Water Magician-Chapter 653 : Ryo vs Marie III
Chapter 0653 Ryo vs Marie III
Translator: Jay_Forestieri
Editor: Tseirp
Marie’s body walked over, picked up the head that had fallen, and put it back where it belonged.
Then she produced a potion from her bosom and poured it around the neck.
A faint light glowed... and the neck rejoined.
“What the...”
Ryo muttered as he watched the scene, while being propped up by Abel.
“I’m a phantomkin, so I’d reconnect on my own if you left me be... but this potion makes it reconnect right away.”
“There’s no way a potion like that exists!”
Ryo said, outraged.
Yes—that was truly beyond what one ought to expect of a ‘potion’.
Admittedly, among the potions made by Viscount Kenneth Hayward, the very best could reconnect a severed arm... but even those did not mean you could slap a limb back on and sprinkle potion on it and be done.
“Here, Ryo, you should use it too. With this potion, that arm of yours will grow back.”
“...Huh?”
Ryo could not make sense of Marie’s words.
Ryo was a water-attribute magician, and he dabbled in alchemy as well.
He considered himself to possess a respectable amount of knowledge and technical skill—enough even to make golems.
So he knew.
“You can’t regrow limbs with a potion.”
He said it plainly.
“Right, normally you can’t.”
Marie nodded in agreement.
In other words: the potion Marie offered was not ordinary.
“I don’t know why this potion can regrow limbs either. I can’t really do alchemy myself, you know.”
“Then where did that potion come from?”
“I received it long ago.”
“You... received something like that? From whom?”
“From a certain vampire.”
Marie’s eyes grew distant.
She might have been remembering that time.
“The only person I ever lost to in swordsmanship. Oh—now that I lost to Ryo just now, make that two.”
Marie grimaced as she spoke.
She seemed annoyed at having lost to Ryo.
“Someone stronger with a sword than Marie...”
“Ryo, that assessment isn’t accurate.”
“Huh?”
“He’s overwhelmingly stronger with the sword than I am.”
Marie did not grimace; she stated it plainly.
It seemed different from the shame of losing to Ryo.
Losing to Ryo was vexing.
Losing to that vampire was natural.
There was that much of a gap.
“Come to think of it, his alchemy was extraordinary, too...”
The moment Marie said that, for some reason, Ryo pictured the Lord Progenitor of Twilight Land in his mind.
So he asked.
“That vampire, might he have called himself the Lord Progenitor...?”
“Progenitor? No, he didn’t go by a name like that.”
“Did he lead other vampires?”
“No... now that you mention it, he said he had been exiled. He was alone.”
“I see.”
It seemed he was different, after all.
“Where did you meet that vampire?”
“The Dark Continent. Oh—you’re not thinking of hunting vampires, are you?”
“No, not at all.”
“Good. Don’t lay a hand on him. Even Ryo would be killed in seconds.”
“Ah, yes.”
Marie—who had just experienced Ryo’s full-strength combat—said that.
One could imagine how strong that vampire must be.
Ryo looked at the potion in Marie’s hand.
It was a faintly blue potion.
“Do I just drink this?”
“Yes. Though you might want to remove that ice arm first.”
“...Understood.”
Ryo steeled himself.
He erased the ice right arm and took a deep breath.
Abel, who had been supporting Ryo, moved back.
It was unavoidable—nobody could say what might happen...
“You chose to abandon me, Abel.”
“If anything happens, I’ll help you immediately.”
Ryo shook his head slightly and shot Abel an accusing look.
Abel truly meant it when he said he would go help if something happened.
Ryo took another deep breath.
Then... he downed the potion in one go.
At first, nothing happened.
Nothing at all.
“Huh?”
A small sound escaped Ryo’s lips. The next instant—
“Ugh!”
A scream Ryo had never cried before burst from him.
He clutched the severed right arm with his left hand.
A sharp pain stabbed through the right arm.
“Oh, right—limb regrowth comes with searing pain...”
Marie said, scratching her cheek.
She had completely forgotten to mention that.
“You should have said so earlier...ugh!”
Before Ryo could finish his complaint, another wave of agony hit.
Accompanying it, his right arm began to regrow slowly.
It felt as if it were being reconstructed from the point of severance outward.
“Completely different from that <Extra Heal> stuff.”
Abel’s murmured remark seemed to reach Marie’s ears.
“Yeah. That’s more like a divine miracle. It regenerates almost without pain... impossible even from the standpoint of regenerative medicine.”
Marie nodded.
Abel did not understand all the technical terms, but he had to agree that the other method resembled a miracle.
“Could that really be light-attribute magic?”
Marie muttered.
“It almost feels more like time being rolled back.”
The words were too small to be heard by anyone.
Before the two of them, Ryo’s ‘regeneration’ continued.
Ryo clenched his teeth.
But at the moments when pain seemed to surpass limits, even his iron will betrayed him and a sound slipped out.
That sight continued for over five minutes...
At last, the regeneration finished.
Ryo breathed shallowly.
He did not yet have the strength for a deep breath.
“Ryo...”
Even Abel’s voice calling out was soft.
He moved closer slowly.
Finally, Ryo’s breathing shifted from shallow to deeper.
Abel had experienced acute pain before.
When pain is intense, you can’t breathe.
As the pain eases, breathing moves from shallow to, eventually, deep.
From that experience, it seemed Ryo’s pain was finally subsiding.
“Ryo?”
Abel called again.
“Yes, Abel... I’m all right.”
Ryo answered, deliberately taking deeper breaths.
“Looks like you’re fine now.”
Marie nodded.
“No—you should have told me it would hurt that much beforehand!”
“Yeah, sorry. I haven’t regenerated anyone’s limbs recently so I forgot.”
Ryo scolded; Marie answered with a wry smile.
Ryo noticed something.
The severed arm that had been cut away had disappeared.
He didn’t end up with two right arms.
“Did the severed arm become material for the reconstruction?”
He voiced the thought that occurred to him.
If that were so, conservation of mass wouldn’t be an issue.
He swung the newly regrown right arm repeatedly and squeezed his hand over and over.
There was no discomfort at all.
So he declared.
“Right arm, fully restored!”
He raised his arm high with a triumphant shout.
Ryo vowed inwardly.
That he would never endure such pain again.
He glanced at the window of the bedroom where Emperor Tsuin should have been sleeping.
There, Tsuin stood watching them.
“Oh? Emperor, you were awake?”
“Yes. He watched your fight from partway through.”
Ryo asked; Abel answered.
“Well, if you can get up, then it might be good to leave. Don’t push yourself, but it’d be troublesome if the leader came back and ran into you.”
“Is that okay with you, Marie?”
Ryo’s question meant: won’t Marie be held responsible?
“Who knows. I don’t know, but I’ll tell the truth as it is.”
Marie shrugged.
She wasn’t sure how the phantom king, the lord of their kind, would react.
He probably wouldn’t praise her...
Others couldn’t be as detached as Marie.
The other phantomkins, for instance.
They remained at a distance from Ryo and Abel, unable to act.
It was natural.
Marie had lost.
They could not imagine winning on their own.
“Um, Marie?”
“Yes?”
“Some of the people around seem confused.”
“Oh...”
Marie looked around, understood the situation.
And spoke plainly.
“I lost. I’ll take responsibility. So I will let these two and Emperor Darwei leave. If anyone lays a hand on them, I won’t forgive it.”
Her words were almost businesslike, devoid of emotion.
The other phantomkins seemed to understand and relaxed.
Most of them nodded.
At least, no one tried to attack Ryo and the others.
“Also... I’d be glad if I could get some bedding.”
“Bedding?”
“Yes, to lie in the emperor’s carriage... or rather, his vehicle.”
“Oh, the bedroom one? Take it if you want.”
And so Ryo, Abel, and Emperor Tsuin left the ‘Summer Villa’.
But there was a problem.
It would be cruel to make Emperor Tsuin walk a long distance.
He was not an adventurer like Ryo or Abel; besides, the endurance of those two was abnormal even compared with ordinary adult men, so he couldn’t keep up.
Therefore, they had Emperor Tsuin ride on Ryo’s <Wagon>.
They had even taken bedding so he could lie down in the <Wagon>, but still...
“The <Wagon> is convenient for carrying luggage, but it’s not very cushioned for passengers.”
Ryo remarked, tilting his head as he fretted over this and that.
Even if they put the emperor on it, the ride would be awful along unpaved roads...
“Why don’t we just make the road better? Like when Ryo cleared the way through the forest and jungle.”
“Exactly! If the <Wagon> won’t do, then fix the road—that’s the plan!”
Abel suggested, and Ryo, channeling some imagined Marie Antoinette quote, tweaked the phrasing and spat it out.
What a versatile line that turned out to be.
Thus, Ryo and Abel led the way, and behind them, the <Wagon> carrying the emperor followed, and the party escaped.
Inside Marie’s room in the now-empty Summer Villa.
“Did Ryo say he dabbled in alchemy? If only I’d shown him this magic circle Hal gave me... the one that produces the potion from earlier, I wonder if he’d have liked it.”
Marie said as she drew a card-shaped metal plate from a drawer, placed it on the desk, and flowed mana into it.
In the next moment, a magic circle was drawn on the desk and in the air above it.
“Would he have liked this layered stacking magic circle?”
Marie smiled.
“Come to think of it, Hal was a reincarnator too, right? If I meet Ryo again somewhere... maybe I’ll show him this stacked magic circle then.”
