Chapter 41. Sage Jineulbaram
After a bout of bickering with Sori, Binaeril felt his strength suddenly drain away, his tension easing all at once.
“Urk….”
Binaeril felt the effects of the anesthetic applied to his shoulder slowly wearing off.
Rike fidgeted restlessly as she watched Binaeril endure the pain, but there was nothing she could do for him right now.
Thanks to the events in Wind Valley, Rike had also expended a considerable amount of mana.
“Just hold on a little longer, Binaeril. The spirit priestess will be here soon.”
Before long, a stout-bodied elderly Myo woman entered the house where they were.
“Are these the ones?”
“Yes, they are.”
Sori guided her over to Binaeril.
“Let me see… No tail? Was your tail cut off?”
“No, Priestess. It’s not my tail, it’s my shoulder….”
“Oh dear, your tail got cut off, what ever shall we do.”
“No, it’s not my tail, it’s my shoulder.”
“You poor thing. This old woman’s eyes are welling with tears.”
“…Yes, well, anyway.”
The grandmother seemed hard of hearing.
“Let me take a look.”
The grandmother groped Binaeril’s hips and then suddenly yanked his pants down.
“Grandmother!”
Binaeril was completely defenseless against the sudden ambush.
The two girls watching were suddenly treated to a full view of Binaeril’s bare backside.
Silvia covered Rike’s eyes before her own.
“You mustn’t look at something so crude, Princess.”
Binaeril hastily pulled his pants back up.
“Could you guys please step out for a moment?”
“S-sure.”
The two girls, their faces flushed, hurried out with quick steps.
From inside his ear, Binaeril heard the sound of Veritas snickering.
“The injury is here.”
Binaeril guided the grandmother’s hand, which had been fiddling with the wrong spot, to his injured shoulder.
“Hmm, your tail got cut off and your shoulder got pierced, too. We’ll need to heal this one as well.”
“Yes, yes. This one first, the tail can wait.”
The grandmother peeled off the anesthetic poultice plastered on Binaeril’s shoulder. At once, dizzying pain surged in.
It was the rough-handed touch peculiar to an elderly woman.
“You took quite a beating. Child, endure it for a moment.”
The grandmother dipped her hand in a water bowl placed nearby and sprinkled the water onto Binaeril’s shoulder.
“Ongya, it’s fine~ It doesn’t hurt one bit~”
‘It hurts though….’
The grandmother used the same method to thoroughly wet the area around the wound.
From the moisture she scattered, something began to take form.
“May I ask a favor?”
The water spirit nodded readily and disappeared into Binaeril’s wound with a whoosh.
Indeed, she seemed to truly be a spirit priestess who commanded spirits.
‘So cool.’
It was a strange feeling. The sensation of new flesh sprouting from his chilled skin?
It was a sensation he had never felt before, and he lacked the words to describe it.
“Child, feeling a bit better?”
“Yes. It feels cool.”
“Let’s see, uhh… It’ll take about a week to fully heal.”
Should he call this spirit-aided regeneration? It was a healing method Binaeril had never heard of or seen before.
Not even in Elpenbain had they ever taught a healing art like this.
‘Is it the secret art of the Myo tribe?’
—It isn’t magic. It seems to be a type of spirit art.
“Child, you spoke with the wind spirit?”
“What sort of conversation did you have with the spirit?”
Binaeril briefly explained the circumstances.
But with the details regarding the Fragment left out, the story didn’t quite add up.
The reasons Jilpeu had fallen asleep, why he had awakened, and such things… he had no choice but to gloss over that part.
The story of the Fragment, that is, the Book of Truth, somehow felt like something he must not speak of.
After all, the one in question was listening with both ears perked up.
The grandmother listened to everything with her eyes closed, never once interrupting Binaeril’s words.
At a glance, she almost looked like she was dozing.
“The spirit spoke of Jineulbaram—that is my name.”
“I have heard that you serve the spirit. Show this old woman.”
Binaeril called out Eden.
Eden poked his head out with a curious expression.
“A young spirit, I see. Truly adorable.”
When the grandmother extended her hand, Eden climbed onto her palm without wariness.
It was the first time the shy Eden had approached a stranger so easily.
On her palm, Eden flapped his mouth open and closed.
“Oh my, was that so? Yes, yes. I see.”
They seemed to be having some kind of conversation, but to Binaeril’s ears, only Jineulbaram’s voice could be heard.
“Grandmother, are you talking with Eden right now?”
Jineulbaram was communicating with Eden so naturally.
“He must have been quite frustrated all this time.”
“Eden?”
“That’s right.”
Binaeril looked at his spirit sitting on Jineulbaram’s wrinkled palm.
Eden wore a relieved expression, patting his chest.
“How frustrating it must have been, unable to communicate.”
“How are you able to converse with Eden, Jineulbaram?”
“If I couldn’t even do that, I’d have never lived to be called a priestess.”
“What did Eden say?”
Jineulbaram didn’t answer and hesitated for a moment.
“Child.”
“You have promise, child. Would you like to learn from this old woman how to serve the spirits?”
It was a sudden proposal.
Rike and Silvia came out of Sori’s house with reddened faces.
“It seems the boy’s treatment will take about a week.”
Sori came out after them and relayed the situation inside.
“A week?”
“We’ll have to stay here while Binaeril recovers.”
“You’ll need a place to stay for the week as well.”
The place where Binaeril was being treated was Sori and Simon’s house.
Sori guided them to a house where no one lived.
It was a house thick with accumulated dust, untouched by human hands for a long time.
Sori cleared away the old household items inside, securing a space where they could rest.
“Is this a vacant house?”
“It belonged to a friend who went out hunting long ago and was captured by humans.”
There was a barb in Sori’s words. Rike was at a loss for a reply.
“Don’t worry. I’m not blaming you.”
Like it or not, it was where they would stay for the week.
Silvia, helping Sori tidy up, made up her mind about something.
“Sori.”
“During the week we stay here, could you teach me how the Myo tribe fights?”
While climbing the mountain with Simon, Silvia had carefully observed the Myo boy’s movements.
Aside from the tail, his body structure wasn’t vastly different, yet Simon knew how to use his body in a way different from ordinary people.
He was far more flexible, far lighter, and far more agile than an average person.
Every time she watched Simon, Silvia grew a little greedier.
‘If I could make those movements my own.’
Until she met Binaeril, she had been somewhat confident in her own talent.
A talent of her own, distinct from other students.
The days she had worked hard for it.
She hadn’t doubted that she was growing as much as the drops of sweat she shed, and she had even thought that with this level of ability, she could sufficiently protect the Princess.
No, she had been arrogant.
Outside of Elpenbain, Silvia had experienced far too many things beyond her ability.
At Peohil, at Roseutokeu, and in the battle at Wind Valley as well.
She hadn’t wanted to admit it, but she had come to think of herself as a burden.
Binaeril possessed a talent that shone far too brightly compared to her own.
The greatest talent as a mage.
It was ironic. Binaeril, who had envied others for lacking talent for so long, was now the object of someone else’s envy.
Silvia wanted to become stronger.
Strong enough to not be a burden to anyone.
Strong enough to protect the precious Princess with her own hands.
Sori looked at Silvia with an exasperated gaze, as if asking what nonsense she was spouting.
“What are you talking about?”
“You are one of the Myo tribe’s finest warriors, are you not? Please teach me how to fight.”
“A human? From the Myo? What are you scheming?”
“There is no scheme. I am asking purely out of sincerity.”
Silvia bowed her head deeply.
“Please.”
Rike, who had been dusting off items, rolled her large eyes back and forth between the two, gauging the mood.
Sori looked down at Silvia with his arms crossed.
“This is absurd.”
“Taking you into the village, providing you a place to stay, treating the injured, and sending you off peacefully—that alone is the best hospitality I can offer.”
Anger gradually boiled in Sori’s tone.
“But what? You want me to teach you the Myo way of fighting? Did you mistake my kindness for fondness of humans?”
Silvia remained silent, still bowing her head.
“Truly, the shamelessness of humans… It’s truly astounding. Why should I do such a thing?”
“…There is no reason. All you have is my word….”
“Hey, you already used that earlier. Say something else.”
“Tch.”
It didn’t work a second time. Sori was no fool.
“Child, what do you think spirits are?”
It was a question he had never considered before.
Spirits were just spirits. After all, Binaeril’s interest lay in magic.
“Uh… beings that dwell in all things… as natural objects… what should I call them.”
Having never thought about it, his explanation grew convoluted.
Eden was the spirit of the Elpenbain library.
The library was her domain. A being who stayed there, welcomed visitors, and aided them.
Binaeril thought.
‘Then what about Jilpeu?’
Jilpeu was a wind spirit.
Wasn’t he the wind itself as a natural entity that freely commanded the wind?
While Binaeril was organizing his thoughts, Jineulbaram tossed out the answer casually.
“Spirits are the constancy of the world.”
“The constancy of the world?”
It was a difficult word to be coming from a stout grandmother.
“Do you know what that means?”
Constancy was a term referring to the characteristic of a living being maintaining its own state.
But with just that, her words weren’t easily understood.
“…I don’t quite understand.”
When he suddenly raised his head and looked, Jineulbaram’s expression was no longer that of the gentle elderly woman from before.
The authority of a solemn master peeked through the wrinkled face of the grandmother.
In that moment, Binaeril received an impression from her similar to Headmaster Yulrio.
“Just as all people act according to their own will, there is will within nature as well. Spirits are the crystallization of that will.”
It was a perspective he was hearing for the first time.
“Child, do you know the fundamental difference between the Myo and humans?”
What kind of random question was this now?
Binaeril gave a crude answer. This time, too, Jineulbaram easily revealed the answer to him.
“Humans try to change the world through their own power. War, nations, magic… The tailless ignoramuses know not how to serve the world. The spirits have no reason to lend their voices to those who do not serve the world.”
Binaeril vaguely understood why spirit users were such rare existences even in Elpenbain, which gathered numerous talented individuals.
Jineulbaram’s teachings sounded sweet and ecstatic, like the intimate secrets held by the world itself.
Binaeril forgot to even swallow his saliva as he waited for Jineulbaram’s next words.
Just as a faint light of wisdom shone from someone who had long delved into a single subject, at this very moment, Jineulbaram was neither an old grandmother nor a mere priestess of the Myo tribe.
She was a sage.
“Child. Remember that life dwells within all things. Listen to the sounds of the wind, the forest, the river, and the earth. That is the only way to serve the spirits.”
It was an answer easily obtained, yet it was a teaching Binaeril ought to cherish like gold.