Masteria Online: Shattering the Dark God's Grand Scheme-Chapter 130 - Checking on Valeria

The Fire Wizard introduced himself as Metor.

Lumi already knew the role Fire Wizards played in Herene. Chief Knight Susie had lightly touched on it when he was with her.

To be a Fire Wizard was to use fire. That was obvious, of course, but merely shooting flame could not define an entire magical path.

Fire magic, in its crude form, was destructive. Everyone knew that. Flames consumed, burned, and reduced things to ash. That was the obvious application. The one combat mages favored.

Yet, fire was known for purification.

Fire destroyed impurities. This could be disease, foreign mana, corruption within the body. If it could be burned away without harming the host, the result was a form of healing.

This property of purification followed through to make countless more spells for various purposes.

Infections could be burned out of the blood. Poison could be neutralized. Abnormal magical conditions could be purified. And that was merely the beginning.

What had started as simple fire magic had become an entire support discipline. The only difference between a combat Fire Wizard and a doctor in Herene was specialization.

Which meant that if someone in Herene was lying in a hospital bed, the person responsible for keeping them alive was almost certainly a Fire Wizard.

Metor moved with the professional calm expected of an expert, and spoke straightforwardly. "The two patients you are here to see are stable. Stable, but unresponsive. Soul injuries of this severity are not something we can simply treat and resolve on a timeline. We have already recovered all available fragments and provided the healing, but the initial damage was too strong. We provide the conditions for recovery. The soul itself determines the pace."

He stopped outside a door, pushed it open, and gestured for Lumi to enter. "I will be nearby if you need anything. Please do not agitate them. Not that it would matter in their current state, but it is protocol."

With that, he stepped aside and gave Lumi the room.

It was quiet inside. Two beds, positioned on opposite sides of the space. Soft light was carried inside through the windows, softly illuminating the room. The air was cool, and the silence was so tranquil one could be forgiven for beginning to feel at ease.

Valeria lay on the left. She was completely still, deep in a coma. Her body breathed slow and shallow, with her hands resting peacefully at her sides. On the right, Marcus was the same. Both of them looked like they were simply sleeping deeply. If someone walked in without knowing the truth, they might have believed exactly that.

Lumi’s eyes adjusted to the room, and then he noticed the third person present.

Susie.

She was seated in a chair between the two beds, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes moving to him the moment he stepped through the door. The worry on her face shifted into visible relief.

He hadn’t expected her. If anyone was going to be here, he would have assumed Zara, Jin, or Elara. They were the ones who had served alongside Valeria and Marcus the longest.

But thinking about it, it wasn’t strange at all. Susie had boarded the airship with the rest of them. She had ended up in Herene along with everyone else. She had only travelled with the squad for a few days, but a few days or not, they had fought together. She had stood her ground against an Elite Guard without hesitation. Of course she would be here.

"You’re alive," Susie said. Her voice was quiet, but the relief behind it was genuine. "I thought... when I didn’t see you, I thought you died."

"I’m alright. The Empress patched me up." Lumi pulled a chair close to Valeria’s bed and sat down.

"Good." She looked back at Valeria. "I was already grieving."

A short silence settled between them.

Lumi watched Valeria. She looked peaceful. At this moment, she didn’t look like a fierce warrior. She looked like a sleeping beauty, which felt wrong in a way he couldn’t entirely describe.

He thought about what she had done.

Some people were difficult to read, their motivations layered behind careful words and hidden intentions. Valeria wasn’t like that. She wasn’t a complicated person to understand.

In calm moments she was completely ordinary. She cared for her team. She had felt awkwardness about the shift from leader to captain, the change in how people looked at her and spoke to her. She laughed at jokes, made jokes, and did silly things when she thought no one was paying attention.

And then the Elite Guard had appeared.

When fighting, many people deluded themselves into thinking they may survive. Some were right, some were wrong.

Valeria didn’t delude herself. She had raised her blade knowing she would die. That wasn’t a figure of speech. She had known. Perhaps she didn’t end up dying, but that was only due to Rena awakening, which nobody could have ever predicted.

The gap in power between her and that thing had been visible to anyone with eyes. She wasn’t deluded about her chances. She made a calculation, decided that fighting was the right thing to do regardless, and acted without a single second of hesitation.

When facing death, she did not beg. There was no attempt at negotiation. No effort to buy time through surrender.

The most valuable thing she owned was her life. A life was decades of accumulated memory. The possibility of more memories, more time, more moments with the people she cared about. She had looked at all of that and decided it was worth less than standing between evil and the people behind her.

And she wasn’t unique in that.

Marcus had done the same. Elara. Jin. Zara. Even Susie, who was not a knight, who had no formal obligation to any of them, had fought without a single inch of cowardice.

That was why Lumi loved the Aria Knights. He had immense respect for them, and this was why.