“If I need to maintain control, I reapply the blood before it wears off.”
“And when was the last time you did that to him?”
“That was...quite a while ago, actually.”
“So he hasn’t been under your powers’ effect in a while, right?”
Liz tilted her head in confusion.
“Which means,” Zenos continued, “he’s not doing it because he’s under your thrall. He really does want to protect you.”
“Huh? He does?”
“Y-Yes, Lady Liz!” Gaion said, looking flustered. “Why did you think it was?”
“Well, you’re simple, so I thought the effect of my blood was lasting an unusually long time...”
“M-My feelings...” the big man muttered, looking like he was about to cry.
Gina, for some reason, told him to hang in there. She really seemed to have completely recovered.
“So, Zenos,” Liz continued, “will you come visit once we’re all set up?”
“Of course,” Zenos replied.
Liz stared at Zenos’s face for a moment, then glanced at Lily briefly before turning on her heel. “I’ll see you around, then, Zenos, Lily.”
“Yeah. See you,” Zenos said.
“See you, Liz!” Lily exclaimed.
The healer and the elf saw the trio off at the front door, and Liz gave them a big wave. Behind the pair stood the clinic that had once felt so ominously oppressive, yet now looked so warm and peaceful.
“Are you sure this is okay, sis?” Gina asked as she walked alongside Liz.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you want to be with Zenos?”
“Why do you think that?”
“A lady’s intuition. Besides, Zenos got super handsome.”
“Don’t be cheeky, now!” Liz gave her sister’s forehead a light poke before looking back at Zenos and Lily, still standing in front of the clinic. “And, well... There’s no room there for someone like me.”
“Really? It looked pretty spacious to me.”
“That’s not what I mean. But I guess you’re still too young to understand it.”
“Boo.”
Liz smiled at her sister, then turned her gaze back to the road. “Let’s go, Gina. We’ll build our own place.”
A place where children could laugh freely, cry freely, without going hungry or cold, and sleep safe and sound. And then, one day, proudly leave the nest. That was the kind of place she wanted to create.
Bathing in the bright sunlight, Liz said with a bright smile, “I’m everyone’s big sister, after all.”
Epilogue (II)
As evening arrived, Lily called out to Zenos, who sat at the examination desk. “Are you looking at Mr. Becker’s letter again?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes,” Zenos replied. A piece of paper sat on the desk before him—the letter from Becker about his former mentor, whom he’d met in the slums.
During his harsh days at the orphanage, Zenos had taken pity on a vagrant who’d died on the roadside, and attempted to cast a resurrection spell. Suddenly, he’d felt a sharp blow to the back of his head. The man who’d smacked him would go on to become his mentor.
Liz had been Zenos’s protector within the orphanage. Outside of it, away from prying eyes, he would go to his mentor and learn all about magic and the world at large. It was no exaggeration to say Zenos had become the man he was today thanks to those two.
Zenos had read Becker’s letter over and over, but of course, its contents never changed. His mentor had been an elite healer. The man had dabbled in resurrection magic, which was considered forbidden. This had triggered some sort of curse, causing everyone to forget all about his mentor. And if Zenos wanted to know more, he should look for his old mentor’s notes.
“Any new discoveries?” asked Carmilla as she sat upon the bed, her legs swinging back and forth.
“It’s not exactly a new discovery, per se, but meeting Liz and Dalitz got me thinking a lot about the orphanage,” Zenos said, his gaze lifting from the letter. “Things were tense there, but thanks to Liz, our group got along pretty well. And there was one kid I was particularly close to.” He stared blankly ahead, as though recalling something, then continued, “When I mentioned having met my mentor, that kid got curious and came with me, wanting to learn too.”
“Oh? That is the first I’m hearing about this,” Carmilla remarked.
“I didn’t know about it either,” Lily said.
“Yeah? It’s hard to mention everything. So much has happened.”
