The door closed, and the room fell silent.
Lambert stood beside the bed, still looking uneasy, and asked:
"My lord, how are you feeling? Are you uncomfortable anywhere?"
He had never seen Louis in such a state before-struck between the brows, collapsing straight backward, his fate unknown...
To him, it had been the most terrifying sight of his life, leaving him wracked with guilt.
Louis raised a hand and rubbed his temple. Everything in his body felt normal.
But deep in his mind, a heart-shaped mark had appeared.
"I suppose I'm all right," he said in a low voice. "Tell me roughly what happened."
Lambert immediately reported everything he knew:
"We were heading north with you when the scouts ahead spotted an old man lying in the snow. There was a strange fissure in his chest.
"Then the fissure in his chest consumed him. He disintegrated and vanished, leaving only a robe behind.
"You were unconscious, so we immediately brought you back for an examination... Neither your body nor your battle aura showed anything abnormal. I suspected you might have been cursed."
Lambert succinctly recounted everything he had seen and knew, his expression full of worry.
Louis listened and nodded slightly. "The first part... matches what I remember."
Yet it only raised more questions in his mind.
If that mage really was the legendary Jurgen Loken, how had he lived so long?
Why had he appeared on the snowy plains of the Red Tide Fief?
And why had he died in such a bizarre way?
What exactly was the wave of light that had shot into his mind?
Those scenes he had seen while unconscious... were they the mage's memories? Or some other kind of information?
Questions surfaced one after another, needling his mind until his head felt ready