“Yes. I was just distracted and missed the timing to close my eyes. Thank you.”
Evanessa wiped her mouth with the hand towel that Terry had offered.
They were currently standing in front of an iron gate that was covered with three or four layers of magical seals. Terry turned towards Evanessaw with a solemn face.
“We’ll be counting on you today as well, Saintess.”
After offering this useless platitude, Terry started to remove the seals one-by-one.
‘I should have just fainted back there.’
Evanessa bit her lip firmly and stared at the iron gate that was covered in seals. She could see a slight glimpse of pitch-black darkness from the gap between the doors of the gate. It seemed that magic had been used to block the sights and smells coming from inside.
“Well then, I will be waiting for you here. Best of luck, Saintess.”
With these parting lines, that were as naive as a young school boy, Terry removed the remaining seal. With a frozen face, Evanessa raised her hand and placed it on the gate. Her vision flickered slightly and then, in the next moment, she found herself on the other side of the gate. A slightly fishy scent pierced her nose.
[The side story, “The Magic Tower’s Nightingale’, has begun!]
“Roooooar!”
From the darkness, the crazed voices of the patients who had caught ‘that’ erupted; along with the clanging of manacles against bars and dull, banging noises, she was drowning in a mad ruckus of noises.
After subconsciously turning around, Evanessa gulped.
‘I’ll just treat it like I’m looking at an illustration. Or else, I really will pass out.’
Saying that her condition had worsened after what happened earlier might give her a good excuse to worm her way out of this.
“Aargh! Rooooar! Grrr!”
As she walked into the darkness, sounds that were closer to that of a beast or a devil rather than a human came flooding into her ears.
In the game’s main storyline, it didn’t go into the full story of these people, who were suffering from a condition known as mana overdose. Because of this, she didn’t know why exactly the wizards who suffered from mana overdose would go insane. Although the higher ranking wizards of the wizards tower were in the middle of studying the cause of mana overdose, the game stated that their research didn’t have anything to do with these patients, as there was nothing new to learn from them.
Evanessa squinted her eyes. In the darkness, she saw several people, seemingly wrapped in chains, who glowed with an inner light.
‘…What is that?’
Only
As all of the blood vessels in their bodies were strained to their limits and about to burst, the people she saw looked more like bulging mounds of flesh rather than humans. The sight made her recall a scene she had once seen in a movie about an exorcism. They had such a grotesque appearance that she couldn’t even make out any of their facial features.
In the world of the game, the only one who could treat the condition causing their insanity was the Saintess. Because only the Saintess chosen by Lunium had the ability to absorb the mana from their bodies and return it to nature.
‘In a way, you could call me the Florence Nightingale of wizards.’
On occasion, wizards could find that their mana would suddenly start to overflow and exceed their body’s natural thresholds, thus leading to the affliction of ‘mana overdose’. The only way to treat them was to discharge the mana that was expanding their bodies to the bursting point. If the patients afflicted with this mana overdose didn’t receive treatment within six months, all of their nerves would be torn to shreds and they would die.
To save these wizards, the Wizards Tower had made a deal with the church, in which the Saintess would be invited to visit the top floor of the Wizards Tower once every May and November. Although everyone tried to keep it covered up, there was a good chance that it was already pretty much an open secret.
Evanessa slowly drew closer to the nearest patient.
“Aaaargh! Aaaargh! Aargh!”
The patient, who appeared to be male, sensed someone approaching and started to become more aggressive.