"Stand firm! Do not falter!"

"They're breaking through our left flank!"

"Quick! The princess and the Champions!"

Awoken by the chaotic cries, I open my eyes to find atop of me a set of hideous fangs, wide open and dripping with drool, ready to gnaw down into my throat. Instinctively, I try to defend myself, but my body is far too heavy, too sluggish, to move. Unable to do anything than stare at the eyes of this wolf-like [Demon], my heart cries out in desperation only for the [Demon] to disappear from my sight a mere moment later.

It went by my eyes too swiftly to properly register, but I do believe that someone had tackled the beast. Now, somewhere beside me, I can sense some frantic struggling, one that soon ends with a gurgled whimper before all become still.

"Aurelius, are you hurt?"

With a tired expression and all over her splashed with droplets of blood, Merida gazes down upon me with worry.

"I... I'm...... not sure..."

I can hardly even tell if I'm dead or alive and it's a struggle to even speak. The last thing I remember was using [Heat Ward] on the [Demonic Tree] in conjuncture with the princess. Neither of us have enough Mp to do it alone, and having summoned all three of my available creatures and used plenty of spell, I too was running dry. It must have taken us everything we had, perhaps more, to dispel the [Demonic Tree]'s [Ward]. I suppose this is what the so called "mana drain" feels like.

"After the Tree had fallen, the rest of the [Demons] of the forest fell upon us with a suicidal charge, as if they knew their end is upon them. The soldiers fought to ensure both the safety of both you and the princess. We have yet to locate Lady Toto, but once we retrieve her, we'll begin our retreat."

Just barely, I give Merida a nod. The situation does not seem good, but I do not have the strength to move or even think. My body is weak and my head feels heavy, and every time I tried to lift myself, the whole world starts spinning. It is impossible for me to take any action at the moment. Like so, unable to move, unable to help, I lay there on the ground with the chaotic sounds of battle in the background, the fatigue of my body drags my mind back into darkness.

As I drift between waking and unconsciousness, I have no sense of the time passed, and by the time I realize I am awake, that the scenery before me is no longer a dream, the battle is long over. As I lay atop a makeshift stretcher, I see the tired troops marching alongside me, moving through the ash covered forest with heavy and sluggish footsteps. I turn my sight towards the corner of my screen. The names and Hp bars, when we started, there were over a hundred of them, enough to clog the screen, but now all that remained displaying are about twenty and a little over. More, far more, than half of our men, lost. However, amongst the twenty-odd names, I found [Toto], [Merida], and [Aurelia]. Those close to me are alive, and while I do feel a shred of guilt for feeling this way, for the most part I can only feel relief, relief that we were lucky enough to come out of this alive.

Night eventually falls and while usually the stars would lit the sky, tonight there are none. The smog has obstructed them, turning the night sky into a pitch black void. To keep me warm, the soldiers carrying me lay me beside a campfire, and to prevent the ashes form falling on us as we sleep, they set up makeshift shelters that are essentially a piece of fabric stretched and affixed over tall branches. Still, while we have prevented the ashes from falling on us, we could not keep away the smog and I hear many of the troops starting to cough, and eventually, even I succumb to it.

"I'll put up an [Air Ward]."

Unable to take it anymore, I start getting up in spite of the pain running through my body and the spinning world around me.

"Stay down Aurelius, you're not well enough."

"I'll be fine, Merida, it's just a little spell."

Now then, I need to cover not just a single target, but an area with the [Ward]. How should I go about this? Perhaps it will work if I think of the entire unit as a target rather than each individual? Or maybe I should think of the surrounding space as a target rather than the troops? Well, either way, I'm going to have to give it a shot.

"Air War-"

Suddenly, it feels as if my head has been hit by a truck. Every single thought leaves my mind, my vision goes blank, and my entire body goes limp. It feels as if I have just had my cord pullout without any warning.

***

There is a room, a room with white walls, devoid of anything but a single bed and a one-way mirror on one side of the walls. Or at least, it should be, at least that's how I remembered it from last time I was here.

"Ah, I thought it has been a while since I've seen such a clear vision. It's you, you're back."

A young girl greets me with a big grin. She's the same as last time, though she seemed a little more cheerful than before. It might have something to do with the changes to the room.

"Zero, what's wrong, did you see something again? Or is it someone? Is it Seven? Or perhaps Nine?"

Aside from the girl, there is another man here, one wearing a clean white lab coat. I think I remember this man, he was the one kneeling before the girl the last time I was here, begging her not to leave. He's grown old since then, his slick black hair are now completely grey and his sharp features have been replaced with sunken cheeks and eyes. Looking at him, I get a feeling that a great deal of time has passed and yet, the girl remained the same, exactly the same as the day I met her.

"No, doctor, this one is from a different place, but it's nothing out of the ordinary."

The girl assures the man with a smile. Seeing this, I take back what I thought about her being the same as the last time. Clearly, other than her appearance, something has changed. Her mannerism has certainly become friendlier, and she has seemingly become more sociable than before. I have no doubts now; a great deal of time must have passed here.

"So, what do you think? It's been a while since I've seen you. My room must have been quite different from what you remembered, right?"

"Yeah, there was nothing in here at all last time, none at all. I can hardly believe it's the same room."

The white walls are still there, the one-way mirror is there too, but now the room is much more... decorated. Yes, I suppose decorated is the word. The bed is in the corner, as always I suppose, and in the middle there's a small tea table, white as the room, and I have no idea what's it made from. And well... how should I put it? There's the Plushies, there's just plushies everywhere.

"Pretty well made, right? I made them myself."

Without warning, a whole bunch of them start floating towards me, feeling as if they're inviting me to take closer look.

"Go ahead, grab one if you can."

At the girls urging, I reach out towards one, one that looks more or less like a rabbit. However, my hand just goes right through it. It doesn't seem like I can touch anything here.

"Can't touch them? That's too bad, I made them nice and soft too. By the way, the one you just picked, that's a Sonic Rabbit. They can run really fast, faster than normal rabbits. I named this one Peter."

"........."

As the girl introduce her toy to me, my mind simply goes blank, my thoughts jammed from all the questions that came rushing in. Sonic Rabbit? Peter? Where did she get those names? I can't be from me, right? I mean, when we first met, Peter was already... And now that she mentions it, quite a few of the plushies she has is starting to look familiar.

"How did you come up with these?"

"Hm? I just do, I guess."

She tilts her head innocently to the side, seemingly not putting too much thought into answering.

"I mean, there's not much to do here. Even when they want me to help with their tests and experiments, all I do is just sit around. Occasionally, they'll ask me to do specific things, but that's pretty much the extent of it, so I have all the time in the world to come up with ideas."

"I guess you must have been really bored here."

"Oh, like you wouldn't believe. I wished they let me out already, but all they'll say is 'someday soon, once everything is over'."

"'Once everything is over', is it? Sounds like that's going to take a while."

"I know, right! I wonder if it'll ever be 'over'. That is why..."

She whispers into my ear with the most wicked grin across her face.

"So you've been sneaking out..."

"Don't say that out loud, what did you think that whispering was for?"

Well, I don't think they'll hear me. As far as I can guess, I'm likely just this girl's vision. We can communicate like this because I'm having a vision of her while she's having a vision of me. It's like a video chat basically. I'm not actually here, only my image, a phantom.

That aside, I wonder if it's fine for her to be outside. She's infected with something isn't she? I hope it's not airborne.

"Oh, are you going already?"

Hearing her say that, I notice that my vision is darkening, and I feel sensations throughout my body. It's warm and sort and smells a little beastly. Most likely, I'm waking up over on the other end.

"I guess I am."

"That's too bad. Will you visit again?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I don't even know how I get here."

"You don't? Yet you've been here twice already?"

"Now that you mentioned it... Well, I'll figure it..."

But before I can finish my sentence, she's already gone from my vision. Instead, as I open my eyes, a blinding light floods into my sigh. It stings, but after a while, the soft light leaking through the ceiling of the tent becomes comforting.

Feeling some a pressure on my chest, my eyes turn downwards, finding there a pair of fluffy ears twitching in the breeze. Instinctively I recognize them to be the princess' and I start patting her head, hard, and when there's no response the patting becomes more of a light hitting, and only then does she appear to have felt it.

"...... Aurelius?"

As she raises her head, I notice something out of place. Her hair and her fur, what used to be gold are now pale and white. I almost thought I mistook someone else for the princess for a moment there.

"Did you do something with your hair, princess?"

At my question, her hand goes to caress her own hair.

"Oh this? This is but a side effect of severe mana drain. You're the same too. See."

She holds up a mirror for me, and indeed she was right. My light brown hair is now all white. This combined with slight pain and sore I'm feeling all over my body, it's like I'm an old man again.

"How's Toto? How is she doing?"

"Bedridden I'm afraid. The mana burn she had was far worse than yours or mine, and it wasn't all that long ago the last time this happened for her either. I don't think she'll be able to move any time soon, but I do believe that she'll eventually recover, given enough time and rest."

"Stupid girl... That said, without her, we couldn't have won, could we?"

"I highly doubt so. Had she not done what she did back then, we wouldn't be here, that is what I believe."

I let out a sigh of relief. All of this feels like a dream. I can hardly believe that we made it out there alive. Of course, I had no intention of dying nor did I think that we didn't stand a chance, but still... I guess I didn't really thought about getting this far.

"And you, how are you doing, princess?"

As I ask her, the princess flashes a bring smile, as if she's waiting for me to ask. Perhaps I should have asked about her first, but seeing her moving about and talking cheerily, I expected her to be doing well.

"I'm fine for the most part, though I do feel rather sluggish and my body is sore all over. Honestly, I can wait to soak myself in a hot bath."

"You enjoy baths?"

The princess cast an odd gaze towards me.

"Do you not?"

"No, you simply don't strike me as someone who enjoys baths."

Since, well, my old pal Aurelius didn't enjoy them very much and would always try to hide whenever she hears water running in the tub.

"What's that suppose to mean!?"

Oh boy, looks like I've made her mad. No big deal, compared to the [Demonic Tree], the princess is much easier to handle.

***

End of Chapter 45