Chapter 100

Alikr had been toying with me. Countless cuts covered my body, and my control of the earth dwindled as my stamina ran dry.

Where I’d previously been able to summon plates of rock and even encase most of a limb in earthen armor, in the end, I could only manage fragments of stone to mitigate the damage from each slash of Alikr’s slender blade.

Through it all, he left wide openings for me to exploit, and I landed slashes and punches of my own, with him doing little to mitigate the damage.

Koise tried to support with his arrows, but without the System, the velocity of his projectiles simply wasn’t enough to be much of a threat to even me, let alone Alikr.

All it’d taken was a stray slash of the elf’s blade to send sword energy out toward Koise, knocking him from the carriage and out of sight.

I hoped he was okay, but I had other things to worry about.

In the end, I faced Alikr, out of breath and spirit, blood dripping from where his sword had tasted my skin and the gauntlet on my arm feeling heavier than ever.

* * *

“Are you finally done?” he asked me, his left arm limp at his side and a gloating grin on his face.

Suddenly, his eyes caught sight of something behind me, and surprise took hold. “Who are you…?”

I struggled to turn my head and caught sight of a familiar face—Eve. She looked worse than I felt, if that was possible, but there she was.

A warning struggled from my mouth, but neither of the two paid me any mind at that point.

In the next moment, the emotion on Alikr’s face turned to unmistakable fear.

‘What the hell?’ I thought. No matter how I looked at it, Eve looked like she could barely stand.

Just what was Alikr so afraid of? Wouldn’t a single strike have been enough to down her and take her out of the fight in the same way he’d neutralized Koise with hardly a thought? The fog remained ever present, and—impossibly—a warm, orange glow crept from Eve’s body.

‘How is she doing this? She shouldn’t be able to use her abilities.’

Just like Koise, she should’ve also been locked out of the System.

Maybe there was still some room for doubt, but when the glow erupted into a fiery aura that sent flames flickering over me, leaving me unharmed, and when those exact flames reached Alikr and singed his clothes, it was impossible to deny.

Glowing against the backdrop of the fog, with fire swirling around her, I could almost imagine her as an angel.

‘I already suspected it, but…’

Whatever the source of her abilities, it wasn’t the System.

‘Does she even have a System at all?’

It all made sense, then—how quickly she grew fatigued when I’d tried to keep a rapid pace on our way to Karfana after our first meeting, her ability usage in that first fog, and her curiosity about my abilities.

Alikr took off running into the forest, not even trying to hide the signs of his departure as he crashed through the underbrush. Meanwhile, my mind continued to race.

‘This can’t possibly be a coincidence. Was she searching for me or something?’

Before I could think about it too hard, I was jolted from my confusion when the fiery aura spreading from Eve suddenly vanished as quickly as it’d appeared, letting the chill of the fog back in. She collapsed face-first, going completely limp after confirming Alikr had left.

‘She must’ve just barely been holding on.’

As exhausted as I was, I still had the energy to at least check on her and Koise, who’d both left me for the land of dreams.

Rolling her over, I placed my hand against her neck and confirmed a steady pulse. Then, I walked over to where Koise lay—back against a tree—and confirmed his pulse as well. I was no doctor, but it at least seemed like both would live to see another day.

“Ha… just leaving me to do all the work, huh?” I mumbled to no one in particular as I dragged their bodies onto the wagon.

I waited while the fog cleared. I would’ve spurred the wagon onward as well, but the Second System’s restrictions on external mana control played their part yet again, and I was forced to keep an eye on the forest until Koise woke up.

If I was right about Eve, she wouldn’t be able to control the carriage either.

Briefly checking over their injuries, I saw that Eve was covered in countless small cuts, scars, and a rather nasty gash in her leg. Koise, on the other hand, had a rather large bump on the back of his head from where he’d collided with the tree.

Watching the wind rustling the leaves of the trees on either end of the road, I fell into contemplation and forced myself to stay awake. It wasn’t until long after the fog cleared and curious goblins peeked out from the bushes, considering an ambush, that one of them returned to consciousness.

Despite the extent of her injuries, Eve woke first.

The wagon was filled with supplies, but most were hidden away in chests or pouches with larger interiors that would need an input of mana to open. There were a few bandages and other supplies packed loosely among the other goods, but nothing that could treat Koise’s head wound.

“Ugh…” she groaned, squeezed into the space I’d been able to make in the wagon for her and Koise atop a few of the storage chests.

Still lying down, she reached a hand up to shield her eyes from the sunlight creeping in from the back of the wagon.

“Eve?” I asked. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I need some damn water…” she croaked out. It’d only been a few hours, but I didn’t know what kind of toll her abilities took on her.

Water, at least, was one of the few things we had loose in the back of the wagon among the other supplies. I hurriedly handed her a flask, and she took greedy gulps of it.

“Ahh… he didn’t come back?” she asked, clearing her throat.

I assumed she meant Alikr.

Shaking my head, I replied, “No, he ran off into the forest and didn’t return. I’ve been keeping an eye out, but all I’ve seen are a few curious monsters.”

She grimaced. “Mmm… I suppose, if we take too long, they might decide to have a go at us.”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” I dismissed her concern. “More importantly, what the hell was that?”

“What was what?”

“What did you do to Alikr? One moment, he was ready to kill me, the next, you walk in half-dead and he runs away like he’s seen the devil himself.”

Eve chuckled, wincing with each intake of breath. “Yeah… I suppose that isn’t too far from the truth.”

“Well…?” I asked, my eyebrow quirking up in a questioning stare. “It’s not like we’re pressed for time right now. If you aren’t going to tell me why you’re really here, you might as well tell me how you saved us.”

“Hmm…” she sighed. “It’s a long story, but… to put it simply, I’m a rare type of elf that most of my kind consider to be extinct. We did something terrible far in the past—back in our world, before the Merge—and stories about us have spread for hundreds of years now. It’s to the point that parents warn their children that we’ll steal them away in the night if they sneak out and such.”

“What, you’re saying you’re like the bogeyman or something?” I asked.

“The bogeyman?”

“Similar story, but something that doesn’t truly exist.”

“How do you know it doesn’t exist?”

I shook my head. “I just know. That aside, how did you know he was following us, and what happened for you to show up looking like you were already on death’s door?”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

She took another sip of water and wet her lips before speaking. “After you and Koise ignored my warning about the Lion Guild, I stayed behind and watched into the night. My efforts paid off when I saw both the city lord and that elf I scared away entering at different times.”

“You’re saying Alikr was working with the Lion Guild and the city lord?”

I knew he’d been in the Association at one point and probably had ties in high places, but the purple corruption swirling in his eye was a new development that I’d figured would scare said ties away. Did they not care about the corruption?

‘Or was it that they already knew about the corruption?’ I wondered.

“I didn’t witness their meeting, but I can at least say they know of each other. As for whether they’re actually working together on something… who knows?”

She paused for a moment, thoughtful. “I learned from a guard that the elf was headed toward the city gates and guessed he was after you. Why else would a random elf reeking of corruption suddenly decide to head toward Karfana?”

‘Learned from a guard?’ I didn’t exactly think a guard would have been forthcoming with such information, but that wasn’t important at the moment.

“What about your injuries?” I asked.

“The guard didn’t let the information go easily.”

‘Well, at least she confirmed that much.’

“I tracked his stench all the way here and, well, you saw the rest.”

I looked at Koise’s sleeping face and sighed. “We’re going to have to go back, aren’t we?”

If the city lord of one of the Central Cities was working with someone like Alikr, and if she was right about Gregor, then we had to do something before it was too late.

“I’m afraid so,” Eve replied.