Unsealing Emptiness

The image of her trying to help that man who, in turn, was about to stab her before getting himself killed kept flashing past her mind.

She was not contemplating because of the decapitation in front of her. She had already recovered from that since she had seen her fair share of bloodshed even as a pampered lady.

Instead, she was reflecting on her actions because of how close she had been to death. Although she did have a couple of artifacts that would have saved her life, it reminded her how just a single mistake from her could have such consequences.

This was also the reason that Mages under Rank-6 took caution not to get close to their enemy. Their physical bodies were at most only slightly sturdier than ordinary people. It would have undoubtedly resulted in her death if she ignored the fact that she had the artifacts to protect her, and Ozul did not help either.

Being so close to death made her think some things through. Not to mention, she was quiet because it was her own fault. Ozul had stopped her, but she had insisted on helping.

Cyril and Mark remained quiet. They assumed that Clara probably had inner conflicts, but Ozul did not care.

.....

As far as he was concerned, her emotions were not erratic and all over the place. This meant that she was just reflecting on her actions.

Others might have called it cruel of him, but he had tried to stop her once. She insisted on helping, and he knew that he could not win an argument with a believer, so he let her do as she wished. And at the critical time, he also saved her life.

Ozul did not have any reason to go out of his way to teach her stuff. He did what he could, and that was the extent of it. Besides, Clara was someone he had no relation to, unlike Raven and Blaze. He had already done enough.

Only the rustling of leaves could be heard as they passed by a few other roads. It seemed that there was probably a city or a town nearby judging by the increase in routes.

Since there was a city nearby, Ozul decided that it might be a good idea to rest in a room, alone, once in a while.

‘Thinking about it, I can always have a separate room for myself!’ Ozul realized that Raven wasn’t with him now. It was only her that always forced him to share his room. And now that she wasn’t here, he could always have the room booked solely for himself.

He asked the duo if they knew about the city, and Mark told him it was just a small town.

Mark explained the exact direction before the group advanced towards the town.

Half a day later, they were already in the town. Both Cyril and Mark changed into their disguise out of nowhere. They changed their clothes and put on wigs even while running.

The moment they landed on the ground, Ozul could not recognize them just from the outer appearance.

Both of them had turned into slightly obese men and wore expensive-looking clothes. Ozul did not ask why they had disguised themselves since it seemed to be their habit.

Before they entered the town, Ozul had created the pointed hat on his head, and Clara also wore the veil again. They would attract all the attention with their appearance. Even if they could not disguise themselves as the duo did, at least they could hide their faces.

It seemed that Mark knew almost every place as he brought them directly to a remote area that had a small hotel.

Fortunately, the hotel was in a remote place, so it had many rooms left. Ozul directly asked for a room with a single bed for himself and took the keys before striding off.

After he left, Clara had no choice but to book a room for herself as well. Meanwhile, Cyril and Mark picked up a room with two beds.

It hadn’t gotten dark yet, but it did not matter to them. Being high ranked Mages, the concept of night and day only matter when they were in a serious situation.

Ozul got inside his room, noticing the rundown condition. There were small cracks on the ceiling, but he was satisfied as the room was clean overall.

He did not plan to go to sleep directly and was going to read the book.

*Tak..Tak*

However, he had just sat on the bed when he heard the knock.

He stared at it for a while before he got up and opened the door. As he did so, Clara’s figure came into his view.

She was standing there while looking down at the floor. Fidgeting with her fingers, she suddenly looked up at him when she realized that the door was already open.

“... I wanted to say thank you...” Clara said with such a low voice that it seemed that she was only muttering to herself.

“Hmm.” Ozul only stared at her since it seemed that she still had things to say.

“Thank you for saving me back there... and in the Silverbird Capital city... and back when drake was rushing at me,” Clara was going to finish with just expressing her gratitude. But then suddenly remembered that she still had to thank him for saving her all those times properly.

“Okay,” Ozul said as he was about to close the door, but Clara put a hand on it.

“Also, just because that man was pretending does not mean that every helpless person is like that,” She could not help but tell this to him.

“There are people who need help, and we have the responsibility to help since we have the ability!” Clara declared resolutely.

Ozul intensely stared at her with his brows just a little furrowed. He opened the door and got out of the way. Clara took that as her cue to move in, although she did not understand the reason.

“You are probably the daughter of someone at a high position in the Church of Light, right?” Ozul asked calmly.

Frankly, it wasn’t hard for anyone to guess such a thing since not only did Clara have Light Element, she even had a good relationship with the Royals of Silverbird Kingdom. They were also going to the Neutral Lands, which also had the Church of Light’s headquarters.

Clara was not surprised that he had come to this conclusion either. She would have been shocked if someone actually did not think as such.

“Correct me if I am wrong, but you people are righteous, hmm?” Ozul said as Clara nodded but with a little frown since she did not like how he mentioned them as ‘you people’.

Ozul then pointed at his prosthetics and said, “You asked what happened to them before.”

Clara again nodded her head.

“Someone cut them when I was just born,” Ozul said nonchalantly before adding, “I can still reattach them, but you wanna know where they are right now?”

Clara held her breath while seriously thinking where this was getting at. She was surprised to hear that his hands were cut when he was only a newborn, but her mind would not stop thinking about the reason for his questions.

Though she still nodded since she was curious as well.

“Your Church of Light has one of them,” Ozul said, making Clara’s eyes widened.

Before she could say anything, Ozul continued, “And they would not give my own hand back to me.”

When Clara heard it, she immediately replied, “Why wouldn’t they? You just need to ask. There is no way we will ever do something so cruel! What will we do about your limbs anyway?”

“Those purple healing potions are made because of my limbs. They would not hand it over under the pretense of helping everyone while in truth... they are just earning money and doing experiments on my arms,” Ozul explained expressionlessly.

Clara was just going to question him why they would even take his arms. However, his explanation stopped her thought process.

“Now, you tell me. If you had the power to decide, would you give me my limbs back or keep the facade of the kind people to the whole world?” Ozul asked his last question.

Clara could only stand there dumbfoundedly as she processed everything.

Although she could not fully trust his every word, it was indeed a complicated situation if what he said was true.

First of all, she was not even aware of how the healing potions were made. Her parents never informed her of the inside information of the Church since she was not strong enough.

Then there was the question of why a human being’s limbs could be used to create healing potions.

But putting all that aside, Ozul had also asked her the question of what she would choose.

Although she was unhappy about how he said those slanderous things about the Church, she could only put that aside for now.

‘Just for once, assuming that everything he said is true...’ Clara clearly had two options. But she could not decide which she would pick.

On one side, they were Ozul’s limbs. So he has every right over them. By default, his arms should be returned to him without any questions asked.

But on the other hand, giving back the limbs meant that they would not be able to produce those miraculous recovery potions anymore. Those potions healed thousands of people!