1109: Klimt's Status

We broke through the tornado to see Klimt lying on the ground. Fran rushed over to his side.

For some reason, the spirit stopped blasting us with wind too. Perhaps she won’t attack anyone near Klimt?

「Klimt! Are you okay?」

「…」

Klimt shifted his pale face slightly, as if attempting to make a nod. However, he did not utter any words.

「Black Lightning Princess!」

「Fran, Klimt-dono got hurt really bad!」

It seems Klimt took a heavy wound to his stomach. Zenos was busy applying a cloth to stop the bleeding. Meanwhile, Captain Urth kept an eye on the surroundings while tilting Klimt’s body to prevent the wound from turning downward.

Klimt himself seemed to be frozen stiff, as if he was concentrating on something else… Shouldn’t Klimt have a spirit capable of healing him though?

「I’ll heal you.」

Fran invoked Maximum Heal, yet Klimt’s wounds showed no sign of recovery.

「Eh?」

『Evil energy!』

On closer inspection, his wound was infested with evil energy. It seems to have invaded his body too, interfering with his regeneration.

Zenos and Urth started getting desperate.

「Not even the Black Lightning Princess can help…!」

「This is not good! At this rate, the entire town of Alessa will be…!」

「What happened?」

「Honestly, we don’t know much of the details either.」

Zenos explained the situation as Klimt remained silent. Apparently, an intruder suddenly broke into the lord’s mansion. Klimt’s spirits and the knights rushed over to intercept this intruder, but then…

「He somehow made his way into our room.」

「I couldn’t even sense him coming, that undead with such a faint presence.」

Urth said the undead was weaker than him combat-wise, but had a terrifying talent in stealth. They somehow lost sight of him despite looking right at him, and got snuck up on.

The undead’s target was Klimt from the beginning, and he promptly charged in with a suicide attack. The barriers set up by Klimt’s spirits should have easily repelled any such attempts, yet they shattered instantly, and Klimt took a knife to his stomach.

（Hideman?）

『So there must have been another copy of him sneaking around…』

If only we had searched more thoroughly! Maybe the one we defeated was purposely revealing himself as bait. Then he went after his real objective of Klimt after we dropped our guard.

「What happened to that undead?」

「Klimt defeated him, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that he got caught up in the descent of the Great Spirit…」

「The undead’s remains and dagger are still lying over there.」

Now that he mentioned it, there was indeed a dagger leaking mana on the ground a short distance away. A bit further away was the upper body of an undead collapsed on the ground.

「Klimt-dono is busy trying to control the Great Spirit after her appearance. That’s why we had no choice but to stay here.」

「It seems not even Klimt is capable of suppressing her completely.」

The spirit was only attacking random people instead of going on a complete rampage, apparently thanks to Klimt’s control. However, this also meant Klimt himself could no longer move.

So it wasn’t the wound preventing him from talking, but because he needed to concentrate on controlling the Great Spirit of Wind.

『Fran, first we need to fix Klimt up as fast as possible.』

（Okay.）

Who knows what kind of disaster the Great Spirit will cause if Klimt loses consciousness. We invoked restoration magic infused with the divine attribute. Rather than repeatedly casting the same spell, we focused on a single spell with deeply permeating healing.

Our experience healing Flut’s injury from the demon slayer came in handy. While evil energy can’t be considered the same as the demon slayer curse, they were similar in how normal magic has no effect. The wound on Klimt’s stomach began slowly sealing up.

「Whoa! That’s our Black Lightning Princess!」

「All right! Just a little bit more!」

The two other guys shouted for joy, but we soon ran into a problem.

「…Mrgh.」

『What’s wrong Fran?』

（The Great Spirit is getting louder.）

『What?』

The next instant, the Great Spirit unleashed several tornadoes into the noble district.

「…Guh.」

「Klimt, are you okay?」

Klimt nodded his head, looking even more distressed than before. It seems the pain from closing his wound might have disrupted his concentration.

But no matter how much pain he might feel, we can’t afford to pause his treatment.

「Klimt, hang in there.」

「…Grh.」

Despite groaning, Klimt gave a firm nod, his eyes filled with determination. Being able to control a Great Spirit in his condition is pretty amazing.

（Master, let’s hurry.）

『Yeah.』

That said, suddenly accelerating the pace runs the risk of startling Klimt. We continued gradually increasing the infusion of the divine attribute, healing him slowly and surely.

Klimt seemed to have gotten accustomed to the gradual healing procedure about halfway through, so he didn’t lose control of the Great Spirit again.

After his full recovery, Klimt stood up with a somewhat relieved look on his face. His work was not yet done.

「Phew… I will now subdue the Great Spirit.」

「Nn. Please.」

The unleashed Great Spirit must be sealed away once more.