Arawn Dragon
patreon
Chapter 122 “The tower.”
🕑 Added 2024-02-26 23:08:25 +0000 UTC“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sandra shouted in alarm as she saw Milo’s body fall to the hard earthen floor. The fire mage immediately rushed to his aid, but as she bent down to help him with her face bathed in worry as she feared he was no longer alive, Kalysto placed a hand on the back of the annoying blonde’s neck.
“Sleep well! Sleep well!” She whispered, observing coldly how Sandra’s body fell right on top of Milo’s. “Does anyone else have anything to say?”
The two warriors of the Balsahty kingdom looked each other in the eyes for less than a second before lunging at her. Immediately, Koden struck the side of one of them with his massive shield, knocking him to the ground, stunned.
Kalysto easily dodged the sword slash the other warrior threw at her by stepping aside and, after tripping him, she placed a hand on his skull.
“Sleep well! Sleep well!” She whispered and then turned to the other guard, whom Rita began to kick viciously as soon as he fell to the ground.
“It’s because of you and your damned friends that my father died! The fire witch accused him while tears flooded her eyes and she continued beating him until she was held by Oscar, who tried to stop her from beating him to death now that the warrior was unarmed and with a broken arm.
There is a group of four mages accompanied by five guards up ahead," Koden informed her, unwilling to intervene, but feeling bad for the wounded knight at the same time he felt even worse for what Rita had had to live through.
“Fine," she replied, nodding her head. I’ll take care of them," at that instant the portal of soft light that constituted the entrance to the spacious cave they were in began to ripple, at the same time a hand went through it, Kalysto ran at full speed towards it and placed the palms of her hands against the rippling portal, “Dispel!” She conjured- Mana manipulation! Dispel! Dispel! -She growled, concentrating her mana so that the golden light of her skill spread throughout the portal through her hands. ”Dispel!” A soft crack was heard as the door of light began to crack from the center to the sides, much as glass would crack when struck. But then an increasingly stronger light began to pour out of the portal along with a surge of wind that tossed her hair in all directions.
This is so different from what happened the other time! Frightened by what this could mean, she shouted to the others.
“Close your eyes! ..." half of a forearm that had made it through the portal stopped. “Dispel Ezhil!” she whispered shortly after. The golden light of her skill began to merge with the white light streaming from the portal and out of the corner of her eye, before she closed her eyes completely, she caught a glimpse of the edges of the nasty mark Milo had placed on her and the other heroes, begin to fade.
“Was that all it would take?....” she thought, unable to believe what she was seeing. “I literally had the solution in my hands the whole time and didn’t even realize it!”
At that instant, she had to close her eyes as the strong light from the portal blinded her.
“Ice creation!” she shouted. Then she spread a thick layer of ice that covered the entire surface of the portal, whose light was trapped inside the ice.
Beads of sweat bathed her forehead as she tried to calm her agitated breathing and blinked several times at the momentary blindness that burned her eyes.
Inventory! She thought, and saw a pair of blurry notification windows open to her left.
[Warning! User has less than 10 MP left. Please wait a few minutes before attempting to use any skills again or your health will be severely affected.]
After trying to guess where the box she was looking for was, Kalytso took out a small vial of holy water and drank it to the bottom, then put the empty vial away again.
Only then did she let out a long sigh as gradually her sight stopped blurring and she began to make out the figures of everything around her, from the mana rocks half buried in the ground near the stone and earthen walls of the cave, to the group of young people standing a few feet from the entrance.
“Now," she said, giving a glance to the rest of the heroes who looked at her with a mixture of fear and surprise reflected in their eyes as she pulled back a strand of hair that had escaped from her ponytail, “Anyone else have any objections?”
“...” Except for Rita, Koden and Oscar, most of them shook their heads as they looked sideways at the bodies of Milo and Sandra on the ground, fearing they would become the next target of her rage.
Edward, however, just looked confused.
And as Kalysto put the second guard to sleep, he took a step closer to her.
“...Kalysto, what’s going on? What does all this mean?” he asked her.
“It means we’re escaping,” she answered in a dry voice, still annoyed at having missed the chance to punch the ugly face of that muscular orc.
“But why? These people need our help! Didn’t you see what was left of those villages that were attacked by the monsters? What will these poor people do without our help?” cried the young man, unable to understand why she was so selfish as to abandon them to their fate when it was so obvious that they would not survive without help.
“All our kidnappers have to do is continue to exist in the same way they have been doing since centuries before we came into this world," she replied, the mockery palpable in her voice, along with barely contained anger. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she turned to him, facing him. “Why do you think it’s your responsibility to save these people?” She accused him, approaching him, annoyed with the brat for his lack of responsibility. “Don’t you care about your family?” Edward’s face unhinged at her words.
“What?” He answered in a low whisper that could barely reach the ears of the angry wizard.
“What will happen to your poor father, who less than two years ago lost his beloved wife and now, after the world went mad and monsters began to invade the Earth, his only son suddenly disappeared?” she shouted in his face. “How do you think he feels when he doesn’t even have a body to cry to? Or even worse, do you really think he’s still alive?”
“What?” Edward’s face lost all color at the possibility.
“What about your Aunt Amanda? How do you think she feels after losing her daughter six months ago to a stupid robbery and now she has to go through not only the loss of her only nephew, but having to help her depressive brother again while she has to fight the tumor they found in her brain? Huh?” she growled, too annoyed with his hero attitude and with the fact that even though he did have a family that cared about him, he didn’t seem to care about them.
Why did I waste my time helping this ungrateful ingrate when I should have been looking for Alice?
“What the fuck are you doing worrying about a bunch of strangers who are nothing to you, when your own family is having a hard time while you want to stay here playing the hero?” She shouted so close to him that their noses almost collided with each other.
“What... But what are you saying... My aunt... My aunt is going to die?” Edward’s hands trembled and his eyes filled with unshed tears. “Why didn’t anyone tell me anything?”
“Do you even bother to visit her or even call her for anything other than to ask for money or thank her when she sends it to you?”
Edward tried to refute her harsh words, but no sound came from his lips.
“... That I hadn’t told you about it before? Why the hell are you acting like it’s the first time you’re hearing about it?” But Edward didn’t answer, instead he averted his gaze and avoided her.
Not wanting to waste any more of her time with him, Kalysto walked past him, and continued walking towards one of the walls of the wide cave where a cluster of small white stones gave off a soft glow which together with the mana crystals and mushrooms on the floor, illuminated the inside of the wide cave.
Then she crouched down next to a cluster of mana crystals, three of them large enough to be almost forty centimeters long, while two others were only about ten centimeters long. She placed the palms of her hands on the earth around the small cluster that appeared to be attached to a thin base of the same material.
Earth manipulation! She thought, softening the earth around the birth of the crystals and then extracting them and putting them in her blue inventory, where she had enough space to start her new collection.
She repeated the same process with three other mana stone hatchings, then pulled one of the tiny, glowing stones that illuminated the cave out of the wall and put it in her inventory as well.
I will inspect it later. She promised to herself.
“What are you doing?” Koden asked her, curious.
“Collecting, don’t you see? I’ve told you before, she likes to collect things! Didn’t what we did in the library give you a clue?”
“What happened in the library?” Gideon asked suddenly.
“Rita?” Kalysto spoke, ignoring the twin, as she approached the empty corridor that was right in front of the entrance to the tower. And stood in the middle of it, staring down the long, half-lit corridor.
“Yes, what do you need?” replied the fire mage approaching her friend.
”There is something that the priestess Darla wanted to get. She mentioned a treasure that the demon king would acquire somewhere in this tower," she commented quietly, so that only she and Koden, who had also approached, could hear her. “Whatever it is, I want it for myself.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to find a way to escape? -Koden questioned, “At last we are free of the guards and their constant vigilance, and without the knights of the kingdom of Bhallys lurking about, we finally have a chance to escape!” he whispered.
”According to what the priestess said, as soon as the demon king conquers the tower, a secret exit will open for him,” Kalysto saw him open his mouth to continue pleading, so she hurried to offer a deal. “And if you help me conquer this tower and get that treasure in less than two days, I’ll help you level up.”
“Why two days?” Rita questioned in a low whisper.
“Because my new boss gave me the order to return to her territory and only gave me two days to help you escape.”
“In that case, count me in!” Koden enthused. “We’d better get as strong as we can now that you’re still with us. Who knows if your boss will give you time off again later to help us... or when? It’s definitely better to take advantage now.”
“Rita?” Kalysto asked.
“Sure..." replied the fire mage with a shrug. “But as soon as you get that thing you want so badly, can we get out of here? I want to be as far away from these people as possible," she commented, giving a last displeased look to Milo and the knights.
“Deal!”
