Chapter 77: Mama, You Should Know
I felt a little nervous. From what I remembered, the Survivors only had cold weapons. There was no mention of them ever having the financial capability to get their hands on an iridescent stone.
Unfortunately, no matter how unlikely it was to happen in the game, it ended up happening here. I saw the mana within the stone fluctuate, filling in the pre-carved gaps in the stone to form a complex spell.
...Well. Hopefully, it wasn't anything too big.
"Did you really think I didn't come here without a plan? Now all of you will die, this spell has more than enough power to wipe you out!"
The leader shouted that as the spell completed. It made me feel a little disgruntled. I could tell she wasn't lying. But it was also understandable. I mean, nobody was going to take the time and effort to engrave a water ball spell like that.
Yet, while it was understandable...
"What the fuck."
...That didn't mean I was too happy about it.
A vine ruptured out of the ground, sending long cracks across the floor and scattering dirt into the air. That vine rapidly grew into several different stalks, branching out into several directions. And at the top, a gaping maw that resembled a venus fly trap had appeared. The only difference being that there were actual teeth in the mouth, and the fact that they were sharp.
Cold sweat formed on my back.
The vine monster looked down at us with a gaze of contempt, almost like we were insects.
I knew that there was no way in hell I could do anything about that thing. It wasn't like a sword could just cut that thing down. Well, I guess if you were a swordsman in an anime, sure, but I'm not one.
It let out a roar, shaking the ground, and nearly bursting my eardrums.
Hm. I did isekai though...
The vines and gaping mouth shot down toward me.
Wait, no those were stupid thoughts. Shit, was Nathan nearby? If he used his giant flamethrower thing, then he might be able to kill it. But then again when I eyeballed it, this thing was like, around ten meters tall.
My entire vision was filled with the sight of the vine monster's mouth.
No. Even if Nathan was good, it would require a bit of luck for him to one-shot this thing. On top of that, he needed roughly a minute to even channel the spell. And from what I could tell, I had about one and a half seconds before I ended up being-
"Insolent!"
Jess flicked her arm. A massive wave of white mist shot out, freezing the vine monster the moment it came into contact, coating it in a thick layer of ice. However, it did far more than just immobilize the vine monster. The ice continued to spread out and directly enveloped almost half of the members wearing black cloaks.
It even went further past the gaps between people and left irregular marks of ice on the nearby houses and paths.
I looked down at my cloak and noticed that some frost had formed on the outside.
The cold sweat on my back just got even colder.
Shit, I forgot that Jess was already a well-established mage. From what I could tell, this spell belonged to the Domain Class. That was definitely not an easy spell to cast. Even in the game, the main protagonist can only learn these kinds of spells in the third year.
While she was only in her second year at the Golden Gold School, she was in Class S.
I let out a soft sigh.
"Thanks for that."
Jess crossed her arms and turned away.
"It's only natural."
Yet, right when I was letting out a sigh of relief-
"Hahaha, you sure have some impressive magic there girly. But how long can you keep doing that, I wonder?"
The leader walked out from behind the vine monster that had shielded her. She lifted the iridescent stone above her head confidently. There was a small crack in it, but other than that it was still usable.
I turned to Jess.
"Hey, you can do that again, right?"
In response, she just furrowed her brows deeply. I cleared my throat, and decided to repeat myself just in case she couldn't hear me.
"Right?"
Jess only frowned.
Ah. Now that I think about it, Domain-Class spells were also notorious for using up a large amount of mana to match their devastating effects. Jess herself didn't have much practical experience and must've gone super overkill in order to deal with that vine monster.
...and now she had no mana left.
I watched as the iridescent stone lit up once more with mana.
Hm. Did this mean we were fucked now?
Suddenly, my memory flashed back to the time I was with Raisa in the carriage. Just like that time, I could sense that mana fluctuation in the distance. What if... What if I...
A strand of mana shot out of me, rapidly traversing toward the iridescent stone. And with all the force I could muster, I yanked at the mana.
Another crack formed in the stone. But this time, the spell was canceled before it could activate. I let a long sigh of relief out. As for the leader, an ugly and confused expression formed on her face as she looked at the stone.
She tried it once more, but I just yanked at it once more.
A third crack formed on the stone. The leader mumbled several curses one after another under her breath. Jess blinked a few times, a bit baffled by the woman's strange behavior.
Then it happened again.
The woman didn't hold back this time, instead explicitly yelling and stomping her foot.
"What? Why the fuck isn't it working? There should be more than enough mana!"
Hearing this, I could help but burst out laughing. Both Jess and the woman looked at me strangely. After calming down slightly I pulled down my mask and pretended to be cool, shrugging my shoulders.
"Why don't you try activating it again? Though, without my permission, nothing will happen."
The woman's eyes widened.
"What? You are the cause?"
Raisa's words about being a heretic flashed through my mind. I then tapped onto the pendant I was wearing a few times.
"This thing right here makes all mana in the area my domain. Whether or not you can cast your spells depends on if you have my permission. I must say, I was quite curious about what spell you were so confident about. But after seeing it, I can't help but feel..."
I tilted my head to the side.
"Disappointed."
That was obviously a lie, but I wanted to sound cool, so-
The look Jess gave me simply became a stranger. As for the leader, she didn't even consider moving further away and began channeling the spell once more.
"No, I refuse to believe this!"
To be honest, it caught me off guard and I almost wasn't ready. But it turns out that mana can travel several meters in just a split second.
Then, the iridescent stone shattered, becoming several tiny little pieces scattered across the ground. She proceeded to fall to her knees and brushed her fingers across the fragments, mumbling to herself like a crazy person.
Huh.
This woman was acting as though her career depended on that thing.
"T-The only thing keeping me the indisputable head of the organization... is gone!"
Oh. I guess her career did depend on it.
Now that I think about it, this whole incident was going to make it even harder for me to get any people to sit at the damn people and have a meal. A flood of fatigue and annoyance threatened to overwhelm me, so I just pushed away those thoughts for now.
Seeing their leader fall, the surviving cloaked figures decided that fighting was no longer worth it and ran away with all their might. The guards didn't chase after them, because they weren't supposed to in the first place.
But there was one that ended up staying behind.
It was a woman. She was still holding onto Gray, who was still struggling until now. The woman looked rather lost, not knowing what she was supposed to do. Looking at her, I coughed.
"Just let go of the kid and run away. What are you still doing here?"
At my words, the woman flinched and let Gray go. After staring at me for another few seconds like a creep, she turned tail and bolted off. Upon being let go, Gray looked around until he spotted me, then ran towards me with a bright smile on his face.
"Thank you, good person! You dealt with all the bad people!"
I let out a laugh. Once he got up next to me I patted his head once more.
"I didn't do much. It was the guards and the kind girl next to me that did most of the heavy lifting."
He pouted after I said that.
"But you still did the most!"
A smile formed on my face. I was definitely getting more credit than I was due, but it didn't feel so bad.
"Thank you, thank you."
I turned to look behind me and saw his mother still in a mess over the scattered fragments. It was almost like she was the one that shattered and not the stone. Without realizing it, I let out a sigh.
I rubbed the blood off my sword with my cloak before sheathing it. I also semi-cleaned my mouth by wiping it with a sleeve, though that might've just made it messier.
"Hey, kid."
"Yeah?"
Gray enthusiastically responded to me. It made me feel a bit lethargic, to be honest. Without responding to him, I slowly walked toward his mother. He followed from right next to me like we were on a walk.
Once his mother was in front of us, I pointed at her.
"Since she's your mother, then you should decide what to do with her. Though, it seems like she's already paid the price back in full from her reaction."
Under normal circumstances, I would have killed anybody that tried to take my own life. If possible, I would want to make it a tiny bit more painful as well. However, this was still someone's mother.
It would probably be pretty hard for this kid to live without a mother after all.
Hopefully after this, she can stop her crazy deeds and the two of them can become a happy fam-
"I want to kill her."
...Huh?"
"Sorry, what did you say?"
I was so baffled by the words that came out of his mouth, that I had to hear them again.
"I want to kill her."
Gray's words rang out with the exact same intonation as before. He made it very clear. However, it looked like his mother hadn't even heard him. Seeing this, Gray called out to her.
"Hey."
...
"Hey!"
...
"HEY!"
Gray stepped on top of the fragments and looked down at his mom, forcing her to look up.
"Mom. You want to keep controlling the friends you made, right?"
His mother instinctively started to nod, but quickly shook her head instead.
"N-No, of course not!"
...She caught on quite quickly.
Gray smiled when he looked down at her. Was he going to forgive her?
"So you are ok with going back home and no more stealing?"
She nodded hastily.
"Yes, of course!"
Hm. It looks like she was lying, but if the kid couldn't see it, then I wasn't going to point it out.
"Is that true, Mom?"
His mother smiled awkwardly.
"Why wouldn't it be true? You are my one and only precious son, after all."
Gray's tone suddenly dropped.
"Mama, you should know I can tell when you lie to me."
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