My Childhood Friend Is An Archmage Chapter 48
Translated by d6y (ko-fi)
Chapter 48
At Count Diern's words, I let out a shallow sigh. "Although I'm close to Lancer, I don't know if I can stop the rampage."
"That's good enough." Count Diern nodded.
"Skyla, Count Diern now intends to awaken Lancer." Duke Soli stares at me for a moment before he tells me, "There's a limit to how long we can keep him asleep with magic, and it can't delay any longer."
"That's right, Skyla. Lancer hasn't eaten since this morning because he's been asleep, and he's in a growing phase…"
The Duchess begins to sob uncontrollably. Worrying about your children's meals is the same for all parents.
"Will you please go with Count Diern?"
I nodded at Duke Soli. I roughly know what to do.
When Lancer wakes up, I need to calm him down so he doesn't get too emotional.
I understand the importance of my role, but I also find the situation funny. It hasn't even been less than a day since I promised myself I wouldn't see him. I felt like the star of a ridiculous comedy.
"Please lead the way."
At Count Diern's gesture, I look between him and Lancer's family behind him.
"What is it?"
"Will it just be the Count and me?"
"Of course. There's no reason to take more people than necessary. Rather, it'll only surprise Lord Lancer." That makes sense. Right now, Lancer's first and foremost.
With a quick nod of my head to greet those besides Duke Soli, I lead Count Diern to Lancer's chambers.
No one could be seen near Lancer's chambers. Not even Rachel, the maid who often checks up on him. I'm guessing after his magic rampage yesterday, all the servants had been avoiding his area.
There's really no one around.
Like me, he's always been alone. The fact that I take his presence for granted feels somehow foreign to me.
As we're walking up the stairs, Count Diern speaks. "Are you two engaged?"
"What?"
The question gets me off guard and stops me in my tracks.
"Whoa!"
The count who had been following behind me stumbles and holds onto the staircase railing, he nearly collided with me as I came to an abrupt halt.
"Ah! It's not good for you to just stop without a warning. I almost rolled down the stairs!"
"Oh, I'm sorry. You asked such a rude question so casually." I say when he becomes upset.
He clears his throat, "I apologise if my question came off as rude. I asked because it seems to me that Lord Lancer is very fond of you, Princess Skyla."
"How would you know that?"
"It's a given. After all, it was your quarrel that caused his magic to run amok in the first place."
"You talk as if you know everything. Did Lancer tell you that before he was forcibly put to sleep?" I ask bluntly. Even Hubert, Lancer's own brother, wasn't sure why his feelings had been so hurt yesterday. What would an outsider like Count Diern know?
It was at this point that I began to feel a little impatient with the Count's prying and uninformed questions.
"Oh, my, I must've offended you, I didn't mean to do that." Count Diern hastily apologises.
"Really, then why did you ask?" I replied sarcastically.
I'm not trying to pick a fight with him. It's just that I don't like how his apology is more of an excuse.
But then he says something unexpected. "Actually, I had a childhood friend who, like Lord Lancer, was called the Archmage, so I was wondering if you might be in a similar situation to me."
"...What?" I ask out of surprise.
Did I hear him right? He had an archmage as a childhood friend?
"But… I've never heard of an archmage other than Lancer, though?"
Archmages only appear once in a thousand years, which is why they're called 'archmage' instead of just 'mage'.
But there was someone else who held the title of Archmage?
"No, you're correct. My childhood friend died when she was only sixteen… so now, the only archmage is Lord Lancer."
"Ah."
My steps came to an abrupt halt. Count Diern bumps his shoulder into the back of my head.
"Princess…! If you're going to stop, please warn me…"
"Count, your friend, was born an archmage, yet she passed away at such a young age." I mumble, staring blankly at him like someone who's possessed.
To be honest, I'm a little shocked. An archmage would be the strongest person in the world, yet she died so soon?
The Count steps away from me as he rearranges his dishevelled cravat. He has a very complicated look on his face.
"The Princess said you've been close to Lord Lancer since childhood, right? So you must know how much emotions affect the Archmage."
I nodded in confirmation.
"My friend also couldn't control her emotions well since she was younger, which is why he got punished so heavily."
"Punished?"
"Yes. She was always punished because she couldn't control her magic properly, and that she was causing harm to others. So she had to pay for it."
The Count continued in a low voice.
"She always tried to hide her feelings at all costs, to hide everything, to never reveal anything… she lived her whole life as if she was a doll."
He sounds dull. He must be thinking about a lot of things right now. I wonder what they are?
"What happened to her?" I ask, unable to swallow my curiosity.
What happened to her? She who spent her life bottling up her emotions, only to have them explode in the end?
Was it an outburst of the hidden anger? Or an overflowing sadness she kept locked? Or-
"She had her first love at sixteen." His words shattered all my speculations.
"Unfortunately, every human is bound to fall in love at some point. My friend, who repressed her feelings for so long, was no exception. And that was the decision that ultimately led to her death."
"I don't understand, you said it was love, so why…"
"Because the man she loved didn't understand her very well." A bitter smile painted his face.
The history he tells me goes like this,
Count Diern's friend confessed her love to the man she loved. The man, who liked her since childhood, accepted her feelings.
But that's where problems started to arise.
As she just opened up, she found her emotions unfamiliar.
She didn't know what to do when her heart pounded every time she saw her lover, or when her cheeks heated up every time she heard his voice. She simply loved being with her lover so much that she didn't know what to do.
A genius who could draw ancient magic circles without error, yet she was a complete fool when it came to love, like a baby who had just taken her first steps.
But her lover was different.
"We're in love, so let's get married."
"Marriage?" She tilted her head. "Why do we have to get married? Can't we just stay like this?"
"What are you talking about? Of course not. Don't you love me, don't you want to live with me?"
When her lover told her that if you love someone, you should marry them, she told her parents about her lover.
They were as angry as lightning.
"Marriage? You want to get married? Do you even know what that means?"
"It means living with the person you love."
Her parents only got angrier at her nonchalant answer. "You foolish girl, are you out of your mind to marry a man of a status lower than yours?"
"He must've deceived you, bring him here at once!"
The woman's parents called in her lover to give him a severe punishment.
When she heard her lover would be getting in trouble because of her, she was devastated.
She became confused. This was something she had never experienced before.
She felt that she had to marry someone her parents would like, but contrary to her parents' wishes, she didn't want to leave the person she loved.
When these two wishes collided, she was at a loss for what to do.
She, who'd been trained since childhood not to express her emotions, didn't know what to do with this new feeling.
The intensity of her bottled-up emotions exploded into magic and hurt her.
Her parents called for her lover, "As you can see, our daughter is in this state because of you. If you hadn't accepted her in the first place, it wouldn't have come to this!"
After scowling at the girl's lover for a while, they sighed and ordered him,
"You two can get engaged for now, that should ease our daughter up a little, but you'll break up in three months."