“Are you okay!?” Jasmine asked in a panic as she came to a stop right next to him.

  “No, but-”

  “It's alright, I will heal you right now!” She said, cutting him off.

  “No! Listen!” Tesilim replied, using his good hand to shake her shoulder, causing her to snap out of her panic.

  Seeing that he had her attention, he continued, “We have it cornered. Alyx managed to trap it in place, probably by spending a lot of mana, and now we have the advantage, but not for long. I will heal myself, boosting the spell with chaos; you need to throw everything into those chains and keep it in one place so we can kill it. Got it!?”

  She stared at him for a second or two, processing what he had just said, before nodding and turning to the aberration. Then he felt power roll over him in a wave, and she began to give off steam as a silver-and-white glow intensified around her.

  Turning to the fight, Jasmine saw how Drex’s acid stream had reached a new level of speed and size, the attack visibly causing the drake to lose much of his cohesion with every second. At the same time, Rose was running toward the aberration, but still had to cover a couple of dozen feet; her friend was clearly struggling to keep pace. Meanwhile, Alyx was breathing hard, steam rolling off him. It was now or never.

  She reached deep inside and drew all the remaining normal mana she had, along with enough godly mana to make her feel like she was on fire, but not enough to cause her any permanent damage. Then, with finality, she threw all the mana into her technique.

  “Binding Light!”

  Tesilim forced himself forward to catch the fainting Jasmine, and as soon as his hand touched her body, he felt a burning pain. He couldn't imagine how much pure mana his friend had been using or had just used to make her both pass out and make her body feel like it was on fire. Thankfully, it had worked, and he watched as white burning chains appeared around the body of the aberration, clamping down and keeping the creature in place.

  Drex stopped the stream of acid the moment he saw the chains appear around it. His body was mostly gone, and all that was left of him was the barest amount of an outline. He hoped that with the chains and the rushing Rose, they would be able to deal with the aberration. Otherwise, he would have to finish what he started.

  Rose made contact with the aberration a second after the acid stream ended and the chains appeared.

  “Shield Bash!”

  The attack sent the melting monster to the ground, and she followed it up with a strike of her sword. Annoyingly, the aberration was still alive, and she was struck with a blast of force that made her stumble and fall on her ass.

  Lili had been watching the fight and had almost entered the fight a few times, even though her mana was still nonexistent. Air simply didn't give her enough mana fast enough. The good thing was that the fight was basically over. Tesilim's call had really sealed the deal for the aberration, and now it was only a matter of time before it was killed. On that note, she realized too late that she should have given Tesilim a healing potion.

  Tesilim almost passed out in pain as he somewhat set his bone. He hoped the bone would heal with the boosted heal spell. If not, then he would have to wait until the city. Either way, he could feel his life literally draining from him, and it was time to stop that. Tesilim didn't recall using the heal spell before, but he couldn't remember all the spells he had used. The good thing was that it was a basic spell, so there wasn’t much of a problem.

  "By gentle light and soothing grace;

  Mend the wound and pain erase;

  Restore the flesh, let harm be gone;

  With healing touch, life carries on."

  During the cast, Tesilim chose the target as himself and then dumped all his Chaos Mana, as well as some of his remaining normal and pure mana into it. The spell took effect instantly, and he felt his body fill with energy as the mending process began. A process that hurt a lot. Especially the bone, which did get fixed. Naturally, after the spell started taking effect, and maybe midway through its working, he got the notification and warned his companions, who were all on the ground resting.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  After Rose had fallen on her butt, Alyx had shot a bolt of lightning at the aberration. He didn't think it was necessary, but he felt like it was his last chance to make it feel some pain. After all, the acid had never stopped doing its job, and by the time Alyx sent his bolt of lightning, the monster was almost a puddle on the ground. Rose had also gotten up after his attack and had gone over to the fleshy pile of goo on the ground. Then, after rummaging through the melted flesh, she pulled out a crystal and promptly stuffed it into her bag.

  Lili made it to Tesilim’s side right as she got the warning in her head. She already knew it was coming since she had felt the mana disappear from his body, but considering how things were, it was best that she was close by in case something crazy did happen.

  After such a hard fight, the last thing Jasmine wanted to awaken to was hearing Tesilim in her head. Especially with the news that he was giving her.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  Warning! Chaos Event Imminent, prepare yourself.

  Rolling d20. 11. Rolling d6. 6. Rolling d4. 3.

  ??

  The cave was quiet as everybody, worriedly and expectantly, waited for whatever was going to happen. However, seconds passed, and nothing happened. There were no farts, no pizza, no random music. There were also no portals, no griffon, no random transformations. Even so, no one wanted to say anything in case they somehow jinxed it. They didn't even talk telepathically, though Alyx threw Tesilim a look, hoping there were any windows explaining things, but there weren't.

  Finally, Tesilim had had enough and went to speak, but when he opened his mouth, the words he meant to say did not come out. Instead, random words in a sing-song voice came out. He had meant to say:

  “Well, it looks like nothing is going to happen. Should we check on them?”

  But instead, the lyrics of a song began coming unbidden to him. It took his friends a second to realize what was happening, but they all stared at him once they realized he wasn't speaking properly. And that's how Tesilim sang the entirety of We Are the Champions by Queen, in a cave, after fighting a hard-fought battle against a powerful top-tier C Rank aberration.

  He had to give it to his friends; not only did they listen, but they even sang along during the most iconic parts of the song, the music simply taking hold of them. Thankfully, after he sang the entirety of it, he stopped and wasn't forced to continue. However, a problem quickly came to light once his friends applauded him and he tried to speak again.

  He couldn't speak. Well, he could talk, but not normally. He had to speak by singing the lyrics of the song over and over again. The good thing was that even as he spoke the lyrics, people could understand what he had meant to say. Which meant they could at least communicate. And no, telepathy did not stop the magic from taking hold. Even when he tried to speak via the ring, he would still sing the lyrics of the song.

  If Tesilim had to be honest, the whole thing was rather hilarious, at least for the first few minutes. Then, things got messed up when they had to start cleaning up, and he quickly shut up.

  Upon inspecting the victims of the aberration, the party learned they were not of sound mind. This meant the party had a limited number of options. The first and most gruesome was to kill pretty much all of them. They could do various tests to see if any of them were truly there, but if not, then it might be best to put them down. The other option was to leave them in the cave and wait to contact a nearby tower, hoping to get them help and extra reinforcements. If the party had been at full strength, some of them would have stayed behind to protect the victims, but they weren’t at full strength, so it wasn’t worth the risk.

  The main issue was that the entire quest had been thrown upon them, and it hadn't been a rescue mission for multiple people. It had been a rescue mission for one person. Otherwise, they would have had more help and people who could escort the victims back to the city.

  So, after a brief but intense discussion, the party had to make a decision.

  “We can’t kill them, it's just not right,” Rose said.

  “Rose, trust me, as someone who has seen this many times, they are better off. Not only have their bodies been altered, but the thinman has actually horrifically merged their souls,” Alyx responded.

  “Wait. Aberrations can meddle with souls like that?” Everyone heard Tesilim ask as his singing was translated. The elf had wanted to stay quiet, but this new development worried him.

  “Yes and no, the Eldritch God can grant aberrations access to other types of magic; otherwise, they are stuck with their Innate Mind Magic,” Lili added, causing Tesilim to pale a bit.

  Ignoring Tesilim, Jasmine finally joined in, “I am with Rose; they are victims, so we should at the very least try to help them.”

  “What exactly do you suggest?” The gnome asked, and the redhead responded instead.

  “Look, just place an illusion on the entrance when we leave, then we leave and rest for a few hours, rush to a tower, and get help. If we come back, and a monster has killed them or other aberrations are around, then at least we tried.”

  The gnome considered the idea and nodded in agreement.

  “Just to make sure, we are taking the werewolf, right?” Lili asked and got nods of agreement. After all, they had a quest to complete, and he was the reason they were there.

  Obviously, the problem came when they didn’t really know how they would carry a big werewolf centaur thing out of the cave. Drex was basically a ghost, and things could sort of pass through his body. Additionally, everyone was either nearly out of mana or incredibly tired. Finally, they had a long ass walk back through the rather narrow tunnel, through the forest, and back to Tesilim’s tree.