"I and mine are centrally glad to have arrived in time."
"I wish I was a bit faster though. Things were practically done by the time we got here."
"Same."
Frigg looked pleased with herself and gave me a light nod. On the other hand, Geirskogul sulked as he hung his head along with his halberd. Alvaldi himself wasn't even here as he was more a crafter than a warrior, but his representative who lead the titan warriors rubbed the back of his head in shame.
"Even still, you came, and I think that's what counts."
Just because you failed at something didn't discount the effort put into it. The effort put into things, even if they had no tangible result, still meant something.
Because if it didn't, then the last few months of my last life would have had no meaning, and thus, my death as well which was a direct result of all the effort I put into my work during that time would have been in vain.
I'd rather consider it that my efforts, even indirectly, were connected to the happiness which I experienced in my current life.
So there was no way I could deny that thought for others either. Their intent was important, just like the result. Even if they couldn't be weighed equally, the fact that they were both important was immutable, and that was enough for me to appreciate it.
I put my hands on Geirskogul's shoulder and the titan's arm, as I couldn't reach his shoulder, and gave them my most heartfelt words.
"Thanks, both of you."
It took a few moments, but in the end they both gave me a grin and nodded their heads.
"You guys as well too."
Peeking in between the giant of a man and the virtual inchling, I gave a smile to the ones who followed these two. In turn, I got a few cheers.
"Aurae! You too! I really owe...you..."
But in the middle of my words, I was forced to stop.
The atmosphere around the fairies were vastly different from everyone else.
In the arms of the fairy elder was Orphne's body.
"What? But...?"
The little fairy barely moved. Her chest rose and fell slightly, indicating that she was in fact breathing, but her eyes were glazed over and was completely unresponsive.
While held in the elder's arms, a few fairies were casting healing magic, so the wound on her belly was shrinking at a quick rate, but even then the fairy guard didn't respond to any stimuli at all.
"What happened to her?"
In the end, I resolved myself and asked the question, only to be met with a shake of a few heads.
"We do not know."
This couldn't be.
We had a complete victory. Not a single death, and only wounds which could easily be healed with magic.
There wasn't supposed to be any tragedies.
I inched closer to the little figures and placed a hand on the unresponsive body.
Her body was warm and I could feel her breathing. But even then, she didn't move in any other way. Orphne only gave a dead eye stare as her body limply hung in Aurae's arms.
I couldn't understand it.
That assassin did stab her, yet I confirmed that she was still alive right after. She didn't bleed to death or anything else obvious.
I thought back to the incident.
That dagger was certainly suspicious.
The design was extremely strange, as if its purpose wasn't for stabbing or cutting, but that was a requirement to do its real task.
As for what that was...
(Didn't something pass through the dagger when he stabbed Orphne?)
I disregarded it considering the situation, but I did certainly see something glow pass through the dagger and the connecting hose.
(It can't be.)
An icy stone dropped to the pit of my stomach, and no matter what I tried, it wouldn't go away.
(Sorry.)
I apologized in my head in advance before activating [Scan] on Orphne's body.
I quickly parsed through her hidden data and found the point I was looking for. The little fairy's container file for her core.
Opening it up, I confirmed my worst fears.
It was empty.
From all my experience, I was pretty certain that the core file represented the place where the soul was held, and if it was empty, it meant that there was no soul in the body.
Without a soul, the body wouldn't move, as there was no will to drive it.
And somehow, that assassin managed to get his hands on a weapon which could steal a person's soul.
But as for what purpose, I had no idea.
(But he was clearly targeting me. So the one who he wanted to steal their soul was actually me.)
I retracted my hand and my gaze fell to the trampled snow below.
My body felt colder than what was possible what the winter breeze could deliver.
(He was trying to steal my soul...)
That was his objective. And he had the tool to do it even.
And even worse, that weapon of his, that cold iron sword. If it wasn't for the timely intervention from my allies, even without stealing my soul he could have easily killed me.
It was a weapon which I couldn't fight.
I couldn't touch it, it neutralized my spells, and I didn't have a single skill which could effectively combat it directly.
I had no real way to fight against someone who wielded such a weapon.
The best I could do was throw things at him, and that hardly constituted a real strategy when he could just block everything with his shield and rush me to my doom.
"Wait...what are you..."
Before I knew it, Aurae and the fairies attending her turned away carrying Orphne's body.
"If we cannot figure out what had happened to Orphne, there is only one thing we can do."
"Which is...?"
"Wait. And if she does not wake, then we can only return her to the earth."
"No, but...!"
Her words chilled me to the bone. It was logical. They didn't know what had happened to Orphne. Even if I explained, there wasn't anything they could do. Injecting a soul into a body wasn't as simple as opening the container which Orphne's soul was trapped in.
If it was that easy, then Alicia would have entered my baby's body the moment I had conceived her, rather than require me to use an additional skill to insert her soul.
But Orphne's condition was vastly different from Alicia's. First of all, Orphne's soul wasn't inside of my body, but a separate container. Though I had a thought as to how to deal with that, the other problem was that I had no way to insert her soul into her body as is.
I didn't have any prepared skills which was capable of that, as my only soul insertion skill was specialized to insert it into the fetus my own body carried. Modifying it to work on an external body was a difficult undertaking and required a lot of time to do right.
My thoughts raced as I tried to come up with some sort of solid solution to Aurae.
But my thoughts crumbled to her words.
"You do not owe us that. In fact, we are thankful to Orphne. For she allowed us to pay a great part of the debt we fairies owe to you."
Aurae said those words, but her expression was grim. Even if she believed every single word spoken out, they were difficult words for her to release.
And as for me, I hated myself for what I felt in response for hearing those words: relief.
I was relieved that there weren't any expectations put on me to save Orphne. That nobody would blame me for not even trying.
Because I didn't want to face that assassin again.
Not when he held that cold iron sword.
The very thought of it make my hands shake, and any resolve I could muster was like leaves in the wind.
"Is that it then?"
"Huh?"
I looked to my side. Sarah was standing there, watching as the fairies left.
"Was that enough for you?"
"What more could I have done?"
"I dunno. And really, I don't care that much."
"How come?"
I couldn't understand what Sarah was trying to say.
"That fairy was fun to be around."
"Was?"
"At this rate, she'd gonna die, right?"
"Yea."
"Right. But as fun as it was, I wouldn't risk my life for her."
"How come?"
"Why should I? I liked her, but not to that extent."
That made sense. Even if Sarah considered Orphne a friend, they had only recently met. She had no reason to stick her neck out that for her.
"But if you're going, then I'll go with you."
"Huh?"
"I still can't make schteev the way you can. There's no way I can let you die, is there?"
My eyes met her as she gave me a big grin, but even then, my gaze dropped to my hands below.
(She can't do it for Orphne, but can for me?)
I couldn't understand that line she had placed in between Orphne and myself. We barely knew each other. We had only met twice before all this, and she was trying to kill me on both accounts. The only difference was that I made Sarah's favourite foods, and Orhpne was more of a playmate for her.
But somehow because I made Sarah's favourite food that she could risk her life for my sake?
That wasn't something I could understand.
I couldn't risk my life just because someone made my favourite food.
Not in any serious way at least.
But then again, I ate my prey directly, so people didn't exactly make my food in the first place.
I couldn't help but feel like I had completely missed Sarah's point somewhere in my thought processes.
"Master!"
Just as my mind was starting to go in circles, another familiar, and extremely reassuring voice reached me.
"Claret!"
"Master! Master! I'm so glad you're alright!"
My every faithful familiar dove down from up high, tackling me in an embrace.
I was forced to fight her momentum or else risk hurting myself by falling into a compromising posture.
"When, when your portal closed shut, I was so terrified! I'm sorry for being so slow! If only I was faster!"
"It's fine. I should've worked harder to get through the portal with you."
"No, but..."
"It's fine. I'm fine. See? I've got all my limbs back!"
I deliberately made the effort to show off each of my limbs to my worrywart of a familiar.
"Or rather, what's that you're holding?"
Claret had something carefully tucked in her arms. Strange considering that she had probably rushed straight to me once the portal had closed.
"Oh, this is your arm."
Getting a clear look at it, it certainly was my arm. Or at least a part of it.
"Ah. I see..."
I took my arm back from Claret's gentle grasp, then while giving my familiar a dead eye stare, channelled [Light Magic] into my hand and turned the severed limb into ash along with my hand.
"Master! Noooo~!"
Amazingly, the blood curling scream of Claret's hurt more than my ashen stub, but this was not something I could let pass.
"Seriously. You should've known I wouldn't let you keep a severed part of my body."
I understood the thought process going on in her head, and frankly, I didn't want any part of it. Even if that part of me wasn't connected to my body any longer.
The fact that there really were tears running down her cheeks made things even more awkward for me and I couldn't continue to hold eye contact. Instead, I took a sip of blood from my dimensional pocket to restore my hand and cut at least one source of pain.
Eventually though, I managed to raise my face.
I could only deliberately avoid eye contact with Claret for so long. Eventually she'd really start to feel bad and when that happened, she would become unpredictable.
But when I raised my head, my overly close familiar wasn't looking at me, but at the slowly retreating fairies.
"That one. Her aura's..."
"You mean Orphne? Yea."
The sight of the limp fairy made the lump in my chest grow bigger and harder, but as to actually doing something about it, the very thought made my hands tremble.
"It's growing really weak."
"I guess that would happen. I mean, after her soul had...wait."
There was something strange about how Claret worded her statement, making me do a double take.
"Her aura is GROWING weak?"
"That's right. I don't think it will last very long."
Claret had a sombre expression on her face, but that wasn't was I was focused on.
Looking back at Orphne's body, I used [Scan] on it again and shifted the resultant window to the side. After waiting a few moments, I used it a second time and compared the two windows.
"Her MP is falling."
(That's...huh?)
There wasn't any reason why her MP would fall. Without her soul, Orphne couldn't do anything, so there was no reason why her MP could be dropping.
Unless if her MP was supported by her soul's existence. Without her soul, it was possible that her aura was dispersing without any powers to hold it together, and with that, her MP was draining out as the mana inside of her body continued to escape her body faster than it was able to generate it.
"Claret. What happens to a fairy when their MP falls to zero?"
"I don't know. But aren't their bodies half like ours?"
I was definitely told that at some point. That fairies were half mana based, half physical. Mana based lifeforms die when their MP falls to zero, so couldn't it be said that the same thing would happen to a fairy?
If not exactly the same thing, then at least their body would have significantly greater difficulty sustaining themself in that condition.
Once more, I used [Scan] on Orphne's body and compared the result to my previous scans.
Her MP had fallen even further, and extrapolating what I was seeing, she would likely run out of MP in only a handful of hours. At even the best case, it wouldn't last until the next morning. At the worst, her body would become cold by the time the moon rose up in the sky.
"It's my fault. If only I wasn't here. Or even if I did better, or tried harder to get away when I realized what was going on."
"Master?"
It was scary. My hands shook and my throat threatened to choke me, but I couldn't let Orphne die.
But I couldn't do it alone. That for sure was impossible.
"Aurae! We need to save Orphne now!"
"Scarlet, I told you before. You don't owe us anything. Don't worry about Orphne, and keep yourself safe. You should protect yourself so that your baby can be safely born."
And with those words, the fairies went back, leaving me behind.
Aurae's words were true. I should prioritize on keeping Alicia safe. That was the most important thing for me.
But at the same time, I couldn't just let Orphne die.
Maybe it was true that I didn't owe the fairies, or even her that. But I owed myself that much, to at least try to save my friend.
"Claret?"
"Yes Master?"
It was stupid to even ask, so I didn't.
"Sarah?"
"What is it?"
"You said you won't risk your life for Orphne, but will you risk your life for me when I'm risking my life for Orphne?"
"...So you get it."
I wasn't entirely sure what she was trying to clue me in to with that, but I just took the shit eating grin she gave me as a confirmation that she would help me.
But even with Sarah's help, it was only the three of us.
Both Claret and myself was helpless against that cold iron sword, and Sarah probably wasn't very good at melee. Sniping she could do extremely well, as well as suppressive fire. If given the opportunity, maybe her gun was strong enough to do real damage against the two mages, but against the two armoured ones, she couldn't do anything more than to hold them back.
Either way, we needed help, and Aurae wasn't going to give it to us. With her out of the picture, it would be hard to get any of the other fairies on my side.
That didn't even take into consideration that they would hardly stand a better chance than the rest of us against the cold iron sword in the first place.
I looked around, only to discover to my dismay that many of the reinforcements had scattered.
Most likely to Elli's words, they had gone out to search for any more possible intruders.
It wasn't a bad idea so I couldn't really blame them.
But it was the opposite of what I needed.
"Claret. Can you get the little ones to go and keep track of those assassins?"
"Yes Master!"
"And make sure that they keep their distance as well!"
"I got it Master!"
The last thing I needed was for the cute little fluffballs to put themselves at risk and get hurt because of my instructions. They only did what they were told because they liked Claret and me. They didn't deserve for bad things to happen because of us.
But this didn't solve the real problem at hand. I didn't know where the other strongest members of the country were at the moment, and every minute I couldn't gather them, was a minute less I had to save Orphne.
"You!"
I called out to a demon who looked like was returning from a patrol.
"Yes elder?"
"Do you know where Elder Frigg is?"
"I'm sorry. I don't."
(Damn!)
"How about any of the other elders or chieftains?"
If I couldn't find Frigg, then I could only bet on the others.
"I saw Chieftain Geirskogul that way."
The demon pointed towards the forest, near but not quite the same direction which the assassins fled to.
"Thanks!"
I gave the red skinned man a wave before taking off in a run.
Which I immediately stopped and switched to floating as my body couldn't handle running in its current state. My back flared up in pain and my new centre of gravity threatened to destroy my balance. Taking to the air really was the only way to do it.
"Chieftain Geirskogul!"
I called out to the little imp as his figure showed itself from behind one of the many large trees that populated this forest.
"Elder Scarlet! Is something wrong? Did you see any more enemies to deal with?"
The blue skinned floating creature rushed over to me, followed by a trio of subordinate imps, his eyes sparkling as he suggested something a bit scary. The fact that it wasn't that far off from what I was going to request from him was definitely a little disturbing as well.
"Not new ones, no."
"Oh."
The disappointment in the imp chieftain's voice was so thick I could practically cut it with a knife.
"I was hoping there was something I could do to be of use."
"Actually, there is."
"Really?! Then let's go!"
"Wait wait wait!"
I started to shout as Geirskogul grabbed my hand and started to pull me in a random direction even without any knowledge as to what it was that I wanted to ask or which way to go.
"What? You want my help, right? Then there's no time to lose!"
"But I haven't even told you what it is yet!"
"Who cares! I wanna help! I couldn't before, but now I can!"
"At least let me explain what it is first!"
It wasn't like I was worried that he would deny my request once I told him or something, but I did want to at least let him know what he was getting into before we rushed headlong into trouble.
At least he did stop to give me a moment, but his body was practically trembling with energy.
"The fairy Orphne had her soul sucked out by one of the intruders. I want to get it back before her body dies."
"Is that it? Then let's go!"
Raising his halberd., his subordinates cheered, matching his pose before he continued to lead the way.
"Thanks, all of you. But it's this way."
I didn't want to do it, but I had to point towards the last spot where the assassins appeared on [Sense Presence], and it was in a completely different direction from where the little imps were headed.
Ninetailed_Furball
Hi everybody! It's your usual furball! (^o^)丿
Sorry for the late release. I've been getting a bit too distracted between some new games and a whole lot of research unrelated to this story. m(_ _)m
I understand there were some complaints about the darker tones of the latest few chapters, and apologize that it isn't going away immediately in addition to the cliffhanger of this chapter. (´･ω･`)
For those who want the warm and cuddly side of my story, I promise that it will return soon. This dark day of Scarlet's will end soon.
Anyways, despite all that, I hope everyone did enjoy this chapter, and hope that you all are doing well.
The next chapter might be delayed slightly, but I'll do my best to get it out by Saturday if not tomorrow. ☆彡
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