“Allee…Get out of here, now!” I screamed as loud as I could.

I knew my efforts were in vain as I was too tired to even scream, and it seemed like she didn’t even hear me because she suddenly took off the collar in her neck and now I’m wondering what she’s trying to accomplish with that.

“You harmed my friend… I will never forgive you!” She said in a defiant tone.

Soon, the collar in her neck turned into a big and thick sword I’m kind of surprised she was able to carry a sword that big considering her height, but it seems like she was more than capable of doing that with just one arm… Where did this girl hide all that strength?

And soon, it started, Allee launched herself against Jaggi in the air but obviously using nothing but pure brute force would do no harm to my former friend, he didn’t even avoid the attack, a fire sphere covered his body and it was the only thing he needed to not feel any damage from Allee's sword, that’s what I managed to see before I lost sight of them while I was resting on the floor.

“Girls… Yes, you girls…” I spoke to the girls who were guarding the gem with a soul-exchanging ritual.

“Y-You’re the one who saved us, right?” Asked a young one with blue hair, she also has light-brown skin and red eyes, she probably has demon blood running in her veins, now that I think about it, they all look the same just with a little height and hairstyle differences, they must be related.

“Yes… I’m Kazz… Could you girls give me your name?” I was in a hurry but I needed to earn their trust, after all, a sorcerer seemed to have controlled these kids just so he could use that disgusting ritual.

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I don’t care about humans, however, if I’m going to do something like that I would make sure to use adults and not innocent kids, I would never use innocent kids for awful rituals like that.

“I’m Unlla,” said the one who spoke to me, she seems to have one missing tooth, she also has short hair.

“I’m Doruxi,” this girl has two blue moles, one on each cheek, and her hair is long.

“I’m Trizha,” this girl has her hair fixed in three hair buns.

“I’m Coojani,” this girl has curly hair and two earrings on each ear making her have four.

“I’m Ceenka,” this girl’s hair’s hair is fixed in five braids.

“Nice to meet all of you… There’s a favor I need to ask you girls… Could you please help me to see the fight? I need to see if my friend is alright,” I felt pathetic, I was asking some unknown human girls for help, and they seemed distrustful of me even though I was in this state thanks to them, and due to that I had no color and neither strength, I look like a sketch or some character in one of those comics from the east that are usually drawn in black and white, I think it's called manga.

“I don’t know… You’re a sorcerer just like Jaggi,” Said Trizha with a worried expression.

“We have other priorities right now, we have to save our mothers,” Doruxi spoke this time and she was on the verge of tears.

“Who are your mothers? Where are they? If you tell me, I’d be more than happy to help you girls find them once I regain my powers” I asked trying to make them trust me.

It was ridiculous to say something like that, recovering my powers could take me just a few minutes but it could also take me years, this is the first time something like this has happened to me.

“They are the guardians of the mountains… The obsidian guardian and this region’s water guardian… They are our mothers,” Unlla tried to be strong.

“So that’s why Jaggi was using you for that… Your kind possesses some magic, everything makes sense now,” I said trying to look as smart as I could. “But… What happened to your mothers?” I knew nothing good was going to come from this question but I needed answers.

They remained in silence for a few moments and it made sense for them to be like that, Jaggi put them through some traumatizing times, even back then when we were still friends, nothing stopped Jaggi and the others from experimenting with me, however, I’m a sorcerer and that’s normal, doesn’t mean I didn’t get scared sometimes though, I can’t help but feel bad for them, maybe it’s because they have magic too.

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“You know why girls… It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, so, go ahead and search for your mothers—“ I tried to make them forget about it, but suddenly one of them decided to speak.

“Jaggi…He betrayed our mothers,” Ceenka, who seemed to be the youngest one said with an expression full of anger.

“How so!?” I was kind of shocked but I knew I shouldn’t, Jaggi is worse than me after all that's something I've always known.

“As you may know, guardian entities like our mothers and us have one job, and that is to guide lost travelers... Jaggi faked being lost in the woods and he took that opportunity to capture our water mother, he used her because he wanted to take control of our obsidian mother too,” Coojani was on the verge of tears.

“And why you may be asking yourself... Well, he extracted their powers and turned them into normal humans, but that’s not all,” Unlla said with anguish. “He transformed their human forms into figurines and the power he extracted from them he gave it to his cat, that’s the last thing we saw before you saved us,” She finished and they couldn’t take it anymore, they started to sob.

Even in this state, I couldn’t help but feel anger starting to invade my body, and I couldn’t help but grip with anger and a lot of force the gem that I was holding with one of my hands.

“Girls… I want you to go to the room that's under this one… All the women that have been transformed into figurines are there… Bring them here,” I managed to say calmly even if anger was making me lose my mind. “I promise you I’m going to bring them back to life once I recover my powers, just like I did with Allee,” Their eyes suddenly lit up.

“Could you really do that for us? We’re not strong enough to do it ourselves,” Ceenka said with a hopeful expression.

I know this was very scummy, I was taking advantage of their desperate situation, but there was no time left for me, so I decided to escape from my own morality.

“Yes… I’ll do it, once I get my powers back I’ll do it,” all the girls except Unlla nodded before they did as I told them.

“I’ll help you see how the battle between Jaggi and your friend is going,” She tried to pull me by my arms, but then I realized she was too strong as she only needed two fingers to carry me around the room.

“You’re too powerful,” I said with complete surprise.

“No at all, more like you don’t weigh at all,” and this was the answer I was fearing, it looked like the only thing left on my body was my consciousness, everything else was empty.

She got me on my feet and now I was able to see what was happening out there and even in my current state, I couldn’t help but feel worried.

“Human… Don’t be so arrogant, it’s time for you to know the power of a true sorcerer, Kazz is nothing like me, trust me,” Jaggi said with an expression full of anger.

And what happened next really made me feel worried, he started to launch fire projectiles from his eyes, the things were so small, but that didn’t stop them from exploding on the ground, it seemed like Allee quickly realized the power those things possessed, so, she avoided them like the plague.

“Running away won’t save you, you’re just delaying the unavoidable end!” Jaggi started to release more and more projectiles faster than he was already doing.

I felt so frustrated right now, Allee was in serious trouble, she was hardly avoiding all those little dangerous things, but what really surprised me was her agility, that’s something I can’t help but admire.

“Is that all you got?” My eyes opened wide, she was in no position to mock him and yet, she was doing that.

“No… Don’t provoke him Allee, he has worse things under his sleeve!” I tried to warn her, but my voice was too weak.

My fists started to close more and more due to the anger I was feeling, the poor gem I was holding was probably suffering a lot, but I didn’t care, it deserved to feel like that because if it wasn’t by this gem, Jaggi wouldn’t have managed to hide the whole town, that’s why he was using the soul-exchanging ritual.

“Let me show you why sorcerers have such a reputation girl,” Jaggi said completely angry, and judging by the position he was taking I knew what he was planning on doing.

He opened his whole body as if he was doing jumping jacks and little by little, his body started to get covered in flames until it turned into a huge fireball, and it didn’t take too long for Jaggi to launch himself against Allee.

“This is too dangerous, I know what he’s planning, Alle run away!” I tried to warn my first human friend but just like before it was useless, my voice was too weak.

“Girl… Run away!” Unlla said taking me by surprise, she screamed so loud that I thought Allee was going to take the young girl’s advice, but surprisingly, Allee didn’t move.

“It’s over… She accepted her faith, cover your eyes young one,” I said to Unlla but she ignored me, she continued screaming at Allee to make her run away from her position.

And just when the fireball was about to crash against my friend, she did something I knew she could do but I didn’t expect her to do it at this moment, she used her huge sword to parry the fireball.

“She… She did it!” Unlla was as surprised as me by what Allee did, but what the young girl didn’t know was that this fight wasn’t over.

“This is going to get worse and worse, that technique is deadly, it consumes a lot of energy but the thing here is that the more you avoid it, the stronger it gets, this technique is dependent on time, and the longer time passes the bigger and stronger the ball is going to be!” My words made the girl beside me feel scared and worried about Allee, and I couldn’t criticize her, I was in the same state as her.

“Just let him explode… He’s going to get stronger as time passes by!” Unlla explained to Allee in my place.

And I wasn’t expecting Allee to acknowledge her, but she did, she gave her thumbs up to the younger girl and now I felt relieved expecting her to avoid the attack to just let Jaggi explode and lose energy, it’s better to face many small fireballs than a huge one.

But Allee seems to be in another dimension, she didn’t hesitate and continued parrying the fireball, and it was getting bigger and bigger, I don’t know for how long they were playing like that but there was a point in which everything changed, Allee’s sword started to glow, a purple light was surrounding her sword and this time, when she tried to parry the fireball instead of reflecting it, her sword sucked all the energy from Jaggi who fell on the ground.

“W-What… She won!?” I couldn’t believe it.

“Allee… Give him the final blow!” Surprisingly, she heard me, but then, Jaggi’s cat appeared and started meowing loudly, and all the cats in the city appeared and surrounded Allee.

It didn’t take too long before they turned into flames, and it didn't take too long before they inserted themselves inside Jaggi’s heart.

“This is bad… He’s recovering his energy, so that’s why this city is full of cats!” I said angrily.

“Uh… Mr. Sorcerer? I think the gem got inside your hand,” Unlla said something that didn’t make sense.

Until it did, my eyes widened in horror as I saw the gem inside my hand, it looked like I squeezed it too tightly that it got inside me, this situation was getting worse.

Curiosity #10: There are a lot of guardians in the wilds even for the most non-sensical things you can imagine and all of them have female forms!