Will I die again? A-Am I going to die? What should I do now? What is happening here? The questions poured out, one after another.
"I told you to aim for the head, idiot. See, she is still breathing." Someone in the front uttered. Unlike the others, he wasn't hiding his face.
I looked at Circe, who was holding me tighter than ever. Her breathing was ragged, and I could see the long head of the spear extending from her pierced chest.
"Look, Darius. This is how to one-shot people." He extended his arm towards Circe. There was nothing in it. He folded it into a fist with two fingers extended like a gun.
The two fingers emitted a glow of green. That scene alone gave me flashbacks.
"Bang!" It all happened in an instant. The green glow got shot out from his fingers as if to pierce its target.
"Gwaah!" Edek covered both me and Circe by coming in the front. It almost made a hole through his chest from the back. His spine shattered, but he didn't fall down. He should have been dead, but he was still conscious.
How could a man still stand with a hole in his skull and a broken spine?
"Oh, what's this? Are you upset because I came inside without knocking? Okay, knock, knock!" The man didn't show any concern about the dying.
"De-Dear!?" Circe was confused and still in agony herself. But there was something even more painful: looking at her loving husband on his deathbed. But she couldn't do anything either. She was in the same position as him, and the irony of the situation was that after they die, their newborn child, which is me, will also die with no mercy.
The inability of someone who cannot protect their own offspring was despair on its own. That is something that parents should never go through.
"Ah, what a bummer. I was just going to brag to Darius about my one-shot kill, but you had to interrupt."
"Seth, don't joke around. We have other matters to attend to." The tall, bulky figure beside him spoke. They both emitted the same kind of strength, even with completely different body types. He was covered with the cloak, but that tiny piece of cloth didn't hide his enormous face at all.
"You listened to what the big guy said, right? Get to work, you all. Don't let a single soul live." He ordered the people around him, and everyone nodded.
"Tap! Tap! Tap!" While they searched the house, it made sounds on the creaking wooden floor.
"Commander Seth, we found two others!" A man shouted from upstairs.
"Why are you telling me, idiot? Just kill them and be done with it."
In a second, multiple piercing sounds made their way to the ears down below.
After a few moments, a woman of big stature came into the light, coming down the stairs. She held the bodies of two cloaked men in both of her hands. She dragged them down the stairs, her face still flushed from the alcohol. The dead had expressions of regret written all over their faces.
A small girl meekly followed her from behind. She was Eli. Blood was sprayed on her face along with her white top. She was trembling, unable to utter a word. Her enormous eyes scanned the entire room repeatedly.
"What are ya people doing here?" Hilda's eyes were completely open, but her voice was shaky.
"Oh… did you do that, lady? I didn't know there would be someone skilled like you here. Or were those idiots careless because of you being a woman?" He walked towards Hilda.
"No matter… I will be sure to educate the remaining, when we get back."
"I asked ya a question." Hilda dropped the two dead men and walked towards Seth, but she stopped in her tracks when she found the bloodied scene on the bed.
Her face was filled with shock, but soon after, anger burst out of her.
"C-Circe, Edek!? You bastards!"
"Ma-Mam!?" Even Eli's wandering eyes came to a stop when she found the scene before her.
"Now, now, calm down, lady. Let's talk this out." She wasn't listening. She couldn't.
"Darius, I think this woman needs more alcohol to understand what is happening here."
"By the power of flame and heat, let this spell take its seat." In her anger, she started uttering something.
"Inferno, ignite and rise, and scorch the earth before my eyes." It looked like an incantation.
After she finished, the very space in front of her bent. It was not space, but something else. I couldn't see it, but I could distinguish it.
The temperature of the room increased with Hilda as the focal point. A fire of pure red formed in front of her. It represented the overflowing rage in her teary eyes.
"Whoa, whoa, lady, I am not so knowledgeable in magic, but that's a third-circle spell, isn't it?" She didn't answer him, and he was still in a joyful mood, not even batting an eye at the fireball that was soon to burn his head. He was relaxed, and even the surrounding people were the same.
"And did you forget…? This is a closed room. There are two more things to protect here." He was referring to Eli and me. The only people confirmed to be alive.
"Gasp!" It was Circe. She was still breathing.
"Maybe one more." Seth grinned at the sudden development.
The fire spell was almost completed. But Hilda didn't fire it immediately, but held it there. It gathered even more flames, almost extinguishing the surrounding air.
"From what I can see, the size of the spell is increasing, but you are at most a third-circle mage. That is interesting." She was giving it her all, but he was just analysing her.
"I am not a mage myself, but I have heard this from a powerful old man: that if a mage tries to handle the magic above their circle, they will become mentally disabled as their own magic strain will become too much to handle for them." He spoke and spoke, but the words seemed true from the painful look on Hilda's face.
"So if you don't want to kill everyone here, including yourself, please stop the spell, lady. I don't want to get more work in my hands than I was assigned to."
"Urgh!" She still continued to build up the spell.
"Ah, lady! Don't be a pain in the ass. You can't do any shit, and you know that better than anyone. And lady, whatever you try, no one is getting out of here alive. Sorry, even if I wanted to help, orders are orders." No one would think that he was trying to help with that twisted smile on his face.
"Hi-Hil-da…" Circe was on her last breath. Her eyes were full of determination and grit, and her gaze was locked with Hilda's. Hilda nodded at her.
"Ma-Madam Hilda, please don't! Madam Circe will die!" Eli tightened her grip on Hilda's clothes. She was trembling and tears were flowing down her cheeks, yet she tried to be brave. She thought Hilda was in a rage and would destroy everything here, but her rage died down the moment there were people to protect in this room.
"Bastards dieeee!" She fired the evolving spell that was intensified in the closed room made of timber and covered immediately to protect her.
"This crazy—" Everyone tried to take cover from the amalgamation of fire in front of them.
"My dear Gale..." Her look wasn't one of despair but of tender sweetness. How could one have a gaze as heartwarming as this in this kind of situation? "Grow up to be a nice and happy young man." With that, she threw me into the ball of fire that was reaching us.
I didn't get what she was trying to do. But I was sure nothing would happen to me. Is this what they call motherly trust?
"By the power of earth and sky, shield and strike, let enemies die." Words came out of her as an incantation.
"Protect the one beside us here. With gravity's force, we instill fear. By the strength of magic and our might, we shall prevail in this fight." The words on her final breath came as a late realisation to me.
"A fi-fifth circle—?" Someone from the dying crowd gasped in shock.
A glow of purple covered the entire house. Everyone fell to their knees, and the flaming ball dissipated into thin air as if it didn't exist. The only thing that remained of that was the rising temperature of the room, but even that was gone as the roof shattered above us and everything was left drenched in the pouring rain.
The wooden pillars that were supporting us broke down one after another because they had been burned down, or so I thought. But there was a powerful force acting, pushing everything to the ground. It was the spell cast by Circe on her final breath.
When Circe threw me into the fire, Hilda caught me, protecting me and Eli. A white barrier covered us right after Circe's incantation. It protected us from the debris of the collapsing house. We thought everyone had died. Who could survive something like this? But that was a mistake on our part.