, but she could use that debt if she had to. Maybe even bluff a threat if he decided not to cooperate. He would probably see through it, but it was better than nothing.

  She exhaled, it was all she could get from looking at the boy. She looked outside. The rain thickened. A gust slipped into the cave, carrying the scent of damp soil and herbs. The sound pulled her mind back to the present—the ache in her arms, the fading warmth of the knife still clinging to her hands.

  But what she could feel that was truly different was the mana itself. It didn’t feel dispersed like normal natural mana; instead, it felt as though all of it belonged to a single being—a living presence that saturated everything around her. It choked her own mana. She realized that even creating a small flame had been harder than usual back then. Maybe that was why this forest was brimming with mana beasts—because of the sheer abundance of mana.

  Lina closed her eyes. She tried her best to deduce things here, she just hoped that she didn’t make a fatal mistake. Still a tinge of pride filled her heart. The old Lina would never have thought this way. Even her parents used to joke that she was an airhead, always thinking about mischief and play. Maybe Vierna’s influence had started to rub off on her, changing how she thought and saw the world.

  But the thought of becoming more like Vierna was a warm one. She had vowed that no matter what Vierna became, she would follow her, even in this.

  The rain was pouring harder now, drenching everything. The black woods outside remained eerie, cloaked in an aura of hopelessness. Lina shook her head, trying to ward off the gloom.

  She focused her thoughts on happier times. Back in her village, when it rained this hard, she would always go outside to play, dancing in the rain like a lunatic. The villagers used to mock her for it at first, but then some of the children started to join her, only to catch colds the next day. Their parents had complained to Lina’s parents, of course. They scolded her, grounded her, but she always found a way to sneak out and dance again.

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  Recounting the memory, Lina couldn’t help but smile faintly. Those innocent days, faint echoes of dying stars, reminded her how simple life had once been. That simplicity was gone now, buried beneath the Imperium’s crazed hymns and lunacy. And maybe that was why her hatred burned so fiercely.

  Suddenly, she heard a rustle again. Leaves shivered, branches bent, and something massive pushed its way out from the bushes.

  The creature that emerged made her breath hitch. It moved like a canine, but its size was monstrous, closer to a bear than a wolf. Jagged shards of bone jutted through its hide like broken armor, and veins of quartz-like crystal gleamed faintly beneath its flesh, pulsing with a sick bluish light. Half its face looked melted, the skin sagging and fused to the bone, one eye glazed white while the other glowed with unstable mana. Drool dripped in long, viscous strands from its jaws, sizzling as it touched the ground.

  Lina froze. She had seen a creature like this before among the mangled corpses left after the battle of Einhartturm, but never one this large, this alive. Her pulse quickened until she could feel it hammering behind her ribs. Every muscle in her body screamed to run, but she couldn’t move.

  The beast sniffed the air, its breaths deep and wet. Then its head turned, and for a terrifying moment, its hollow gaze met hers.

  Lina’s throat tightened. Her knees almost buckled, and she had to bite down on her sleeve to keep from gasping. It saw me. Gods, it saw me.

  Yet the creature did not move closer. It sniffed again, low and uncertain, then gave a guttural snarl that rattled the cave walls. For a moment, it felt as though the sound would tear her from her hiding place.

  But then, with one last exhale, a sound like air passing through broken glass, it turned away. Its heavy steps faded into the rain, leaving behind the scent of rot and the faint shimmer of disturbed mana.

  Lina stood there for several seconds, still trembling. Her legs felt like water, her breath uneven. She did not know whether to thank the gods or curse them for letting her live another minute.

  The rune must still be active, even though the boy lay unconscious. That brought up another question. Usually, when a mage lost consciousness, their spell would fade as well, yet this boy’s spell remained in place. It meant there was something truly strange about him—not only was he not from here, but the way his magic worked was also different from that of a normal mage.

  Then Lina recalled what Albrecht had explained: Kagemori were capable of dividing their tasks. For example, the spirit could cast a spell while the body fought in melee. Maybe that was the case here—the boy’s spirit was awake and maintaining the spell while his body remained unconscious. But was that really right? Lina wasn’t sure.

  After a while, Lina tried to get some sleep to ease her exhaustion, but it was no use. The boy’s mystery and Vierna’s condition kept dancing in her head. She gave up on sleeping. Since the boy had said runic magic was safe, she conjured her storage rune and took out Aila’s journal, along with a lantern and the Fengworth flower she had found. She thought that rather than doing nothing, she might as well start preparing the potion.

  She set the lantern down and snapped her fingers over the wick, hoping it wouldn’t attract any mana beasts nearby. The flame flickered to life, and Lina lifted her head to observe her surroundings. Once she confirmed everything was safe, she began to read.

  Oh right, I forgot the veilfern tea for the boy.

  She conjured her storage rune, its faint glow lighting the cave walls, and reached for the veilfern leaves. The moment she crushed them in the mortar, a heavy, acrid scent burst out—sharp like crushed iron and bitter sap, laced with a sweet, almost rotting-floral undertone that made her nose wrinkle. The smell clung to her fingers, earthy and metallic, as if the plant itself bled through her skin.

  She’d known herbs could smell strong, but this was overwhelming—alive, almost stinging the back of her throat. For a second she glanced toward the cave mouth, where the rain still drummed outside. Hopefully the downpour would drown the scent, or at least dull the mana beast’s senses.

  Still, veilfern was common in these woods. Its smell mingled with the wet earth and moss beyond; maybe, just maybe, it would fade into the forest’s breath before anything caught their trail.

  Then she removed the top of the lantern, the ceramic bottle back then still contain a bit of water yet it was getting cold. She hang the pot again using the same way she did back then to boil the water. Now she thought about it, why didn’t she use this method when boiling water back then? It seems that during the panic her mind wasn’t really clear. Another flaw that she needs to fix.

  After she was done with the tea, she read the steps on preparing the Sleeper’s embrace. The book said that the Fengworth flower needs to be crushed then brewed into a tea and then distilled.

  Lina sighed, the distillation tools was only in AIla’s workshop and since the Fengworth have peculiar smell, she needs to sneak in and somehow either steal or distill it in place. Also she needs to make sure to deal with the smell somehow since Aila probably have a heightened sense of smell. Another trouble for her.

  She shook her head, then began crushing the flower. A heavy, metallic scent rose immediately—something between wet soil and tarnished copper, laced with a faint sweetness that clung to her breath and made the air feel thick.

  “Dear God, what was that stench?!”

  The voice shocked Lina, she looked behind her. It was the boy whose conscious now.