Wretched

ROAR”!”

The Lake Lord let out one last, soul-shaking roar.

The deafening bellow churned the lake into a frenzy, sending waves several meters high crashing against the distant shore. Elka clamped her hands over her ears, but she could still feel the painful, concussive force of the soundwave vibrating through her very bones.

“Is that your final lament?”

Anne, however, seemed completely, serenely unaffected. She raised the massive scythe high, a veritable grim reaper poised to harvest the defiant soul before her.

The Lake Lord’s eyes reflected Anne’s cold, impassive face, and a flicker of raw, primal, and distinctly human-like terror appeared within them. It had never encountered a human this powerful. But that fear was quickly, violently consumed by the suicidal madness of a cornered beast.

If I’m going to die, I’m dragging you down with me!

Lightning crackled, and white-hot, untamed arcs of electricity wrapped around the Lake Lord’s body. But the horn that served as its cannon had been broken. How could it possibly harm the woman before it with just this unfocused, chaotic energy? Or was it just a desperate, futile attempt to delay the inevitable?

Anne frowned slightly, her raised scythe pausing mid-air. She was waiting for the beast to exhaust itself, for the lightning to fade into nothing.

But the lightning showed no signs of dissipating. The Lake Lord was clearly on its last legs, yet the arcs of electricity only grew brighter, more brilliant, more terrifyingly unstable.

“No, something’s wrong.”

From a safe distance, Elka noticed something was off.

She heard a heartbeat.

A rapid, frantic, and impossibly loud heartbeat.

A heartbeat that sounded as if it were about to explode.

There was only one possibility.

“Get away from it! It’s going to self-destruct!”

Realizing the Lake Lord’s final, desperate gambit, Elka screamed a desperate warning at Anne.

Self-destruct?

Anne’s gaze sharpened as she looked at the beast. Only now did she see the crazed, mocking light of a suicide bomber in its eyes.

“Heh. Did I underestimate you?”

In that single, terrifying instant, the lightning that had been gathering around the Lake Lord’s body violently, apocalyptically, detonated.

BOOM!

A deafening, earth-shattering explosion ripped through the air. A blinding flash of pure, white light illuminated half the sky, turning night into day for a single, terrible moment.

…

“Is… is she alright?”

Elka, using the very last dregs of her strength to maintain her levitation spell, watched from a safe distance as the brilliant, sun-like explosion of lightning bloomed and then vanished in an instant.

Charred, smoking chunks of flesh rained down from the center of the explosion, a gruesome and unromantic meteor shower. The Lake Lord had clearly controlled the blast radius, which was why Elka hadn’t been affected. But that only made her worry more. A smaller blast radius meant a far more concentrated, and far more lethal, explosion. The beast had done it to ensure it would take its killer down with it.

“Please be okay, miss…”

Elka prayed, her hands clasped together as she stared intently at the center of the explosion. The residual heat had created a thick, impenetrable cloud of steam, making it impossible to see what had happened.

Thankfully, the heavy rain had not stopped. The steam was quickly washed away by the downpour, and the scene at the center of the explosion was gradually, hauntingly, revealed.

Because the explosion had happened on the lake’s surface, it hadn’t left a particularly gruesome crater. But the forest of steel thorns that had been restraining the beast had melted and warped significantly from the intense heat, and the tips of the remaining spikes glowed a cherry-red, hissing as the cold lake water quenched them.

The Lake Lord was long gone, its remains likely scattered across the dark, silent bottom of the lake.

And floating serenely above the twisted forest of steel thorns was a massive, seamless, and perfectly spherical metal ball, radiating a strange, eerie, and otherworldly beauty.

“This is…”

Looking at the metal sphere, Elka’s heart leaped into her throat.

“Um… miss? Are you alright?” she called out, her voice a timid, trembling whisper.

Click.

A circular section of the sphere retracted with a soft, satisfying hiss.

Anne stepped out, turning to look at Elka. Her expression was as prim and serene as ever, as if she had not just been at the very epicenter of a life-threatening, suicidal explosion.

“I am fine.”

“Ah, that’s a relief.”

The crushing weight on Elka’s heart finally lifted, and she let out a long, shuddering sigh. The moment the tension left her body, she was hit by a wave of exhaustion so profound, so absolute, that it nearly drowned her, her vision swimming.

“Ah, right! I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Elka! Thank you so much for saving my life!” Elka forced her weary, trembling body into a deep, respectful bow.

“Anne. And you don’t need to thank me,” Anne replied, her voice cold and detached. “I only killed that beast because it was in my way.”

“Even so, I am very grateful, Miss Anne!” Elka said, puffing out her cheeks with a renewed, serious expression. “I will bring my companions to thank you properly later! Please don’t refuse us then!”

“…” Anne suddenly fell silent, her cold, unreadable gaze sweeping over Elka’s face.

“Eh? Did I say something wrong?”

“No. I was just wondering… are you not worried about your companions?”

“Ah, right! My companions!”

Only then did Elka remember that she still had two companions who were missing in action.

“They fell in that direction,” Anne said, pointing with a delicate finger.

“Thank you!”

Elka hastily thanked her again, then, forcing herself to rally, she manipulated her sputtering levitation spell and flew off in that direction as fast as her exhausted body would allow.

After Elka had gone, Anne’s gaze returned to the vast, rain-swept lake. She rubbed her temples, a hint of a genuine headache coming on.

“Well, now that the nuisance is dealt with,” she sighed, “how in the world am I supposed to catch a fish?”

…

“Rod! Tia! Are you two alright?!”

Following Anne’s directions, Elka finally found Rod and Tia on the muddy shore.

The moment Rod saw her, his face lit up with a desperate relief. “Elka, you’re just in time! Use your healing magic, quick! Tia is…”

“What?”

Elka then noticed that Tia wasn’t mocking her bedraggled, rain-soaked appearance as she usually would. Instead, she was lying on the ground, her face pale and clammy, her expression one of extreme, agonizing pain, a trickle of dark blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.

“The shockwave must have injured her internal organs! Elka, you have to heal her! Now!”

“B-but… my mana… it’s all gone…”

“Gone?”

Rod froze, then suddenly rushed forward, grabbed Elka’s collar, and shook her forcefully, his eyes wild with panic. “What did you say?! Your mana is gone?! Not a single drop left?! What about your mana recovery potions?!”

“Rod, you’re hurting me…”

Elka struggled free from his iron grip, gasping for breath. “I really don’t have any mana left… and isn’t Tia the one who always manages our recovery potions?”

“I just checked her bag! There aren’t any!”

“If she forgot to bring them, then there’s nothing I can do!”

“Damn it!” Rod slammed his fist on the muddy ground, his voice cracking with desperation. “As a mage, why didn’t you bring any potions?!”

“…” Didn’t I just say that Tia is the one who manages them? And unlike her, I don’t usually waste my mana like it’s water. If it weren’t for all these unexpected disasters, I wouldn’t have run out in the first place. In the end, isn’t this Tia’s fault for not bringing the potions?

“There’s no other choice. I have to take Tia to the Guild now.” Rod hoisted Tia’s limp body onto his back.

“I’ll go with you,” Elka said, taking a step forward.

“Just stay here and rest.” Rod didn’t even turn back to look at her, his voice cold and sharp as a shard of ice. “Right now, you’re nothing but dead weight!”

“…” Elka watched, frozen, as Rod disappeared into the driving rain with Tia on his back, leaving her all alone.

The rain fell harder, stinging her eyes, or maybe it was just the tears.

Unconsciously, her ten fingers had dug deep into the cold, wet mud, leaving several long, angry gashes in the earth that were quickly, mercilessly, washed away by the rain.

…

She’s such an eyesore.