“My…tail…”
Shakingly looking behind her, Mia was greeted with the grotesque sight of what remained of her tail, cut messily just above the base spewing blood onto the ground. She tensed up, confusion and pain swelling up inside her, causing her to stumble forward, her palms hitting the blood-soaked floor.
Her lower body screaming in protest, her forced movement taking its toll as her mind swam, panicking.
‘What do I do?! My tail is gone! Cut?! It hurts’ such thoughts swam in her head.
“SHRA!”
She was brought out of her thoughts by the scream of the monster, looking up she saw the creature was in a similar situation. Her trident had pierced through the monster’s upper thigh, and its forced movement combined with its pierced leg caused it to fall to the floor, further mutilating its own leg as the trident twisted into its body.
“…Right…” Mia swallowed, forcing herself to focus.
It wasn’t the first time she lost a limb.
The fight wasn’t over, she wanted to put an end to this monster.
She looked at her stats, her health was low and dropping fast, just dropped past 500. Her status [Bleeding out] would be the culprit, had to fix that first.
Which posed a problem, she didn’t have anything to fix it. Usually, she’d just hop back to a previous save if she gained any major injuries, she couldn’t this time, too far back and she at least wanted to see this through to the end, for her severed tail and to spite the idiot that threw her here unprepared.
Now fully understanding the lack of preparations for this unplanned detour, she’d have some choice words to the unknown idiot, she just wanted to check out the dungeon today… she didn’t even have any food… Getting back to what was important right now...
She did what she thought was her only option and froze the base of her tail.
“Hnnn!!!” it burned.
It sure as hell burned.
But it had stopped the bleeding out, she was still losing health but it wasn’t dropping as fast anymore, giving her more time.
She tried to stand but couldn’t even move, she couldn’t feel her lower body anymore ‘grea-AAA!?’
She felt a fresh stabbing pain that tossed her onto her back, looking at the source she saw a familiar sight, her ice dagger cleanly lodged into her shoulder “w-when did…”
“Chah chah cha!”
Laughing…
She lifted her head, the monster’s laughing face and outstretched arm made it clear who was the culprit.
While she was fixing her tail and the monster had ripped the dagger out of its arm and threw it at her “Y-you!” she clenched her teeth, and tried to raise her hands towards it but she couldn’t move her right arm “N-no…” she fell back, exhaustion setting in as her health fell into the 200’s. she still had some mana left but she struggled to move.
She heard the monster screaming, confused, she forced herself to look, managing to look up at just the right time to see the monster tear her trident from its leg, falling to the ground with its leg shattered and limp. Her head then fell back, hitting the cold hard surface of her own frozen pool of blood.
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She laid there, unable to move, only able to listen to the labored breathing of the monster.
Then, a clink, followed by a wet footstep complemented by a heavy drag.
Then another.
Clink…
Step…
Drag…
The monster approached.
Mia glanced at her stats, 116 health, status: bleeding out, exhausted, paralyzed, and 1,201 mana left. She had to do something, anything, with her mana!
Clink
Step
Drag
She started hearing her own heartbeat, it beating faster and faster, desperate to stay alive as the feeling from earlier swelled inside her “ha…haaha...oh..” She understood now, the feeling. It was twisted but it was not a familiar unknown to her, she had felt it before, but to a much more extreme degree. Compared to last time, which was a much more, deep, feeling, it was one that she was numb to due to her ability to save and load, and her familiarity with death.
Clink
Step
Drag
One that was only allowed to fester due to that ability being suddenly hampered, in an unfamiliar place, vastly unprepared, and facing a strong enemy.
It was fear.
Clink
But compared to that primal imprinted fear towards that one lady
Step
This didn’t seem that bad anymore
Drag
She opened her eyes, the monster was standing over her, using her own trident as a support she couldn’t help but chuckle “I might not get you this time…but I will, someday.”
The monster grinned, raising Mia’s ice trident into the air.
“Not giving up.” Mia twitched her head, the frozen pool of blood around her shot up into several ice spears.
“Cheee-?!” The monster, taken by surprise, tried to avoid but with only one working leg and its body raised high it couldn’t avoid in time, several spears piercing its body before crashing down to the ground.
Mia laughed, hearing the pained screams of the monster thrashing around besides her, she had no clue how many hit but she wasn’t done. Thanks to its thrashing she had a good idea where it was, she erected a pillar of ice next to her, the side facing the monster grew spikes and launched them all in rapid succession.
More screams of pain, she had hit, next she wou-
She was hit with something, either kicked or hit with the pole end of the trident, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she was suddenly hit, sliding a few meters and her health was down to the 70’s.
She couldn’t move, she could barely keep her eyes open, she could hear the monster drag its body to her, and feel one of its clawed hands grip the back of her head, lifting her up into the air.
Her barely conscious self glared at its face, its toothy mouth grinned wide as it raised her into the air while raising her trident high, preparing to skewer her atop it.
‘Well… I tried…’ Mia sighed, she wasn’t looking forward to going back to the argument, well, the save was before that, wasn’t it? Maybe she’d try playing nice to avoid it.
The monster pulled back its arm, and thru-
“MIA!!!”
““?!””
A shield fell from the sky, bashing the monster int the head, causing it to recoil and stagger
“Wha-whaa-?!” seeing the vaguely familiar shield and the voice, Mia came slightly out of her stupor, but then she felt a warm feeling come over her that snapped her out of it, she checked her mana, ‘hopefully enough…’
Time started to slow.
Mia still couldn’t move her arms or legs, but she didn’t need to, her ice was apart of her, it moved to her will as long as she supplied the mana. A fact she had allowed to slip from her mind in her panic ‘Using my own weapon against me…’ she eyed the trident, previously raised to skewer her now unfortunately will be used once again by its creator ‘…how dumb.’
With time slowed the trident twisted in the monsters hand, extending its own pole, growing in length and twisted around, the three spear heads pointed towards the monsters head, who was too dazed and slow to react, suddenly grew and pierced its skull threw its eye sockets and ear.
As time resumed, Mia fell to the ground, she had exhausted her mana and was losing consciousness. As she was about to pass out, she heard two voices, one of a panicked girl and another a panicked man, but well, to her it didn’t matter. She’d wake up in the void and load.
And with that, the final strike was hers, and she let herself go, slipping into death.
…
…
…
She opened her eyes, expecting to see the strange white hallway the void had taken to over the past few times she had been here, instead she opened them to a wooden ceiling. She tried to move but found she was unable to, stuffed snuggly into a bed “…what now?”
Was she in the void? Did she load without realizing? No… she was in a bed and this was not her house… the only save she had where she was in a bed. So why couldn’t she move?
“Mia?”
She froze, a voice she recognized all too well.
“Mia! You’re awake! Mia!”
The girl hugged her, jumping atop the bed and rubbing her face against Mia’s while crying profusely.
“I’ve found you! You’re safe! You are safe! Thank everything you are safe!”
Complex feelings welled up inside Mia, She didn’t know how she found her, or why she was here, or…or…
It didn’t matter, the girl previously seen at the pier back at the mainland was here, Mia started crying, unable to contain herself in front of the one family member she had not seen or talked to in years.
Her sister was here.