Arc 6. A seemingly endless loss
Road to a Hero:
Three Chances in Another World
Chapter 62. Pink glow
Gray and Lisa lie on the ground behind the crumbling and burning office building. Lisa continues spreading her glowing pink mana from her shoulder to her shoulder, covering up and filling all of his wounds. Gray begins to wake back up, and the second he regains consciousness, he jumps up, shakes his head, cracks his neck, and stands proudly before crumbling back to the ground.
Gray: “How the hell did you do that?”
Lisa: “It’s my mark of providence.”
Gray is stunned by the revelation, but once he starts thinking about it, it’s a bit obvious.
Gray: “This is insane, a mark that heals? You could become a doctor or something.”
Lisa: “My mother wants me to, but I wanna become a historian. And my mark doesn't heal, it’s like a pain killer and a big cast in one! It helps your body continue moving. But it's more of a burden…because all it does is force you back into the fight, and I can only use it on you once!"
Gray stands back up and begins flowing a bit of mana into his hand. He lets it overflow, watching the pink mana rush over it, confusing him as the normal color of his mana is a purplish black that also turns blue when spirits are introduced.
Lisa: "See?"
Gray: "I think it's cool. How many people can say their mana has been three different colors!"
Lisa moves a part of her pink cloak off of her shoulder, showing Gray her heart-shaped mark.
Lisa: “This thing sucks. I’m not a fighter, I don’t want to be, but I have an affinity for the spiritual arts and this mark. They just go against themselves.”
Gray: “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Hey, Lincoln doesn't have any superpowers and he’s the strongest man in the WORLD! Just because you can or can’t do something doesn't mean you’re stuck.”
Gray notices burn marks on Lisa’s skin, so he puts his hand over her head, closes his eyes, and begins focusing.
Gray: “Votic.”
Spirits begin flowing around his hand, glowing a light transparent green, and flow around her body. They focus on the wounds, causing them to slightly fade and the pain to dissipate before the spell ends.
Lisa: “You can use healing magic!?”
Gray: “Yeah but I don’t use it because it’s risky…Ryo said I have what is called defensive arts, or a defensive affinity. He has an offensive affinity, so his spells are meant to hurt…but he strays away from using them. But somehow, he can use Defensive magic as well…I guess he's the God of War for a reason. All healers have defensive magic, but instead of learning to combat areas of skills, they learn to heal. Instead of spending my skill points in one or the other, I’m putting a bit of it into healing, but I haven’t gotten to the point where I can use any high-level spells for it.”
While spirit magic is similar to the Sects abilities, where you can only do one thing. Summon the spirits of animals for a short time, call upon a weapon, or control spirit beasts. Each can vary a bit, but it’s rare enough that it hasn’t progressed very far. Though the spirit arts, which is being content with the spirits instead of controlling them, gives for a more streamlined experience. Offensive spells allow for spells that target opponents on a more straightforward level. But the spirit arts as a whole doesn't have very many spells at all, since the magic in this world is more surface-level than extraordinary.
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A spell-like Satic attacks the person's mind, causing your thoughts to boil over and attack your mind, but for someone like Gray to use it, it also affects him. Not only was his connection not well-trained, but his connections leaned towards the more common defensive magic. Spells like Walnic, a shield, or Cenic, a cloud of smoke, protect the user in some way. Gray has yet to learn every defensive spell he can, but this is due to how difficult it is to find anything about them as well as how Gray's massive connection makes it difficult to not kill spirits.
The astral side of the spirit arts is what it’s mainly known for, the ability to boost your senses to another plane, giving you an edge unlike any other, because it has no counter. Though sadly even if he wanted to use higher level spells for his current class, he can’t. His affinity is so high that it’s just as difficult to use a high or even medium-level spell without killing spirits. So he’s stuck to the basic eight. But, like how Gray described it, offensive magic has another “Skill tree” as he would put it. There are two paths, spells, and healing magic, where most learn, he’s started working on being able to cast at least one healing spell. On the other side of the spectrum, the offensive style can lean toward either spells or mage-like combat, where you connect to elemental spirits and use a wand or staff to fight. With no healer in the current party, Gray has taken the initiative to become that healer or try to be for a short while.
Lisa: “That is so cool!”
Before Lisa can continue, Gray feels something’s off and stands back up.
Gray: “Smoler got away, and I left Greta alone…I gotta go. You run somewhere safe.”
Before Lisa can say anything, Gray begins running off while holding the cursed charm and infusing it with mana to recharge it.
Gray: “Dammit…Well, this is my second wind, and I was finally asked to do something. But I need backup.”
Gray runs around the office building, watching as it slowly melts down as the purplish black lava flows out from within. Then, once he gets in front of the building, he sees what he feared the most. In the center of the stone road connecting all of the buildings, under the dark sky with the rising sun getting closer and closer, stands both Ganga and Smolder. When they spot him, they straighten their posture and stare at him. Gray stumbles back, but he quickly regains his composure and begins walking toward them. While Ganga is infused with utter rage to the point that her entire body is shaking, Smolder stands completely still. Though he does walk in front of her, clapping while doing so. Before Gray can get close, Smolder puts out his hand, motioning him to stop.
He then turns his head, looking off into the distance, listening for something. Then right on cue, Yoru, the older woman with the ability to mutate people into those zombie-like creatures flies in on such creatures. Its grotesque rotting, slimy flesh and mouth going down its head isn’t disgusting enough. The wings it’s using to fly are large, thin, and held together by the hardened cartilage-like subsistence, dripping with this pink slime. It screeches and cries from pain, but is still under the control of the bird mask-wearing, insane, and self-asserted god. It flies down beside Ganga and Smolder, letting You off, and curls up, aching in pain. Also on the monster is Dante, locking his eyes with Gray as he begins shaking with anger as well. As Gray watches all of these people standing beside each other, his heart drops. He looks to Yoru, staring at her bird mask, reminding him of Chezera, who he had assassinated a few ago, causing him to be filled with dread.
Smolder: “Ah, this is it. I was getting a bit scared there, but I was told to not hold back because if you died, then this would be for nothing.”
Ganga: “GET OVER HERE! GET OVER SO I CAN KILL YOU! I WANT YOUR FLESH AS I RIP IT TO PIECES! I WANT YOUR BONES TO MUSH!”
Dante puts his hand on Ganga’s shoulder, getting to calm down before he begins speaking.
Dante: “Calm down Mother. Gray Kyojin. You killed my brother right in front of me, you killed my other brother and got my siblings killed. You are evil.”
Yoru: “Who cares about that!? I want to make him one of my beautifully woven creatures. YOU WOULD BE RESHAPED BY GOD! LEAVE YOUR UGLY BODY BEHIND AND COME TO ME!”
The pure rage in Ganga’s voice, the malice and hatred in Dante’s, and the unrivaled insanity in Yoru further the fear in the situation as well as in Gray’s heart.
Smolder: “Come on, you can’t kill him, so I apologize Ganga. But you had your chance, and you lost.”
Ganga grabs Smolder by the collar, pulling him close, staring into his eyes. She spits into his mask's eye holes, causing him to push her away. He takes his mask off, rubbing his eye, but begins to turn around Gray’s unable to see his face. The only thing that Gray knows about his identity is that he’s burned badly, due to the dry and scratchy sound of his voice.
Smolder: “And here comes your cavalry.”
Gray feels the presence of his friends finally arriving to help. Soku glides in from the sky while Rosemary enters through the front gate, both panting and drenched in sweat. When they spot what’s standing in front of Gray, they rush over to him. Soku lands beside him while Rosemary runs through the grass, hugging him once she finally makes it.
Gray: “Rosemary! You’re bashed up all to hell. Soku, you will be better.”
Soku: “You don’t look too good yourself, but that’s not far from normal, it’s actually just how you look normally.”
Rosemary: “Hush!”
While they chatter with each other, acting as if they had completely forgotten about the danger standing in front of them, Ganga's anger becomes indescribable. She clenches her fist, causing the only fingernails that haven’t been broken to stab into her hand, causing it to drip with even more blood than it already was. She tries to scream at them, but with the insurmountable rage that’s running through the veins, she’s unable to get out any clear words, causing her to begin stomping her foot onto the ground over and over. Soku looks over, pointing and laughing at her, causing Gray to start laughing as well.
Soku: “Did…BUFFY! SHE’S ACTING LIKE A BABY!”
Gray: “Yeah…hehe…she’s…hehe…DAMMIT, I CAN’T SPEAK!”
Rosemary smacks the back of both their heads, getting them to pipe down. Ganga gets so mad she almost passes out, but decides attacking is a better idea. She flows not ten, but twenty both strong and long arms made of spirit mana. Smolder tries to get her to calm down, but Dante begins creating a large dome around all of them. The utter size demolishes any of the domes he has made when he fought Gray and Soku. It covers one hundred twenty yards of land, the size of a football field. Then lastly, Smolder puts his hand on the ground, beginning to create lava a bit underneath the ground to not hurt his companions.
Gray: “Oooh, this isn’t gonna be fun.”
Soku: “What makes you say that?”
End of Chapter sixty-two