“Hey! Stay away from it! Can’t you see it’s weak?!”

“What’s your problem, huh? Who cares if it dies?”

“I do! Now go away or I’ll beat you two up!”

…

“Are you okay?”

“Ugh… those two idiots really roughed you up.”

“Drink this. It’s a healing potion.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just a scra–owow!”

“Haha, that’s embarrassing.”

“Oh well. Run along now. Don’t get caught again, okay?”

----------------------------------------

“You two children are such a handful, you know that?”

An incredibly-miffed voice reached his ear.

“I told you to stop. But, since you’re less developed than a toddler, I guess you can’t be told what to do.”

For some reason, her tone alone was grating.

“Maybe if you used your head and asked for my guidance, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

He wanted to tell her to shut up. The words that left her mouth vexed him greatly.

Who did she think she was, anyway?

He was the hero.

Right?

“Get up, you fool!”

…

Matthias woke up to the sound of dull, intermittent crashing. Though there was a muted sense of pain that lingered throughout his body, he felt relatively refreshed and energetic, like he had just woken up from a good night’s sleep.

He slowly got up and shook the drowsiness off. Curiously, he felt a weight press down on his thighs, and a cold breeze brush across his chest. Strange, he thought. He never had a habit of sleeping without a shirt on. The only times when he found himself lacking a top was whenever Manna was mischievous enough to remove them during the occasions when she would sneak into his bed. Sure enough, as his eyes traveled up his legs, he saw Manna lying across his thighs.

Her breathing was very faint. In fact, it was almost like she wasn’t breathing at all.

Was she sleeping?

A thick fog muddled his thoughts. His chest felt cold. A foreign ache assaulted his ankles. Upon a cursory feel, it didn’t look like he was missing his shirt. In fact, he even felt like he had his usual armor on. But…

There was a hole on his clothes where his chest was.

“Boy. Are you done being a drunk?”

A gong-like sound assaulted his ears, followed by that repetitive, dull sound of an impact. He looked up and saw a little girl with a long veil that covered her entire backside. A strange, familiar mark that looked like that of a cult adorned the entire surface of the airy veil.

Her name came to his muddled head, which he pronounced with difficulty.

“Spear…?”

“Oh. It looks like your brain at least works properly.”

She took a step, and immediately a giant barrier of light spread out before her.

Something crashed into it, which caused a visible ripple to spread across its glittering surface.

“How long are you going to sit there?” Spear asked mockingly. “If it weren’t for your childish tantrum earlier, maybe we could have been having tea aboveground while nibbling on some pastries right about now.”

“... How long have I been–”

“Sixty-seven seconds.”

It was a short amount of time. Perhaps. For anybody going about their regular life, that kind of period would just pass without much consequence. It was even shorter than the amount of time it took for instant noodles to cook. But for those in combat, it was excruciatingly long. It was enough for him to beat down an entire horde of low-ranked undead, or clear an acre of the forest of its monsters.

And if he was with Manna, then he could do all of that in less than half the time.

“Wait… Manna?”

That was when he noticed–Manna hadn’t been responsive all that time. Alarmed, he grabbed her shoulders and raised her torso. He was horrified by what he saw.

Her entire body was battered miserably. The skin on her face had traces of decomposition; her nose had been smashed; there were lacerations across her body, her lungs had collapsed, her knees were crushed… there were far too many injuries on her than he could make sense of.

“How did this… Manna! Hey! Wake up!”

There was no response. Her entire body had gone limp. But, she was still breathing. It was very shallow, but at the very least she was still alive.

“Don’t worry about her. She’ll live. After I’m done with you, I’ll heal her next.”

Spear took another step. When she did, that loud gong-like peal resounded once again. And immediately after, Matthias felt power well up within him. The pain he felt faded away, and was replaced by a feeling of wellness that transcended the effects of mid-grade potions.

But then, he felt his stomach contract violently. He bent over and retched. Spit and acid came out of his mouth along with a bitter and sour taste. And then, blood followed. Unable to control his body, he pulled Manna into his chest so that she wouldn’t be soiled. He regurgitated again and again, with only blood coming out after the first bout. Soon, a large puddle of red fluid surrounded him, which stained his pants a dark red.

“What… what the hell did you do?” he demanded. But in fact, he had sort of an inkling. Unlike when people vomited, he didn’t feel weakened at all. Instead, power welled up within him again.

“I replaced all of your blood. Otherwise, you would have turned in a few minutes.”

“You can do that…? Amazing…”

“Of course. I am your “guide,” after all.”

She took another step forward and re-erected the barrier of light. The sound of repetitive impacts from the other side continued. At that point, her magic was the only thing that stood between them and certain death. She then turned her head towards him and said,

“I don’t know if you’re lucky… or unlucky to have such a friend. She ran through hell just to be by your side as soon as she could. It’s almost like she didn’t care if she died.

While I applaud such loyalty, it’s not always a good thing.”

Another step. The peal of a gong echoed crisply across the empty cave. Matthias felt some heat on his hands. He looked down and saw, much to his relief and delight, that Manna’s wounds were quickly healing.

But before he could feel amazed once again, Spear took three quick steps forward, with the gong resounding twice. It induced a violent reaction from Manna, who abruptly woke up and started to vomit blood just like he did.

“Feeling better?”

“Hey. You didn’t have to–”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“What? Rush it? Do you think we have the time? I gave you a bit of leeway because you’re only a human, but your friend over there is made of tougher stuff, boy.”

"What do you mean…?"

"It doesn't matter right now. Focus. This is what your two minutes of wasted time resulted in."

Before then, her barrier had been completely opaque, purely made of light that dimmed into a starry darkness whenever it started to lose power. As Spear spread her arms, that opaqueness slowly gave away. And what spread out on the other side was… a sea of low-ranked. They all shambled towards them with rickety movements before disintegrating into ashes as they made contact with the barrier. Behind them was the skeleton drake, which sporadically blasted them with burning globes of miasma. That was the source of the louder impacts. At the same time, it was the source of those skeleton monsters all by itself.

And then, there was Soleil. She stood unmoving by the necromancer’s side. Her eyes, which he remembered to have regained some sense in them, had returned to being the glassy, dead eyes he saw earlier.

“It’s great that the necromancer hasn’t sicced her on us yet. Otherwise, I would have been taking too many steps. And, boy. You better be careful. As you may have noticed, holy water won’t work here. This area is too far gone from the grace of your gods.”

“... Should we retreat?”

“If you want us to die, boy, then be my guest.”

“What do you mean?”

Spear took a step. As she did, the barrier pushed itself forward against the tide of undead before it, culling their numbers in an instant.

But then, she took a step back; the first time he had ever seen her do so all night. And the moment she did, the barrier disappeared. Immediately, the skeletons rushed towards them like a tsunami.

“What are you doing?!”

Right after he shouted, Spear took two steps forward. The barrier of light came up again. She brought her hands up and her weapon followed suit. It instantly spun at an absurd speed before it launched itself towards the skeletons that had managed to pass through the wall, turning them into bone splinters.

It didn’t take her long to finish. Once she did, she turned her head to him and said, “That’s what I meant.”

“I’m a guide, boy. That’s what I do. I can only lead you to your goal. Otherwise, I am nothing more than a simple cleric. And besides–are we just going to abandon your friend?”

What she meant was that she was unable to manifest her impressive abilities if they weren’t heading towards their destination. For her, retreat wasn’t an option. In a way, she was like a bicycle; only able to move if the pedals were rotated in a certain way.

“So what do you suggest we do, then? Fight?”

He didn’t want to raise his sword against Soleil. And even if he did, he didn’t think he was able to defeat her. Not at all. Perhaps if he and Manna were to work together they may have a chance. But there was also the skeleton drake and the necromancer to worry about. Despite how strong Spear was, it looked like she could only use her amazing abilities for a limited number of times. Specifically, it was only until she arrived where she was “guiding” them to, which was likely towards the necromancer.

And the longer they stayed there, the more they burned through Spear’s chances.

But he truly couldn’t figure out what they should do. If they ran away, they were dead. If they fought, they were dead. Being outnumbered completely sucked. Quantity was a quality of its own.

Spear, after burning through another step to maintain the barrier, thought for a second.

“Tell me. Do you believe that your friend is honest?”

A seemingly unrelated question exited her lips, which caught Matthias off-guard. While rubbing Manna’s back as she was recovering from the blood she vomited, he stared at Spear’s back in disbelief.

What did that question have to do with anything?

“Answer, boy.”

“... Yeah. She is. Honest to a fault.”

Though there were times when she would try to escape responsibility for a minor mishap, she would always avoid eye contact or twiddle her fingers nervously. It was incredibly easy to read her expressions. Though he couldn’t blame her, really. Since she grew up in an environment where her only human interactions were with her parents, it made sense that she knew little about conversational skills.

And that was why he trusted her. He knew that if she were to do anything against the party’s interest, she wouldn’t have the skill to hide it.

“I see… So you believe in her, right?”

“Yes. Definitely,” he replied with conviction.

“Alright… Then, do you still have any holy water left?”

She changed the topic once more into an unexpected direction. He wanted to ask her why, but he was starting to become concerned with the amount of steps Spear had been taking ever since he realized her limits. So, he simply answered her.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Good. Pass it to me.”

He fished for the vials in his pocket… just to realize that he only had one more intact bottle remaining. The rest of them had been shattered, likely from the time when Soleil blew him away to the wall.

One more bottle… What if Manna needed it? What if something happened that prevented Spear from healing them again? A few different ideas suddenly popped into his head, all of which didn’t help save time.

So, as much as he didn’t want to, he placed them all aside and decided to trust in the only person there who seemed to be level headed, and the only person who had an idea of what to do.

But then, she did something completely unexpected once again when she received the vial.

She pulled out a water pouch from her pocket and emptied its contents. Then, she crouched down and picked up a handful of soil before dumping it into her waterskin. Finally, she poured the vial of holy water into it as well. After giving it a little shake, she threw it back to Matthias and said, “Force your friend to drink this.”

“... What?”

“Just do it, boy. Can you?”

Matthias thought for a moment before nodding without much certainty.

“I think I can.”

He immediately regretted it. What the hell would a handful of dirt do? And even if he could do the impossible and force-feed her in the middle of combat, what difference would it make? Or was he just being toyed with? She didn’t seem to be the kind of person to play tricks like that, but he had only known her for an hour or so.

“... But how are we going to fight them? We’re outnumbered.”

“If you hadn’t lost yourself earlier, we could have ended this mess before that big boy appeared.”

She took a step and then stared into the Mirror of Dust. Its surface wasn’t visible from where he was sitting, so he didn’t know what she meant by it. It seemed like she was waiting for something to happen, which only burned through the remaining steps she could take.

“Well… I think this is good enough.”

Matthias couldn’t understand anything she was talking about. She made for a really bad guide, in a way.

“I’ll take care of the big skeleton. Though I can’t beat it, I can keep it occupied for as long as you’d like.”

“What about the necromancer?”

She laughed. By that point, he had already gotten used to how she kept throwing him off, so he was able to maintain a straight face.

“Don’t worry. Your fate still shines brightly. As long as you follow your guide, you’ll be able to move one step closer to your destination.”

“That was not an explanation!” Matthias cried in his heart.

He wanted Manna to help him demand for some answers, but she was too busy trying to force herself onto his chest.

Spear did not give him any time to prepare at all. After skillfully ignoring him, she impatiently jumped back a step and deactivated the barrier.

Just like earlier, the undead horde immediately mobbed them from all sides. But unlike back then, Spear didn’t even bother with the low-ranked cannon fodder that came their way. Instead, she sent her weapon careening towards the drake, annihilating the projectile that it spit out in the process. The triangular tile flew at a speed that caused it to rip through the air, making it impossible for the drake to dodge with its large body. It smashed against its bones with a deafening crash and sent its heavy frame backwards, almost flipping it over.

“Hoo… That should piss the big guy off.”

While she stood there with a satisfied expression, several dozens of skeletons were already just a few steps away from her. Matthias had to run up to her and use Demon Culling’s light to clear the area around them.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked, seeing an opportunity to do so as Soleil hadn’t yet moved from where she was. “We’re severely outnumbered.”

His words made Spear frown. She glanced at him from the side and sneered.

“You lack conviction, boy. You already entrusted me with your last lifeline. But you still doubt me?” She turned her eyes to the drake, who had recovered from her attack. The Mirror of Dust flew back towards her and stopped behind her head, as if imitating a halo. “I am your guide. I, at least, will not lead you astray. As long as you are willing to grind your bones to dust, then your fate will always be within reach.”

Even so, he still could not help but doubt. After all, she was affiliated with the hooded man who was behind the tragic deaths of many people. Though he had only witnessed one, who knew how many of these they have caused in total?

But… she was right. During that one moment at least, he had no choice but to trust her. It was too late for them to do anything else, after all. Things have already gone past the point of no return.

And… he didn’t know why but… he wanted to trust her. Only his mind wanted to put doubt on her words.

“I see… I wish you luck, then.”

“You too, boy… Oh! Before I forget.”

“What is it now?”

“Make sure you take your time, alright? I know we’re in a hurry… but just do it.”

Matthias looked at her with a baffled look, but then shook his head. While he wanted to get Soleil back as early as he could… Spear was basically a fortune teller. Certainly, following her advice would be the best thing to do, right?

He looked back towards his target. Undoubtedly, bringing Soleil down was the key to their victory. While Spear was powerful, she could only manifest those incredible abilities of hers a limited number of times. But since Soleil was too strong even for him to take on alone, he needed Manna's support to stand a chance. It was frustrating that he had to admit it even without having fought her seriously yet. But even so, he had no doubts about it.

Still, did that mean he should give up? Spear was right. He wasn’t going to abandon her like he did to those women during the bandit attack.

“Let’s go bring her back, yeah?”

“Sure thing. I have your back. Always.”

He felt Demon Culling’s handle heat up. In response to his newfound conviction, it responded in kind. A light purer than that it normally released emanated like soft smoke from its blade.

Finally, “Soleil” jerked. “She” opened her eyes and stared at him from across the great distance with a dead gaze.

Matthias grunted. He gave Manna the waterskin before he raised his blade.

“... I liked you better when you were an idiot.”