“I was wrong to finish the deodorant on Rie and Neko.” He should have saved deodorant for Sharley and sprayed it on him to get rid of the bad smell. He was trying to carry a one hundred and eighty centimeter child on his back with the smell of shit on it.
“I don't know how Rie was going to carry that.” Remembering that she had made a superhumanly high jump, he thought she could carry it more comfortably than he could.
For Yu, who had no use for weights, the sudden task was causing him back pain. At least he was thinner than Yu, and if he were heavier he would have to drag him.
“I'm curious, why did you all choose to wear white clothes when it was obvious you were going somewhere dirty? Are you a religious cult or something? You said something about a god.”
Yu stayed away from such organizations, as his older sisters often told him to stay away from cults, movements, protests and all other various political and religious activities. Here, too, he didn't want to go against his older sisters and secretly hoped that Rie would say no.
“I would say I belong to one or two official organizations.”
She was a little bit disappointed him with the answer. He wished Rie was a secular person like him.
“And I'm not obsessed with white, but the reason I wear it is for magical protection. It's a pain to clean when it gets dirty, of course.” At Rie's justified complaint, Yu nodded in agreement from the back of the group.
Whenever Yu soiled a white garment, it would remain dirty. No matter how much he washed it, it was impossible for Yu to get the stains out. He had bought all the cleaning products advertised on TV, but nothing worked.
So Yu decided not to wear white. He even started buying black undershirts to avoid dealing with stains.
“Neko probably dressed like that because she didn't know we were coming here. I told her to wear something different, but sometimes she doesn't listen.”
“It seems children are the same in both worlds.” It was hard to convince them to do something when they didn't want to do it.
“That idiot you're carrying dressed like that because he was trying to imitate my mother.”
“Neko, you're making too much of things. Sharley is my student.”
“But mother, thou should be able to see his feelings! Please don't keep that thing around any longer.”
It made Yu laugh that Neko was still using ‘thou’ to her mother.
“Taking apprentices is the rule of the Wizarding Academy, I have to train someone.”
Yu was curious when he heard the name ‘Wizarding Academy’ but Neko continued before he could ask a question.
“I could have been an apprentice!” Neko folded her arms in reproach.
“I don't choose my apprentice, you know.”
“Hmph!”
How long had Neko been reproaching her mother for her apprentice? But Yu agreed with her, if one of her older sisters had a boy who liked her and running around with her, he would have been annoyed too, and he would have made his annoyance known.
“Your clothes are a bit different too. Especially your shoes,” Rie said.
“If that's what you think of what I'm wearing, what would you think of what's in my bag?”
Yu's clothes were now torn and covered in blood from the fall. It made him sad that he would never be able to wear them again, as there were no tailors in their era who could sew them like the modern era machines.
Neko was carrying Yu's bag. She could only wear it on one shoulder because one of the handles was broken, and she was clearly uncomfortable with it. But the fact that the bag was too big for her made her look cuter.
But the real reason for Neko's discomfort was not that she had to carry a bag that was too big for her on one shoulder, but because it belonged to Yu. When Neko refused, saying it was ‘dirty,’ Yu replied, ‘Are you in a position to judge this?’
Yu's bag was cleaner than the girl who had come out of the sewer, and under pressure from Rie, Neko had to agree to carry it, albeit in disgust.
“Clothes that are normal in my hometown. Your clothes also seemed strange to me when I first saw them,” Yu said. He was still examining Rie and Neko's clothes.
Neko's outfit could be called modern, he wouldn't have thought it strange if he saw such an outfit in his world, but Rie and Sharley were dressed like they were going to a cosplay event.
“Can I ask you something? You haven't explained where we're going yet.” Yu had tagged along with Sharley on his back, but not because he had a purpose for where they were going, but because he felt that staying by their side was the best option he could choose for now.
But whatever the purpose, they were traveling together now and he needed to know where he was going and why.
“We are going to a place called Sigma Tower. It's a school, a library, a museum and an observatory.”
“Something like a university,” Yu said. Since Rie had mentioned an academy, it could be connected to the Sigma Tower. The next question was, why were they trying to sneak in here?
“They were expelled from the academy as a result of a conspiracy and they're trying to sneak in to get the evidence to prove that they were framed, is that the story?” The scenario in his head sounded familiar.
“Maybe they're from a rival school and they're trying to steal something very important from this school. Maybe they are going to set up a conspiracy!”
He wondered why they were going there, but hesitated to ask. If he went there, he would probably find out what they were up to, but what if he found out something he shouldn't? What if some people try to kill him because he learned an information he shouldn't know?
“Am I going to spend the rest of my life with Rie to protect me from assassins? I mean, one look at her and I'm, I mean, I'm kidding myself, but it's not a bad idea.”
He looked at the white-haired witch walking in his front. He didn't think he would be unhappy spending the rest of his life with her, at least for now, if he judged by her appearance.
“Don't even think about it,” Neko said.
The girl must have had a 'my-mom-liked-by-someone sensor', for she understood Yu's intentions even though her back was turned.
“Sigma Tower is an organization of several towers. The biggest tower is called Sigma, so the whole area is named after it. Maybe it would be more accurate to call it the Sigma Academy instead of the Sigma Tower. Of course, there is also the Wizarding Academy in the south and it may not use the name of the academy because it doesn't want to compete with it.”
“May I also ask why we went there?” Yu didn't want to hear information that could put his life in danger if he found out, but if there was an idea that could put his life in danger, he thought Rie wouldn't mention it, so he asked.
“They have connections to a place called the Wizarding Academy. Maybe my second or third theory is right and they work for the academy in the south.”
Apart from his theories, the reason they were going there could be a personal matter that Yu hadn't thought of, and if she didn't want to say it, he couldn't do anything but respect it.
Even if it was Rie's actions that had caused it, he wasn't going to blame Rie if they got in trouble because following her willingly. He guessed that something could happen to him because of the place they were going to now, but he kept moving forward by his own choice.
“I need to pick something up.”
“What is it?”
“I'm sorry, I can't tell you.”
“Destruction in the city, murder and now theft? Are you a crime machine, woman!” Rie's actions were turning her into a hardened criminal. “I hope the police system of this world is not as sophisticated as it is in my world, I don't want my name involved in a robbery.”
It was a crime-ridden adventure, one that Yu would never have gone near under normal circumstances. If all witches were like Rie, Yu could understand why witches were frowned upon by society. Maybe Rie and the other witches were good people at heart, but their actions certainly didn't have good consequences.
Since he hadn't been forced to follow Rie, he wasn't going to press her to find out why they were moving forward.
“By the way...”
He didn't know how to get to the point. He hadn't interacted with many people in his life, and the ones he did, he was intimate with very few of them, and while he was more or less popular at his school, he hadn't tried to get close to girls.
He was comfortable with girls because he had older sisters, but he had never tried a relationship with a girl before, so even if he liked Rie, he had no idea how to approach her.
Rie's situation was different from the people he had known so far. He wanted to be more intimate with her than he had been with his classmates, but he didn't think it would be right to have the comfort he had with his older sisters.
“So Sharley is just a student...”
Depending on the answer to his question, Sharley's journey on Yu's back could end. If he heard an answer he didn't want to hear, he would release him to the ground. He had already been carrying him for half an hour, it would be better if he woke up and walked himself.
“Ah! Of course it is, I will not allow low beings to near my gorgeous mother. My mother's love is only for me, no one else will come between us.” Neko didn't wait for Rie's answer, but gave her own answer to the question.
“Not a bad answer.”
Neko's answer not only said that there was no relationship between Sharley and Rie, but also confirmed that Rie was not in a relationship with anyone else.
“So can I say that my path is wide open? It won't be difficult for a charismatic, talented and promising man like me. Ha! Sometimes I'm surprised at how wonderful I am! Rie is a lucky woman, she has the chance to be with me, it's not something everyone gets. She should be pleased.”
But there was still no confirmation from Rie. He wanted to hear from her that she was alone too.
“Just a student, you mean?” He asked, this time to get an answer from Rie.
“My student,” Rie replied.
“Just say ‘only a student!’ Why do you give me answers that I clearly can't understand?” He wanted to make sure Rie didn't have feelings for someone else.
“Only?” He emphasized the word to get the answer he wanted from Rie.
“W-why do you ask?” Rie turned her head and looked at Yu out of the corner of her eye as she kept walking. Yu felt embarrassed when Rie answered him.
“Lan* did she say that shyly because she likes me? I bet she does. I'm great, I'm so good haha! I mean, I am me, after all. How is it possible for a girl not to like me? I'm so cool.”
There was no other explanation for Rie's embarrassed speech. He thought it was because of shyness when she accelerated her steps as if running away from Yu.
“I was just curious.” He felt like he had won a small victory. He now believed that Rie liked him.
“Don't bother, you stupid creature, you don't stand a chance with me!” Noticing her mother's actions, Neko took her most aggressive stance yet. She had her claws out. “Mother! Please come back to thy senses!
“I-I'm sorry!”
“This isn't you coming to thy senses!”
As their conversation progressed, Rie's reactions pleased Yu more and more.
“I must be even more impressive than I thought.”
They continued walking straight ahead, and as the road began to narrow, Rie suddenly stopped and said, “We're here. The tower is right above us.”
“How do we get in?” Yu asked, even though he could guess the answer.
“We drill a hole,” Rie replied.
“You have a fantasy of making a hole? The first one in the middle of the street and now the second.”
Until now he had thought they would enter the Sigma Tower through a secret passage. If the Sigma Tower was also an observatory, there would be people inside, even at night, and they would be able to hear the noisy process of drilling into the ground.
“Don’t you think that noise make people above notice us?”
“At this point, above us must be the basement of the tower. First we will thin the ceiling above us, that is, the soil under the floor of the basement. Once we reach the floor of the basement, we will break it.”
After telling Neko and Yu to stand back, Rie prepared her spell. It was the first time Yu had seen magic except the time he died.
First black shadows appeared around Rie, then the shadows solidified and became crystals. The crystals took the shape of shovels. The shovels began to dig into the ceiling, even though Rie hadn't even touched the crystals that had taken the shape of ladle.
“Very impressive.” The words spontaneously spilled out of Yu's mouth, which opened in admiration.
“You think right. My mother is always the most impressive.” Neko, proud of her mother, took her hand and reiterated that she would not give it to Yu.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
When they had thinned the layer on top of them enough, a mound had formed on the ground from the falling earth. When they reached the floor of the basement, Rie began to cast a new spell.
A ring of purple light appeared on the ground, filled with shadows and solidified into a pillar. Then the pillar rose up and slowly smashed the last remaining obstacle above them.
Rie's efforts to thin the soil had worked. The hole on the ground was not as noisy as Yu had expected, but it was not so quiet as to be unnoticeable. If Yu was anywhere near the basement, he would have heard the noise and come to see what was going on.
“If I had the ability to fight, I would have come. Otherwise I wouldn't follow a mysterious voice in the middle of the night.”
Their work seemed unprofessional to him. He had never tried to infiltrate a place before, but in the few movies he had ever seen, he had not seen such a simple plan.
“What am I going to do with Sharley?”
Since the tunnel was closed, Rie couldn't go back out this way unless he was planning to reopen the closed tunnel, which would mean that they would be caught by the people who were likely to be there. They would have to take a new route.
So if they left Sharley here, they would have to go down the tunnel again to get him.
“Let's leave him here and we'll come and get him later. Can you wait here with Neko?”
He didn't like being thrown out of the group, or rather, being cut off from its fighting force. It was a dangerous world and he didn't want to be separated from the only fighting force he knew in this world.
Since Yu had no combat ability, in the event of an attack, there were two people other than Rie who could fight. The first was Sharley, who was in no condition to fight, normally a mage, but he was currently a burden because he was unconscious. The second was Neko, but he didn't want to hide behind a child.
“I don't know about Neko, but I can't say that my fighting skills are worth mentioning. You faced one monster on your way here, and if another one comes, there's nothing I can do about it.”
“I don't care what happens to these two lower beings. I want to stay with thou mother. That is my duty, I am thy sword fairy.”
Neko was as reluctant to be left behind as Yu. They could both make a joint decision and leave Sharley behind, but neither of them wanted to be the one left behind.
Rie was thinking of a plan. “I don't know how stealthy it would be with four of us, and Yu carrying Sharley would slow us down.”
“We can go with alone mother, even if those two die.” Neko's cruel dismissal for Yu was heartbreaking.
After objections, Rie announced her new plan. “Then I'll leave Sharley here and the three of us will go up. When I get what I want, we'll come back here. There are different exits further down this tunnel so we can get back to home and complete the mission.”
“If we do that, won't Sharley die in the event of an attack?” He didn't care about Sharley if he was going to rival Yu, but he was surprised that Rie would dismiss him like this.
“If I leave you or Neko here, two or three people might die, but if I only leave him here, one person will die.” Rie didn't seem happy with her decision when she gave that answer, more because she believed it was the way it had to be.
Yu could not reject her logic. As cruel as it sounded, he would go along with the plan and be okay with Sharley’s death as long as he survived.
After all, Yu, past and present, would rather another human being die than him. Even if others called it selfishness, he did not take their words as sincere. There might be heroes who would lay down their lives for people they didn't know, but Yu was not one of them.
And Yu believed that most people thought like him. Anyone else in Yu's place would have preferred the death of Sharley, a boy he didn't know, rather than risking his own life. In short, as long as Yu was alive, he was fine.
After everyone agreed to the plan, Rie went through the hole above their heads in one leap and entered the basement of the tower. The hole was narrow enough for only one person to pass through.
“Neko, you go first.”
Neko stood on the purple light that appeared on the ground and the light solidified into a pillar that carried Neko to her mother.
“Okay mom, we fooled that idiot, now we can leave him and go.”
“Hey!” Yu's cheeks stiffened at Neko's words, he didn't want to stay here.
“Neko...” Rie sighed, creating a new light on the ground. “Get on top of the light, Yu.”
Yu hovered over the light and it turned into a pillar, just like before, and carried Yu upwards. Now all three of them were inside the Sigma Tower.
In the basement was a large cauldron and a hill of coal and wood. Presumably the boilers were lit in cold weather and heated water to keep the inside of the tower warm, so it was a simple central heating system.
“Basically, this is a boiler room.”
Rie waved her torch in the air to investigate, but there was nothing remarkable in the basement except for a few odds and ends.
“Mother, I don't feel anyone.” Neko's eyes squinted suspiciously up at the stairs leading to the ground floor of the tower.
“I don't feel it either, something might be wrong...” Rie began to climb the stairs slowly.
“Maybe it's night and everyone has gone home.” Yu didn't know how their so-called 'feeling' worked, but he had an idea that was ignored by them.
Rie, followed by Neko and Yu, went up the stairs and she felt the door to the basement. The door was unlocked, she slowly opened it and looked out.
“No one's here.” They opened the door fully and entered the first floor of the tower. Yu couldn't see clearly what was going on as they had no light source other than the torch Rie was holding.
There were seats, a reception desk, stairs leading up and corridors leading to places he didn't know. The floor was black and white like a chessboard.
Rie saw a map on one of the walls of the tower, looked it and said, “The museum is on the top floor, one floor below the observatory. We need to go there.”
Rie led the way and they started going up the stairs. As they went up the tower, Yu's nose smelled an unpleasant odor. To find out if they smelled the same, he asked, “Do you smell something too?”
“I don't smell anything,” Rie said.
Neko did not answer. After interpreting her silence as a no, he fell silent and continued to follow Rie.
The stairs were narrow and long. Climbing the stairs here was like death. The railings on the side of the stairs were also low, so Yu was afraid to go up. The steps were also long, so it would not be surprising if someone lost their balance and fell down.
“It must be very difficult to get things up and down inside the tower. It's a pity for the workers, what kind of building is this?”
They climbed the floors of the tower one by one. As they went up, the smell in Yu's nostrils was getting stronger, now he was sure something was happening.
“I smell something burning, don't you still smell it?”
“Your nose is broken, stupid creature.” Unable to smell it, Neko replied mockingly.
“I'm serious, there's a fire.”
Rie turned and looked at Yu. Even though she couldn't smell it, she was taking Yu seriously.
“Are you sure, I still can't smell it?”
“Yes, I'm sure. It's the smell of burning,” he sniffed the air some more, making sure it was the smell of burning again.
No matter why Rie and Neko couldn't smell it, Yu was sure of it. The higher he went, the stronger the odor he smelled. Since Yu's nose wasn't broken as Neko claimed, the reason for the smell was that something was on fire.
“If there is a fire, why aren't the people in the tower taking action?” asked Rie.
“That's another strange thing, I haven't heard a single footstep in the tower belonging to anyone other than us. Maybe people are asleep because it's nighttime, but considering that this is also an observatory and a museum, there should be researchers moving around inside, and if not them, there should be security. The fact that we haven't met anyone so far makes me uneasy.”
It could be considered a good thing that they hadn't met anyone because they didn't want to be caught, but they should at least have heard the footsteps of the security guard protecting the museum. There was danger in the silence.
“Maybe they ran away because of the fire?” Neko suggested, but Yu immediately disagreed.
“They would have tried to put it out first to protect the books here and the things in the museum, or we would have seen them evacuating things.”
This wasn't a small house, there had to be things inside that were too valuable to abandon.
“If there's a fire, we have to hurry.”
“Is the smell coming from upstairs?” Rie's face tensed, the most serious Yu had ever seen it.
“Yes.”
“What I want to get is upstairs, I need to get up there.”
“There's a fire up there.”
“But I have to get it.” Rie's voice was harsh enough to make it clear that she could not be persuaded otherwise.
“Really, young lady?”
Before any of them realized it, a skinny human appeared in front of Rie. A woman, judging from her cheerful voice, handed Rie a long skewer and spoke from behind a white clown mask with an eerie smile etched on it.
“Oh my, did we have to meet you around here, huh?”
She was unhealthily skinny, short, and her rainbow-colored clown suit was embroidered with flowers, animals, hearts, and stars, and her belt around his waist had many skewers. Her unkempt, curly blue hair, sticking out from behind the mask, was covered in blood, like her dress, and fell over her shoulders.
“You!”
Did she know her? If they knew each other, Yu hoped they were friends. Rie had said she was a witch and creepy lady seems like someone who could be a witch’s friend. Although he didn't think the freak woman standing in front of them would make any friends. In fact, if they were friends and she was here to help them, Yu would feel a great relief in his heart.
But Rie's tone was not the warmth of meeting a friend, but the anger of meeting a hated enemy. Although Yu couldn't see Rie's face because he was standing at the back, he was sure that her face was hostile from the tone of her voice.
“We have prepared so much for the young lady, and now the young lady is going to leave us?”
The mournful voice that made Yu's skin crawl and his blood run cold came from right behind him. He quickly turned around to see the fat clown who had snuck up to the nape of his neck unnoticed. He was the opposite of the clown in front of Rie, unhealthily overweight despite wearing the same style of clothes, tall as a giant and wearing a white mask with a mournful expression etched on it. He had a scythe as weapon.
Without a second thought, without wasting a single second, Yu put his foot into the clown's balls.
When the clown groaned and moved his hands to his balls, the scythe fell down the stairs. Yu punched the clown in the jaw to make him go down with his scythe. With his body following his head, the clown fell down the stairs. The clown on the ground groaned, clutching his crotch.
“Sorrow!”
Yu gasped as the skinny clown, shouting the name of the clown Yu had pushed away, jumped superhumanly, just like Rie had jumped before, and stepped between Yu and Neko, bringing the skewer directly to his eye.
All of Yu's fighting ability was applied to the clown behind him. Taking advantage of a moment when his opponent was not expecting an attack, he had struck him in the groin in a move that would have been dishonorable to some warriors, but obligatory to Yu, and then secured himself by knocking him down the stairs.
But now it was Yu who was caught unprepared, expecting no move. Even if he had prepared, he could do nothing against a move as fast as this one. He reflexively closed his eyes and brought his arms to his face to shield his eyes.
“Arghh!”
“Mothrefu-!”
Both opponents screamed in different ways as they tumbled down the stairs, both screaming in pain.
The clown's scream was caused by a red stone thrown by Rie, which exploded when it hit the clown's head. Even Yu felt the heat of the explosion.
Yu's scream was caused by the skewer stabbed into his arm. Instead of going in straight, it went in diagonally and came out above Yu's elbow. The clown's skewer broke inside Yu's arm and stayed there.
They did not stop after falling down the stairs, but continued to struggle and roll around the floor they were on. They broke the door of one of the rooms on the floor and entered. Yu didn't know where he went, but he came to a staircase again. They rolled down the stairs and fell into a small room.
The moonlight coming in through the window illuminated the room. Once in the room, Yu and the skinny clown rolled to different places.
While Yu was still on the floor in pain, the clown recovered and came towards Yu with hard steps and kicked him in the face. The force of his kick broke Yu's nose.
“How dare you attack my brother!”
If his opponent had been someone he could communicate with in a healthy way, Yu might have been able to rationalize his action.
With someone who was frightening in every way, suddenly appearing behind him with a weapon in his hand, there were two things he could do: either cower and run away, or stay and fight. The logic was the same as that of a crow facing a scarecrow.
Yu, who had no chance to escape at that moment, did what he had to do to protect his life against the person who looked like he was going to kill him.
Although his defense was ready, Yu was not in a position to defend his action, nor was his opponent willing to give Yu the right to defend himself. In fact, even if he did, the freak in front of him did not seem to understand him. She was a madman, her angry voice contrasting with her cheerful mask, the clothes she wore and the way she spoke.
The clown raised her foot to kick him on the balls. Yu rolled on the ground and avoided being kicked on the balls, but his body shook with pain as he rolled on his injured arm.
As long as he was on the ground he could easily be killed, he had to get up if he wanted to increase his chances of survival. To stand up, he needed to open his distance. If he tried to stand up now, a kick to the jaw would knock his teethes out and knock him down again and Yu would lose the chance to stand up completely.
He tried to think of something to get up and get away, but the pain that spread through his whole body prevented him from thinking of a plan. He couldn't plan, he couldn't fight. He could only try to escape from his opponent by using the reflexes he had not needed to develop thanks to the modern life he had lived so far.
The clown wanted to strike Yu's balls again and lifted his foot. This was Yu's chance to make a move. Yu drove his foot into the clown's foot on the ground and knocked her down.
As his opponent lay on the ground, he wanted to kick her a few times in the face, but it would have been best to get away from him and run away. Of course, he couldn't do that either, because the clown was in front of the stairs they had come up, and if he tried to jump over the clown he might get caught and things would only get worse for him.
“Why isn't Rie coming?”
He crawled on his haunches away from the clown and stood up, hoping that Rie would come and save him.
His arm, his nose, his whole body was burning in pain. There was blood in his mouth, and even if he spat it out, it quickly pooled back up. He wanted to vomit, but if he did, he would give his opponent a chance to kill him.
Yu was at a disadvantage no matter how he looked at it. His opponent was probably strong enough to withstand the blows he had received so far, but Yu was not like her. His arm was hurting more and more every second and he was losing blood. With a little effort, he could have removed the skewer, but he was afraid of getting hurt and his opponent would not give him time to do so.
The clown on the ground stood up nimbly and, taking two of the skewers attached to his belt, rushed forward at a speed Yu could hardly follow with his eyes.
As the distance diminished in the blink of an eye, Yu stopped trying to think and threw himself to the ground to escape.
He escaped for the moment, but he was down again and his opponent was standing, this time instead of kicking him, she threw a skewer at Yu.
The skewer missed its target and lodged slightly below his chest. The pain of the skewer piercing an organ was worse than any other pain. Yu crawled to the wall and leaned back against it in his last struggles for life.
His opponent was furious, he could hear her breathing furiously. She grabbed another skewer and pounced on Yu. She was about to stab him in the face with both of the skewers in her hands. Yu tried to stop her with his hands. One of the skewers went into his palm and pierced his hand, grazing Yu's cheek, while the other skewer went into his shoulder.
It worked and he managed to survive again, but that was it, he no longer had the strength to endure the pain or the energy to move.
“I don't want to die.”
He couldn't hold back the tears as vomit mixed with blood poured over him. As Yu felt a crisis coming, the clown took another skewer from her waist to make a final move on Yu, who was moaning on the floor.
At this point, Yu had nothing. He was lying on the floor and didn't even have the strength to put his arms around his head.
“Haa!”
The voice Yu heard belonged to the person he had hoped to save him. The owner of the voice appeared before the clown made his last move and a red light filled the room, burning Yu's eyes as well. The clown's scream rang in Yu's ears.
As he drifted in and out of consciousness, it was hard to understand where he was. He found himself in an unfamiliar place, then being carried on the shoulder of an unknown woman. In the scene before his eyes, he was again on the ground and in another scene he was again being carried on the shoulder of a woman.
While his arms and legs were dangling, his teeth were clenched and he bit his tongue because of his clenched teeth and filled his mouth with blood again.
Sometimes he seemed to be able to think, but then he lost his ability to think again. The scenes in front of his eyes would change quickly, and just as quickly he would forget where he was in the next scene.
After a while, Yu began to feel peace in his body. His whole body was being blessed, the warmth his body felt was increasing as he felt better.
“I will try to slow down the fire, heal Yu.”
After the last sound he heard, he lost consciousness again. In none of his previous crises had he ever lost consciousness at such a rate. When he regained consciousness, he felt better than before, but it was strange to meet a person he didn't recognize every time.
He felt relief in the place of the skewers that had been removed from his body, and the healing mana being transferred into his body was healing Yu's mind as well.
Unexpectedly quickly, all the wounds on his body healed and he regained full consciousness and remembered what had happened. He also realized who was healing him, the girl with cat ears on the top of her head was healing Yu with white light emanating from both hands.
“I'm sorry.”
He was apologizing to Neko, but he didn't know why he was apologizing.
Neko didn't answer him and continued to cast her spell. Being healed by magic didn't feel real to Yu. He was conscious, there were no convulsions, there was a bad taste in his mouth but no more blood, and his wounds had disappeared without a trace.
It was so hard to believe that this was real that the possibility of it being a dream came to his mind again. The heat was getting unbearable.
“I got what I wanted, let's run.”
Rie came in, completely covered in blood, her robes torn, her beautiful face covered in bruises. Yu didn't know what she had taken, it must have been something small that she had hidden inside her shredded robe.
When Neko saw her mother's wounds, she ran to her crying and began a healing spell.
“I managed to contain the fire upstairs, but there is a fire downstairs too. Right now we don't have to worry about the fire upstairs because it's protected by my magic, but if they get near there my spell will be broken. We need to find an escape point before they come to us.”
Yu came to his senses, but the only thing he understood from what she said was that they were going to escape.
“What about Sharley?” Would they leave the child he had carried on his back all the way?
“I don't know, I don't have time to think about him now, let's go.”
The meaning of that sentence was: I'm not going to risk the lives of all three of us to save one person. Yu could understand that logic, especially if one of those two people was a small child, Rie's logic became more acceptable.
He and Rie were going to look for an escape point on the floor they were on, but before they could even start looking, their enemies in the tower reappeared.
“Where are you going after hurting me like that? We have to hurt you now, don't we, Joy?” said Sorrow. His voice was as sorrowful as his name.
“We have to hurt them, brother. Especially yours, young lady, we are very sorry,” said Joy. She sounded like she was having fun.
Showing that things weren't over yet, their enemies came out for a second round, announcing their names.