ushernet Chapter 44
Chapter 44
"Is this what it means to have the kind and benevolent heart of a High Priest, one who can even love the bloodline of an enemy?"
...That didn’t feel quite right.
Elodie pushed the complicated thoughts aside.
Either way, there was a sick child in front of her. It was only natural to feel sorry for him.
“Sera said that when I hug her, both her body and mind feel healed.”
That her fatigue disappeared, her mind cleared, and her heart felt at peace.
Honestly, it sounded like something a quack doctor would say.
But wouldn’t it be better than doing nothing?
She couldn't just hug someone who was suddenly in pain, but maybe holding his hand would ease it a little.
One thing was certain: Magic Cotton had grown sturdier because of her.
With that thought, Elodie recklessly reached out toward Karon.
She had no doubt that even if he was poisonous, it wouldn’t affect her.
“......!”
The moment her fingertips brushed against his deathly cold skin—
Karon flinched violently and jerked his hand away with brute strength.@@@@
Elodie, caught off guard, completely lost her balance and fell backward.
"Ow!"
Her tailbone!
Groaning, she rubbed her aching lower back.
She had assumed he was just a bedridden patient, but where did that ridiculous strength come from?!
“...Ratson?”
His voice was faint, as if in disbelief.
Then, covering his mouth, he muttered something incomprehensible before clamping his lips shut.
His hands pressed tightly against his nose and mouth.
Holding his breath—his heaving chest suddenly stilled.
But Elodie had seen it.
His parched, cracked lips...
And the inside of his mouth, visible for just a moment—pitch black.
Most mammals had a soft pink mouth.
His was an unnatural shade of deep purple-black.
“Not human.”
Her guess had been right.
Was that why he had been keeping his mouth shut?
To hide the color inside?
Or... was it because every breath he exhaled was laced with poison?
Judging by the way he was now holding his breath, it seemed like both were true.
Elodie observed him closely.
Through the slight opening in his shirt, she caught glimpses of black scales.
“Confirmed. Basilisk.”
The Basilisk family was infamous for hiding their faces and identities, so no one knew what type of snake they actually were.
But a black-mouthed venomous snake...
“Black mamba?”
But his eyes weren’t black.
Normally, beastfolk took on the traits and colors of their animal form.
"Weren’t red eyes a characteristic of albino snakes?"
Black hair, red eyes...
"A mutation? But Nyx Basilisk had red eyes, too."
While she was contemplating his species, Karon’s previously shaken red eyes suddenly hardened into an icy glare.
He sat up in bed, then—
She had come here fully suspecting it.
Elodie considered telling him that his poison didn’t work on her.
But in the end, she let it go.
After all, she was the one who had disturbed him first.
He clearly didn’t want her there.
She couldn’t keep bothering a patient who was so adamantly rejecting her presence.
Besides, her main goal was accomplished.
“Basilisk. Confirmed.”
Was his illness a result of losing control over his own venom?
From what she could tell, there were times when his condition worsened and times when it improved.
If he was always like this, there was no way he could walk around freely.
Otherwise, he would have poisoned everyone around him to death.
Elodie now understood why Squirrel had reacted with pure terror upon seeing Karon.
Even if she hadn’t known he was a venomous snake, her instincts must have screamed at her.
A predator.
A deadly, unnatural one.
She had seen other venomous beastfolk before.
But Karon was in a different category entirely.
As she walked through the corridors, Elodie pondered how to help him control his venom.
As she exited Serenity Palace, she glanced upward at the top-floor room, its windows covered by black curtains.
“Less than five years left...”
Walking through what had once been a garden, now nothing but barren wasteland, she kept an eye on the dying grass.
And then—she stopped.
“The grass stops dying here.”
She had walked quite a distance from the palace.
That meant his poison spread all the way to this point.
It was still within the restricted area, but it was far-reaching.
Elodie transformed into a harvest mouse and squeezed through the thorny thickets.
On the other side, she found Howlf, anxiously pacing.
The moment he spotted her, he rushed forward.
“Little one! Are you unharmed?!”
Seeing that she was perfectly fine, he let out a long sigh of relief.
"Didn't even take thirty minutes."
“That’s not the issue here!”
“And I came back without a scratch.”
“Good grief, little one! I swear—!”
Elodie tuned out his scolding, lost in thought.
"They said they tried everything to cure Karon's illness."
Even the High Priest had failed.
His venom—his affliction—only grew worse over time.
And from the moment she stepped into Serenity Palace, one thought had been nagging at her.
A massacre.
A massacre that spared neither beastfolk nor humans.
The culprit had been rumored to be a single person.
And it had happened in Valkyrisen territory.
Victims, both human and beastfolk alike, had died without a sound, leaving no trace behind.
Hundreds of people.
Even the plants and animals had perished.
Not a single bone or ash had been left behind.
As if Death itself had passed through.