“Is she going to be alright?”

  Upon hearing Dulcina’s urgent question, the Foxkin chirurgeon shrugged.

  “Well, she’s going to lose her left arm,” Kalisa sucked a sharp breath through her fangs. “But she’ll live. Probably.”

  The pair were in Kalisa’s lab. Elen was resting on a surgical table in front of them, completely unconscious. Though covered in blood and badly wounded, she was still alive. Captain Lauren rested on another bed — similarly unconscious, but his condition stabilised.

  Dulcina grimaced. “Is there no way to save the limb?”

  “Young Lady, her shoulder is gone — obliterated, bones and all,” Kalisa pointed out, tapping her scalpel on Elen’s mangled shoulder. “I’m flattered you think I can repair this, but I can’t just magic a whole new limb for her. Hmm, unless… I do still have Gunther’s intact arm lying around…”

  “You have every piece of him lying around, more like,” Cedric mumbled in a corner, looking sickly pale. His eyes nervously darted between the various body parts of Gunther Stormcaller scattered about the lab, including the naked, headless, and organ-pilfered torso hanging from the ceiling via wires. “Seriously, you couldn’t have treated his corpse more respectfully? It’s like a butcher’s shop in here…”

  The pair of women ignored him.

  “She lost the limb because of me,” Dulcina said, regret clear on her face. “If only I were more careful, I could have—!”

  “Eh, I won’t stress too much over it. She was already missing her left hand to begin with, so it’s not that big of a loss,” Kalisa assured her offhandedly as she continued her surgery. “Besides… I get the feeling that when it comes to wounds, not everything is as permanent with her as it is with the rest of us.”

  Dulcina frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Not telling~” Kalisa laughed. “Some secrets are funnier when they are revealed later.”

  “Look, I can see you are all very busy, but I need to go back and grab that crazy pyromaniac of yours,” Cedric said urgently. “He has something I really need, and I’d rather get it before the boy gets himself killed, or—!”

  Cedric didn’t finish before Kalisa nonchalantly grabbed a vial from her coat and tossed it at him.

  The assassin caught it instinctively. “What’s this?”

  “Basilisk anti-venom,” Kalisa replied, ignoring the man’s wide-eyed shock as she placed the finishing touches to Elen’s wounds. “I highly recommend drinking it now. The venom has already petrified your liver and is in the process of turning your spine to stone.”

  Cedric quickly opened the vial and churged the contents. Seconds later, the sickly paleness of his skin receded, and when the man moved, there was a fluidness that wasn’t there before.

  “Oh, thank the Goddess, that feels so much better,” he groaned in relief. “I’ve been subjected to poison training before, but that’s the absolute worst thing ever. Now that this unpleasantness is behind us… How about we go for a walk, princess?”

  Dulcina pulled out her weapon. “Don’t you dare move!”

  Cedric smirked. “Look, no hard feelings. Job’s gone to shit, and I can’t go back to my boss empty-handed. Your little murder monster’s not here to save you now, so why don’t you come quietly, and we can make… this… civil…”

  The assassin collapsed to the ground.

  Dulcina stared at him for a moment, watching as the unconscious man snored on the floor.

  She turned back to Kalisa. The Foxkin almost looked insulted at Dulcina’s questioning stare. “What? You really think I would just throw him a cure that easily? The man’s a rat. I dealt with his type a hundred times before. I drugged the serum. He will be out cold for the next few hours.”

  “So he wasn’t actually dying?”

  “Oh, no. He was minutes away from total organ failure. I just figured you would want him alive for interrogation.”

  Dulcina sighed. “I do. Thank you.”

  “You can thank me by letting me do the interrogation. There are many experiments I want to try, and good guinea pigs are so hard to come by these days,” Kalisa giggled, her tail wagging.

  The castle grounds shook. Dulcina stumbled, while Kalisa’s smile widened.

  “Perhaps I’ll have a few more bodies to work with before the day is done. That boy always brings me the most interesting specimens…”

  ~~~

  Eri groaned for the umpteenth time that day, waking up from a semi-unconscious state.

  The first thing he noticed was that the surface beneath him was sinfully soft and warm. It was a struggle not to be lured back to sleep. He buried his face further into his pillow, sighing blissfully.

  “For a boy your age, you’re a real pervert, you know?”

  An unfamiliar voice. Eri’s eyes shot open.

  The first thing he saw was the unimpressed, emerald gaze of the red-haired witch, her lovely face inches from his.

  Eri blinked, then he looked down, and realised his body was lying atop the minstrel’s. His head had been resting on her well-endowed chest.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  The boy’s face turned bright red. He didn’t dare move.

  “I hope you’re comfortable. I’m not. That heatbutt of yours broke my neck. Can’t feel my toes or move my arms anymore,” the woman sighed. “At least the pain’s gone, so there’s that. But honestly, I would rather you just kill me. You’ll be doing me a huge favour.”

  Eri still didn’t move.

  The woman glared at him. “Oi, boy.”

  “Y-yes?” Eri nervously said.

  “Get off already. That thing pressing up against me better be your knife, or I swear to the Gods, I’ll—”

  “It’s a knife! It’s a knife!” Eri scrambled off her, careful not to let his hands touch anywhere on her body. “I’m so sorry!”

  There was a cold moment of clarity as the boy remembered that the woman was his enemy and that she had been trying to kill him mere moments ago. He shouldn’t be feeling sorry for her at all. If anything, he should feel only hate and anger.

  But then his traitorous mind unhelpfully reminded him how nice and warm she was just now, and the blazing blush returned in full.

  The woman sighed. “Can’t believe I got beaten and then felt up by a kid. Will humiliations ever cease?”

  “D-don’t say it like that! It was an accident!” Eri cried out. “B-besides! You were trying to kill me!”

  “Well, I failed, didn’t I? Stop complaining, boy. You made it with a woman, which makes you a man now. Adults can’t complain.”

  Eri felt like his face was going to explode. The red-headed minstrel ignored his distress and continued, voice monotone and bored.

  “Now, as your first task as a man, I need you to take responsibility and do me a favour. Don’t just leave after you have your way. It’s unbecoming. Being new to adulthood is no reason to leave your woman unsatisfied. You got that, boy?”

  “Can you please stop speaking in innuendos!” he protested. “And stop calling me ‘boy’! My name’s Eri!”

  The woman looked at him strangely. “Isn’t that a girl’s name? You want me to call you ‘girl’ instead?”

  “What? No! And my name’s perfectly manly! I-I think…”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Girl, boy, whatever. Look, I need you to cut off my head.”

  “... Is this another innuendo, or…?”

  “You’re definitely a boy, then. Only boys can be this stupid,” the minstrel groaned. “Look. See this collar on my neck?”

  Eri hesitantly inched closer. Her robes had come slightly undone from the battle earlier. There was indeed a gold collar on her neck, wrapped tight around her pale skin.

  Eri grimaced as he studied it. Intricately decorated in sigils though it might be, the thing was a vicious device, with rune-engraved spikes and thrumming nails twisting into the base of the woman’s head and into her spine.

  “What is this?” he whispered, horrified.

  “Slave collar. Dwarven-made.” The woman answered easily. “The Under-Empire used to make these by the millions to enslave the ‘lesser’ races as disposable labour and troops. Small wonder some of them survived to the modern age, given the durability imposed by their race’s legendary craftsmanship.”

  “You couldn’t speak earlier because the device was connected to your brain,” Eri realised. “But me breaking your neck severed the connection?”

  “Yep. It’s more than just speech. Moderates most of my impulses and restricts my thoughts, too,” the woman elaborated. There was a slight tenseness to her otherwise neutral voice now. “And it’s all controlled by that fat bastard duelling your lord right now. My twin has a similar collar as well. We’re toys under his command. No free will, with your minds trapped inside as we watch through our eyes. Unpleasant, to say the least.”

  Eri felt a dark urge clouding his thoughts. He forced it away. “How can I help you?”

  “Oh? Not going to demand a few promises or favours first?”

  The woman’s tone was more sarcastic than teasing, but Eri felt a visceral disgust at hearing her words all the same.

  “No. Absolutely not. Not for this,” he answered immediately. “I can get the collar off.”

  His [Lockpicking] Skill was not the greatest, but he could at least try. The woman stopped him before he could attempt.

  “Won’t work. It’s dwarven engineering. Regular tools will just break, even if you have the skills. Far faster if you just cut my head off.”

  “But then you’ll die.”

  “Not permanently. I heard you calling me an Elf earlier. Not sure how you or that shield woman earlier figured it out, but you’re right. I’m a half-blooded Elf, linked to my twin. You know what that means?”

  Eri shook his head. The woman smiled slightly.

  “It means I can’t die. Not unless my sister dies at the same time. ‘Soul Gestalt’, it was called once. The Elves used to connect their psychic consciousness with entire fraternities. Made them effectively immortal. Killing one does nothing; they would just regenerate straight away. You would need to kill all of the linked souls at the same time to get them to permanently stay down. Might be ten, twenty, or even a hundred of them.”

  Eri struggled to comprehend the idea. That sounded absolutely ridiculous. “That can’t be true. If they had such powers, then how did the Elves ever go extinct in the first place?”

  “That’s a history lesson for another time. Right now, I’d rather you focus on getting this slave collar off me.”

  “Right. Sorry.” Eri grimaced. “So if I cut off your head, I can remove the collar, and you’ll regenerate?”

  “In theory. My sister and I never had the chance to try it before, but given the thorough lengths our captors went to bind our thoughts away from self-inflicted violence, I can only assume they were aware of this design flaw,” the witch said. “I’ll give it good odds it’ll work. If not, well… You'd better run far, because if I regenerate with this collar on, the slave connection will be restored, and I’ll be back to my old mindless terminator self again.”

  Eri exhaled nervously. “Alright. Duly noted. I won’t let you down.”

  “That’s not really up to you,” the woman bluntly said. “Don’t sweat it if my theory doesn’t work out. Not sure if you can even cut my neck anyway, since I’m a Ruby Core while you are still midway through the Metal Tiers. The moment this goes south, or the collar doesn’t come off for whatever reason, you run for the hills, got it?”

  “I’m not leaving like this. I swear, no matter what, I’ll get you free today,” Eri promised, his eyes furious. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll kill the bastard who has you enslaved. You have my word.”

  “Don’t be stupid, boy,” she snorted. “You seem like a good kid, perversions notwithstanding. I don’t want your blood on my hands.”

  “Not just a kid. I took you down, didn’t I?”

  She didn’t snark back at him, to his mild surprise. In her silence, her emerald eyes studied him, sharp and brilliant in intensity.

  The fierceness of her gaze took him aback. He felt oddly exposed, and it made him blush slightly. When her gaze turned mocking and she smirked, he blushed harder.

  “Just a boy. But you’re a boy with a Silver Core who just ascended in the middle of battle. So I’ll take your words as those of a man instead. Keep your promise. I believe in you.”

  She spoke casually, but the laid-back sincerity in her voice still left him stunned. She meant those words.

  The burning fervour in him rose. “I won’t fail you.”

  No more words were exchanged. Eri raised his dagger. The woman looked away — not out of fear, as her eyes remained as bored and lifeless as ever. Perhaps she did do so because she sensed the discomfort in him as he raised his weapon.

  Eri sucked in a breath and struck.

  [Dagger Arts, Hollowfang’s Fourth Form: Life-Emptying Crucible]