Stigma Effect

Translator: Skye  Editor: thursdays  PR: sj_myself

Yuriel barely managed to suppress her tears. Looking at Raphlet closely like this, it wasn’t just one or two things that she found odd.

Not only did he use formal speech with her, but his tone was cold as well. He had always been kindhearted and spoke warmly when he was a boy.

It was clear that Raphlet had some kind of mental side effect, not a physical one.

Seeing Yuriel bite her lip, unable to respond, Raphlet turned to Helio. He asked sharply, “Did you tell her everything?”

“Everything up to the prophecy. Since Miss Yuriel is now a member of Albraca, don’t you think she needs to know about this?” Helio replied calmly.

Raphlet shot him a scathing glare before placing a hand on Yuriel’s shoulder.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, Yuriel. Rather, my body has gotten stronger and more suitable for monster subjugations-”

When she heard him trying to soothe her, Yuriel couldn’t bring herself to say that she didn’t care about something like monster subjugations.

What in the world was a body that was more ‘suitable’? And just what kind of body was more ‘suitable’ for monster subjugations?

Even if he became incapable of eliminating the evil fiends, Raphlet would still be Raphlet. What Yuriel wanted was for him to live a normal, happy life, not a life of defeating monsters with a stronger body and becoming a hero.

Of course, what Raphlet wanted might differ from what she wanted, but…

“Yuriel,” he called impatiently.

Yuriel could clearly see the monster core embedded in Raphlet’s chest as he hadn’t been able to adjust his collar properly. She lifted her hand and placed it on his chest, absently rubbing the core.

It felt smooth. At first glance, it kind of looked like an ornament. However, shortly after rubbing it, Yuriel felt a shock run up the tip of her finger.

“Ah.”

It wasn’t a subtle feeling. Her finger turned noticeably red.

“...Damn it,” Raphlet cursed when he saw her finger, which swelled as if it had encountered poison.

“People have received considerable harmful effects from cores in the past. Miss Yuriel, it’d be best to get that treated immediately,” Helio commented.

Seeing Yuriel’s stiffened form as she stared at her injured appendage, Raphlet lifted her up in his arms and quickly stepped out of the room. Helio furrowed his brows as he stared at Raphlet’s retreating back-it was clear that Raphlet was displeased.

The sight of Raphlet acting on his emotions was unfamiliar.

Instead of following them to the infirmary, Helio decided to go look at the experiment records. The alchemists who were in the middle of going over the records greeted him when they noticed his entrance.

Yuriel closed her mouth as she stared at her throbbing left index finger, which was now dressed in a bandage. Her finger had turned into its current state after handling the core for only a moment. Then, was Raphlet’s body truly okay when it was embracing the entire core?

She worried that it might actually be causing him pain and that he was just enduring it without a word.

“Raphlet.”

As soon as she said his name, Raphlet immediately turned his head to look at her.

Yuriel’s lips twitched. She wanted to ask him if he was in pain, and if he was, she wanted to tell him he didn’t have to hold back in front of her.

But at that moment, along with the intense pain in her finger, she experienced a strange phenomenon. The view before her changed. It felt like her mind was projecting a different scene than what was in front of her eyes.

Yuriel saw something squirming back in the room where Raphlet had been receiving an exam.

It was the same feeling she felt in her dreams; a spine-chilling sensation whenever a monster appeared before her.

With her eyes wide open, Yuriel watched the illusion play out.

A monster had come in by destroying a part of the tower wall. She saw numerous monster cores piled around the place the monster was currently rampaging in.

The winged monster released a shriek and made to pick up the cores. It picked up a relatively small core with its beak, only for its black head to fly off its body a moment later, cut by Helio’s sword.

‘Commander Raphlet!’

After he took care of the creature, Helio turned his head and shouted in Yuriel’s direction. Raphlet, who was standing next to her, pushed her shoulder and went inside.

‘Go down to the ground floor, Yuriel. Wait for me in a safe place.’

In this critical situation, Yuriel suddenly recalled how Raphlet would always only tell her that it was dangerous. Wait for him in a safe place? Why did he always try to say that being by his side wasn’t safe?

But she couldn’t mull over it for too long.

After he had hurriedly told her to escape, Raphlet had gone into the exam room and faced the monsters alongside Helio. But the number of opponents wasn’t dwindling.

The creatures continued to pour into the room. Among them was a monster that appeared to be carrying something, and then…

All of the cores that filled up the room went off in a series of explosions. Raphlet, Helio, and Yuriel, who had been watching from a distance away-there was no way any of them was safe from the explosion.

The illusion faded away, the burning heat being the last thing Yuriel saw, and her normal vision returned.

Back in the completely intact infirmary, she found Raphlet staring at her.

“...Did you see that just now?” she asked him.

“See what?” he asked, poking her forehead. It seemed he misunderstood and took her momentary absentmindedness to be a sign that she wasn’t feeling well.

Yuriel grabbed his finger and said, “Monsters appeared in the exam room back there. They showed up in the room that was full of cores and there was even an explosion… Ah, terror.”

Was that another act of terror Helio had mentioned to her before? It looked like bombs were attached to the backs of the monsters.

“Did you see something?”

“I saw monsters come in carrying bombs. Maybe it was because there were numerous cores inside the room, but the scale of the explosion was really big… Was I asleep just now?”

Raphlet shook his head. Yuriel’s eyes had been glazed over, as if in a trance, but she hadn’t been asleep.

Yuriel’s face hardened. If it wasn’t a dream, then she couldn’t say it was a prophetic dream.

But the experience had felt too real to conclude that it was just a simple illusion. A large explosion and a surge of heat that was so great it was stifling.

Yuriel stuttered, “It-it…might just be an illusion, but I think we should still evacuate, Raphlet.”

“All right.”

“Raphlet, you need to get out of here too.”

“...I’ll help everyone else evacuate first. If a series of explosions occur because of the monster cores, the entire tower is in danger. Please go down first and wait for me.”

Perhaps it was because it wasn’t an emergency situation, but Raphlet switched back to formal speech and spoke in a coaxing manner, “Please get to a safe place.”

He pushed her onto the passenger lift. Though her body shook in fear, Raphlet was intent on having her evacuate.

“If you find yourself in danger, you’re allowed to use this gun,” he said, handing her a bag that carried the weapon.

Yuriel held the heavy bag in her arms and noticed it was much heavier than what she normally used. Raphlet then closed the outer doors of the lift and pulled the lever, causing the lift to start its descent.

When the lift reached the ground floor, a loud alarm rang throughout the entire tower. At the sound that resonated right when Yuriel arrived at the first floor, the tower erupted in an uproar as if it had been waiting for that moment.

“What’s happening?”

“An alarm?”

“It’s a level one evacuation alert!”

“Let’s get out of here for now!”

At the moment Yuriel was about to get off the lift, the platform then suddenly began to move.

“H-Huh?”

She was about to open the inner doors of the lift, but with its sudden movement, she stiffened. The lift was going up rapidly, much faster than when she had first gone up with Helio, causing her to crouch down in panic.

“W-What’s going on?”

I didn’t get off yet…!

Someone from the upper floor must’ve called for the lift. Though she wanted to make it stop, she didn’t know how. She found buttons and a lever, but she didn’t want to risk pressing things without knowing what they did.

The platform shook tremendously as it continued to ascend. In addition, Yuriel heard a blast that sounded like a break in the tower walls.

It was how she imagined the sound of the monsters destroying the wall in her illusion to be if she heard it from farther away.

Crouched down and pressed flat against one of the sides of the lift, she opened the bag Raphlet had given her earlier.

A gun far bigger than what she had been training with was inside.

Yuriel tried holding it in her hand. It was nearly heavy enough to break her wrist, but now wasn’t the time to nitpick over such things. She loaded the gun the way Raphlet had taught her to and tried to find places where she could store the remaining bullets.

Her normal uniform had plenty of pockets she could comfortably place miscellaneous items in. However, the outfit she was wearing now was the fancy attire Helio had picked out for her earlier.

There were no suitable pockets in sight.

“I’m not going to wear any clothes Sir Helio picks out for me anymore…”

Yuriel mumbled and lifted her skirt, securing the bullets in her garter belt. She only had enough room for three rounds.

Fixing her skirt, she then lifted her head. She saw someone’s feet past the doors of the lift. The legs looked like they belonged to a man.

His feet, calves, thighs, then waist. The rapidly ascending lift revealed the man’s full figure once it completely came to a stop.

A man with wavy black hair stood before her.

He stood in front of the lift in a daze, as if he was intending on getting on, but he tilted his head when he saw her.

“Hi, Yuriel… Is this the Mogris duchy?”

T/N: Hope y'all will love this new character as much as I do

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