Tina breathed heavily as her shield evaporated after that single attack. Her friends, and Bertos, kneeled on the ground, blood dripping to the soil.

The enemy, the elf, narrowed his eyes. “You know of our kind?”

Tina, still nervous and afraid, glared at the elf with anger. She deliberated, but only for a moment. There was no other choice, her friends were dying, and her high level healing spell was the only one that could save them. She thrust her hand forward, and a bright golden stream of light emerged, immediately hitting the closest — Anita. But after that, the light bounced from her towards Derin, and it bounced one by one to everyone.

Every person it touched was healed, but in every one it consumed mana. The spell also had maximum distance, but thankfully everyone was in range.

“Healer!” the elf shouted, outraged. He didn’t expect someone could heal their allies like that. He prepared his sword.

He rushed forward, but before he could reach halfway to her, Tina cast her powerful offensive spell. With both hands extended forward, from her palm raged a violent beam of light. A more focused attack than what she would normally use this as, and this one cost about forty percent of her total mana. But it was powerful enough to catch the elf off guard, blasting him into the cave wall.

In that window of opportunity, Tina quickly cast protective magic on all her friends and Bertos. It took a moment. Her friends looked surprised at the faint golden shield covering their body.

“Tina, what is this?” Anita asked, looking at Tina as if she was something strange.

Tina disregarded their confusion and quickly, also desperately, shouted at them. “Retreat now!”

Setting aside their confusion, everyone quickly rose to their feet and assembled around Tina, as she cast a protective spell on herself. She was burning up her mana more than she liked. But there was still plenty to spare.

Tina glanced at Dune, he looked like he wanted to ask a question. But there was no time for that. “Let’s run.”

“What do you mean run?!” Bertos exclaimed, repulsed by the word.

But she ignored him. “Let’s go!” She quickly moved ahead through the exit door. And everyone else followed, Bertos in particular, begrudgingly so.

They ran. They ran as fast as they could as a commotion roared behind them.

Dune ran beside Tina, and he looked at her from up to down. No, he was scrutinizing her. “You move differently.”

“I-I’ll explain later. Just don’t fight!” Fear was evident on her face.

She just never imagined that an elf would be here in all places. Why now? Her friends almost died. They shouldn’t fight that elf, they wouldn’t survive. She must bring them to safety.

They must run away.

Tina sensed rumbling on the stone wall. She took in a sharp breath, realizing what was coming. She gathered a ton of mana in her hand, and just as the walls split open, shot out a streaking ball of light, moving forward through the passageway. The same kind of light they used during that operation.

And then thick, thorny vines came out through the cracks on the walls. Tina cast a wall of faint, golden barrier in front of her just as the vines whipped, stopping her and her team in their tracks. She held on as she received the powerful force of the deadly vines.

And they stepped back.

The vines obstructed their way.

“Dammit.” she looked around. Then turned to Anita. “Burn it all!”

Anita flinched at her shouting order. But she did as she was told and sent fireballs at it.

But the elf had caught up. “I would prefer there be no witnesses to my presence.”

The vines from the passageway writhed and moved in towards them again. Tina immediately cast a barrier spell that took up most of the passageway, blocking the vines. It was a quick thinking decision, she had to focus on this side to hold the vines’ assault. However, it left her rear without a shield.

“We have to fight!” Bertos shouted and prepared his weapon.

“Yeah, we have no other choice,” said Dune.

“We’ll beat the guy.” Derin readied his spear.

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Tina didn’t know what to do. Do they have to fight? But it was too dangerous. Still, all they needed was to buy time until the knights arrived. They shouldn’t take long, or so she hoped.

The elf looked displeased. He charged forward with tremendous speed, brandishing his sword.

The men attacked. But vines grew out of the ground they stood upon.

“What?!” Dune exclaimed. He resisted with his weapon for a brief moment, but the vines whipped him a couple of times, breaking his protective shield. Another one lashed at him with fearsome power, throwing him hard into the wall. He was embedded in the wall, making him cough up blood.

Anita fired flames at the vines. But her fire was not enough, not even close, and they still stood. “What are they?!”

The elf and Bertos confronted each other, and the latter managed to deflect the former’s sword. But Bertos was apparently struggling to keep up, while the other had a calm and unbothered face.

Iruyu joined in to help, but the elf after parrying Bertos’s blade, punched Iruyu in the stomach. He waved his hand, and a blast of wind sent him flying to the wall, dust spread in the air. Vines awaited the man and tied themselves around his body, pinning him to the wall.

Bertos continued to attack the elf.

Derin was about to interject, but vines grew out of the ground and wrapped around his legs, then his body. The shield of gold snapped and broke as the vines gripped tightly.

“Ugh!”

The thorny vines clung to his skin.

The same fate fell on Anita as she was about to cast a spell. Vines wrapped around her. “No!” Her shield broke into pieces. And she was lightly armored. The thorns dug into her skin, what hurt the most were the ones that clung and slowly pierced her face. The vines tightened, digging deeper. And she screamed. “Aaaaah!” A scream of pain, of agony. Slow, intensifying pain.

Tina was horrified to see what was being done to her. She wanted to heal them, but she couldn't. Not with the vines bashing against her barrier. The moment she looks away and uses magic, it would weaken the barrier, and that would be enough for the vines to break through.

Berto’s and the elf’s fight continued on for a moment, but when he saw an opening, he gracefully swung down his blade. He proceeded to slash Berto’s body multiple times.

“Ggh!” Bertos grunted.

But the elf didn’t end there, he easily avoided the swing of the weakening Bertos, swiftly moving behind him, and plunged his sword into his chest. Bertos froze, his eyes wide looking at the blade poking out of his body, he dropped his sword as his life dwindled away. When the elf pulled back his blade, Bertos collapsed to the ground and not a hint of strength to show.

“N-No way.” Derin’s eyes widened in shock. The strongest among them, defeated. He writhed even more so, he tried using his frost from his weapon, but they were not strong enough to freeze all the vines around him. He couldn’t even move around properly in an attempt to cut them.

The elf, with an indifferent expression, approached, and brandished his blade.

“Derin!” Anita screamed.

The spearman attempted to thrust his weapon at the elf. But the elf easily sliced off his hand. A thud as it fell, and blood spilled.

“No!” Anita cried.

Derin struggled in the grips of the thorny plants, but it was useless. And he knew it. There was nothing he could do.

He forced his head to turn around, to look at Anita from the corner of his eyes, and he said… “I lov—”

The elf cut off his head clean.

Tina’s world seemed to grow cold and slow as she watched Derin’s head touch the ground. Her lips trembled. Her gaze slowly drifted off to Anita, whom the thorns had dug into her body and her face completely as she cried with tremendous tears.

Tina’s gaze shifted to Dune, blood stained his mouth as he crawled to his party. Iruyu, on the other hand, was bleeding all over after forcing himself free, he charged towards the elf with apparent rage. The elf swung his blade in the air multiple times, and wide slashes of wind crashed into Iruyu, fatally wounding him from the body to the face. He fell to the ground, and he stayed lying there.

Everyone was dying.

Tina didn’t know what to do.

They shouldn’t have come here.

They shouldn’t have participated.

If Tina wasn’t here, if she hadn’t returned, would they have taken the quest? Likely not. After all, she was a key reason why her party had reached as far as they did. Without her, things would have been too different.

It was her fault.

She shouldn’t have come back.

Why did there have to be an elf?

It was her fault.

What if she had not hidden her talents?

What if she never held back?

It was all her fault.

In her emotional distress, the shield she maintained was broken. The vines of despair and demise inched closer.

But at that moment, several slashes of light cut them all like paper. Three knights arrived and stepped forward. The elf flinched in surprise and leaped back. The three knights, that included Ayana, stood right next to the injured, and freed Anita.

The other three knights then next arrived.

Ayana looked at the casualties, then at the enemy. “Elf… Who are you supposed to be?”

“Does not matter.”

“... Indeed. We’ll be taking you in.”

“Take me alive, I presume?”

“What? Going to kill yourself like your friends do?”

The elf’s brow furrowed. “You were behind it.”

“Who else?”

“... I cannot die just yet. And I am not like who you faced in the city. ”

“Knights! Arrest that elf, without limbs if we have to!”

The elf’s brow furrowed. “I have things to do.”

The knights charged forward.

With a wave of his hand, the elf sent dust into the air, and a barrier of wind blocked the way.

The knights attacked the wind barrier, but they were only deflected back.

Ayana slammed her weapon hard. But it was futile. “Damn elf!”

And a moment later, the wind dissipated. Ayana and the knights charged forward as the dust gradually cleared from the air.

However…

“He’s gone,” said a knight.

“There’s only one place he could go.” she pointed forward. “Find him! All of you!”

The knights rushed forward, hoping to chase down their target.

Ayana turned to look at Tina, who was frozen in shock, staring at her friends. At Dune forcing himself to stand up. At Iruyu barely flinching. And at Anita, all bloody, but brimming with tears. Her sobbing and cries clear to the ears as she touched Derin’s head, and she lowered herself. Her sounds of grief echoing in the cave.

Tina at last, let go of her tears.

Before she realized it, Ayana approached and pulled her by the shirt.

“Snap out of it! Your purpose is to heal, then heal them. All that survived.”

Tina slowly shifted her eyes to Ayana’s. While trembling, she meekly nodded.