Chapter 47: A Glimmer of Hope

“W-wow…! Good heavens. Even with such a handsome man by your side, and even after seeing Gerard standing here, you’re still going to pay attention to me? This is a first for me with a visitor like you. May I take that as a compliment? But before that, isn’t there something we need to do first?”

Of course, Bel and Lema completely ignored even those words.

Instead, their discussion was turning into a slight argument.

“It’s been too long since I’ve eaten.”

“No, even so, you have to be a little picky about the quality.”

“Then you do it for me.”

“…That’s.”

What’s more, hearing that conversation, his guess turned into a certainty.

As if to prove it, Lema’s face turned beet red up to his ears at the words “you do it for me.”

A holy knight, who only appears in serious and solemn places, acting like that.

It was a fresh sight.

“Now, now, stop joking. You know, I know, and even Luxlon in the sky knows that my appearance is not that appetizing.”

Lightsage pointed to his lower body.

Even though he had made them pay attention by clapping, he still hadn’t gotten up from his chair.

“And it’s a bit much to mention this weakness of mine, but this is not in a state where it can perform its function. Well, I’ll admit that there are such tastes, but because of this, you won’t be as satisfied as you expect, you know? Hahaha.”

For some reason, even while treating them as important guests, he hadn’t gotten up once.
It seemed his lower body was paralyzed.

Only then did Bel glance up and down at Lightsage.

Just as Lema had only taken issue with his attitude, in fact, Bel’s eyes had only just noticed his appearance.

Unlike Lightsage, who was starting to feel insulted.

Bel could also distinguish between beauty and ugliness, but in fact, she only knew that Lema was particularly beautiful, and she felt that other humans were more or less the same.

Just as a human has to look closely to know the exact differences in the appearance of a dog or a cat.

And because of what Lightsage had said, Bel even recalled the conversation she had had with Lema in the morning.

Lema had even been happy at the words that he didn’t want to touch anyone uglier than him.

But now, although he was ruined by scars, in Bel’s eyes, the original was quite good.

‘If I restore him, Lema won’t be too opposed either.’

Bel loosened her wrist once.

And in one go, she was right in front of Lightsage.

She had moved at an incredible speed, so it looked as if she had moved in a single step.

So neither Lightsage nor Gerard, who was standing next to him like a guard, could react.

Thud!

In the blink of an eye, Bel’s hand touched his forehead, and his hood was undone.

“Hahk…!”

The gasp of the slow-reacting human was next.

The head was revealed from under the undone hood.

A head full of discolored, wrinkled, and distorted burns.

But as if that appearance was an illusion, hair sprayed out from the instantly regenerated scalp as if it were a spray.

Paaat!
Transparent silver hair, like a spider’s web, as if to cover the entire wall behind him.

The hair that hadn’t grown, buried under the melted scalp, had grown in an instant.

His face, which had melted from the burns, also returned in an instant.

It didn’t even take a second for his muscles to regenerate, for clear blood to pass over them, and for white skin to cover them.

The corners of his eyes, which had been folded as if he were always smiling, opened wide.
Sharp eyes, for someone who had been smiling so kindly.

And for the first time, Bel saw the color of the eyes within.

They were purple eyes, a color not commonly seen in humans since a very long time ago.

“Khk…!”

Lightsage, who felt Bel’s power throughout his face, gritted his teeth and endured, and only moaned when Bel took her hand away.

The hair that had been floating in the air due to the wave of power finally settled down.

“Ha, what in the world is this?”

It didn’t take long for him to figure out what had happened to him.

The feeling of damaged tendons pulling every time he moved his facial muscles was gone.

The crown of his head, which would throb on rainy days like today, was now quiet.

And his vision, which had been stuffy with only half of it, opened up wide.

He would know better if he touched it with his hand, but he couldn’t do anything with his hand in the air, fearing that this would disappear like a mirage.

“A mirror.”

Instead, he just said this to Gerard.

A moment later, when Gerard brought a mirror, Lightsage looked at his face seriously.

“Aah… this, this, this is impossible?”

Fearing that it would disappear if he touched it, he kept his hand at a distance where only the fuzz would touch, and he caressed his instantly clean skin.

And feeling something in his lower body, he got up.

Seeing his body get up properly, he lamented.

“Ah… what in the world…”

What kind of emotion would a human who had suddenly changed their appearance, or had been cured of a long illness, or had been living with pain all along, show?

Would they shed tears, or shout in joy, or burst out laughing, unable to overcome their joy?

Or, like Beata Mirgas, would they be so moved that they would dance?

In Lightsage’s case, it was none of the above.

“This is… impossible. Who are you?”

He simply threw away his attitude of trying to negotiate and looked straight at Belmias.

It was needless to say that this was a much more serious attitude than before.

Belmias, expressionless, as if this were nothing.

“Hmm.”

Bel was dusting off the hand that had touched Lightsage in the air, as if she had just touched something dirty.

“You’re not the summoner.”

And Lightsage saw it.

The holy knight with burning eyes.

Lema Valkite.

He, who had a history of being purged once by the Holy Empire, what god had he worshiped to be branded a ‘heretic’?

As an information broker, and as someone who thought he was in a somewhat similar situation, Lightsage had often wondered about that.
It seemed that that question had been resolved just now.

‘He’s glaring at me scarily.’

He was a human who had been wary and somewhat hostile to him from the beginning.

But that kind of blazing gaze was probably because another emotion had been added on top of it.

Was that the gaze of a human who worships their god?

It was dirtier, more clingy, some kind of emotion…

‘This is bad.’

It was clear that he had gotten involved with something enormous, something he didn’t know.

Lightsage asked for a moment of understanding and quickly trimmed his hair that had grown in an instant.

However, perhaps because he didn’t originally pay much attention to his appearance, he gathered his long hair in one hand and cut it off in one go with a sharp dagger.
That was the end of it.

His hair, which had been cut short into a bob, barely covered his neck and swished.
After getting rid of the ghostly, long, white hair, his original appearance, or what was presumed to be, was revealed.

His forehead was firm and his nose was high.

He didn’t have a strong, angular jaw like Lema, but he still looked masculine.

His body was not toned, as it was a body that couldn’t walk for long.

He would look very small next to Lema.

Still, he was quite tall.

For a human who was standing on two legs for the first time in a long time, his posture was also straight.

He seemed to have a decent appearance.

Though not as much as Lema Valkite.

His rare purple eyes seemed to be superior to Lema’s, but unfortunately, this human did not show them often.

Lightsage, who had quickly grasped his situation, had returned to a smiling, fox-like face, and was rubbing his palms together, trying to please him.

In a word, he was trying to solve the matter he had originally intended to explain.
“First, I think the story will be long, but I will first explain about that matter, guests.”
His attitude did not change just because a big change had occurred.

As a human who dealt with all kinds of information, he was not greatly surprised by most things.
The appearance he had shown right after his body was restored seemed to be the attitude he had when he was most surprised.

“Actually, although our information guild handles information as the most valuable thing, since it’s all done by using people, as a manager, I have a lot of trouble with personnel management, you see? Just as we buy and sell information, we also consider trust to be important. But recently, those guys seemed to be determined to ruin both…”

Lightsage was a chatterbox.

In any case, to summarize the main point, there had been a recent increase in cases of threatening guests using information acquired within the guild.

And in the process of trying to catch them, Bel and Lema had been caught.

“So you knew beforehand, is that it?”

“Yes, yes, that’s right. Sir Knight. Oops, please don’t glare at me like that.”