I reined in my shivers. Sure, I’ve seen my fair share of gore, being a Guardian trainee that regularly went for missions. But this… There was not just blood in the pool. I could see floating bones and flesh here and there, like a horrible kind of soup I would not ever want to taste.

The others, evidently, saw that too.

There were no signs of the so-called mermaid in here. “Do you sense anything, Lex?” I whispered in his ear. “A lifeform, or the fog?”

Lex shivered, then shook his head. “Nothing… But this… pool covered my senses. I can’t tell.”

Neither could I. I was never as sensitive to magic as Lex was, but I was pretty well-trained. We stared at the pool of blood for a few seconds before suddenly, Ryden shoved us aside and went to the poolside.

“Ryden!” Emma and I both whisper-yelled. I thought after having that talk earlier, he would settle down… Evidently no. But it wasn’t long before I realized the oddity in him. Lex and I exchanged glances. He also noticed it.

Emma was still trying to pull him back from the boiling pool, not realizing anything strange. I pulled her back right as Ryden change.

Dark fog came out of his orifices. I clenched my fist. No wonder! No wonder we saw no black fog. It went into Ryden already! I regretted not taking precautions, but it all happened already.

The blood pool seemed to make ‘Ryden’ stronger. His eyes, clouded with the dark fog, seemed fierce and malicious, like a wild beast seeing its prey. One thing I knew was that our Ryden was no longer conscious. He didn’t recognize us, at all.

Trying to fight him while also not hurt him was harder than I thought, even though it was four to one. For one, the blood made his attack stronger. I had a hell of a time avoiding his broadsword. Second, despite all Lex’s effort to make him sober, nothing worked. Worse yet, Lex’s magic wasn’t exactly bottomless. He had been using it to track the fog all these times. I could use a little magic myself and give it to help him, but Lex said, “he doesn’t respond to magic!”

Our condition wasn’t good. Wilhelm was already knocked aside by Ryden’s broadsword, and the only reason he was still alive was because he had casted healing magic on himself before he was unconscious. Emma, who was the closest to Ryden before, was bleeding all over her shoulder, though she still insisted on fighting. Lex’s condition wasn’t so bad, since he had magic to protect himself, but his face was much paler than usual and I knew he used too much magic.

While me… Well, I’m not any better either. The blood from the pool, since it was used by ‘Ryden’, splattered all over my face. Since I specialized in close combat with my swordsmanship, that meant I was the first to get attacked. I tried protecting myself with shield magic, of course, but despite the fact that I was the second-best mage in our team, I wasn’t native of this world and my magic was limited.

Worse yet, the blood was boiling hot, and it burned when it touched my face. I didn’t wince, though I very much wanted to. My magic protected the important part of my face, though, and that was the only reason I hadn’t gone blind yet.

When we finally subdued ‘Ryden’, it was fifteen minutes later. I was just taking a deep breath of relief, but suddenly, the dark fog came out of Ryden’s body and entered the boiling pool of blood. Suddenly, it flooded.

I widened my eyes. “Run!”

It would still be a while until we would wake up, according to habit, so I couldn’t count on an accidental escape like yesterday. We ran out of the cave hurriedly, with Lex carrying Ryden and Emma and I carrying Wilhelm. The woods terrain was a bit rough, with stones and bushes all around.

The boiling blood followed fluidly behind us. Lex ripped his last shield scroll to protect all of us, then we ran faster with the haste magic. I tried my best to avoid all the obstacles in the ground. We ran faster, but the blood was faster.

In a second, it surpassed us, then floated around us. It was tightening on the shield like a rope on a ball. “Careful!”

The shield started breaking down. I could see signs of cracks here and there. How could blood, a fluid, be so strong that it pressured magic shield to crack? I was starting to get frustrated, but quickly calmed down. I was the captain. I had to be reliable.

My thoughts quickly moved and I remembered something. For what reason did that fog led us here? The boiling blood pool? Perhaps this dark fog wanted to kill us all, since we saw that pool. Was it the sea witch’s familiar or some sort?

What was the dark fog’s weakness? If it was a normal individual Umbra that I usually faced in Mytallow Forest, they would disperse easily using sunlight or fire. Fire! Wait, the dark fog didn’t come near Shimhand, maybe because it was on fire?

Seeing Lex trying hard to supply his own magic onto the scroll’s shield, I couldn’t ask him to do it. I squeezed the last remain of my magic and threw a fireball at the floating blood.

It recoiled.

I rejoiced upon finding a weakness of this… creature? I wasn’t even sure if it was alive. But it was too soon to be relieved, because after recoiling, the floating blood fog seemed to be provoked. The attack got more and more vicious, to the point that the crack actually broke down under pressure.

The fireball was the last of my magic. “Emma, get your fire arrows!”

Emma rummaged through our spatial storage and got some fire arrows, of which were activated with magic. She had enough to shoot three consecutive arrows at the blood. “Go!” I yelled, using the time the blood recoiled again.

The creature (???) chased after us fiercely, but the fire arrows knocked it back, a step an arrow. I didn’t exactly look where I stepped on, being busy with observing the thing consumed with fire, and fell into a hole.

Water. Water all around. Salty, too. I held my breath, swam up, and took a deep breath. “Huff… huff…”

After recovering, I looked around for my friends. I remembered they fell after me, since we weren’t far from each other.

“COLD!”

Wilhelm’s voice. I looked, relieved that the water woke him up—otherwise, he could have drowned. Emma surfaced, bringing unconscious Ryden with her. The dark fog blood creature didn’t chase us, but… Lex, where was Lex? I started to panic. I was too far away from him. He was at the back of the team, bringing up the shield…

I saw the shadows under the water and dove in. What did I see…?

The mermaid swam up in front of my eyes, bringing Lex with her. Ariella…? I guessed, but I couldn’t be sure. I swam up along with her.

Only then I realized where I was.

It was a small sea alcove. There was a bit of dry stone to the side, of which Emma already dragged Ryden there. Wilhelm, next to me, was shivering because of the cold seawater.

My heart went cold when I realized that Lex was unconscious. I looked at the mermaid, who observed him with great interest. “Um… Can you return my friend?” I shouted a bit, since there was a bit of distance between us.

The mermaid looked at us. Her red hair was thick, covering her upper body. She looked quite sweet and harmless, but there was an instinctive recoil in my part. She was dangerous.

She smiled sweetly. “Hello, I am Ariella,” she introduced generously. Then she poked at Lex, who she dragged to the shallower part of the alcove. “This man is a cute toy.”

I almost growled. Did she just take my best friend as a plaything? “This is our friend,” I said, softening my tone as I approached her. “Can you return—”

As I stepped into her range, she ferociously roared. You’d think a mermaid would have a good singing voice, but she sounded worse that a siren’s shrill singing. I didn’t expect that and almost drowned in the water.

Thankfully, I’d always been a good swimmer. I stabilized myself quickly, but it would be rather hard to attack… Maneuvering my head to stay above the water, I said, “Ariella, Young Lord Hinston send us to look for you!”

“Ah, did he?” Ariella seemed amused. “He likes playing hero even though he is the one in distress. It’s one of the key reasons why I got him so easily.” She smiled so sweetly, but her voice had a sinister tone to it.

Wait a minute… “You’re working for the sea witch?”

“For?” For once, she looked unhappy. “I’ll have you know that I’m more superior than that tentacle bitch. But I guess since she helped me, yes, I’m working with her.”

The topic seemed to avert her attention. I saw Wilhelm walking around the cove, almost going behind her. I had to keep distracting her. “But why? The young lord seems to love you very much…”

“Love?” Ariella laughed. “Men only have lust! Which is why they’re so good to be toys.” She caressed Lex’s face, and I had the urge to cut her hand off. “But well, that eight-handed woman is good. Gave me legs to go on shore, I’ll play around a bit, then when I get bored with men, I’ll just send the soul to her! It’s a good deal, if I do say so myself.”

“So… the town was also your doing?”

“Town? What town?” She looked confused.

“Shimhand town was on fire…” My hand went to my thighs and took the daggers strapped there. It was a bit difficult since my body was halfway submerged, but I managed.

“Oh? Who knows about that? But the octopus did say she was going to go to the city. I don’t know what she was doing, nor do I care…”

“What about the sirens guarding the Young Lord?” I said cautiously, as Wilhelm finally arrived at the piece of land that she was sitting on.

“Ah, the witch’s pets? Aren’t they nice? Anthony seems to enjoy their singing really well. The witch seems to like torturing preys before eating, she says it would make them taste better—”

Before she could finish, Wilhelm jumped at her from behind, wrestling Lex from her grasp. Not missing that opening, Emma shot an arrow from afar, and I threw my daggers at the same time.

Both our attacks hit her chest and tails, respectively. Wilhelm ran bringing Lex with him, and I swam forward, brandishing my sword to prevent her from chasing. She screamed again. I began to think since she was so well-acquainted with the witch, perhaps she learned this from the sirens.

Seeing that I was holding my head from the pain, she laughed shrilly. “You can’t recover. The witch especially transforms my voice as a weapon…”

The villain died of too much talking. It was true, because Emma shot three consecutive arrows that hit her heart, head, and tails. The third one drove my daggers deeper, and I think that was actually the one that injured her most.

The tail was obviously her weak spot, seeing that she now weakly retreated. “You will pay for this!” She plunged into the water and swam away.

We didn’t chase, as we were all tired and injured. I dragged my exhausted self back on land, hurriedly arrived at Lex’s side. He was looking pale, a side effect of using too much magic. As humans not native of this world, none of us had a big amount of magical energy, perhaps because it was the connection to this world that allowed us to use it—and unlike this world’s resident, our connection stopped at souls and not physical bodies. Lex had the most amount, we didn’t know why, but that was the thing that allowed him to be our mage.

Still, even though he had the most, he had exhausted everything in the battle earlier.

So why did this world use us, alien humans, instead of their own magical folks? Well, it was because we were the ones who could handle the Umbras, since for some reason, we had natural resistance against them. The native beings of this world would get temporarily crazy if they touched it. Now I wasn’t so sure, though. That dark fog gave me the same feeling as the individual dark spirits, but bigger, and worse. And Ryden even got possessed…

“That thing didn’t chase us,” Emma said, getting out towels and blankets from the spatial storage bag.

I took a towel and another for Lex, before saying, “Thankfully. We got to get out of here and get back to the city.” I took out a Dry magic scroll from his bag and tore it, allowing us to return to our not-wet appearances.

“Did you see that weird thing on the mermaid?” Wilhelm suddenly said.

“Huh?” I turned to him, while still wrapping Lex with the blanket. Dry spell removed moistures of our bodies, but we were still cold from being in the water.

“There is some kind of black fog around her… you were all some distance away, but I gotta get real close to her to snatch Lex, so I see it. It has the same feeling as the weird creature above.”

“Whatever it is, we obviously cannot fight it,” I say, though the thought of the mermaid and the black fog gave me some new ideas. There were also black fog possessing Ryden earlier… it had a different nature from the temporary madness that Umbras usually causes. “In any case, two of our members are unconscious. We got to get back to the city. Now we know that the witch is doing some weird experimentation with blood and soul… I’m afraid she’s planning to use the city folks…”

Emma and Wilhelm’s face grew pale. “We should’ve gone to the city first,” Emma said. “This was a waste of time.”

“No, not exactly. Now we know that the witch had another ally, that dark fog.” I took a deep breath and glanced at the specially-made watch on my wrist. It told us how long we had been in this world, or alternatively, how long we’d been sleeping in the real world. One and a half hour. “Let’s go back.” []