Zeigel knew he was at a clear disadvantage against Saliza. His right hand is missing and his left arm that was already fractured by the monster's bite broke when he blocked Saliza's attack. Not only that, but she was a level higher than him.
Despite this, he wasn't willing to back down. A potential chance to return home was right in front of him and there was no way in hell he would let this chance slip.
Saliza sprung back up on her feet and started charging towards him while pulling her axe back for another big swing.
Zeigel aimed his right arm at her, drawing her attention to it while charging up a spell.
Once she was close enough, he fired a lightning bolt from his left hand that was dangling at his thigh. His attack struck her chest and paralyzed her momentarily.
It's a good thing you're not nearly as observant as Reizo.
Zeigel created a small blade on his stump and closed in on Saliza. She quickly raised her axe to chop Zeigel down, but she wasn't fast enough. With one swift thrust, Zeigel drove the blade into her throat. As he pushed the blade further in, he couldn't help but feel a little remorseful.
I...I had to do this. I need that shard. This isn't my fault... If that portal didn't send me here, I wouldn't be doing any of this. It's the portal's fault. It's not mine. Saliza died because of that portal, not me. It's not my fault. It's not mine at all.
When he pulled the blade out of her throat, he felt that something was amiss.
She didn't react to getting stabbed in the throat at all. She didn't even look like she was in pain. Is this because of the shard's influence on her?
A cold sweat ran down his face when he realized he had forgotten a crucial fact about cursed shards. They can grant humans abilities. The ability of this shard was revealed to him when Saliza regenerated the wound on her throat, completely healing herself within a second.
He tried to retreat, but a crushing grip on his right shoulder held him in place as Saliza brought her axe down onto him. He was only able to shift his head away while the axe slammed down onto his right shoulder and cleave through his body all the way down to his waist.
He could only look on in horror and accept his fate as his vision began to fade. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was his left hand somehow moving on its own despite being broken. It grabbed onto the shard embedded in Saliza's hand far quicker than he could move.
.....What the fuck? Was his final thought before everything went dark.
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When Zeigel's vision returned, he found himself within a pitch black void with dim orange flames surrounding him. He didn't know why, but it felt as if the flames were watching him.
"Oh god, where am I? Wasn't I nearly chopped in half?"
He tried to walk around, but realized that he couldn't feel anything at all. He looked down to check his body and was horrified to find that he was now a floating mass of blue light.
"I don't like the look of this..."
The flames surrounding him slowly extinguished until only an ember remained. Weirdly enough, the ember looked disappointed.
"I didn't think you would go that far." A faint distorted voice came from the ember. "Even if it wasn't entirely your fault, it's still concerning."
Before Zeigel could demand for answers, the void around him turned into the same blue colour his current body had, and everything went dark again.
He could feel his body once again and when he opened his eyes, Saliza struck him across the face with a powerful slap in an attempt to wake him up.
"OW!" He cried out as he clutched his cheek and jolted up.
What just happened? Did I just die? W-Was I in hell? That can't be right. I'm a decent person, there's no way I would go to hell.
He glanced over to his right shoulder and found it to be perfectly fine. Not only that, but his left arm was fully healed and his right hand grew back. At first he thought it was a nightmare caused by the shard or a nearby monster with strange powers, but the large blood stained tear on his shirt said otherwise.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Seriously, what the hell just happened?
"Are you okay?" She asked, clearly distraught. "I thought you died!"
"What happened? Where's the shard?" Zeigel got up and began frantically looking around for the shard.
"Weren't you affected by it?" He asked Saliza as he grabbed her hand and inspected her palm. The shard was gone.
"I-I don't know what happened. It just disappeared after you grabbed my hand."
No, no, no no, it couldn't have just disappeared! I need it! Wait, why do I need it so badly?
It was as if a wave of clarity had hit Zeigel and he no longer understood why he was so obsessed with getting the shard. Sure, it may potentially be able to create a portal back home or give him clues about the portal that sent him here, but it's not like it's guaranteed to send him home and he didn't really know if he could find those clues just because he had a shard.
Had the shard given Saliza an ability other than regeneration, she would've died all because of his mindless obsession over the shard. That would've caused him even more trouble. Worse cast scenario, Reizo would assume that he's responsible for her death, which he is, and kill him.
Holy shit, what is wrong with me?
He recalled what the strange ember said about something not being entirely his fault and pondered if he was being manipulated by it.
"Are you feeling okay?" Saliza asked when she noticed him spacing out.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He reassured her. "Reizo should be looking for us now, and I doubt he's happy about our sudden disappearance. We'll discuss all of this later."
"Y-Yeah, we'll discuss this with Reizo."
"Don't!" He blurted out. "We absolutely cannot let Reizo know what happened!"
"But shouldn't he know about all of this? He's our trainer after all."
"He's most likely pissed off by now. If he finds out what I- what we did, we'll be in deep shit. He may even kick us out of the vanguards. You don't wanna risk that do you?"
Saliza shook her head in response.
"Then don't say a word about this. If he asks what happened, just tell him we were attacked by an unknown monster, got it?"
"Uh huh."
"Good."
Right when they were about to look for Reizo, a sonic boom could be heard not too far away.
That must be Reizo.
Zeigel aimed his palm at the sky and launched a fireball into the air to act as a flare.
Reizo spotted it and rushed towards their location, reaching them within a second. Just as Zeigel predicted, he was furious.
"What were the two of you doing! You're both vanguards now! You can't be doing reckless shit like this!" He scolded with a voice mixed with anger and worry.
"T-There was-" Zeigel tried to explain, but he was cut off.
"I don't wanna hear excuses!" Reizo snapped. "Just hurry up and finish your remaining missions!"
"O-Okay..."
"For fuck's sake, why are they even pulling this sort of nonsense out of nowhere?" He grumbled to himself.
He's pissed, but he's not asking questions so that's good.
The three of them returned back to the den where the trodons were, still restrained by the branches.
"I'll take the half on the left and you take the other half on the right." Zeigel suggested.
"Actually, I think you should just take them all." Saliza insisted. "Your level is lower so you need the exp."
"If you say so." Zeigel shrugged. He walked over to each of the trodons and stabbed them in the neck. After killing the tenth one, he leveled up.
Neat.
He opened up his stat screen and added a point into each of his stats.
"Done? Then move on to your next mission. Collect 50 edgorn horns." Reizo ordered, still irritated with them.
The two continued with their missions and hunted down 25 edgorns to get the horns. Saliza killed 16 of them while Zeigel killed 9, and throughout their hunts, Reizo kept a close eye on them.
"So what's the last mission?" Saliza asked.
"For the last one, you need to take pictures of various areas in the forest and report any strange findings. Since the two of you don't have a picture taker, I've taken them for you." Reizo said as he took out the same device Jae used to take a picture of their faces along with several pictures of the areas they visited in the forest.
"We can head back to the headquarters now and turn in the missions, unless there's something you two need to report."
Zeigel and Saliza glanced at each other and shook their heads.
"Are you sure there's nothing to report? You two didn't encounter anything strange when you pissed off to god knows where earlier?" Reizo asked, glancing at the damage on Saliza's mask that exposed her eye and the large tear on Zeigel's shirt.
"We were attacked by a strange monster earlier, right Saliza?"
"Y-Yeah, and we scared it off and I don't think it'll come back, so there's nothing to report."
Reiso rolled his eyes and gestured for the two of them to follow him back to the headquarters and turn in their missions.
"Alright, that's ten rank 1 missions with two of them being special requests that pays double the amount, so that'll earn you two 60 dollars, and since you're still paying off your bracer fees, you two will get 30 dollars." The receptionist said as he counted the money before handing it over.
"Ugh, and we've still got ten more missions after this." Zeigel groaned.
"What do you mean?" The receptionist asked in confusion.
"Ignore him, he's tired." Reizo said as he dragged his two trainees away.
"Hey uh, Reizo. We're really sorry about what we did earlier." Saliza apologised while fiddling with her fingers.
"If you're really sorry then stop doing all these stupid things. Honestly, do you even think before you act?"
"But there was a monster!" Zeigel exclaimed.
"I'm sure there was." Reizo replied sarcastically. He rubbed his face and took a deep breath before continuing. "Just please, stop being so reckless and stupid. I can't afford to be losing trainees at a time like this."
"We've learned our lesson Reizo. This won't happen again." Saliza said, trying to sound cheery.
"I really hope so." Reizo muttered under his breath.
"Go and rest up. We'll continue the rest of your missions in the afternoon."