Episode 18: Murishi, The Species That Eats Monsters (4)
12 years later, Muriel looked very different from the girl he had tried so hard to forget. The girl in his memories had chubby cheeks, a high-pitched voice, and was short because she hadn’t yet lost her baby fat.
To brave the cold highlands, Muriel had wrapped herself tightly, resembling a round bundle of cotton, almost like the snowmen she used to make.
But now, the woman who wasn’t avoiding his gaze and defiantly staring back at him was a pretty decent lady. Her thin cheeks showed her jawline, and her slender neck, which kept drawing his attention, trembled with delicate muscles even when with small breaths.
The lines of her slender shoulders to her ample chest and well-constricted waist were revealed as they were due to the silhouette of the tightly-fitted dress.
The woman, who was exuding a mature scent of an unfamiliar mature woman, looked completely different from the little girl in his memory. Except that her coarse, mid-to-low voice, was still uttering the same words as twelve years ago, which almost made him wonder if she really was the frozen-cheeked girl that he remembered.
“He’s just a wizard. He’s not a monster who turns people into demons just by brushing past them.”
But the fierce eyes that seemed to look at him as if he was pathetic remained unchanged. The warmth in that crooked gaze too. He was dragged back to the memories of the cold wind blowing on the highlands.
‘You’re just Kaiton, and you’ll be the best wizard in Bulrion.’
“Shut up!”
Kaiton eventually shouted, unable to resist the annoying little voice echoing in his head. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, afraid that the emotions he had been suppressing for a long time would run wild again.
Muriel quietly observed his reaction. Kaiton was more human than she’d imagined. In the novel, he had taken her life with a frightening look on his face, so she didn’t know he could make such a complicated expression.
He looked confused. Sad and tormented, yet trying hard to endure it. She didn’t know why she kept imagining him crying somewhere, shedding tears. Anyway, Muriel thought he looked very sad right now.
Muriel had once misunderstood him for crying by the fountain, but this time she saw it properly. He truly was distressed.
Although Muriel’s appearance had changed a lot, her inside remained the same.
That curt expression. The habit of flicking away her blue hair as if it was annoying. The stubborn gaze. The crooked posture. Even the casual pouring of kind words. All the small habits he remembered. Everything that had captivated his gaze was still there.
So he suffered even more.
Obviously, according to that accursed fate, he had to kill her, but the old memories that tied him to his humanity kept interfering with that.
“Those aren’t words a saint blessed by God would say.”
Kaiton once again put on the mask of Kai Crawford, which he’d painstakingly created.
“Don’t ever say that Ur is not a demon again. Those words… ultimately, will cause the Saint to die. Do you understand?”
Kaiton himself could not understand why he was trying to make her promise such a thing. But he did not want to hear the same words the girl he met on the plateau said from her mouth again.
“Answer me, Muriel.”
“I’m not the saint… Why are you already calling me a saint….”
“….”
“…No way, you don’t… really think Ur is a Demon, do you?”
It wasn’t until Muriel insisted on doing what he asked only after hearing his promise did he reply His answer was firm. His words, filled with self-depreciation and venom, sounded like a promise to himself.
“If the one who will destroy the kingdom is not the Demon King, then who else would it be?”
⚜ ⚜ ⚜
Kaiton then spent five hours teaching them how to use a talisman. The reason behind the training was almost blazingly clear – to use Ur’s fragments while avoiding Sharan’s eyes.
Despite being upset about the bombshell remarks he’d dropped, Muriel focused faithfully on the class. Even if it wasn’t a fragment of Ur, she thought that learning how to amplify magic using a Talisman would be useful in the future.
They say you can get the hang of a talisman just by using it a few times. Even though Kaiton, the kingdom’s greatest magician, was explaining, and August, who inherited the name of a Guardian, was assisting her – it took Muriel five whole hours to truly grasp how to use one.
Kaiton, though forced to teach her because of Ur’s fragment, seemed tired of her incompetence. Muriel’s pride was hurt, although she felt she was a little good of a wizard.
Fortunately, Rovelia was just as magical as Muriel. The fact that she couldn’t properly grasp the usage of Talisman, even with the enormous advanced Talisman she wore on her finger, made Muriel feel slightly better.
Rovelia seemed to have a change in mindset and was actively participating in the class. Despite hating to show any signs of incompetence to others, her desperate efforts indicated that she also recognized the need for a talisman to make up for her pacio deficit.
She also heard that she had already finished her prayers with the High Priest three hours before Muriel, so she could guess Rovelia’s determination to become a saint.
“August, do you have a minute?”
Muriel whispered after the lesson, glancing at Rovelia as she approached Kaiton.
She was going to ask him how she could hunt a Murishi. However, it was a subject she didn’t want Kaiton, who was eager for her to use the sculpture, to know about, so Muriel dragged August outside the laboratory.
“Take this.”
Before Muriel could even open her mouth about hunting Murishi, August abruptly extended a ring out to her. Thanks to that, Muriel completely forgot about hunting Murishi. The ring had an exquisite Talisman embedded with the artisans’ Pacio.
“This is my gift to you. Now that you’ve fully mastered how to use a talisman, you should have a proper Talisman, right?”
The ring was overwhelmingly huge. It was so big that Muriel thought it could strain her finger joints if she wore it incorrectly. Muriel grimaced in disgust. It was because she wondered how much Pacio had been grinded from people for a talisman to become that size.
“No thanks.”
“No, take it. I will not yield in this.”
She refused at once, but August didn’t back down. She couldn’t believe he was suddenly giving her a ring. She was flustered. Did he misunderstand something because she hugged him earlier? She refused to let August be in her fish tank, like male leads were in novels…
“What’s this all of a sudden? What’s the meaning of this?”
Although August was affectionate and friendly, hugging her or wiping her blood without reservation, she had never considered that he liked her.
His behavior was very light, afterall. Was all that just a cover-up to hide his true feelings? Did she capture his heart without realizing it?
Capture his heart…
Her thought seemed ridiculous even to her.
Muriel wasn’t unattractive, but compared to August, who was considered a national treasure in terms of appearance, she fell far short. Moreover, she wasn’t particularly friendly or exceptionally talented. It was hard to imagine someone being captivated by her.
“There is no particular meaning. I just want you to accept it. As a gift from a friend.”
Seeing that Muriel seemed reluctant to accept the ring, August grabbed her hand and put the ring on for her. It was something he had been wearing, but since it was a magical item that could adjust its size according to the wearer, there was no issue.
“But this is a ring, August. You’re giving me a ring without any meaning?”
Muriel took off the ring, looking disgusted.
Only then did August realize that the talisman he had given her was in the shape of a ring. He had only been trying to give her the strongest and largest talisman he had, so he realized his mistake too late.
“Oh… I didn’t think about that. But it doesn’t mean anything like that, so please accept it. Because you really do need this talisman, Muriel.”
Muriel glanced at him as if she didn’t buy his words, but August was truly sincere. He had given her the talisman because he was genuinely concerned about Muriel’s Pacio.
Because her magical abilities were a disaster.
Using a talisman was easier than using a spoon for people who used magic. However, if it took someone five hours to learn how to scoop rice with a spoon, anyone could not help but worry that they might starve to death.
August’s intention in giving his talisman to her was just that. He didn’t care that the talisman was in the form of a ring.
In August’s opinion, if Muriel didn’t have a proper talisman, with her poor pacio, she would undoubtedly become a demon before long.
The huge talisman he handed to her was valuable enough to buy a castle, but it didn’t matter. He had plenty of overflowing pacio in him, and he had the wealth to buy talismans as much as he wanted.
“That Talisman is a very good item, but it’s best for you to not use magic if possible. I mean… unless you’re in danger of dying, never use magic, Muriel.”
August’s eyes, as he spoke, were filled with the aftermath of a disaster he imagined.
However, Muriel, who mistook August for hiding his affection for her, could only misunderstand his sincerity. She misunderstood that he was trying to put a ring on her finger under the pretext of giving her Talisman.
Unaware that she was the one making the mistake, Muriel frowned at the giant ring similar to Rovelia’s.
“You’re not trying to give me a ring under the excuse of giving a talisman, are you? I didn’t expect August to use such a method, but is it because you don’t have the courage to confess that you’re expressing your feelings like this?”
“What? No!”
August felt like this was an unjust accusation. He had met many people and had been in numerous relationships, but he had never seen Muriel in that way, he swore.
“I really don’t like you, Muriel. No, I like you, but not in the way that you’re saying. I like you as a friend, like I like cats..”
“Don’t lie. Then why would you give me such an expensive ring?”
Well, because your Pacio and magic skills are terrible!
August felt it was cowardly to defend himself while citing Muriel’s terrifyingly pathetic magical abilities. Muriel glared at him with axed eyes, as if the misunderstanding was only piling up, but he truly did not have the eccentric romantic tastes for a scary woman who walked around with blood on her ankles.
“Phew. I heard that playboys who have had many relationships can’t recognize true love when it comes. Perhaps you haven’t even realized your own feelings….”
Muriel said in an unruly manner, like a loan shark. Muriel sometimes displayed such a stubborn attitude, which August would usually find amusing, but her uniqueness was causing him real trouble right now.
August thought it over deeply, but he didn’t have even the slightest bit of excitement for Muriel. He wanted to be good friends with her, and he believed that was how things were going anyway.
In the first place, there was no time for him to look at Muriel in such a way. There was only one person who had taken his pure heart since his days at the academy.
Rovelia.
The lovely lady Rovelia, with her emerald eyes and golden hair. For August, Rovelia had been the only one for him for a long time.
When Rovelia was around, all his nerves were directed solely at her, so it was unlikely for him to see Muriel as a woman or a romantic partner.
“I already have someone I’ve given my heart to. Seriously.”
Oh god. I’m having a second-hand embarrassment for what Muriel’s been deluding herself with 😭. This is the reason why she can’t escape the delusion allegations smh