The Crown Prince Who Raises a Side Character-Chapter 32: New Adventurer Bern (30). Firefly

In the haze of her fading consciousness—

Blanca stared blankly as she recalled what had just happened.

Her vision twisted and spun.

Her body trembled like a leaf in the wind.

A blast, as though ignited by the very oil wrung out of every curse, illness, and toxin—the foulest, filthiest things in the world.

And someone’s arms had wrapped around her, shielding her from that explosion.

The moment she remembered that, Blanca shot up reflexively.

“Ugh...!”

A bruising pain throbbed all throughout her body.

She gritted her teeth and ignored it, frantically scanning her surroundings.

Collapsed ground, shattered building debris, dust drifting through the air.

And in the middle of it all—familiar red hair.

Blanca ran toward it. And when she finally saw him clearly, she trembled uncontrollably.

“A-Aah...”

Bern’s condition was utterly horrific.

His right leg was crushed beneath a massive chunk of stone. His skin was blackened in patches as if poisoned, and smoke was steadily rising from him as though he were burning from the inside out.

Once that corrosion was finished, he wouldn’t even leave a corpse. He’d crumble into ash and vanish completely.

Thud.

Her legs gave out and she collapsed, then crawled to him on hands and knees, casting healing spells.

Over and over, again and again—until his wounds closed.

But it was meaningless.

The pale light she conjured couldn’t push back the black magic corroding his body. It couldn’t even begin to mend the wounds.

And yet, Blanca continued to chant.

“Heal... Damn it, heal! If I can’t even use this now, then what the hell is it good for...?!”

When she was a child—

Her powerless mother had sacrificed herself to protect her.

And now—

The only man who had ever understood her, who had shared her dream, was dying again—because of her.

Her heart felt like it was rotting from the inside out.

And in that moment—

A hand seized hers.

"You can stop now, Miss Blanca."

Had he regained consciousness at some point?

The red-haired adventurer was holding her hand.

And despite looking like someone on the brink of death, his eyes were calm. Peaceful.

“Those aren’t wounds that can be healed anyway. Don’t waste your mana. Actually, it’d be better to treat your own injuries first.”

His tone was so maddeningly casual that Blanca felt her emotions swell up against her will.

“Is this really the time for that kind of talk!? Why—why the hell did you shield me?!”

“Hmm.”

To her tear-wrung cry, Bern responded like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Because your life, Miss Blanca, is far more important.”

Someone sucked in a breath.

Blanca didn’t know if it was him or her.

Speechless, she stared as Bern awkwardly continued, as if a bit embarrassed.

“I was planning to keep it a secret, but if I don’t tell you now, you’ll carry this as guilt... so I have no choice.”

Bern’s tone turned playful, like an adult revealing a magic trick to a child.

“Adventurer Bern doesn’t actually exist. This body, this identity—they’re all fabricated through magic.”

“The real ‘me’ is somewhere else. Alive. Perfectly fine.”

“So you don’t need to worry. Don’t feel guilty.”

“I’m sorry for deceiving you, Miss Blanca.”

Blanca said nothing.

She couldn’t bring herself to speak.

How could she?

You’re... lying like this just to console someone as pathetic and useless as me?

Her throat burned with emotion.

She wanted to scream—demand to know who he thought he was fooling with such a ridiculous lie.

But she couldn’t.

How could she throw away a dying man’s final kindness—his desperate attempt to keep her from suffering?

That awful awkward gentleness... that selfless compassion...

How could she reject it?

And so Blanca said—

“...You really are... the worst, Bern. I didn’t think you were such a shameless man.”

Was her voice trembling?

Was her acting so clumsy that he could see through her?

She was terrified inside, but thankfully, Bern didn’t seem to notice.

“Haha. My apologies. I’d love to offer a longer apology, but... I don’t think I’ve got the time.”

Bern looked upward.

He was staring through the hole in the ceiling they had fallen through.

“That last attack probably caught the lich in it too, but he’ll finish regenerating soon. Liches create a ‘heart’—a spare life, in a way. So we need to act before he gets back up.”

“Act? For what?”

Blanca couldn’t help but question him.

Bern was the only one capable of defeating the lich—and now he was like this. The battle was as good as lost.

So why bother continuing?

Wouldn’t it be better to stay by his side for whatever time he had left?

“For victory.”

Bern cut through her hesitation with firm conviction.

“We haven’t lost yet. Renya and the others are still up there... and more importantly, you’re still here, Miss Blanca.”

She tried to shake her head.

She wanted to scream that it was impossible, that without him, there was no way she could face the lich.

“I’ve watched you. I can say this with confidence—Miss Blanca, you can do this. And if you win, it won’t just be your victory... it’ll be mine—no, ours.”

But Bern said she could.

He said she would.

And so Blanca nodded. Not side to side, but up and down.

It was the least she could offer in return.

Bern smiled, satisfied.

And as she held back the tears welling in her eyes, she smiled back.

Blanca stood.

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She gripped her sword, climbed the fallen debris like stairs, and rose upward.

For her comrade—for victory.

To turn his final adventure into a triumph, not a tragedy.

Step.

She returned to the upper floor.

And there, she saw the adventurers regrouped, locked in battle against the lich.

Even if the lich had reabsorbed the purple mist from his earlier spell, it didn’t erase the damage already done to the adventurers.

Weakened by the mist’s toxic curses and sheer exhaustion, most of them were hanging on by a thread.

Though the lich had lost his elite death knights to Bern, he still had plenty of mana—and plenty of minions.

And with a failed attempt to escape already behind them, the adventurers had no choice but to fight. But their faces showed no will to continue.

“Oh? Crawling back here to die on your own? If you’d waited a little longer, I might’ve spared you a few more moments of life.”

Had he realized Bern had fallen?

The lich’s voice was once again dripping with smugness.

The kind of lowly false charisma that only surfaced when he was absolutely sure of his advantage.

And she’d had nightmares—nightmares—about this filth.

Because of a monster like this, she had lost someone dear to her... twice.

Something surged up from deep within Blanca.

And this time, she didn’t try to suppress it.

She stepped forward—there was the swordsmanship, the movements he had taught her.

She clenched her fist—the ring he had given her throbbed with presence.

She felt her heart pounding—this life that he had given up his own to protect.

The nature of mana... is the path of one’s life.

How you lived, what you did, and where your heart is pointed.

All the countless fragments Blanca had carried began to merge—forming a towering spire.

“Tch. Has she lost her mind and thrown everything away?”

Perhaps irritated by Blanca’s silence, or maybe thinking it would be troublesome to let her get close again, the lich hurled a black orb crackling with curses and poison from his hand.

A high-grade offensive spell—powerful enough to seriously wound even a knight clad in full armor if it struck directly.

Blanca intercepted it with a Flame That Burns Stone spell, but a mid-grade spell could never truly compete with a high-grade one.

The black orb, only slightly weakened, kept flying toward her—and Blanca swung her sword at it.

BOOM!

With a deafening blast, Blanca’s body was thrown back, rolling across the floor.

As she lay there, burning and corroding under the weight of the curse, the lich let out a satisfied laugh.

Thunk!

Blanca stabbed her sword into the ground, using it to pull herself upright once more.

“How pointless. You’d be better off just giving up.”

The lich watched her pitiful struggle with amusement and unleashed another spell.

Blanca tried to intercept it again, but the power gap overwhelmed her—her body was sent flying once more.

And again, she rose.

“...What?”

At first, the lich had attacked her like he was playing with a toy—but now, his expression tightened as unease crept in.

No matter how viciously he struck, no matter how close he came to finishing her, Blanca refused to fall.

Coughing up blood, rolling across the floor, she continued dodging fatal blows with sword and spell alike—reinforcing herself, healing herself, and carrying on.

Once, you could call it luck.

Twice, you might call it grit.

But three times, four times, and more...?

“You wretch—what have you done to yourself?!”

With a roar, he hurled another curse-laced spell at her.

Blanca fired back with flame—and their magic collided.

At first glance, it looked the same as before.

BOOOOM!

But the fire this time... completely overpowered the lich’s spell.

That one moment proved everything.

A mid-grade spell, cast by a mere third-tier mage, had just canceled out a high-grade spell from a fifth-tier sorcerer. The lich’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Only then did he notice the strange flow of mana swirling around Blanca’s body.

The mana she was using for minor healing and reinforcement spells had reacted to the ambient magic—glowing as it made contact—and suddenly, the effects of her spells began to grow exponentially.

Mana Trait: Firefly

Blanca’s mana reacts with other ambient magical energy in the environment, amplifying the effects of her spells.

The more mana surrounds her, the more intense the reaction, and the greater the amplification of her magic—surpassing its original limits.

...For any mage, whose spells inevitably release mana into the surroundings while fighting—especially for someone like Mortius, the lich, who turns his own mana into mist and spreads it across the battlefield—this trait was nothing short of a natural counter.

Realizing the danger too late, Mortius tried to end her quickly.

But if he couldn’t do it before the amplification began, it was hopeless now.

In fact, the more mana he poured into trying to kill her, the stronger Blanca became.

He saw the vicious cycle—but what choice did he have?

He was a mage. If he couldn’t cast spells, what else could he do?

His only hope was to use warriors who could keep mana contained inside their bodies—but all his capable warriors had already been destroyed by Bern.

Eventually, even low-grade spells from Blanca were overwhelming his defenses.

So Mortius cloaked himself in mist and attempted to escape.

Naturally, Blanca had no intention of letting that happen.

BOOOOOOM!

A fireball that had started no larger than a child’s fist reacted to Mortius’s mist—ballooning in size until it was as big as a carriage before exploding.

Mortius tried to summon a barrier, but the massive flame tore through it and blasted him into the air.

His charred body began reconstructing around a heart-shaped object that had come flying from somewhere.

Blanca wordlessly launched another flame.

And just after he resurrected—Mortius became charcoal once more.

Resurrected a second time, Mortius screamed in desperation.

“Stop! Stop, damn it!! That heart—it belongs to your mother! Her life and soul are inside it! Are you really going to destroy it with your own hands?!”

Blanca froze in place.

Seizing the chance, Mortius poured every last ounce of his desperation into his words.

“Girl—become my disciple. No, become my partner! I’ll craft a new body for your mother and bring her back! All you have to do is help me reach the sixth tier! It’s completely possible! But if I fall here, there will be no way left for you to see your mother again! Is that what you want?!”

Mortius had once trained several disciples from within the guild.

Of course he knew who Blanca was. Of course he knew she had become an adventurer to save her mother.

There was no way someone like that would pass up this bait.

First, stop the fight with sweet promises. Then, deal with her using less direct means.

He truly believed this was the perfect plan.

But if we jump to the result—

“I’m fighting to free my mother. Do you really think I’d let myself be swayed by garbage like that—in front of those two?”

Mortius had no idea who “those two” were.

He didn’t have time to figure it out either.

Because by then, a blade had pierced through his chest—ripping the heart from his body.

For a lich, the “heart” was like a nail pinning him to the mortal world.

When that last tether was ripped away, Mortius’s soul was dragged into the afterlife.

Or rather—it was supposed to be.

[Bravo for the performance! Not bad for a second-rater—too talented to be third-rate, too small-minded to be first. Perfect fit for this little stage.]

A voice, equal parts sultry and playful.

Mature like a woman, fresh like a girl—a contradictory presence.

Even this death-defying sorcerer felt a primal fear from whoever was now holding his soul.

[The girl’s portion was the life and vitality in the body. Mine’s the soul itself. Can’t eat innocent souls anymore thanks to that nagging crown prince—but that’s got nothing to do with you, does it?]

Mortius tried to scream.

But with only his soul remaining, even that was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

The wicked lich who had toyed with countless lives and souls finally understood the weight of his sins—only now, when he himself was reduced to a helpless wisp.

And those ruby-red lips of the woman—within them, a void like a bottomless pit—

[Then... I’ll # Nоvеlight # dig in.]

Gulp.

***

After everything ended—

Blanca returned to where Bern had been.

The red-haired adventurer, struck by the lich’s vile magic, had vanished completely—without even a body left behind.

Cradling the heart that had once belonged to her mother, chasing the fading traces of the man she loved, the girl finally let herself cry.