Vela still held Arche's hand tightly beside the Bio Synthetic Trauma Kit capsule. Her eyes were closed, her lips silently praying as the small display on the device slowly advanced through Progress...
The room was silent.
Only the low hum of the machine could be heard.
"Vela."
Anna's voice made her open her eyes.
"What?"
Anna pointed at the capsule's display.
A graph had finally appeared.
The line moved... incredibly slowly.
Beep...
A long pause.
Beep...
An even longer pause.
Vela stared at the number in the corner of the screen.
"T-Two to three beats per minute...?"
Her face immediately turned pale.
"Th-That's... bradycardia, isn't it?"
Her hands began to tremble.
"That low...? C-Can he still be saved?"
Anna didn't answer. She opened the trauma kit's case and took out a transparent tube filled with bluish liquid.
Vela recognized it instantly.
"The Stasis Fluid Pipe..."
Anna gave a short nod.
"If his heart can't pump blood... we'll do it for him temporarily."
Without wasting a second, Anna inserted a fine needle into one of Arche's blood vessels.
A transparent tube immediately connected the capsule to Arche's body.
The blue fluid began to flow slowly.
The display changed once again.
Artificial circulation... Active.
Vela hurriedly supported Arche's arm so the tube wouldn't shift.
"Come on..."
"Please hang in there..."
A few seconds later—
BANG!
The door burst open.
Vela instinctively turned around.
"Vince!"
"And Luca!"
The two young men who had joined the assault rushed in with their weapons.
Vince quickly scanned the room.
"The escape route is clear."
"Most of the Green Serpent members have already fled."
"We can leave now."
Luca finally noticed Arche lying on the floor.
"..."
His expression immediately turned serious.
He didn't ask many questions.
Seeing Anna and Vela beside the boy was enough to tell him that Arche was someone important to them.
Vela looked at them with tears beginning to gather in her eyes.
"W-What... should we do...?"
Luca immediately knelt beside Arche.
He glanced briefly at the trauma kit's monitor.
"There's still cardiac activity."
"We're not too late."
He stood up again.
"Anna."
"Vince."
"Pick him up."
"We're taking him to a hospital. Now."
Vince nodded immediately.
"Got it."
The two of them carefully lifted Arche's body, making sure not to dislodge the Stasis Fluid Pipe.
Anna carried the trauma kit capsule beside him.
Vela quickly picked up Arche's backpack from the floor.
"Let's go!"
They rushed out of the room.
The mansion's corridors were filled with the aftermath of battle.
Bullet-riddled walls.
Shattered glass scattered everywhere.
Bodies of Green Serpent members lay in every corner.
There was no longer any meaningful resistance.
They ran all the way to the front courtyard.
As soon as they stepped outside, Vince shouted to the novice scavengers still gathered there.
"Green Serpent is finished!"
"Garrick is dead!"
"Everyone, fall back!"
Cheers erupted instantly.
"Really?!"
"We won!"
"They're running!"
Several novices noticed Arche's unconscious body being carried.
"Who is he?"
"Is he one of the casualties?"
"No."
Vince answered shortly.
"He's the one who killed Garrick."
The crowd immediately fell silent.
Several faces filled with shock.
"He...?"
"By himself?"
There was no time to explain.
Vela immediately pointed toward a nearby vehicle.
"That one!"
Several novices rushed over and opened the doors.
Anna climbed in first, still holding the trauma kit.
Vince and Luca carefully laid Arche across the back seat.
Vela climbed in beside him.
The doors slammed shut.
The engine roared.
The vehicle sped away from the Green Serpent mansion.
Throughout the journey, almost no one spoke.
Anna kept watching the trauma kit's small monitor.
The heartbeat graph was still there.
Slow.
Painfully slow.
Beep...
Beep...
Beep...
Vela gently took Arche's hand once more.
It was still cold.
She lowered her head.
"Don't die..."
"You've come this far..."
Anna looked at the screen again.
"His heartbeat hasn't changed."
"But it's still there."
She let out a quiet breath.
"If this device can keep his circulation going..."
"...then there's still a chance he hasn't suffered brain death."
The hope was small.
But...
It wasn't completely gone.
***
Arche dreamed of a magnificent castle bathed in sunlight.
The Kingdom of Evernoir.
A place he had not seen in a very long time.
Its white marble corridors were filled with servants hurrying back and forth. Knights saluted whenever a silver-haired woman passed by.
Ellora Evernoir.
The Crown Princess, and Arche's older sister.
Even at such a young age, Ellora spent nearly every day dealing with the kingdom's political affairs. Nobles constantly arrived with reports. Ministers waited for her decisions. The King of Evernoir repeatedly summoned her to royal meetings.
Hidden behind one of the corridor's pillars, a young Arche secretly watched his sister with sparkling eyes.
"I want to become as amazing as Big Sister Ellora..."
It was something he often told himself.
Whenever Ellora finally had a little free time, Arche would quietly follow her.
Sometimes she wandered through the royal capital alone, without any guards.
Sometimes she entered the magic training hall to practice by herself.
Arche would simply sit in a corner and watch.
Layer after layer of glowing magic circles appeared before him.
Spells he had never even seen in any book.
"What do you think?"
Ellora once asked with a smile after finishing a spell.
Arche could only clap enthusiastically.
"That was amazing!"
Ellora laughed softly.
"It's a spell I created myself."
To the young Arche, his sister truly seemed like someone blessed from birth.
Yet no matter how busy she was, Ellora always made time for her younger siblings.
Sometimes she secretly dragged Arche and Lily away from their afternoon lessons.
Sometimes she simply disappeared from an important royal meeting.
Arche never knew whether his sister was actually escaping the political lessons their father forced upon her...
...or whether she had simply grown tired of that endless routine.
What he did know was that whenever Ellora laughed together with them, she looked far happier than she ever did sitting in the royal council chamber.
Arche's own days were much simpler.
Wake up.
Study.
Practice magic.
Then repeat everything again the next day.
He knew he wasn't talented.
Even from childhood, the kingdom's magic instructors had realized it.
Arche needed several days just to master spells that Ellora learned within minutes.
Even so, he kept coming back to the training hall.
Kept trying.
Kept failing.
Then tried again.
Meanwhile, Ellora continued to grow stronger.
Before even reaching adulthood, she had already created her own exclusive magic.
An achievement that even the kingdom's greatest mages found difficult to match.
There were many times when Arche felt inferior.
He was a prince.
The kingdom's only prince.
Yet his abilities weren't even close to his sister's.
In the end...
The King of Evernoir and the kingdom's highest officials decided that the most suitable heir to the throne was Ellora.
Strangely enough, young Arche never felt angry.
He simply thought—
"If Big Sister Ellora is the greatest... then that's exactly how it should be."
He continued his training.
Growing little by little.
Until the years passed.
The little boy became a teenager.
And then...
That day came.
The day he could never forget.
The skies above Evernoir were drenched in crimson light.
Explosions shook the entire kingdom.
Tower after tower collapsed.
People screamed.
Flames engulfed the streets.
The entire nation descended into chaos.
At the time, everyone in the kingdom was given the same explanation.
A Magitech experiment had failed.
The experiment had spiraled out of control.
The space surrounding the castle collapsed.
Part of the royal family—and everyone inside the affected area—had been forcibly transported to a place unimaginably far away.
Including Arche.
He was thrown across the world.
To the continent of Fertissio.
But...
The older he became, the more he understood.
The story about the failed Magitech experiment...
...was nothing more than an excuse.
What had truly happened was far crueler.
The Kingdom of Evernoir had been targeted.
Someone...
Or perhaps several kingdoms acting together...
Had set their sights on the nation that possessed the world's most advanced Magitech technology.
The experiment had merely become the scapegoat.
A story deliberately spread so the world would believe that Evernoir had fallen because of its own mistake.
Not because it had been destroyed.
And whenever Arche remembered that day...
What remained most vividly in his memory wasn't the explosions...
But the last image he had of his sister.
Ellora stood within an ocean of Magitech light...
Using her magic to push Arche away...
While she herself remained behind...
As the Kingdom of Evernoir collapsed around her.