The Crown Prince Who Raises a Side Character

#32 Rookie Adventurer Bern (30) – Firefly

#32: The New Adventurer, Bern (30) – Firefly

Within the fading consciousness…

Blanca stared blankly, replaying the events just past.

A vision swirling in dizzying chaos.

A body trembling like a leaf before the wind.

Curse, plague, venom. An explosion as if a wick had been lit within the vile, wretched oils squeezed from all that was evil and foul in the world.

And then, arms embracing her within that explosion.

The moment that memory surfaced, Blanca reflexively lurched upwards.

“Ugh…!”

A throbbing ache pulsed through her, as if every inch of her had been beaten.

Ignoring it as best she could, she frantically scanned her surroundings.

Collapsed building debris where the ground had given way, dust motes dancing in the empty air.

Among it all, she spotted a familiar shock of red hair and bolted forward, but once she could truly see him, she trembled uncontrollably.

“Ah… Aah…”

Bern’s condition was utterly devastating.

His right leg was crushed beneath a massive boulder, his skin blackened as if by a virulent poison, and smoke curled from him constantly, as if he were burning alive in real time.

Perhaps, once that corruption had fully taken hold, his body would be reduced to ash, leaving not even a corpse behind.

Thump.

Her legs seemed to give way and she collapsed, crawling towards Bern and casting a healing spell.

Again and again, repeatedly, until the wounds he suffered began to mend.

But it was a futile endeavor.

The white light she scattered failed to push back the dark magic consuming Bern’s body, could not mend his wounds.

Still, Blanca continued to chant.

“Heal, you have to heal. If I can’t use it now, then what good is it…!!”

Childhood days.

To protect her powerless daughter, her mother had volunteered a sacrifice.

And now.

The only man who understood her, who shared her dreams, was once again facing death because of her.

That truth threatened to rot Blanca’s heart from the inside out.

Then, suddenly.

A hand grasped hers.

“─It’s alright to stop, Miss Blanca.”

Had he regained his senses?

The red-haired adventurer held Blanca’s hand.

He gazed at her with eyes so calm and serene, it was hard to believe he was a man on the verge of death.

“It’s not a wound that can be healed, so don’t waste your mana needlessly. No, more than that, it’s best to treat your wounds first, Miss Blanca.”

His utterly nonchalant tone made Blanca’s chest ache despite knowing she shouldn’t react that way.

“Is this really the time to be saying things like that!? Why, why did you shield me!”

“Hmm.”

To Blanca’s near-hysterical outcry, Bern responded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Well, your life, Blanca, is far more important, you see.”

Who could have made that sound, like swallowing their breath whole?

Before Blanca, speechless, Bern continued, a touch awkward.

“I intended to keep it a secret, if at all possible. But as things stand, you’ll needlessly shoulder a burden. So I have no choice but to tell the truth.”

Bern, as if revealing the secret of a magic trick to a child, conjured a playful air and uttered these words.

“The adventurer Bern doesn’t exist. This body, this identity, all of it is a fabrication, conjured by magic.”

“The real ‘me’ is somewhere else, far from here, alive and well.”

“So there’s no need to worry, no need to feel guilty.”

“I’m sorry for deceiving you, Blanca.”

Blanca was silent.

Not a single word could she force past her lips.

How could she?

‘To comfort me… to comfort someone as pathetic and lacking as I am, you resort to such a lie?’

Her throat burned, choked with emotion.

She wanted to scream, right then and there, to demand who he thought he was fooling.

But, in truth, Blanca couldn’t.

The man’s final devotion, even as he died, so he wouldn’t burden her with guilt.

How could she possibly turn away from such clumsy, such devastatingly gentle consideration?

And so, Blanca said,

“…Yes, really, this is too much, Bern. I never knew you were such a brazen man.”

Was my voice trembling, perhaps?

Had he noticed, my acting so clumsy?

Inwardly trembling with unease, she was relieved that Vern seemed none the wiser.

“Haha, apologies. In my heart, I’d linger with words of remorse, but time seems a luxury we don’t possess.”

Vern’s gaze drifted upwards.

He stared at the hole rent in the ceiling from their fall.

“That last attack likely caught him in its wake as well, but he’ll soon complete his resurrection. A Lich possesses the ability to create a ‘heart’, a sort of spare life. So, we must move before then.”

“Move? For what purpose?”

Blanca couldn’t help but question.

With Vern, the only one capable of defeating the Lich, in his current state, the battle was as good as lost.

Surely, there was no need to fight further.

Wouldn’t it be better to remain by his side until his final moment?

“For victory.”

As if severing such childish whims, Vern spoke with resolve.

“We haven’t yet been defeated. Above, Renya and the other adventurers remain… and more importantly, you are here, Blanca.”

Blanca tried to shake her head.

That was impossible, without him, someone like her couldn’t possibly face the Lich, she wanted to deny it all.

“Having witnessed you fight, I will declare it without hesitation. You are capable, Blanca. And if you win, it will be my victory, no, ‘our’ victory.”

Yet, Vern told her she was capable.

That she, of all people, could do it.

And so, Blanca inclined her head, not left and right, but up and down.

For it was the least gratitude she could offer.

Bern smiled, satisfied.

Suppressing tears that threatened to spill, Blanca returned the smile.

Blanca rose to her feet.

She gripped her sword, using the fallen debris as steps, climbing higher and higher.

To dedicate victory to her comrade.

To ensure his final adventure was not a failure, but a success.

Thud.

Reaching the original level, she saw the adventurers, who had somehow regrouped, locked in battle with the lich.

Even if the lich had recovered the violet mist while casting his higher-level spells, the damage already inflicted upon the adventurers from contact with the mist remained.

Exhausted and burdened by the myriad of negative spell effects carried by the mist, most of the adventurers were already severely weakened.

In contrast, while the lich had lost all of his primary death knights to Bern, he still possessed considerable magical power and minions.

Having already attempted to flee once, only to be brutally repelled, the adventurers had little will to fight left in them.

“Oh? Have you come crawling out to die of your own volition? Had you waited until I finished clearing up, you might have prolonged your life, if only a little.”

Perhaps he had realized Bern had fallen.

The lich’s tone now exuded a renewed confidence.

A pathetic, false charisma that only emerged when he held an overwhelming advantage.

To have feared something like *that*, to the point of nightmares.

To have lost those dear to her twice over, to a thing such as *him*.

A surge, something profound, welled up from the deepest part of Blanca’s heart.

She didn’t bother to suppress the emotion.

She took a step. —The swordsmanship and movements he had taught her were there.

She clenched her fist. —The ring he’d gifted her asserted its presence.

She felt her heart pound. —It was the life he had defended, sacrificing his own.

The nature of magic: a life’s trajectory.

How one lived, what one did, where one looked.

The countless fragments she had carried began to coalesce, forming a towering edifice.

“Tch, has she lost her mind, giving up on everything?”

Whether it bothered the lich that Blanca said nothing, or he deemed allowing her to approach again too troublesome, a black orb, rife with curse and venom, shot from his hand.

A high-level attack spell, capable of gravely injuring even a knight clad in heavy armor, if it hit directly.

Blanca intercepted it with “Stone-Burning Magic,” but a mid-level spell stood no real chance against a high-level one.

The black orb, only slightly weakened, hurtled towards Blanca, and she swung her sword at it.

KWA-aaaNG!

With a deafening explosion, Blanca’s body flew backward, tumbling across the ground.

The lich roared with laughter, watching Blanca die from burns and the insidious encroachment of the curse.

Thud!

Blanca planted her sword in the earth and, using it as support, pushed herself back to her feet.

“Such effort. It would be easier to give up.”

The lich, finding her struggle amusing, unleashed another spell.

Blanca attempted to parry once more, but again, she couldn’t overcome the sheer force. Her body tumbled across the floor.

And again, she rose.

“What…?”

Initially, Lich had attacked Blanca as if playing with a mere toy, but now, a strange unease crept in, hardening his features.

No matter how savage Lich’s attacks, no matter how desperately he sought to extinguish her life, Blanca simply would not fall.

Spitting blood, rolling across the hard-packed earth, she somehow evaded fatal blows with sword and spell, continuously reinforcing herself and healing, dragging the fight onward.

Once might be chalked up to sheer luck.

Twice, perhaps described as tenacity, a dogged will.

But what if it repeated a third, a fourth time? Or more?

“Just what have you done, *woman!*?”

With a roar, a spell brimming with murderous intent hurtled toward Blanca.

Again, Blanca met it with a blast of flame. The two spells collided.

On the surface, the situation appeared identical to before.

*Fwooom!*

Yet, the flame completely negated Lich’s spell, proving the outcome was anything but the same.

A mere Third Circle mage’s intermediate spell matching a Fifth Circle mage’s advanced spell in strength – a preposterous situation that widened Lich’s eyes in disbelief.

Only then did Lich notice the strange flow of mana swirling around Blanca’s body.

The mana infused into 『Magic to Strengthen the Body Slightly』 and 『Magic to Heal Minor Wounds』 emitted a faint light the moment it touched other mana present in the environment, soon, the spells’ effects were magnified.

Mana trait: 『Firefly』

Amplifying the potency of her own mana by reacting it with other mana existing in her surroundings.

The more magical energy saturated the surroundings, the more violently the reactions, the more powerfully the spells manifested beyond their intended design.

…For a mage like Mortius, who inevitably saturated the area with magic during combat – and especially for Mortius, whose unique talent was to transform magic itself into mist and disperse it – this was practically a fatal weakness.

Realizing the danger, Mortius tried desperately to finish off Blanca. But what had been impossible before her strengthening was certainly no more attainable now.

Rather, the more frantically Mortius tried to kill Blanca, the more his magic fed her, increasing her power.

Mortius understood the vicious cycle, but saw no other option.

What was a mage to do but use magic?

The only alternative would be a warrior-type, one who could contain and utilize magic within their own body. But the useful warriors in his service had long since been crushed by Bern.

Soon, reduced to struggling to defend even Blanca’s basic spells, let alone her intermediate ones, Mortius attempted to flee, shrouded in his mist.

Naturally, Blanca wouldn’t simply let him escape.

*Kwaaang!*

The fireball, initially the size of a child, reacted with Mortius’s mist and swelled to the size of a carriage before exploding.

Mortius frantically summoned a barrier to block the attack, but the immense fire shattered it, blasting him away with it.

His charred body was reconstructed around a heart-shaped object that materialized from somewhere.

Without a word, Blanca unleashed another volley of fire, turning Mortius into charcoal once more, immediately after his revival.

After another resurrection, Mortius cried out desperately.

“Stop! Cease this at once! This heart… it is your mother’s! Her life and soul are contained within! Are you prepared to destroy it with your own hands?!”

Blanca froze.

Seeing his chance, Mortius continued frantically.

“Girl! Become my apprentice, no, my collaborator! And I will give your mother a proper body and resurrect her! It’s more than possible once you reach the sixth circle! But if I fall here, the chance to reunite with your mother will be gone forever! Is that what you truly desire!?”

Mortius, he had several disciples belonging to the Guild under his tutelage.

Of course, he knew of Blanca, the Guild’s celebrity, and understood that she had become an adventurer to save her mother.

Such a little thing – there was no way she wouldn’t take the bait of reunion with her mother, right?

First, stop the fighting with sweet words, and then deal with her through methods other than a head-on confrontation.

He firmly believed this to be the best strategy.

But, to cut to the chase.

“I fight to ‘liberate’ my mother. Do you really think I’d show *those two* such weakness by being swayed by honeyed words like that?”

Mortius didn’t know who she meant by ‘those two.’

He didn’t have time to think.

Before he knew it, a sword that had pierced his chest tore his heart right out of him.

For a Lich, a heart was like a ‘wedge’ that kept him tethered to the mortal realm.

The last heart that bound him to this world had been forcibly removed, and Mortius’s soul began to depart the earth, heading for the afterlife.

Or rather, it should have.

[Good work playing the fool! Too competent to be third-rate, too small-minded to be first-rate. Perfect for a second-rate stage like this.]

A voice both bewitching and light, like a mature woman yet also like an innocent girl, brimming with contradictions.

Someone who could inspire instinctive fear even in a wizard who had transcended death, had seized Mortius’s soul.

[The little mage’s share is the life and essence in your body. My share is the soul itself. It’s a pity that I can’t devour the souls of innocent humans because of the crown prince’s nagging, but that’s nothing for you to worry about, is it?]

Mortius tried to scream.

But such a luxury was not permitted to him, who was now just a soul.

The wicked Lich who had toyed with the souls and lives of countless others, only understood his sins in his final moment, as a helpless soul.

Her lips, like rubies gleaming. Within them, a chasm of darkness, an abyss without end─

[—Well then, I shall eat well.]

*Gulp.*

*

After everything was done.

Blanca returned to where Bern had been.

The red-haired adventurer, struck by the lich’s wicked sorcery, had vanished, not even leaving behind a corpse.

Clutching the heart that was once her mother’s, chasing after the echoes of the man she loved, the girl finally unleashed the tears she had held back.