Chapter 25: Unbreakable Holy Sword

To say that she was awake would be a massive misinterpretation.

The first thing she felt when she left the blood sea was the heat. She felt fatigued, weakened to the point of being unable to leave the damp bed. Just what had been happening to her body while she was in that world?

She checked her status to confirm if there was anything wrong, she knew she had lost something but the drastic changes in numbers still surprised her.

Name

Cerise

Age

34 Days

Race

Lesser Devil (Scarlet) [1/3]

HP

24/64 (+.026/s)

MP

202/202 (+.085/s)

SP

23/46 (-5) (+.04/s)

STR

21

INT

81

WIS

38 (-20)

CON

25

AGL

43

LUK

15

Current Ailments | [Hunter’s Eyes] Sealed (64%) | Mental Corruption (-20 WIS; -5 SP)

Skills

Level

Proficiency

[Blood Flame]

1/25

.1%

[Reverse Cast]

1/25

4.5%

[Rendering Claw]

1/20

5.9%

[Hunter’s Eyes] {Hunter’s Mark}

3/10

3.9%

[Reading]

2/10

18.2%

[Blood Bound]

2/5

N/A

[Twisted Fate]

N/A

N/A

Her WIS went down from 54 to 38. The math didn’t seem right in her head but she could only explain it as her gaining WIS when talking to that man. The most important thing was the loss of a skill. It had accompanied her since day 1, and probably had been in a dormant state prior too if her memories hadn’t been tampered with.

She hadn’t paid attention before but the black liquid in her memories was eerily similar to Nightmare. Just what kind of experiments were they pulling in the first place?

The answers she received only caused more questions, her thoughts only ceasing after a cold wet cloth was placed on her forehead.

Cerise opened her eyes to Isbeth’s worried face, deep shadows surrounding her eyes. Cerise had been collapsed for four days. During the first day she had seemed fine, perfectly healthy, but on the second day her body went cold. Not like the symptoms of being sick like she was used to but a coldness that spread across the room. Frost had formed on the bed where it had come into contact with the chilling air. Isbeth could only do her best to produce warmth potions from the nearby herbs and feed them to her. Despite Isbeth’s best efforts, Cerise’s body just kept becoming colder, even the reddish liquid of the warmth potions froze when it came into contact with the mist forming from Cerise’s body.

On the fourth day everything changed. Cerise’s body was melting through the ice encasing her, the water soaking the bed and the floor boards of the room. After all the ice had melted, the heat only grew more intense, evaporating even the water in the air. Isbeth tried the opposite of whatever she had been doing the day before, but she lacked Shivertails. It’s always the Shivertails! She had to make do by wetting a cloth and draping it over Cerise’s forehead, changing the rag every few minutes.

She had been doing this for the past half hour until Cerise finally opened her eyes. They were –how should she put it-, different. Her eyes were darker than before, the beautiful scarlet replaced by a deeper ruby. It might have been a side effect from consuming seventeen glasses of warmth potions but only time will tell.

“Are you well now?”

Isbeth asked, her voice filled with concern and hope.

Cerise simply sat there in the bed, her snow white skin temporarily replaced by a pinkish-red hue due to the excessive heating of her blood.

How would she know if she was well? The man that appeared within the blood world gave her a mission and a warning. She had much to think about but now was not the time. Her blood was boiling, she could feel her blood cells rupturing through the wild bursts of mana. She quickly activated the [Cool] spell and the [Heat] spell simultaneously. The [Heat] spell was combined with her [Reverse Cast] to help expel the excess heat into her surroundings and when used in conjunction with the [Cool] spell, it practically allowed her to release heat at double the rate of a normal mage.

Isbeth felt the wave of heat, incomparable to what it had been before. Cerise had been gathering heat for two full days and nights, and she’s trying to release it all now? It would be an utter disaster.

The wave of heat could even be felt through the walls. The water evaporated even faster in Cerise’s presence, the room was covered in suffocating steam. Isbeth had to act fast, she opened the window and shouted at Cerise.

“Send it out there!”

Cerise directed all of her attention towards the open window. Heat loved balance, and if the entire room was as hot as it can handle, then where was the next possible place for it to escape to? The answer lied outside. The blast of cold air brought the heat up, the cold and hot air met and a mini wind storm took place in the tiny room. Cerise blasted all the heat out of her body outside, the sudden gusts causing the residents of the small hunting village to cause a ruckus.

They had gone out of their way to provide shelter to a sickly girl and her companions and now they were being attacked by them? What kind of morally twisted act is this? The men and woman grabbed their weapons and stormed the building, but they couldn’t get far before the heat waves hit them. They stumbled back against the countless gales and torrents of wind blasting from the window. A few sneaky ones managed to get around the blasts of wind but only after a few moments inside the building did they have to run out, their leather clad bodies utterly soaked with sweat and water.

The winds blowing from the little window abated after a few more minutes. The villagers could see through the window a completely stark naked girl covered in sweat and panting. Her hands were outstretched towards the window, her palms held perpendicular to each other as if she had fired off a laser or blue dragon. It was a rather comical scene if not for the collapsed thatched buildings and the devastation left after the storm’s wake. Moments after, the girl’s Halfling companion wrapped a bedsheet around the girl, pulled her back into the room, and then closed what was left of the broken window.

The villagers sat there confused as to what just happened. A little girl just destroyed a big chunk of the village on her own? A few of the braver ones stood up and moved towards the building only to slip on the ice on the ground.

Heads swerved to find the other newcomer standing in front of the door blocking their passage. He held his staff in one hand and a small object in the other.

“Come at me, I have the unbreakable sword!”

“It can’t be, Excaliblunt!?”

“Nope!”

Tsuru swung his Nokia forwards causing the villagers to scatter. They didn’t know that the phone was nothing more than a brick but the unknown object was way more fearful than his staff. He froze the water on the ground and gathered the water in the air. The steam gathered around his body forming a protective layer and the ice serving as deterrents for ground movement.

“Haha! I didn’t reach level 23 on Divinity for nothing!”

“What does that even mean!?”

Tsuru smashed a man’s arm with the Nokia, breaking through the flimsy metal plating and managing to crack bone. He tried following up with a whack of his staff but decided against it after looking at the precious mana stone.

“Oi, you gonna help me!?”

Tsuru called over to a man walking towards the building unperturbed by the violence going on. Roy simply just walked past and into the house leaving Tsuru alone to fend for himself.

“Damn, I guess this super mage will take care of everything.”

A sneaky thief tried attacking him from behind. Tsuru didn’t even see the man but trying to enter his mist completely nullified any act of stealth possible. He waved the Nokia around singing a small tune as he bashed the mighty and the deft easily. The pills that pill master gave him truly did the job. His breath smelled like vomit but he could feel energy in his muscles. Just as he was about to praise the Halfling’s concoctions, a severe pain rocked through the bottom of his right foot. His mist wards faded as his concentration faltered, a face filled with fear and doom appearing on Tsuru’s face.

“Muscle cramp!”

He dropped onto the frozen ground, clutching at his boots as he tried to take them off. He had pulled his abductor digiti minimi muscle during the fight, the name might be funny but the pain he felt at the time wasn’t. Had the villagers not been downed by the legendary Nokia, he would have been hauled off by now, but like he, all of them were on the frozen earth clutching at their muscles and somewhat cracked bones.

It took him five minutes to sort out the cramps. He slowly shuffled into the building where Roy and Isbeth sat around a bed with Cerise in it. Her skin tone had whitened a bit, a flush of pink occasionally appearing whenever her heart pumped blood.

“So you are telling me she exploded everything outside?”

Roy was questioning Isbeth about what had happened while he was away.

“Yeah! Everything went boom! You saw right?”

“Yes, I saw. Collapsed a few buildings, I could hear it from the other side o-”

“Hello!”

Tsuru interrupted the two, he stumbled in using his staff as a crutch. It was a dismal sight for the proud man but it was necessary.

“Ho. Thought you’d finish with them three minutes ago. One got your leg?”

“No! I pulled a muscle! And why didn’t you help me?”

To say that Tsuru wasn’t mad would be an understatement. To say that he was boiling hot would also be too much when compared to Cerise. He was simply furious. Roy didn’t even help him, he just walked past Tsuru!

Roy pointed towards the strange object still clutched in Tsuru’s free hand.

“Can’t say much about it since you have that. I never seen work like it.”

‘The Nokia was definitely too advanced for the blacksmith,’ Tsuru thought, ‘after all, this Nokia had been handed down in my family for generations. No way would a person in this world recognize it!’

“Fine, I’ll forgive you, but only if you get the girl teach me magic already.”

Isbeth stood up from her seat and shoved her hand into her bag. She took out a book with silver letters engraved on it and gave it to Tsuru.

Tsuru held the book, A Beginner’s Guide to Introductory Magic, his expression readily revealing his expression.

“Am I a joke to you?”