The Elusive Sorcerer

Chapter 246

From the very beginning, she had always been someone who wanted to pursue what she desired, no matter how difficult the struggle to attain it might be.

This was the life of a fourteen-year-old girl, who lived like an ordinary schoolgirl; studying, playing with her friends, and enjoying her adolescence.

However, all of that came to an end when a terrible incident befell her. That day, the house that was always as quiet as a grave because her parents left for work from morning until afternoon was visited by several people, who were none other than her school friends.

The girl had not expected it. She had even been teased by them under the pretense that there was something they needed to take care of, only to discover that it had all been a surprise they had planned to see her reaction.

Of course, the girl had been angry for a moment, although on the other hand, a sense of relief managed to dispel her anger, replacing it with a gentle smile on her soft features.

Welcoming guests and serving food and drinks was a normal practice, or something permitted, for the people of Caestevil. Not only there, but throughout every city in Norn Province, people did the same thing out of respect for guests who had gone through considerable trouble during their journey to reach the home of the person they were visiting.

"...I couldn't do anything because you didn't tell me beforehand." The girl stood facing her friends, a tray tucked against her arm and waist.

One of them, a bespectacled boy, silently stared at the cup of tea in front of him before speaking.

"It's okay. We're also at fault for not telling you we were coming here." The teenager adjusted his thin-framed glasses, looking at the girl with displeasure.

"Yeah, there's nothing more enjoyable than getting together like this," another teenage boy said spontaneously.

"Eh, so you were actually hoping for that?" A brown-haired girl with bangs understood what the teenager meant.

"Shut up. You're always such a nuisance!" the teenager shouted with a sharp snort.

"Can't you two be quiet? I feel sorry for our host having to watch the two of you act like idiots." The girl looked at their host, who remained silent and had not moved from her spot.

The girl, as the host, smiled bitterly.

"Enough." She finally lifted one foot before walking toward the empty sofa and sitting down, placing the tray on the round table beside her.

"What are you doing here at my house? Eh, come to think of it, how did the five of you know my address?"

The girl immediately realized it, because the friend who knew her address had not come with the other five.

The atmosphere, which had previously been lively, suddenly fell silent. The heads that had previously been held high lowered as their respective gazes fell upon their trembling hands.

The girl furrowed her brows.

"Hey, is this another surprise the five of you planned?"

"No." One of them finally uttered a single word, although his lips remained pursed.

"We're here to tell you that she was taken to the hospital," the teenager continued, his face turning gloomy for a moment.

The girl felt her heartbeat slow, the relief in her heart fading as her gaze briefly became vacant. She had been careless, never asking why they had come to her instead and acted as though everything was nothing serious.

"Which hospital is she in?" the girl asked, her voice almost rising as she suddenly stood up.

"Ah, sorry. It's not that we didn't want to tell you about your celebration, but she ended up like this because of you."

"What did you say?" The girl could no longer move her limbs, wondering what mistake she had made.

Her gaze shifted toward the five people who rose from their seats before turning their backs to her.

"Hey, what, what actually happened? Aren't we friends?"

"Yes, we were," another girl replied through gritted teeth. "But now, we're not friends anymore."

Before leaving the house, the girl wearing black lace around her neck did something strange by pulling the host's hair before leaving her behind, allowing the girl to collapse onto the floor with both hands over her head.

From that moment on, the girl finally realized that the world was not as beautiful as she had imagined. After her friends came to visit, the girl decided to visit her friend without an adult accompanying her and walked alone toward the hospital.

Although she did not know exactly which hospital her friend had been admitted to, the girl knew for certain because there was no hospital as large as Rophelin in Caestevil, especially in Divetil District.

The journey to the hospital took roughly thirty minutes on foot. At first, the girl thought the journey from her house to the hospital would take fifteen minutes, but she dismissed that thought because it was so difficult for her to make her way through the darkness and slip through narrow gaps without being detected by the officers conducting routine patrols, especially from 8 p.m. until sunrise.

As soon as she arrived at the hospital entrance, the girl froze for a moment, her head lifting upward as her blue eyes shimmered softly beneath the lights on both sides of the fence.

"There are no guards or adults passing by. But how am I supposed to find the room where she's being treated when this hospital is so huge and spacious?"

After muttering to herself to drive away her doubts, the girl lifted one foot and walked through the gate.

Three steps from where she had been standing, her body suddenly froze as several questions crossed her mind.

'I know today's my birthday. Yes, they had talked about surprising me by making a cake as tall as a mountain and decorating it with various toppings to make it look prettier. But what happened to Sagara that made her end up in the hospital?'

As the doubt began to fade from her mind, a sharp click of her tongue escaped her lips and echoed in her thoughts.

"To hell with the celebration or whatever. I'm going to visit her and get an answer to this curiosity of mine."

The girl kicked the stones beneath her feet before walking with dragging steps, leaving clouds of dust behind with every step she took.

As she entered through the main door, the girl saw a receptionist sitting behind the desk, looking weary with tired eyes. Hope appeared in her eyes as the girl hurried over.

"Excuse me, is there a patient named Sagara here?" the girl asked enthusiastically.

The receptionist was momentarily confused before lowering her gaze slightly and letting out a small laugh.

"Sorry, I didn't see you," she said, having briefly thought the voice had come from a ghost.

"It's okay," the girl replied, still waiting for confirmation from the woman dressed in white.

The woman immediately searched through the documents for a patient with the surname Sagara, and after several seconds, her search produced a result.

"...Maeressa Sagara, right? She's in room 20, second floor, at the very end." When the receptionist opened her eyes, she looked slightly astonished and hurried out through the half-open door, her gaze sweeping across the surroundings.

Meanwhile, the girl walked calmly beneath the glittering lights overhead, observing the numbers above each room one by one.

On the second floor, at the end of the corridor, the girl stood before room 20, according to the information the receptionist had given her.

Without hesitation, as though there were no burden weighing on her mind, the girl turned the doorknob and stepped inside.

Closed blue curtains were the first thing to greet her arrival, while the mixed scent of medicine and fragrance swirled in her head for several seconds.

The girl glanced briefly toward whatever lay behind the curtains as she continued walking carefully. Upon reaching the end of the room, her eyes caught sight of someone she knew sitting there, her face pale, while something unpleasant caused the girl to momentarily lose control of her thoughts.

"...Maeressa? Is that you?" the girl said in deep disbelief.

Maeressa, the poor girl with a blackened burn covering the left side of her face, wrapped in clean white bandages, lowered her head further, her lips tightening.

"Why did you come here? How did you get past the hospital security and those patrols?"

The girl was startled; instead of receiving a welcome, she was met with several strange questions from her friend.

"That was easy," she replied softly, stepping closer and sitting on the available cushioned chair.

"Oh? I see."

"Yes." The girl held something back in her mind as she looked at Maeressa's hair covering part of her face.

"Don't be pessimistic, Maeressa. I'm not what you think I am."

"Then why did you come here? You're disappointed because there was no birthday celebration for you, aren't you?" Maeressa said, her voice almost rising.

The girl immediately rose from her seat, her face turning red as she pointed at herself.

"I'm not like that... I wasn't expecting those celebrations. I just wanted us to be able to talk things over like we usually do. Why are you getting angry at me instead? I came here with good intentions, all by myself, to visit you here tonight."

The girl's voice was nearly gone, and her breathing began to grow ragged. The people being treated in the same room let out startled sighs, some of them even rising from their sleep to find the source of the noise.

Fortunately, the silence of the room at night muffled the girl's voice, so the attendant in the nurses' station not far from room 20 did not hear her.

"You know, they came to my house and don't consider me their friend anymore. I don't know what strong reason is behind all of this."

The girl fell silent for a moment to see Maeressa's reaction before sitting down again and continuing, her voice returning to a low tone.

"Hey, Maeressa. If something is making you uncomfortable, just tell me; what made you end up in the hospital, and what's hidden behind those bangs?"

Instead of answering, Maeressa laughed quietly to herself.

"Why are you laughing?" The girl became even more confused by her friend's sudden strange behavior, as though her friend was trying to distance herself from her.

After thinking critically, the girl smiled, realizing why her friend was avoiding her presence today.

"I see. You don't want to talk to me. No, more precisely, you don't want to see my face." The girl rose from her seat, suppressing something painful in her chest before walking to the left and pulling aside the blue curtain.

Before deciding to leave the room, the girl glanced at her friend once more for several seconds, then walked out with a short sigh.

Dripping.

"Did I.. I just cry?"

Maeressa felt that something was wrong within her, especially something that continued to churn after her friend left.

She slowly turned her body before lying down, using both hands as a pillow for her cheek.

Only then did she realize it. In this place, on this night, in this room that had robbed her of her freedom, something she had once longed for had vanished. She did not know it, but after seeing her face following the change of her bandages that afternoon, her confidence had begun to disappear.

What she had said earlier was an expression of the problem she had kept buried all this time. Closing her eyes, her hand instinctively wiped beneath them as her cheeks grew wetter.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to drive you away. I'm sorry I couldn't be a good friend to you."

After those words were spoken, the girl who was still standing motionless before the curtain of the room where Maeressa was being treated opened her eyes wide.

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