๐๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐ฎ ๐๐ฒ๐น๐น๐ธ๐ฒ๐ป
Astoria and I left the adventurers guild leaving Himura and Alice behind. When we reached the central point of the city, I decided to split up with Astoria and headed to the commercial district near the north gate.
When I arrive, I can see on my left the damages left by the phoenix. Thanks to the efforts of the city, it was quickly getting fixed.
'Alice, she was probably the one who caused this. I don't know much about Himura, even after two months of being a party together but I know he isn't a fool...'
'It was most likely an accident.' I thought.
The reason I forgave her easily was not because of Himura's clear pleading for her innocence but because I saw her action with my own eyes.
'I very much saw her contribution from killing it and while Himura was desperately fighting that thing, I saw her in despair, clearly, she wasn't expecting it but also that body was probably someone she's familiar with which stunned her.' I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts. 'But it's all over now, I shouldn't dwell on it. All I have to do is support her as his fellow party member.' With my mind cleared, I continued walking and soon arrived at a potion shop.
"Welcome." A tired old woman welcomes me before closing her eyes. I was already used to her behavior so I just browsed for potions we were going to need.
As I was browsing, I found a particular shelve of potions. Tons of berserker potions were displayed which reminded me of a recent memory.
'Himura...although it was a do or die moment, he didn't even care about his wounds when he got hit by that thing' A berserker potion was a double-edged sword for most. Although it lets you not feel pain, it also makes it hard to know how wounded you are and if used incorrectly, the user would just die since they didn't pay attention to their wounds.
'Does he not care about his life?' I asked, not grabbing anything on this shelf, and continued browsing.
Next to it was a bright red liquid, called a health potion. Contrary to its name, this potion actually doesn't instantly heal you but instead increases your healing regeneration a hundred times.
I grabbed about 20 of these and put them on the counter before continuing to browse again.
While browsing I got 12 iron skin potions that strengthen the skin, 3 small mana crystals which was enough mana to fully replenish a mage, and 3 obsidian skin potions which strengthened your resistance to fire however this increased resistance was still no match to a phoenix's fire.
I paid 20 gold for it using our party's money. I had a total of 30 gold since Himura, me, and Astoria each put 10 gold in to pay for all of the essentials.
The old woman thanked me as I left.
An hour has passed since I left to buy the essential items for our journey and I went to another shop that sells adventurer equipment like grappling hooks, waterskins, and rations.
I bought enough rations to reach our first destination with an extra day's worth of food left. I also bought 4 waterskins and a single grappling hook for emergencies.
After buying those, I left the shop and headed to the church of Hu.
As I entered the church she made a gesture of an upside-down T on my forehead using my thumb before kneeling down and praying. "Oh, god of creation, Hu, please bless our journey to be safe." After a short prayer, I left the church and decided to go back to the adventurers guild, using the alleyway to cut the time there by about half however as I was approaching the guild, I felt four presence in front of her.
"Show yourself."
Four filthy men stopped me in my tracks. The men talked to themselves as they looked at me with gazes of greed.
I felt such gaze and breath a sigh. I drop the items I bought and then roll up the sleeves of my black priest cassock.
The men laughed mocking me as one of them approached me slowly with a crude knife, however, he didn't manage to approach further as I dashed to him, grabbing his collar and throwing him to the ground then kicking him in the face, knocking him out.
The remaining three became alert as they also drew their knife. Since I was only able to transfer my mana, I couldn't cast any spells myself so I chose to improve my body and skills to handle a staff as some sort of close combat weapon so I could fight as an adventurer.
However, she also had one thing that made her a great fighter. I was actually blind in my left eye but thanks to a mutation I received from birth and a bit of modification, it became an eye that could only see mana due to my excessive mana.
Thanks to my abundance of mana, I was able to see even the slightest mana making it pretty much a normal eye.
One of the men tried to cast a spell while the other two charged at me however I saw it with her left eye before he even tried to say anything due to mana converging in one spot and so I dashed towards him passing the other two who didn't have enough time to react.
"Wha-" I punched his jaw making him bite his tongue which canceled the spell then I strongly pushed his head to a wall, knocking him out. The other two tried to run away from me but using the rocks laying about so I threw them, knocking them out.
I breathed a sigh again and once again was reminded of Himura. 'When I first saw him, I didn't see any mana inside of him which meant he was a cursed child.'
A living being cannot exist without mana, that was the logic of the world and the very core principle of summoning magic.
If you are somehow alive without mana, you are considered a cursed child. Being a cursed child was believed to bring calamity to everything around them so most of them killed themselves since being a cursed child practically meant that you were dead.
Which is also the reason I cared for him a lot. I theorized that the reason every quest always goes wrong was because of him.
'He's a strong man for being able to live to this day but they might not accept him if they found out. He doesn't deserve such fate so I will help him hide it until the end.' I thought to myself before grabbing my things and then calling a guard to arrest those filthy men.
I soon arrived back at the adventurers guild after two hours. When I entered, I saw Alice and Astoria talking to each other.
"Did you get the carriage Astoria?" I asked.
"Of course, I did, geez at least put some faith in me!" Astoria said pouting.
"Where's Himura?"
"Sleeping," Alice responded.
"That guy really likes sleeping you know," Astoria added.
"I see, I'll join you guys after I put these in your room."
"Sure," Astoria said before sipping his beer.
As I entered the room, I saw him sleeping peacefully.
"So vulnerable..." I once again hardened my will to protect his secret.
****
SHORT STORY: VICTIMS OF THE ABYSS #1
Currently, I was hunting a boar in the forest near Bellken. I am an orphan who lived alone on the outskirts of the city as a huntress.
Right now, I was hunting quite a lot since it was my birthday. I aimed my bow at an unsuspecting boar and killed it instantly.
I returned to my cabin before going out again.
It was turning dark soon but I chose to hunt one last boar, as I was tracking it, I found its trails going to a cave.
I assumed that it was running desperately from me so I chose to enter it and soon encountered a weird wall.
It was covered in stars but inside of it was a moving black substance.
Out of curiosity I touched the wall and found out that I can go through it but when I touched the wall, I was pulled by something.
I fell a great distance and soon landed on my back which broke my bones making me unable to move.
Panic sets in as I try to desperately move but I was stuck. A black goopy hand began to form and slowly approached her, I aimed my bow at it and fired, the hand then pierced through and exploded however multiple black hands formed everywhere surrounding me.
The hands tear my clothes leaving her naked and as she thought that she was about to get violated, one of the hands grabs my breast to the point that it pierces my skin and pulls it tearing one of her breasts.
"ARGHHHHH!!" I screamed painfully but another hand forced itself in my throat and then destroyed my vocal cords, leaving me with no voice.
Another hand grabs the other breast and pulls the flesh out of my body.
The other black hands grabbed a random part of my body and took chunks of flesh and threw them in random directions.
I tried to scream in pain but no voice came out, not that anyone will hear it. Tears started to come out as I was getting mutilated and I started to wonder what would happen if I just decided to stay in my cabin.
And then a giant worm-like thing pierced her belly filling it up with more black liquid to the point that she was vomiting it.
And then her body exploded leaving the remaining parts of her body to go everywhere.
Which the abyss consumed making more black liquid.
< ...I am sorry that I couldn't do more for you, may you have a better life next time... > The mysterious voice said with a very saddened tone.