Maybe I shouldn’t have immediately admitted that everything was my fault. The girl was now glaring daggers at me. And she was actually pointing a real knife in my direction, too.

Well, would I even have the right to complain if she wished to skewer me?

“Do you plan to harm us?” she demanded.

“N-no I don't,” I stammered, raising my hands ever so slightly.

“Why are you covered in blood?”

I suppose I do look like a murderer with that blood-stained dress. Then again, I am one.

“... It’s alright. This is mine.”

“How is that alright…? Why did you render everyone unconscious?”

“...”

Now that was quite the misunderstanding, and one that I was hesitant to correct. The fact that she hadn’t realized all these people were dead told me that she didn’t wake up long ago, maybe only a few minutes before I heard her yell at the younger girl lying by her side.

Even if she didn’t know CPR, I would expect her to have at least checked if the girl was still alive. This misconception suggested either obliviousness on her part, or that the other girl still lived.

“Is that girl breathing?”

“She is”, the girl frowned and gazed back at her.

… What’s that?

Pointed ears. I didn’t notice at first with her hair covering part of her ears, but I definitely saw that in her motion. Sure enough, focusing on the little girl revealed the same elven feature.

Like most, I had always looked forward to meeting an elf in my lifetime. This was especially difficult in this kingdom due to their more traditional way of life and thinking: elves didn’t exactly agree on the specifics of the nature of magic, to put it mildly.

In any case, it was unfortunate that my first encounter with elves was under such dire circumstances. These two were the only exceptions to the 100% lethality rate that I had empirically found. Had it been because they were elves, or because those two had done something special to survive the exposure to that wave of mana? If it was the latter, that would mean that a few other people could have used some kind of trick to survive in a similar fashion.

Frankly, I couldn't find a convincing explanation for how elves would be immune to that. One could have naively conjectured that their massive mana pools protected them, but I was fairly certain that a mana rejection response was in fact stronger and more violent the more mana one had. Having more mana wasn’t like having more antibodies to help during an infection, and would actually intensify the burden on the body. That was one of the reasons why I had been looking for survivors in the commoner district instead of the noble district or the castle.

Based on that understanding, that should have made elves even more prone to dying. I had never heard of elves’ mana not interacting with that of humans, either.

“There seems to be a misunderstanding,” I resigned myself to say. “Everyone else is dead, not unconscious.”

“What…?”

With now a frightened face, she glanced around frantically. Realizing everyone had been dead the whole time was a chilling thought, one that I could relate to.

In my case, the idea that rigor mortis was slowly setting into those bodies at this very moment was making me want to throw up.

She’s towering…

I had thought Mia was tall, but she didn’t even come close to that elf girl. She seemed to be about twenty years old but, given that she was an elf, she was probably older than that. I didn’t expect her to be a century old, however, or even half that age. While their life expectancy was larger than mine, it wasn’t absurdly so. Though it was still enough for the collapsed one to look even younger than me despite potentially being in her twenties. Maybe.

As I was pointlessly making an educated estimation of their age, my stream of thoughts was interrupted when I saw the girl’s mouth silently moving.

And, in an instant, all strength left my body. Not that I had any to begin with, as I had been propelling myself by forcing mana-fueled cross-bridge cycles in my muscles the entire time.

Although my current condition could have been another backlash for pushing my body way too far, it had happened a bit abruptly and with a suspicious timing at that.

Whatever the actual reason, I naturally crumpled bonelessly to the ground and felt my consciousness abandoning me as well.

***

"Good," she said. "The temperature is finally decreasing."

Feeling a warm hand on my brow and hearing a soft, caring voice, I eventually opened my eyes. Before me stood a brown-haired, blue-eyed girl.

What is going on? Where am I?

It was only when I noticed the pointiness of her ears that I was able to put two and two together, after which I took stock of my surroundings. I found myself lying in a bed, feeling a bit constrained by what felt like bandages.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Did you treat my wounds…? Why?”

“You were in a pitiful state, I couldn’t just leave it at that.”

“You should have… Why didn't you let me die?”

"You weren't bleeding out, so I can't say I saved you."

That may have been true, but she could have easily exacted revenge while I was defenseless. That was a prime opportunity to finish me off, and yet she didn’t take it.

“... Do you want to die so badly?”

“W-well, I don’t, but—”

“That’s all there is to it, then. If you miss your chance to atone, your afterlife will be miserable.”

“Whether I repent or not, I’ll be damned.”

“You made it clear that you regret it, so I'd say it's a good start. Given your wounds, I can infer that it was an accident. Is that right?”

“... And this is why I would be better off dead. Even if it wasn’t deliberate, I am still a ticking bomb that can go off anytime at the slightest unexpected event.”

“You’re welcome to try.”

“...”

What’s her deal?

That confidence of her was unfounded if she thought she would necessarily survive a second time. I could tell the people here didn’t experience the blast in the same way as those who were close to the epicenter. She might have survived this time in some bizarre way, but I wouldn’t bet on it working again with mana millions of times more concentrated.

Or…

Maybe she wasn’t particularly confident in surviving again, but in me not being able to go off.

Uh… I can’t.

She happened to be right. At this very moment, I couldn’t sense my mana. Although I knew that about half of it had been in my body when I passed out, nothing happened when I tried gathering mana in my hands.

This girl had stripped me of my mana. Or rather, as I wasn’t feeling the lightheadedness of mana deprivation, it might have been my ability to interact with it that was impaired. If so, that indeed was an efficient way of preventing me from casting or even maintaining a spell.

Is that the gist of her magic type?

Pulling a target down to the level of a magicless. That was the ultimate debuff for a mage.

In a short period of time, that was the second person I was confronted to that could keep me in check. The first had been Lady Isabelle who, from what I understood, could prevent me from casting my own mana by changing its signature. Though it was more of a property of the mana itself that she altered, not to mention that her spell was associated with an alienating feeling of pure wrongness due to the mana rejection response. Just remembering this feeling was sending a shiver down my spine. And yet, it was likely just a fraction of what I had inflicted to everyone today.

“You should rest until your fever has fully gone down,” the elf said and walked away without giving me the chance to confirm that I was under her spell.

I was left for a while wondering if my ability to use magic had been erased for good. For all I knew, it might have been the case. That girl didn’t seem to be struggling to maintain a constant debuff spell, after all. Or maybe it simply had a time limit.

I did not clearly understand how I felt in the idea of never using magic again. On the one hand, it was obviously a relief. Knowing that there was absolutely no risk of destroying everything around me was a wonderful feeling. On the other, however, the thought of never being able to make mana flow in my veins was making me sad. I was like a duck that was told to never swim in a lake ever again.

Honestly, Serena might have been responsible for getting me addicted to the manipulation of mana.

Part of me also wanted to decipher what my magic type was really about. The details were now a bit fuzzy, but I was certain that I had instinctively understood a few fundamental things in that instant that had stretched for minutes. Even if it was only for a short moment, I had felt like I caught a glimpse of a deeper, more fundamental workings of my magic. I was about as excited about delving into it as I was disgusted of myself for wanting to satisfy my curiosity at such a time.

Mmh?

After a few minutes, I straightened my back in my bed when I heard the rapid sound of footsteps climbing upstairs. Considering her rather calm and collected demeanor, I did not expect the same girl to just pop into the room at full speed.

And indeed, the one who did was a much younger girl with purple hair and piercing red eyes. "We finally meet!"

That was the elf kid that had been unconscious earlier. She might have been injured when she collapsed though, because she had quite a bit of bandages wrapped around her forehead.

At least she's alive... I'm glad.

She was grabbed from behind by the brown-haired one. “What do you think you’re doing?! Didn’t I just tell you to let her rest?”

“B-but…! She's the target!”

“... Which one? Wait. You don’t mean…?”

Target?

Was I about to be seized or killed after all?

“She’s our savior!” the little one proclaimed.

Eh?