When lina woke up, she found herself in the Guild's private infirmary room. She felt as if she had fallen off a cliff; her limbs were pained and heavy. Her head also hurt. It took a mont for lina to pull herself into a sitting position. Sienna instantly chirped and scurried up on lina's shoulder, giving her a flurry of affectionate licks on the cheek.
"Hi, Sienna. It's nice to see you're alright," she said and looked around the room.
Alistair was sleeping, slumped in a chair near her bed. He looked tired with deep, dark bags underneath his eyes. When he heard Sienna's chittering, he slowly roused from his slumber.
"lina! You're awake!" He exclaid, almost in disbelief, and gently took her hand.
She noticed that his hands were trembling, and tears began to flow down his cheeks as he pressed her hand against his forehead. "I feared you might never wake up."
Her heart clenched as she saw the pain he was in. She didn't rember what happened after she teleported everyone to the passageway. The strain of dinsional magic on her body must have been enormous. But at the sa ti, she could feel the mana—her own mana—coursing through her. Despite the exhaustion and headache, there was also newfound strength.
"I'm sorry… I'm fine now. Could you tell what happened after I passed out?" She asked, gently patting his head.
This seed to calm him as he leaned into the palm, almost like a cat. For a while, she just ran her hand through his hair, giving him ti to calm down and gather his thoughts. Once he had composed himself, he sat on the bed close to lina and told her what had happened.
It was a horrifying tale, and lina understood why he had been so distraught. She had been bleeding nonstop, and no potion helped. She guessed that the sudden change brought by had reached rank S, and she could use magic again. She explained her ability to draw on the ambient mana and how she had used that to power the teleport spell.
Gilbert sighed in exasperation. "Why is it that sothing weird must happen to you every week?"
"Not like I want it to happen…" lina muttered. "But tell , how did you get the Stone of Sacrifice? And what did you sacrifice to heal ? Master, I have to say that this isn't like you at all. Doing sothing so reckless."
"You're one to talk, pipsqueek," Gilbert said, gently flicking her forehead.
lina rubbed it, looking at him with narrowed eyes. "Please answer, Master."
"I believe I already told you this before. I took a treasure for the Church, and that treasure just happened to be the Stone of Sacrifice," he shrugged.
"Just happened?" lina raised an eyebrow.
"I don't think they just leave it lying around," Alistair added.
"I took it, because I believe it'd be too dangerous to be left in the Church's hand. I have no clue what they intend to do with it, but I know it can't be good. Not after all the monstrosities they've committed."
Old man's face darkened. lina and Alistair shared a worried look.
"What monstrosities exactly? I an, we've seen our fair share of what the Church has done. Their thods are extre, and they eliminate anything relating to the Monster Realm. But the way you put it makes think that there's more to it than that."
"Oh, there's way more to it than that. You two may have served the Church, but you were never accepted in their inner circle, were you?" Gilbert asked.
"No, not really," lina admitted. Only priests were accepted in the inner circles, not fighters like lina and Alistair.
"We were more hands on. Fighting on the front lines rather than dealing with whatever inner politics the Church has," Alistair nodded.
"Of course. The Church would want to keep such powerhouses as you two in the dark. But the Holy Knights know. They are the ones who carry out all their dirty work."
"Dirty work?"
"Do you think that no human ever spoke up against the Church?" Gilbert prompted. "You think they just give a gentle scolding and let them go? No, the Church gets rid of them without so much as batting an eye."
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