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Gamer Girl Isekai: Chapter 25- Spine
🕑 Added 2025-04-28 08:50:21 +0000 UTCAexilica was surrounded in moments, and now bereft of her armour. If the enemy had been swinging swords and axes, or thrusting with spears, Emma had no doubt she’d have been hacked apart in moments. They used blunt weapons instead, and those were barely better.
A hammer caught the woman’s back with spine-snapping force. It didn’t snap hers, but Emma saw the way she moved after. The sluggishness, the weakness. Knew she was hurt. Her own magic had already been building before the blow even came of course, and the energy lance erupted free just a moment after its impact.
As usual, its collision was not a pleasant event for those on the receiving end. Emma watched the Sculds blasted away, in half, set on fire or partly cremated as the beam played across them for all of a second. Then it tapered off. She was moving by then, shield already up and leaving her to wince as several arrows bounced off it. They didn’t scratch the energy, nor really crack it. Emma realised their heads were blunted.
They want us alive, then.
It was absurd. Take them alive to stab them to death later? On a stone slab instead of a dirt road? But Emma had too much on her plate now to really let the ridiculousness of it all sink in, Aexilica was still surrounded and still losing a ten-on-one. That took precedence over anything her mind might spit up.
Her arm waved out and another two men dropped down spasming and leaking as Emma sent energy flechettes to slice through them, several more found themselves protected by ringmail as the fragile attacks broke against it and failed to find any gaps over something important. Fortunately, the downed men did as much to protect her as their killing had. Sculds tripped over the bodies of their unexpectedly slain friends and gave Emma precious moments as their charges were delayed.
She sent out another weapon of energy, this time a larger, wider spinning blade with, she hoped, a bit more momentum. It soared through the air, caught one of the men swarming Aexilica right at the back of his head and…Snapped in half against the steel. Shit.
It did, at least, knock the man off-kilter for a second. Maybe that edge would go to good use if Aexilica caught it. Maybe. Emma didn’t have the chance to watch and find out. She felt a strong grip close on her arm, tried to shake it off. Failed, obviously.
Men, like chimpanzees. Like gorillas. So fucking big, like trying to squeeze out from under a hydraulic press.
She tried, regardless. Tried like an idiot first, bringing her tiny, shitty little rodent of a fist down on the man’s wrist while it completely ignored her strength. Only then, after two or three futile hammerfists, did Emma finally remember she was a cool wizard now.
She couldn’t risk using energy attacks so close to herself, though, not hardened ones that might shatter and slice her with their shrapnel. So she just poked his hand and heated it up. It took less than a second before the skin started searing, her fingertip started throbbing, and the Sculd’s grip broke as repulsive-smelling smoke filled the air.
Emma stumbled away, then stumbled more as the now-very-angry man threw a blind punch that connected with her forehead.
Her forehead. The strongest bone in the body, if Emma remembered right. Though remembering right was hardly something she could count on now, her legs went limp and her head snapped back as she fell hard and limp into the cold dirt road, world a blur of spinning solids and dancing stars.
Was she…She’d been showering, right? No, not been. Emma was in the shower right now, she could feel it still. Hot water raining down on her face, soaking her. She sighed, lips parting slightly at the warm sensation—
Blood, there was blood in her mouth. Tangy, repulsive. Emma’s eyes shot open and she saw the vitae raining down on her where it poured out of the Sculd’s cut throat. He fell just as Aexilica hauled her to her feet.
“Thank—” Emma was interrupted before she could say even that much.
—”RUN!” Aexilica roared, like a wounded lion. Her voice actually made Emma’s ears hurt, so close and from lungs so powerful, and practically blasted her away into a run.
It wasn’t a decision Emma made, just something her body did. She wasn’t even consulted. By the time she noticed her legs moving, the air hitting her face, the sounds of violence growing distant, she’d already crossed half a dozen paces.
I should go back. But she didn’t.
I need to help her. But she didn’t.
They’ll probably be after me anyway. But they weren’t.
Emma risked a look back over her shoulder, and found that there wasn’t any earnest pursuit of her at all. She had a free run to detach herself from the combat, to escape while the Sculd—all now focusing upon Aexilica for fear of her power—busied themselves winning.
Here was Emma’s chance to escape, and here, at the same time, was her chance to strike from behind and turn the tides in Aexilica’s favour. More Sculds were coming, bursting through the building they’d fled from and hurrying to join the melee. Dozens, now. There were dozens.
Emma ran.
She ran as fast as her tiny, weak little legs could carry her. Which was not, after all, very fast. But fast enough to get away from all the fighting and somehow do it without being followed. She didn’t head directly back to their quarters either, far too paranoid for that.
Emma zig-zagged, zog-zugged and zeg-zygged for good measure. Throwing as many contrivances into her way back as she could think of, terrified all the while that she’d be cut off in every alley, chased down in every street.
But Emma made it back, and she didn’t delay in hurrying up to her room. She found Larry right where they’d left him, buried under a mound of clothes beneath Emma’s bed and swearing blind at her as she extricated him. His grouchiness didn’t last more than a few moments, though. He picked up on her concern fast.
“Let me guess,” Larry began. Emma didn’t have time for his usual bullshit.
“Aexilica’s been captured.” She told him, drawing a scowl across the severed head’s face.
“I would’ve guessed that, you didn’t let me—” Emma shook him until he stopped being stupid
. —”Alright, alright, shit, what do you need?” He gasped.
Emma paused at that. The question shouldn’t have left her so stunned, so useless, but it had. She’d never been good with decisions, not one bit. They paralyzed her, a neurotoxin seeping into her body and leaving her stupid and indecisive.
Why could I not just keep living in her house and eating her food?
“I need…Advice.” Emma felt the words almost wrestling her tongue, as if every syllable were eager to remain trapped in the back of her throat. She kept going anyway. “I…”
She what? Needed directions back to town? Wanted advice on how to sail downstream on the river? Was looking for a nearby hole she could crawl into and die?
“I’m going to save Aexilica.” She finished. That surprised even her.
It certainly didn’t surprise Larry.
“Of course you are.” He sighed. “You’re a human, humans love killing themselves. You’re desperate for it. Always starting wars over “love” or some bullshit like that. Alright, fine. Tell me the situation.”
So Emma did, even as she packed what she could carry and bundled her way out of the building. In hindsight, it had been stupid to come back at all. The soldiers might have thought to send word out looking for her and Aexilica’s accommodations before she even arrived. That they hadn’t, though, was interesting.
It meant they were probably operating on only one tip. Meant, further, that the force they’d been attacked by had likely responded to that same tip fast. So if she was lucky, meaning if her suppositions held, then Emma was now dealing with a relatively ignorant enemy still gathering intelligence about her.
She could use that to her advantage at least. The men had seen her fighting with Aexilica, so there’d be at least a basic description of her going around. Could she change that? Alter her hair? Weave lengths of hardened energy into it so its colour changed?
Right, help yourself blend in with neon blue anime hair. Nice thinking, Em.
She hurried down the streets in a daze, clutching Larry to herself as she considered everything she knew.
Aexilica had been captured. Emma was sure of that, because even after she’d killed several of the Sculds they hadn’t switched to a lethal assault. They had been operating on strict orders to take her alive. So she was alive. Where would she be if so?
Larry, it turned out, didn’t know, so Emma had to do some digging herself. Asking around about Priests and temples. Most of the answers were unfriendly—it seemed the Sculds were only slightly less hostile to her than the Aethiqi, and that was probably just her looking more similar— but in the end she got what she was looking for.
The big building, but not as big as the Earl’s house. What a shocker, truly she needed a sit down before her surprise-weakened legs could give out beneath her.
Emma made her way to the big building, keeping Larry stored carefully on her back. Ordinarily she’d love to do some grinding, get ready and powered up. Come in with a nice, big Talisman staff able to cast energy lances on full-auto, or another armour-charm, and lots of potions. Bags of potions. She just didn’t have that time though, so it was half-cocked shit-at-the-wall desperation for her.
Fortunately, that got her a surprisingly far distance. It turned out there weren’t a lot of rescue attempts that couldn’t find use for someone capable of blasting apart solid rock. With one energy lance Emma killed an outer wall and left an opening just big enough for her tiny ass to slip through. The benefit to that, of course, was that it wasn’t big enough for any of the enemies, not unless they sent child soldiers after her.
Following that, her rescue was just a hasty effort at sprinting through the inside of the building and calling out Aexilica’s name in the hopes of finding her fast. Making noise wasn’t a concern—she’d already blown the place up—and the less time she spent there the less risk of reinforcements spoiling everything.
So she was quick. Frantic, really. Desperate. Because the situation was desperate. Emma’s voice raced ahead of her along the corridors, and soon enough she got her answer. Aexilica’s call ran through her like a cold wind, but it told her two precious things at least. That the woman was alive, and where she was. Emma hurried.
Aexilica was bound to a wall with thick chains. Thick enough, evidently, that she couldn’t break them. Not thick enough, going by the bloody welts at her wrists, that she knew better than to try. Emma was struck by a scent of poor sanitation and spilled blood as she entered.
It was sickening, and distracting. Emma forced it down, stepped in and started charging her energy lance to blast through one of the chains. Then Aexilica’s eyes widened with panic, and she called out her warning.
Emma turned just in time to avoid the blow to the back of her head. Had she not been as fast, it would’ve struck her hard cranium instead of her soft, delicate face. Fortunately, Emma didn’t remain awake long enough to feel the difference anyway.
