Chapter 215: Chapter 215 - Ambush
PoV: Aurea
"Yaaawn... morning, Yaci."
The night in the Barrens is so comfortable, with the silence only broken by the wind and the occasional monster passing by.
I mean, for most people it would be anything BUT comfortable, exactly because of said monsters.
But the two of us are powerful enough, plus I took a new skill, Aura. It basically signals all monsters in a certain radius how strong I am.
Which means, in my case, that they get too terrified to approach us. We could even light a campfire, and none would come. Though we still opted to not do that, because of nostalgia.
I feel a bit guilty about still using the System. But boycotting it won’t make a dent at this point. We need to destroy it at its roots. And while we don’t do it, we shall grab every advantage we’re presented with.
As we know, our enemies won’t shy away from doing the same.
"Morning, sleepyhead. Breakfast’s waiting for you."
Yet, despite saying that, she comes and lies down at my side.
"How am I supposed to get up with such a temptation?"
Her scent is so alluring. But I know that we can’t take too long to head back. We’re supposed to return to work today.
"Hehehe. Take this as a test of your willpower, if you want. Or you can just give up and accept the sin."
"Nope. I’m hungry."
As I get up, she laughs and tries to grab me, and soon we’re engaged in a friendly wrestling match.
"How cute, the two little doves. It’s nice that you can die embraced to each other."
Huh?
We had just crashed out of the small tent, so I look up and see them.
"You three."
It’s the three angels who participated in the Battle of Steelgarden.
"Die!"
Before we can even get up, I sense some weird vibrations in the ground and jump to the side. But not fast enough to evade the attack completely.
Several spikes rise from the ground, hitting me and Yaci.
"Gahhh!"
I power through the pain to try to cast a spell, but when I move the hands to guide it, only one of them actually moves.
Did it... whaaaaaat?
My left arm has a deep cut right below the shoulder. It probably severed the nerve, as I can’t move or feel anything below that point.
Nothing Mother or Lovelace can’t heal. But in the middle of a fight, this is going to be troublesome.
"Aurea? Don’t worry, I got this."
The spear was right by the tent’s entrance, and she had retrieved it when she rolled and is now holding it, already standing up.
On the other hand, I’m pathetically still sitting down, trying to conjure something through the pain and the lack of an arm.
:::
PoV: Lillian
"Fuck. What do I do? What do I do???"
Saint Lily paces back and forth in her divine temple, alone in the hall. She could sense that her daughter was in danger, yet she was powerless to intervene directly.
"If this was at least happening within Wesgoth... I don’t have enough followers to reach the middle of the Barrens. Best I can do is... Oh, right. I can do that."
:::
PoV: Aurea
I don’t think I can win this one. If only Lovelace were here.
My own health regen skills are quite good, and that is helping a lot with subsiding the pain. But they aren’t at the limb-restoring level. The only not-god person I know that is able to do that is Lovelace.
I’m supporting Yaci as best as I can, boosting her strength and keeping some pressure on the angels. But I can’t fire a more powerful attack spell because of the risk of hitting her as well.
Having only one hand usable really hinders the accuracy of most of my attack spells.
What’s worse, Yaci is fighting naked. Which means no protection from armor. I’m trying to make some barriers to block the incoming attacks, but I’m missing a bit too often.
So she’s slowly getting full of cuts and bruises from their attacks. She’s doing a great job at evading; That’s why none of their attacks are hitting her fully.
Still, this is not good.
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait.
Am I stupid or what?
I move my free hand to where my pocket with the mementos I use to create portals would be, but then it hits me.
I’m naked.
The thing I need to portal to Lovelace is inside the tent. Inside a pocket in my clothes that are in the tent. I would have to get in, search for my clothes, then search for the pocket in my clothes, then open it with only one hand.
If I try to do that now, Yaci will be dead before I could even say the word ’portal.’
The perfect ambush. To be honest, we had it coming. We were too careless.
"Aaaah!"
"Good, Yaci! Keep it up!"
She did the unthinkable and broke through their defenses, hitting one of them squarely in the chest with the spear. We might still have a way out of this.
At least Yaci has managed so far to be the focus of their attention. Also, they are probably underestimating me just because of my arm.
We’ll show them.
I keep focused on supporting Yaci while slowly crawling back into the tent.
The main challenge here will be to perform the search without getting them out of my line of sight.
How stupid I’ve been... During the war I never slept without my uniform on, exactly because of the fear of assassins and ambushes, even within the army’s office.
And now I do this blunder.
At least Yaci is now fighting against only two instead of three. The one who seems to be their leader uses mostly earth magic along with some water magic. The other one is a sword fighter.
Earth magic is easier for Yaci to deal with, as it’s visible and has solid form. So she can both dodge it and parry it. Water she can only dodge, so I focus on blocking those.
One lucky thing is that beastkin tents are really small, as they usually do their daily stuff outside. So I can just extend my only usable arm inside and reach the entirety of it without taking my eyes off the battle.
Still, aiming the positioning of spatial barriers without using hands to direct stuff and point at stuff requires some extra steps in the aria.
Normally I would put commands like ’where hand is pointing,’ but now I need to describe with precision the exact point of space where I want the barrier to appear.
And the aria being spatial magic means that I have to pay a lot of attention to not screw things up.
I’m having to create arias on the fly and chant them while using my hand to get any piece of clothing I can grab from inside the tent.
So I’m not even trying to hit the two of them. Only blocking the water spells. And that alone is taking all my attention. I grabbed a robe dress from inside, but I can’t even afford a single glance downwards at it.
I guess I’ll bring the dress... no, I’ll use my hand to search the pocket. I know this texture. This is my dress. So I don’t need my eyes to...
"GAAAHHH!"
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The third girl.
"You didn’t think that that little attack was enough to kill me, did you?"
She’s fully healed and took advantage of my divided focus to slip behind and stab me with her sword. The only thing I managed to do was to move my torso just enough for the stab to pierce my lungs instead of my heart.
"AUREAA!!! AGH!!!"
Fuck!
I’m dying. I know that.
But I can still do this.
I grab the girl’s arm that is holding the sword still in my chest and pull her towards me, using my own weight to make her fall over me as I fall backwards.
The aria for the taser spell is one that I’ve been using and perfecting for a whole decade. And it’s a touch spell, without any need for directing.
I discharge enough electricity to power a small town as I entwine my legs on hers to lock her body on mine.
"You’re coming with me."
Those are the last words that I manage to say before the world starts fading out.
It’s sad to die again so soon... and without fulfilling all my goals.
But I still managed to rescue my mother, avenge her, and liberate the beastkin from slavery. But the things that make me happiest are the moments I lived with Yaci and Lovelace...
Lovelace... Is this what they call the life flashing before my eyes? I think that I can hear Lovelace’s voice. Yet, everything’s black.
How sweet, to be able to hear her voice again right before I die...
"I love you, Lovelace... Yaci..."
Those are the last words I utter before falling unconscious.