In a room, Enrico was massaging the feet of Velka, who was still unconscious. His fingers glowed with small blue lines of water. He was using a pact; it was the last one he had obtained in the two years inside the barrier. This pact was created to improve his water magic healing and to allow him to copy a characteristic of his own body to another person.
Of course, there were limits. The characteristic passed to another body had to be reapplied at least every two months to remain at a level similar to his, even if it was a bit weaker.
'System, how is the pact I requested? Did they accept it?'
With the Dark Castle arc completed, Enrico obtained two more pacts, but the request he made was to sacrifice those two in exchange for very important information.
[Yes, since you sacrificed them, you can obtain this information.]
'All right, then tell me about Jago's plan for the future.'
[The constellation that wants to help you with this is the Lady Who Knows Everything.]
'Why don't you want to reveal the names of the gods? That's annoying, I already know the Lord of Time's.'
[They are shy… don't look at me like that… fine, they just want to have fun watching you try to guess their names.]
Ignoring the gods' amusement, Enrico continued to use the first piece of information to learn what that bastard was planning. As the information was delivered directly into his mind, some veins appeared on Enrico's neck; he was holding back a lot of anger.
[Now what will be the last piece of information?]
'I'll save that for the future; for now, I'll wait a while.'
[How are you going to interfere with this plan?]
'For now I won't do anything, because if I mess with some things, his plan might change.'
Enrico would let this plan develop; he would really let it grow, because Jago's bewildered face when it failed would be one of the best feelings he would ever have.
"You… are… Enrico?"
Hearing a hoarse voice coming from the bed, he directed his gaze downward and saw that Velka had finally woken up. She seemed barely able to lift herself, but that wasn't entirely because of her body, since it was healed to seventy percent capacity.
'Her mind must be broken.'
[I won't lie, I feel sorry for her.]
Her eyes opened wide after a few seconds and began darting around in fear that Elowyn or Narisse might be there.
"Stay calm, I managed to convince them that you were using magic on yourself to act that way years ago."
She seemed to calm down a little, but still searched around with her eyes, because it could just be Elowyn doing something cruel to give her false hope, since Velka herself had tried to convince her and nothing worked.
"Years? How… much time… has it been since that day?"
"Two years."
[It seems the torture was so severe that she lost her sense of time in there.]
Of course, besides that, she had been in a coma five months ago for not enduring being burned and healed at the same time for a week. How did he know that? Alaric told him.
[Elowyn really is a monster to the one who betrayed her.]
'Of course it would be like this; she hates traitors, especially those who caused damage to her kingdom.'
"I told you that you should have accepted my help, but you had to try to convince her with your own words."
At that time, Enrico had managed to take one of the keys to Velka's prison. He did it that way because he couldn't waste time knowing the barrier was about to be lifted, so he simply wrote the most important letters, even to Elowyn, and his plan was to send Velka with Platina to the Solcren Ferreira house, where she would stay hidden until he returned and told Elowyn personally.
"Did you really believe you could convince the princess without proof? She would only think you were a coward admitting your mistakes, and that irritated her even more with you."
Shuddering from the scolding she was receiving even after all that time in prison, Velka looked away. Enrico had spoken those words calmly, but they must have hurt only slightly less than if he had shouted.
"Sorry, but if I don't tell the truth, you might do another stupid thing."
Enrico had also tried to send a letter to Elowyn asking her to believe Velka at least a little, but it seemed the princess hadn't mastered the secret technique he had placed on the letters. As he gave Velka water to drink, he wondered why that had happened.
'Either she doesn't care, or someone took them… oh right, we have that guy who wants to steal Elowyn's subordinates.'
That person was Elowyn's brother, who had just turned fifteen and was ranked fifth in Class S; he wanted to disrupt his sister's succession plans.
'I'll have to warn her when we meet on the royal mission… I feel sorry for what will happen to him.'
[Really?]
'No, I lied. I had even forgotten about him because he was crushed by Elowyn so quickly that I considered him insignificant, but it's better to say it soon and end this small threat once and for all.'
"I'm sorry… at that moment I remembered her saving me and thought that if I ran away… I would never be able to be by her side… I know it was an idiotic decision, already knowing her personality…"
Velka's eyes looked tired, and tears began to stream down her face without stopping; the marks and memories of those moments would be hard for her to forget. It seemed best to leave her here recovering. He wanted to take her on the mission, but that could worsen her condition.
"All right, I understand that this is simply the problem of people who get too attached to others."
"…p… please forgive me… sniff… sorry…"
"You should stop apologizing to me."
Standing up, he thought about who could accompany him on this mission, because he honestly didn't want to go alone with everyone being Elowyn's subordinates.
"Where are you going, sir?"
'Sir?'
"I'm going to prepare for that damn princess's mission."
With an annoyed face at the thought of Elowyn, he turned to leave, but his clothes were grabbed by a trembling Velka.
"If you want, I can go, so please don't abandon me here alone."
"What are you talking about? If you're scared, don't worry, Angela will stay here with you."
"Please, even without mana I can be your meat shield, a-and I'm sure I can be useful."
For some reason, Velka seemed desperate to help him. Seeing her eyes full of fear and hope, he realized it then.
'She's seeing me as her savior just like Elowyn… what the hell happened in this girl's life for her to act like this?'