'What the hell is going on?'

Cutting away from the control of my body I had to bear all the negative effects of still moving around, regardless if I was the one doing the moving or not.

All I could do on my own, right now, was groan in pain, while my body weakly pushed forward.

The pressure of the kid's red eyes was too great for me to resist.

It no longer felt like the delicate compulsion of the main plot pull of the games.

The force working on my soul came with absolute authority, wiping away all the thoughts or ideas of resistance.

And so, I moved forward, regardless of how impossible it appeared to be.

I felt my muscles tearing apart, unable to keep working while desperately healing the wounds from overusing them.

'How is it, that this world continues to baffle me so much?' I asked myself, limited to just my thoughts as the events played out without taking my will or desires into account. 'Isn't it supposed to be based on the ideas extracted from the novels I wrote?'

I closed my eyes.

With this external force steering my body, there was no need for me to keep on straining my eyes.

I was so tired I could even feel it in my spirit. My consciousness begged me to just give up and take a long-deserved rest.

But regardless of how I felt, my body kept on moving forward.

"Get her!"

The black-haired female shouted, causing one of her shadows to detach from her proximity, chasing after the kid that escaped from her grasp and now found itself in the custody of the white knights.

The shadow, unlike its owner, didn't hesitate, throwing himself at the white knight and forcing him to release the kid to defend himself.

It happened in a mere flash, something I would miss just by blinking, but the shadow somehow went around the young knight's guard, slitting his throat with a small, dark knife as a result.

'Whatever is going on, this looks like the best shot for me!'

My body somewhat straightened before stepping into the crowd of white knights.

My mind was empty, clear of any and all thoughts. And with it, my body moved without even a shred of intent, making me extremely hard to notice.

Step by step, I made my way closer to where the shadow failed to catch the girl and was now battling with two more knights.

Acting as if I wasn't there could only get me so far. Once I reached the part where the knights stood too close to each other to sneak through… My hand shoot to the side and grabbed at my waist before I gently tapped my forehead on the knight's arm.

"Huh?" the young knight in the white looked over his shoulder.

"I'm going home…" I stated as a matter of fact. "Excuse me."

Between my lowered head, complete lack of will, the emptiness in my eyes, and my strangely polite tone…

The knight failed to figure me out on the spot and ended up yielding to the side in a purely polite response.

Just two more rows before I would reach the epicenter of the action.

Raising my head, I saw more of the woman's shadows jump into the fray, turning the momentary clash into an all-out brawl… All the while the white knights ended up the ones getting the hold of the red-haired girl.

Now that I was closer and raised my eyes on this strange entity… Even my thoughts scrambled, my mind getting invaded just by how insanely powerful the strength of the compulsion was.

'Just what the hell am I doing?' I asked myself, right as my body squeezed through just one more row of the white knights.

'Ah, I hope I will just wake up back home if I die here,' I thought, unable to do anything to stop what I already knew that was going to happen.

My body, just like for a while already, went against my will… And after grabbing at the nearest weapon, it slashed at the backs of the white knights in front of me.

Standing in the middle of the crowd, I didn't have the space to make a proper swing. And just as any sane person would figure out in advance, my attack amounted to a little more than a tickle.

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A tickle that still alerted those powerful men, drawing their attention to my figure after such a nice streak of evading their attention.

'Just what the hell am I doing again?'

I rolled my eyes, too tired for even a shred of hope. Now, I just wanted all of this to end.

To my surprise, though… my attack had to be stronger than I believed it to be. Maybe it was due to this force of compulsion… Well, regardless of the reason, out of the four backs that I slashed, two have now leaned down and fell to the ground, their owners no longer breathing.

'Strange,' I thought, discarding the already chipped sword while grabbing at a one-handed axe one of the knights dropped.

'That's more like it,' I thought impassively, turning into a mere spectator of the fight… A spectator that was bound to feel every strain of this battle would put me through.

Up ahead, in the process of the ongoing and rapidly changing combat, the white knight holding the girl wound up dead to an overhead strike of one of the shadows.

Sensing the opportunity, the young girl dropped down to the ground and chased towards me… Only for another knight to seize the opportunity and grab her!

This time, however, it wasn't just one of the many knights.

No.

This time, it was a man sitting on a decorated horse with a white lance in his hand that outshined all the weapons of the lesser knights around.

And as if to make things even harder than they already were, he ended up being the one to catch this strange, red-haired girl.

I cut at the nearest knights again, using the weight of the small axe to my advantage, cleaving through the chainmail and shields alike…

Before those white knights proved how big of a difference there was between elite knights and mere mercenaries.

I didn't even notice when I suddenly found myself lying on the ground, mere few feet away from the leader of the knights. There was a broken piece of spear pinning my leg to the ground.

While I was falling, the nearest knights managed to sneak in a quick poke, opening up two deep holes in my back.

My lungs exploded with pain, now turning even the slightest breath into torture.

Soon, another spear and a sword drove through my flesh and into the ground, somehow crushing the stone of the alley as it embedded itself into the road itself.

"Haaaa…." The fleeting breath of life escaped from my lips as my fate was now finally sealed.

In a sense, I was happy.

The torture of moving my body when it was on the verge of literally collapsing was driving me mad. Yet, without control over my body, I couldn't just sit down and let death liberate me from this pain.

But now… even with how every breath opened a new world of pain for me… I was happy.

Because judging from my injuries, I was now mere moments away from bleeding out.

"So that's the late apostle-to-be," the leading knight commented right as his horse neighed directly above my head.

Once again, I had no idea what was the force that came to drive my body. And in spite of all the injuries, this strange compulsion pushed my broken flesh to act again.

I tore my body open, driving it up the blades and pinnig it down in one last struggle. I shot my hand out… Yet, I only got far enough to reach the knight's saddle. And after merely clawing my fingers down, all the remaining, mystical strength vanished, the force of compulsion finally breaking down.

My body reached its absolute limit that even this external force couldn't break free from.

But at the very least, I made this damn, arrogant knight pay for his disrespect… by grabbing at the bottom of his mana-powder satchel, ripping it open as my clawed fingers locked on the material before the weight of my body forcefully pulled my hands down.

Falling down, I could swear I saw a hint, a shadow of another female suddenly appearing at the entrance of the street I was bound never to reach.

'Weird, what's the point of introducing another female lead if the main character is going to die as of this moment?' with my thoughts muffled by the pain, I could no longer keep my thoughts rational.

My consciousness entered a strange state of balancing on the border between life and death, between dreams and reality.

Someone stepped down on my back before pinning it down with their heel.

Judging by the moving horse's legs in front of me, the mounted knight pulled on the reins, ready to leave.

And the second the pressure on me lessened again, I confirmed that this indeed was the truth.

A glint of light blinded me in one eye when the sun reflected in the now-raised blade of a knight that was about to pull down his sword and give me the mercy strike.

"I ORDER YOU TO STOP!"

A powerful voice filled the entire alley, causing the knight to hesitate and stumble.

This strange voice… somehow felt like reinvigorating my body, filling it back with the fuel it so sorely lacked…

But at this point, it was too little and too late.

My wounds were too great. My exhaustion was too extreme.

Even with fuel somehow magically appearing, my body was no longer in the state to make any use of it.

Still…

A rat's instinct for survival somehow pushed my head to move around as I looked in every possible direction, looking for any clues that could help me save my skin.

But outside of blood and corpses, there was hardly anything on this street!

Hardly anything, with the exception of…

My eyes flashed.

I looked around one last time.

The red-haired girl continued to struggle in the knight's hold, growing more and more desperate with each passing second. The intensity of her empty face was so great, it made both her eyes and her hair appear shining as if she was going through some sort of anime-like power-up.

Then, I realized that her hair was actually shining.

But so did the knight. Yet, before he could react, the girl's hair moved as if it had a mind of its own, forcing his hand away and freeing the girl for yet another time!

The kid dropped down to the ground, turning in my direction as she fell only to leap forward the moment she found any support for her tiny legs.

Her face was empty yet somehow intense. As if there was nothing in the world that mattered besides… me?

But my body reached its limit. I had nothing left to spare. No trick, no going even further beyond, no power of friendship.

I had nothing left and there was nothing in the street that I could use to put one last stand.

Nothing… except for a small pile of the high-quality mana-dust that poured down the noble knight's satchel when I ripped it open.

In one last act of desperation, I summoned all the strength that this strange voice gifted me with… Only to jerk my body just a little bit forward, just far enough for my face to fall into the shiny, white pile of the mana-dust.

And with no more strength to even think about what to do next, my body relaxed.

After everything that happened, all the strain I endured, my mind finally gave up. And just like that, the last straw that held my body active gave up, sending it into a deep, healing slumber.

And so, no longer even aware of my surroundings, I took in a deep breath.