Free Web NovelChapter 34: Skyreach (1)
The familiar tug of teleportation ran through Misha’s body again.
That awful inside-out feeling twisted through her stomach, crawled under her skin, and pulled at places that had no business being pulled. She clenched her jaw until the world snapped back into place.
Then she felt her boots hit solid ground with a dull thud. She blinked a few times to adjust her sight and finally took in her surroundings.
An empty village spread out before her. Wooden houses lined sides of a dusty road, their windows dark, and their doors shut tight. No smoke rose from the chimneys, and no voices drifted from the alleys.
The whole place looked like it had taken one final breath and then forgotten how to move.
Misha’s fingers tightened around the hilt of her rapier.
It was eerily quiet until she saw them.
A cluster of familiar figures stood near the center of the village, gathered around the old stone well like survivors from a half-burned painting.
She stopped. Her chest tightened so suddenly it almost hurt.
They were alive. All of them were alive.
For one wild, embarrassing second, tears threatened to spill. She swallowed them down at once. Her fingers trembled around her rapier, and she hated that too.
No way. She wasn’t about to cry in front of everyone looking like she had crawled out of a grave.
She swallowed and walked forward.
Nyxie noticed her first. She lifted one hand high and waved like they had met outside a food stall. "Mishy!"
Misha took another step as she raised her hand a bit to wave back at her. "Hey..."
Nyxie’s smile widened. Then her gaze dragged over Misha’s messy hair, bloody clothes, the ash smeared across her cheeks, and whatever expression Misha had on her face. Her bright expression slowed as the hand in the air sank lower and lower until it hovered awkwardly beside her shoulder.
"Oh..." She tilted her head. "You look..."
Misha shot her a sharp look. "Choose your next words carefully."
"I was going to say inspiring." She placed a hand over her chest with great sincerity. "Like a tragic hero. A dirty one."
Misha rolled her eyes and kept walking.
Yara stepped closer before Nyxie could make things worse.
Her silver-blue hair rested neatly over one shoulder, untouched by ash, dust, and sweat. Somehow, after everything, Yara still looked clean. Beautiful too, in that calm and unfair way that made Misha want to stare at her and complain at the same time.
Yara’s gaze softened as it settled on her. "I’m glad you made it back safely."
Her voice carried warmth. Too much warmth. It made Misha’s annoyance shrink into something small and inconvenient.
Misha avoided her gaze. "Well, barely..."
Yara’s gaze lowered to the blood drying near Misha’s white top. "You had a difficult route?"
Misha looked down at herself. A laugh nearly escaped, but it came out as a dry breath instead. "That is one way to say it."
Jules hovered behind Yara, his large hands curled awkwardly near his chest. His armor had dents on one shoulder, and a fresh scratch ran along his jaw, but he still looked more worried about everyone else than himself.
"Y-You’re hurt?" he asked.
Misha lifted both arms a little. "Mostly offended."
Jules blinked a few times in confusion while Nyxie simply snorted.
Misha decided to ignore them both and marched straight toward Elyes.
The mage stood near the well, staff resting against his shoulder, sleepy eyes half-lidded as usual. At the sound of her boots drawing closer, he turned his head and saw the general disaster she had become.
A brief silence passed.
Then he wrinkled his nose. "...You look terrible."
Misha stopped in front of him and gave him a flattest stare she could manage. "Thank you."
"That wasn’t a compliment." He shifted his staff slightly, already looking like he regretted speaking.
"I know." Then she pointed at herself with both hands and leaned in, presenting a tragedy to him like a formal offering. "Fix this."
Elyes stared at her.
Misha stared back.
The village held its breath around them. Even the others went quiet, as if they had sensed a very stupid battle taking place and wanted to witness the outcome. Somewhere in the distance, a loose shutter creaked in the wind.
Elyes lowered his eyelids. "No."
Misha’s expression dropped. "No?"
"We’re not close enough for that."
Misha stared at him for a second, then pointed at Nyxie. "That excuse would work better if I hadn’t seen you wash goblin blood off her."
Elyes looked away as if some random wall had suddenly interested him more than this conversation. "Nyxie was a special case."
"..." Misha went still.
A special case?
Her mouth slowly fell open.
For one strange, deeply unhelpful second, her mind jumped somewhere it had no business going.
Did Elyes and Nyxie have that kind of relationship?
No. That made no sense.
Probably.
She looked between them and instantly shook that thought away.
"You dropped a whole column of water on her! You even dried her afterward!"
Nyxie’s face brightened. "He did. Very gently too."
Elyes face instantly crumpled at once. "Why are you making it sound like that?"
Nyxie tilted her chin up. "Like what?"
"Wrong."
"Oh come on." Misha stepped closer and opened her arms. "Do you really want me to hug you like this?"
That got a reaction.
His face tightened at once. The corners of his mouth twitched, not quite fear, not quite disgust, perhaps both.
Misha nearly smiled. Hit confirmed.
Elyes let out a long, helpless sigh. He lifted his staff and muttered under his breath.
Pale blue light bloomed above her head, spinning into a magic circle that hummed with clean, cold mana. Then, a chill ran down her scalp.
Water drifted out of the circle in thin ribbons, gliding through the air like silk threads. They wrapped around her hair, her face, her arms, and her clothes. The dirt loosened first, then the sticky, awful feeling of dried blood and sweat vanished all at once.
Misha shut her eyes. The relief hit so hard her knees nearly gave out.
If Elyes demanded eternal loyalty in exchange for this shower spell, she might consider it.
Nyxie planted one hand on her hip and pointed the other at the magic circle. "That’s not how you clean me up." ƒreewebɳovel.com
Elyes did not look at her. "You need rough cleaning. You had goblin blood in your hair and tried to shake like a wet dog. That was a threat to everyone nearby."
"I didn’t do that!"
Misha let the bickering drift past her. For once, she had no interest in joining in, she was exhausted. She simply stood there with eyes closed.
The water slid through her hair, cool and gentle, dragging away grime from places she no longer wanted to think about. The dust and ash disappear from her body. Her skin finally felt like skin again.
Then, the cold water vanished.
Misha’s eyes snapped open as she immediately grabbed a fistful of her cloak and yelped. "Now dry me!"
Elyes lowered his staff halfway and looked at her as if she had personally added three more problems to his day. Nyxie already counted as several. Misha, apparently, had joined the list.
She clasped her hands under her chin and lowered her voice into something dramatic and pitiful. "O great one, please have mercy on me. I suffered."
"You are making me suffer now." Elyes rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Yes, and that’s sad for you. Dry me"
His eyes narrowed.
Misha held the pleading pose as others watched in silence.
Jules looked concerned. Yara covered a small smile with her fingers. As for Nyxie, she looked like she had discovered a new form of entertainment.
The mage stared at her for another second.
The truth sat plainly on his face. He had already planned to dry her from the start. He just didn’t like to be told. It tempted him to do the opposite.
He clicked his tongue and muttered another spell.
A soft current of warm air curled around her body. It slipped through her clothes, ran through her hair, and chased away the last trace of dampness in seconds. The warmth settled over her skin like sunlight after rain.
Misha froze, then she looked down at her hands. Her fingers no longer carried black ash in the creases. Her white crop top returned in its proper color. She might have wept for real this time.
Slowly, reverently, she raised her head and looked at Elyes. "You have no idea how much I love you right now."
Elyes scrunched up his nose as if she had tossed something rotten at him. "I don’t like every word in that sentence."
A laugh burst out of her before she could stop it. "Would ’I hate you’ make you feel safer?"
"Immensely." Then he gave her a long, tired look. He lowered his staff like he wanted to pretend none of this had happened.
Nyxie leaned closer to Yara and whispered far too loudly. "He’s shy."
"I can hear you," he said without turning around.
"That means I said it correctly!"
A few meters away, Gerbaut strode past them with the usual ease of a man who had never truly looked disheveled a day in his life. His armor showed a little dust. That was all.
There was no blood, no torn fabric, and no expression of suffering. He looked annoyingly composed, like he had merely taken a brisk walk through the countryside instead of clawing through whatever nightmare had dumped the rest of them here.
Misha narrowed her eyes at his back. "How are you clean?"
Gerbaut stopped. He looked down at himself, then back at her. His expression did not change. "I moved carefully."
Then a sharp chime rang through the air.
Ding!
「〔FLOOR QUEST〕
Defend the Eastern Wall (0/1)
Survive 3 waves of monsters (0/3)
Failure Condition: Death 」
「 〔WARNING〕
Enemy strength will increase with each wave.
Recovery time between waves is limited. 」
Misha felt it at once. The air changed around her.
The empty village no longer felt empty in the same way. The dark windows seemed deeper, and the alleys stretched a little too long. The wind moved through the road and carried a faint, dry rattle from somewhere beyond the houses.
「 〔SYSTEM NOTICE〕
Preparation Phase Initiated.
Time Remaining: 00:20:00
The first wave will begin when the preparation period ends. 」
Elyes rubbed the back of his neck. "I hate timed work."
"You seem to hate all work," Misha retorted as she looked at him sideways.
"That makes my statement consistent."
