NOVEL NEXT Chapter 81 - To The Next Phase (II)
[Volume 2 Epilogue | Chapter 81: To The Next Phase (II)]
When Alaric came to, he was in a room that smelled of disinfectant. The harsh, antiseptic odor invaded his senses and jarred him awake.
The walls were a bland, institutional off-white. The only sound was the soft beep of a heart rate monitor and the gentle whoosh of the air conditioning. He realized that he was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by medical equipment.
Alaric Ptolemy was a very healthy young man. He had been to hospital on a handful of occasions: when his parents brought him for his annual check-up, when he broke his arm in a minor accident after falling off a horse mid-gallop when he was 10, and that one time he got his appendix removed when he was 7. Even the flu that spread through Windsor Preparatory that one semester had decided to leave him alone.
So when he opened his eyes, the sterile white of Windsor Medical Center's ceiling was a rattling reminder of his current condition. He found himself lying in a bed, hooked up to an IV and various monitors. His body ached all over, and his head throbbed with a dull pain.
What happened to me?
It was the question that rattled around his mind, trying to piece together the fragments of his memory.
And then he remembered.
The ritual.
The children.
The fire.
And... Acacia Belmont.
He tried to kill him. He used everything in his power to try and end his existence.
And that refugee rat crushed him, without even casting a single spell.
A Wallachian refugee with seemingly no thaumaturgical talent whatsoever had bested him, heir to the House of Ptolemy. It was inconceivable. Unbearable. The memory alone made bile rise in his throat.
He attempted to sit up, but a sharp pain across his chest forced him back against the pillows. He felt like he was burned alive then sewn together like some sort of grotesque patchwork doll. Those burns had to be from the electrocution and... the Firebombs…
Yet beneath the pain, a more pressing question emerged.
Why was he still alive?
The Modern Tome—or whatever that accursed book truly was—had been explicit in its decree. Complete the «Zulumat» ritual by the Luna-Spica conjunction on June 24th, or die. There were no alternatives, no exceptions, and no room for failure.
He had failed. The ritual circle had been destroyed, the sacrifices taken, the astronomical alignment missed. By all rights, he should be dead.
But here he was, staring at a hospital ceiling.
What was happening? What had gone wrong—or rather, what had gone unexpectedly right? And where was the book? Had Acacia taken it? The IPA? He remembered clutching it during the confrontation, but after that…
The clean sound of the hospital door interrupted his haphazard thoughts.
"Well, well! Look who's rejoined the land of the living."
It was a jovial voice, almost inappropriately so given the circumstances. Alaric turned his head to see an elderly man with a protruding belly and an oddly amphibian appearance entering the room. He wore a white coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck, and his identification badge read "Dr. Victor Amherst, Chief of Medicine."
"How're we feeling today, kiddo? You've been unconscious for the better part of sixteen hours," the doctor asked, looming over the bed with a clipboard in hand.
"...Where am I?"
"Windsor Medical Center! Though I suspect you already knew that. You Ptolemys have a really distinct talent for asking questions to which you already have answers."
It wasn't entirely wrong. The question was just to buy time while Alaric assessed his situation.
Nevertheless, Alaric bristled at the casual disrespect, but his current position afforded him little dignity with which to defend his family's honor.
"So, why am I here?" he asked instead.
"Because most people who set abandoned buildings on fire while they're still inside them require medical attention afterward. Call it a professional observation from a lifetime of experience."
The doctor tapped his clipboard with his pen.
"You've sustained superficial burns over approximately 12% of your body. Half from electrocution, and the other half from actual flame. There's facial contusion consistent with blunt force trauma, and you were suffering from severe prana depletion when they brought you in. I've treated enough of your kind in my day to recognize ⸢Ephemeral⸥ overuse when I see it. That Birthright of yours is powerful, but it's a real nerve strainer."
Alaric stared back. He was at a loss for words. How much did this man know? How much had been reported about what happened at Oakridge Path?
"Once you're stabilized and discharged," Dr. Amherst continued, taking on a matter-of-fact tone, "the IPA will be taking custody of you. I'm told the charges are quite serious."
"C-Charges? W-What charges?!" Alaric finally found his voice.
Dr. Amherst sighed, scratching his balding head sheepishly.
"So, I'm a doctor, not a legal expert, but I believe the big concern is illegal possession of Centrum Supremum-exclusive Mystic Gears—specifically Firebombs. Then there's the matter of using said Firebombs to commit arson in the Oakridge Path Industrial Complex. Though... between you and me, I think there's more to that story."
'What...?'
They knew about the Firebombs but not about the ritual? How was that possible? What about the children? Surely they would have testified about the kidnapping and about his intentions. And that refugee—he had witnessed everything. Why would he withhold such damning information?
"I... don't understand," he mumbled, more to himself than to the doctor.
"What's not to understand?" Dr. Amherst answered. "You're in a heap of trouble, kiddo. Though I suppose it could have been worse. You're lucky someone found you when they did. Locking yourself in an abandoned building and setting it ablaze would have killed you within minutes if you'd been left there."
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He paused, his expression softening slightly.
"Unless that was the intent?"
"..."
So if he wanted to cover up what happened, he needed to act like he wanted to…
No! Pathetic! Stop thinking about him! You're not a failure! You're better than this!
"Who found me?" Alaric changed the subject.
"The same boy who hauled you out of that inferno, which brings me to another observation. Your savior has even more screws loose than you do. Voluntarily running into a burning building to rescue someone? To the point of fighting to save your life?" Dr. Amherst shook his head. "For windmill's sake, the youth of these days have no sense of self-preservation."
Alaric felt like all the air was sucked out of the room.
"My... savior?"
"Yes, the Belmont boy. Lady Kircheisen's ward. He's been waiting for you to wake up."
It couldn't be. Not him. Please not him.
"Why would he...?"
Alaric couldn't complete the thought. It defied all logic. After everything he had done... the attempted murder, the kidnapping, the ritual—why would Acacia Belmont, of all people, risk his life to save him?
To that, Dr. Amherst merely sighed and sat on a chair beside his bed.
"Look, kiddo. I'm not a shrink. I can't tell you what's going on in that boy's head. Maybe he's a hero complex case; maybe it was his version of penance. Who knows?"
Alaric remained silent, his emotions swirling in a chaotic maelstrom.
"In any case, I'm not here to judge anyone. That's a question only he can answer. Since your injuries are largely superficial and you appear to be stable, I don't see any medical reason to keep him waiting any longer. I'll send him in. Try not to overexert yourself. You may be heading to IPA custody soon, but you're still my patient until you leave this building."
Alaric wanted to protest and demand more time to compose himself, but Dr. Amherst was already moving toward the door. The doctor paused in the doorway, looking back at Alaric with an unreadable expression.
"Oh, and Mr. Ptolemy? Whatever happened between you two last night—whatever drove you to such desperate measures—perhaps consider that someone willing to run into fire to save you might be worth listening to."
With that cryptic advice, the bullfrog-faced doctor left and clicked the door shut behind him.
Alaric lay there, trying to process what had transpired. None of it made any sense. Everything he thought he understood about the world had been flipped on its head.
Then the door opened once more, and his nemesis stepped inside. The boy he had tried to kill and then sacrificed.
Acacia Belmont.
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room as the door closed behind Dr. Amherst. Alaric stared at the ceiling, unwilling to look at his visitor, the last person on earth he wanted to see in this state. Weak. Defeated. Humiliated.
Acacia stood awkwardly just inside the doorway. His hands were shoved deep into his red and white baseball jacket pockets. His posture was stiff and uncertain, like he'd walked into the wrong room.
"So... how're you feeling?" Acacia finally said, rocking slightly on his heels.
The banality of the question was almost offensive.
"I've been better," Alaric replied flatly, still refusing to look at him.
"Right. Of course." Acacia nodded too quickly. "I mean, you were... on fire. And electrocuted. And... punched."
He winced at his own words.
"Not that I'm—I wasn't trying to... y'know."
Alaric finally turned his head, eyebrow raised at the spectacle of Acacia Belmont—the calculating, composed adversary who had dismantled him so thoroughly just hours ago—stumbling over simple sentences like a child giving his first oral report.
If he were in a better state, he would have mocked him endlessly for being a socially incompetent buffoon. But the words wouldn't come.
"Dr. Amherst says your burns are mostly superficial. Which is... good? I mean, not good that you have burns at all, but good that they're not, uh, deeper?"
"Why are you here?" Alaric was physically unable to endure another moment of this excruciating attempt at bedside manner.
Acacia blinked.
"I wanted to see if you were okay."
"Why?"
"Because... you almost died?"
"So did you. Because of me." Alaric gritted his teeth. "I tried to kill you. Multiple times. I tried to burn you alive. I would have succeeded if you hadn't..." He trailed off, unwilling to acknowledge his defeat aloud.
"Yeah, well." Acacia shrugged. "Windsor would be boring without a blue-haired blueblood trying to end my existence."
Seemed that the attempted murder to him was just a minor "faux pas."
It was a tasteless joke. Alaric's patience, already threadbare, snapped.
"Cut the bullshit, Belmont! Why are you really here?! Where's the book?! Why did you save me?! What game are you playing?!"
Acacia's awkward demeanor vanished instantly, replaced by something colder and more familiar.
"The Modern Tome is out of your grasp, so you won't be able to kill any more children for your selfish desires."
Something about those words made Alaric shatter. A dam broke inside him, and everything he'd been holding back came flooding out in a torrent.
"Do you think I wanted to kill them?! If I didn't do it, the book said I would die! It's the prediction it made!"
The "refugee" took a step back. He was genuinely stunned at the info.
Did he not know about…
"W-What did you just say?" Acacia couldn't help but put a hand over his mouth, as if that would prevent the words that had already come out.
"The book! The goddamn book! It told me what would happen! It showed me the future! And then it... it started making demands!"
"That's not possible... It's not supposed to don't work that way. They predict, they don't... decree."
"Well, this one did!" Alaric's fists clenched the hospital sheets. "I found it weeks ago, right after our first encounter! In the restricted section of Windsor Prep's library. I've read every book in that section a dozen times, but this one... I'd never seen it before."
His tone took on a distant quality, as though he were speaking from somewhere far away.
"When I opened it, the pages were blank at first. Then... a pink light spread across them, making words. It started with simple things! Like predicting what was in the next room, or who would be passing by! Things that anyone with enough preparations could pull off as a joke!"
Alaric laughed, a hollow sound devoid of humor.
"I thought it was some kind of prank. But then it predicted something impossible! That the Bloodhounds would attack Windsor's telecommunications warehouse, led by Siegfried Eisenberg with the Deathblossom Ars Magna, and that Pandora Kircheisen would defeat them. Two days before it happened."
Acacia's complexion had gone completely pale.
"Then it... started teaching me. New spells. Theories I'd never encountered. Integration Sequences and Arias that weren't in any textbook. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could actually excel. Like I might finally live up to what everyone expected of me. Then, the demands started. Small things at first—'cast this spell at this time,' 'leave this book in this location.' But they kept escalating. It told me to stop you from entering the restricted section of the library, or I would die. That was our confrontation outside Windsor Prep."
At this point, the "refugee" was transfixed by the impossibility of what he was hearing. Alaric didn't necessarily blame him; the story was beyond absurd.
"Then... it demanded the «Zulumat» ritual. By June 24th. Three children. The Luna-Spica conjunction. Or I would die."
He broke on the last word.
"I didn't want to. I swear I didn't want to. But I was so scared. I couldn't... I couldn't..."
Tears streamed freely down his face now, cutting paths through the faint soot stains that still marked his skin.
"I just wanted to be good enough! Just once! I just wanted to be worth something!"
Acacia was silent.
"So," Alaric continued, his voice shaking, "now you know the truth. Alaric Ptolemy—noble scion, heir of the House of Ptolemy—is a worthless coward, driven to madness by a magic book. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
More silence. It stretched between them, suffocating in its weight. Alaric braced himself for the mocking, the ridicule, the final blow to his shattered ego.
But it never came.
Acacia stood there, motionless, expression inscrutable. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"I understand."
It was not the response Alaric expected.
For a self-righteous bastard like him, he was strangely compassionate. How could he understand the desperation, the isolation, the crushing burden of a legacy that could never be fulfilled?
"But because I understand you, I can't forgive you."