They had finally set out and the sight of the barricade was long since passed; now Liara, Pellas, and Dr. Holzer stared at the site of where she killed the Mylock. The faceless sloth thing's body should have been there, but instead, a black trail of blood led away from them and towards the stairwell. When she asked Dr. Holzer what took the body, he did not know either, and that fact terrified her most of all. Pellas cheerfully chimed that whatever it was must be huge did not help, but the fear of the unknown could not paralyze them into inaction, they had a duty to perform.
Patrolling through the hallways with Dr. Holzer seemed to change the man's demeanor towards Liara. He was not walking around with that same haughty air that always seemed like he was looking down his nose and whenever he spoke to Liara, there was a note of deference in his voice. That had not stopped him from suggesting how Liara spent her remaining points, however. As a result, Liara was wearing a flak vest that had cost her thirty points.
Weird enough when she reflected on it, but Liara had been more surprised and happy when the flak jacket materialized than with the body part replacements. She chalked it up mostly to being half dead when said body parts were bought, but there was something about seeing a large piece of clothing appear right in front of your eyes that tickled the imagination. When she put it on, the jacket fit perfectly, as if a tailor had specially made it for her. Pellas denied knowing what her clothing size was, not that she would have minded if the little robot knew, but he claimed that it was the system using her real-time biometric information in order to make clothes and body parts that fit her.
After Pellas had explained that, Dr. Holzer asked him, “Tell me, are there any quests that Liara could complete? The more points we gather, the better prepared we will be for whatever lies ahead.”
Pellas hummed and made the golem equivalent of a sigh with a buzz, “If you mean the current invasion, no, ME-GO has not issued any special quests to Liara or Magical Girls in general. I’m not surprised though, given that the system is probably working overtime with all the Magical Girls fighting in Apophyllion right now. She will probably be rewarded bonus points when the invasion is finally repelled.”
It was very optimistic of the golem to assume that they would survive the invasion, but Liara did not want to argue against that, instead, she asked if there were general quests she could complete. She remembered from class that there were general kill quests that every Magical Girl had in the background, so she should have some too.
"Oh yes, certainly! You already got your starting bonus, which frankly paled in comparison to the stockpiled fourteen thousand you had, but there are other low-hanging fruit quests that you could complete. Eliminating a single Yabanchi would net you fifty points as well as the points for the kill. Your daily cooldown bonus would let you kill up to ten for another two hundred after that!"
“Right, my daily cooldown bonus,” Liara tried not to look at either Dr. Holzer or Pellas.
Catching on to her meaning, Dr. Holzer pushed the question, “You do remember what a daily cooldown bonus is, don’t you? I know I taught it in my class last year.”
“Yeah, you know, I can kill ten Yabanchi and get two hundred points.”
“What is the weekly cooldown bonus then?”
“Um, fifty?”
“No, one hundred for one thousand points,” Dr. Holzer looked off in the distance, “Sonia and I would often try to farm battlefields for the daily bonus. Kill ten Yabanchi and call it a day. We figured it was the easiest way to gain points without putting ourselves in too much danger.”
“Do a lot of Magical Girl teams do that?”
Pellas hummed, "Only the lazy ones." That answer got a small reaction from Dr. Holzer, a single eye twitch, but otherwise, he did not fall for the golem's bait.
Liara and the team reached the staircase where a blood trail led down the steps and down into the unknown depths. The urge to turn back and stay in the safety of the safe zone was almost overwhelming, but she swallowed it down and took the first step, then a second, and a third. Each step weighed a thousand pounds but got easier as she went.
When they went down one flight of stairs, Liara heard a familiar sound. A whimpering noise followed by a single word, "Help." Her heart rate started to increase and she did not hear what Pellas said to her. The memory of the searing pain, of coming so close to death's shadow overtaking her, almost took all the strength out of her legs. Pellas spoke again, "Liara, are you okay?"
“I think,” Liara whispered, “I think it’s a Mylock.”
Dr. Holzer stepped forward and cocked his head to listen, when the voice came again, he nodded. “A stupid one from the sound of it. Hasn’t changed its form too much if all it can say is one word. Should be an easy target for you to practice on.”
When Liara did not answer right away, he turned around and looked at her. The normally pale girl was white, almost the same shade as her hair. She was frozen, staring off in the direction the voice was coming from.
Pellas whispered into Dr. Holzer's ear, "Her experience with the Mylock earlier was traumatic, to say the least. She may not be able to face one so soon after having her eye ripped out of her skull."
Wincing in sympathy, Dr. Holzer did not want to imagine what it felt like to have your eye plucked out. The tall woman had her reasons for freezing in the moment and no one could fault her for that, but to freeze in battle meant death. He was no stranger to facing fear, and though it made him feel like an absolute jerk, he knew what had to be done.
"Liara," Holzer spoke softly to the Magical Girl, not setting a hand on her, but letting his voice try to pierce the domineering anxiety. "Liara, look at me. Look at me." A pair of mismatched eyes met his and though they were staring at him, they did not see him. He reached out a hand and grabbed her shoulder now that she was looking at him and the contact seemed to send a shiver through the girl's body. It was not mana or a paladin's bond, it was simply one human reaching out to another and it had the intended effect. Her breathing returned and her eyes trembled, threatening to loose yet more tears, but behind the fear was a roaring flame of anger that urged her to either confront her foe or flee from it. This was the moment that would define her future as a Magical Girl and Holzer was not going to let it go to waste.
“You’re strong Liara,” he gripped her shoulder as hard as he could and pushed his face towards her. She saw him now. “It cries for help because all Yabanchi are cowards who know nothing more than fear and hate. They are monsters that stalk the dark, picking on the defenseless and weak. You are neither of those now, blessed as you are as one of the chosen. Liara, you are the one who hunts.”
“I’m scared.”
“Good. It means you are taking this seriously, but the fact remains that this thing is far beneath you. You can slay it. Pellas and I will be with you, remember my oath.”
“My safety is your number one priority.” Holzer nodded and let go of her, now he was holding his breath, awaiting Liara’s decision.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Her mind still screamed at her to run, but her feet found themselves walking toward the cry for help despite themselves. The classroom the voice was coming from was similar to the one from before, the same trap as last time, waiting for some fool like her to open the door and walk inside. She would not make the same mistake twice.
She stopped by the side of the doorway and opened the door, letting it swing inside without taking a step to go in. The voice inside the classroom stopped calling for help and Liara was standing there in the deafening silence, alone despite Holzer and Pellas being only a few feet away. She wet her lips and found breath for her lungs, she shouted as loud as her chest could muster, “Help.”
Her shout might as well have been a whisper for how much force her fear-frozen body could muster, yet the effect was as desired. A scuttling noise came from the classroom and a pale, hairless head poked out of the doorway, teeth snapping in anticipation. Liara's reinforced fist met the back of the Mylock's head and sent it slamming to the ground. It was the wrong move.
She should have sliced it with superheated mana and killed it right away, but the raw action of just hitting it, putting her knuckles into the very thing she feared, broke a dam in her, and her heart was frozen no more. Fire burned in her brain, rage coupled with fear, forgetting reason along with tactics, she kicked the Mylock sprawled on the ground and sent it scuttling further out into the hallway to get away from her.
The Yabanchi had a fist-shaped dent in its pale pate, but otherwise, it appeared unharmed. Its teeth snapped even quicker now, threatening to take a chunk out of its attacker. In a single lunge, it closed the distance between the two of them and grabbed Liara by the left wrist, sending a shock of pain running up her arm. Yet Liara barely registered the pain, in her heart she knew one thing, it was going to happen again.
This Mylock had a pair of eyes, baby blues that goggled out at her from its grotesque face. Likely stolen from some girl who had fallen for its trap, but had not been as fortunate as Liara to escape it. If it had someone else's eyes, what would it rip off from her? Nose, mouth, ears? She did not want to find out, she had to get away from it, but it was holding on too tight.
"Get off me!" Liara screamed and brought her free hand down in a mana slice, taking the thing's hand off at the wrist. It stumbled back a few feet, blue eyes bulging in confusion, but it did not have time to react further as Liara stepped toward it and brought her right hand again in a horizontal slice across its neck. The creature's gibbering ceased and it collapsed to the floor, head and body separated.
Liara stared at the blue eyes watching her on the floor and kicked the grisly thing away from her so that she would not be haunted by its stare any longer. Dr. Holzer moved past her and looked inside the classroom from whence the Mylock had come. With a grimace, he closed the door and deactivated the live mana spear that he had been holding.
"Seems like a strong attack. That new hand of yours took what would normally be a one-and-done strike and made it into a reusable mana blade." He kicked the Mylock's body. "From the way it cauterized this thing’s flesh, I can see the use of fire mana, but have you ever tried using air mana? A slicing ranged attack would be useful.”
“I, I don’t think I have, no.”
“Hmm, that’s fine. I know you have to show proficiency in two mana combat arts to pass the third year though. What was the other?”
“Fireball.”
At this revelation, Dr. Holzer’s eyes bulged a little, “With an attack like that we can forget about using air mana! We can-“ He stopped himself and a little of the old, reserved Dr. Holzer came back, "How much of your mana does it use when you project a fireball?"
Liara leaned against the hallway wall, rubbing her left wrist, “All of it.”
“Ah, that would explain it. And the flame strike?”
“Oh, I know the answer to this one. Liara has a total of three hundred and thirty mana at maximum capacity with a rough recharge rate of one per minute. Each mana strike uses fifteen mana!”
"Thanks Pellas," Liara replied. She knew her own stats, but having the little golem rattle them off made conceptualizing them easier. What he said meant that she could use her flame strike twenty-two times in a battle before she had to take a break.
“That’s terrible,” Dr. Holzer said matter of factly.
“What do you mean by that?” Liara thought that he called her attack ‘useful’ after all.
"In a pitched battle with a hundred Yabanchi pouring down our throats, we’ll need more than twenty-two close-ranged and risky attacks to make it through."
“So what can I do?”
“Usually you can do three things. One is to continue practicing your flame hand tens of thousands of times. Doing so will lower the mana cost as it becomes more efficient. The second is that you can increase your natural mana pool.”
“And the third?”
Dr. Holzer pulled a small metal baton from his belt and tossed it to Liara. On examination, it was heavier than it looked and had a heft to it. On the side of its pure metal surface was a button. When Liara pressed the conspicuous button she had to suppress her shock and not drop it as the top and bottom extended until she was holding a short spear in her hand.
“A weapon.” Dr. Holzer smugly replied, but his smirk faded when Pellas’ eye glowed red and he scuttled in front of the dean, shouting, “She could have lost an eye!”
Dr. Holzer had the good grace to look at least a little embarrassed by Pellas’ chewing out, but Liara put a stop to it by thanking him for the weapon.
“Eh, you’re welcome,” Holzer continued to eye the spidery golem floating by his head, but he pointed at the Mylock’s corpse. “Are you going to harvest that thing’s core?”
“Harvest its core?”
“You really need to pay more attention in class Liara,” Dr. Holzer sighed, but continued, “When a magical girl slays a Yabanchi, they can harvest the mana core from their slain foes. You can sell it for money, but that’s considered pretty low-brow in Magical Girl society. Most women give it to their golem for upgrades specific to the Yabanchi type that has been slain."
Liara stared at the Mylock’s corpse. “So, I have to cut that thing open and pull out its ‘mana core’.”
“Essentially.”
"That's gross." Yet even as she said that Liara considered what her options were. She could refuse to gut the creature, but she would be passing up an advantage she might hold over the enemy. It was a nasty thing to do, but she decided even before Holzer replied. Bending down to the body of the thing that had scared her so much, she noticed how pitiful it was, dead and unmoving. There was a wrongness to touching the still warm flesh, but she used the sharp part of her spear to slice along the Mylock's chest and make an opening. Pressing past the muscle, fat, and bone was harder than she thought and when she had finally done so, she was greeted with a sickly-sweet smell she would rather have passed up on ever encountering. Finally, her persistence paid off in the form of a small glow coming from the red viscera of the beast, its mana core.
She pulled it out of the Mylock, trying not to make a face in front of the others, and held it aloft. It was like a large ruby, maybe half the size of her pinky. Pellas hovered over to the mana core and with a humming sound, it dematerialized from her hand.
“Did it taste good?” Liara asked.
Not sensing her sarcasm, he replied, "I'm afraid that golems do not have a sense of taste, but I am happy to inform you that I have a new ability on top of the ten points you earned for slaying the Mylock."
Pellas made a frowning face on his central eye and Dr. Holzer’s voice came out from him, “You are the one who hunts, Liara.”
“Ach, I do not sound like that.”
Liara was more impressed and laughed at Pellas’ impression of Holzer. “We’ll have to show Talia that when we get back.” She stopped laughing, “If we get back.”
“We’ll get back,” Dr. Holzer replied, lifting his spear to his shoulder and pointing back to the stairwell. “Shall we go on?”
“Yes,” Liara marched past him and started down the stairwell again, over the bloodstains on the stairs and into the clinging shadows, she led them. A howl came from the direction they were heading, yet she only hesitated a moment before plunging on and deeper into the dark.
Liara’s Stats
Strength 9 Constitution 9 Reaction 10 Authority 11 Mana 300/330 (1 rpm) Mana Art Specialization Flame Strike (15), Fireball (300) Augmentations Reinforced mana hand, Mana eye Golem Upgrades Basic Medical Suite, Mimicry Special Abilities Minor Vitality Regeneration