Chapter 28:
Saga of the Three Warriors
Was this what all those sleep paralysis demon memes referred to, all this time? I barely pushed down on my panic as I woke up in this state.
“Now,” said Two, whispering in a sickly-sweet voice, “just relax, baby. We don’t want your little friend to wake up, right?” She leaned even closer to me. It would have felt rather intimate (…this being the closest I’d ever been to kissing a girl) if not for the piece of metal pressing on my neck. “And we don’t want you to die, either…”
My body froze in fear. I had so many questions on my mind.
Had she been following us all this time? We supposedly kept a low profile but I admit we hadn’t been quite that vigilant.
Also, why would she wake me up like this?
She answered this second question of mine as if reading my mind.
“The time for our fight has not come yet,” she said softly. “I need to see you suffer more. I need to see you squirm as you realize your true worth… and despair.” She gave a very soft giggle.
A part of me wanted Kai to wake the fuck up already and help me. Another part was scared that if that happened, this insane bitch would just stab me and get it over with.
Was I completely at her mercy? While my hands were free, cantrips would probably be too weak and the stronger spells would hit both of us.
No, wait. Right now I had some other spells at my disposal…
“…Oh?” she mumbled as I activated one of them.
Her body very lightly separated from mine—as she began floating in the air.
This floating spell was one of the very first things Jarred taught me. While not directly useful for combat, I wondered if we could use it against this very woman… although not in the way I did it.
Before she recovered from the sensation of suddenly floating away like this, I willed my body to move and rolled away from under her, falling from the bed.
At the same time I also wrapped my body in a protective spell—I wasn’t sure how resistant it would be against a knife, but at the very least it cushioned my fall on the floor.
“Haha! What a naughty boy you are!” The woman had apparently abandoned any notion of stealth, because she squealed this out loud. She landed on my bed.
“Wha… h-hey, what’s going on!?” As expected, this noise finally made Kai wake up.
But I had no time to deal with him. Instead, I raised a hand and shot a lightning bolt.
Electricity crackled, lighting up the dark room—and was gathered, to my surprise, in a certain spot.
The very knife she was holding seemed to gather and absorb the electric strike. I widened my eyes as I realized what this meant.
There was no time to think or do anything else, however, as an arrow swished from within the darkness and struck the bed, missing her only by inches.
“Hmph. What a bother… it was supposed to be our quality time together,” the woman said with yet another giggle. “Too bad you weren’t alone in your room. We’ll have to postpone this yet again…”
“Wait!” I called, but she just threw her body from my bed and out of the adjacent window.
It was a second story floor, but I somehow doubted she would even sprain her ankle or anything like that. As I rushed to the window and stuck my head outside, I couldn’t even see her anywhere. I looked up as well, but there was no trace of smoke or the sounds of the jetpack activating or anything like that.
I later realized she was probably just hanging from the window and waiting for me to look away or something, but that didn’t matter.
Turning back, I could see Kai was still standing there with a nocked arrow—but presently lowered his bow.
“What the hell, C?” he asked.
Before I could answer him, however, the door to our room was pushed open and a new opponent entered.
No, not an opponent. It was just Saga, her hair a mess as she brandished her blade.
She glared at us. “What happened here?”
“Two attacked me in my sleep,” I grumbled. “She’s gone now, though.”
“Hah?” said Saga, her voice a mix of confusion and her usual scorn.
“Isn’t that nice, C? You’re finally popular with women, just like you wanted,” said Kai, perhaps trying to relieve the tension.
“Oh, shut up. It’s not like I want the crazy ones,” I grumbled.
Saga then said she was going outside to find Two. We tried stopping her, but she ended up returning soon with empty hands and we decided to go back to sleep for whatever was left from the night.
Unfortunately, thinking that Two might come back at any moment made it impossible for me to fall asleep again. I just lay in bed until the sun came up again.
I was so, so tired. Luckily, Jarred had also taught me a small spell that, while not actually getting rid of fatigue as such, alleviated its effects, including the resulting headache and numbness.
“You alright, C? I could hardly sleep,” Kai said to me, yawning.
“Meh,” I summarized. I decided not to mention or share my spell with him.
“We should probably leave this place soon… maybe even today,” he told me seriously.
I knew he was right. “Today’s a bit… let me at least learn a few more spells, alright?” I said to him, then thought. “I guess we can go to a different inn just to be safe. Anyway, I’m off! I’ll let you take care of that!”
“H-hey!” Kai called after me, but it was already too late; I didn’t want to waste any time, since I was up this early already.
Wearing my cloak, I purchased some fluffy bread from a nearby bakery and hurried to Jarred’s place. Both Marita and him were quite unpleased to see me so early in the morning, but I insisted I simply had to learn things as quickly as possible.
Besides, I had a very important question.
“What is it, young chick who’s all talent but no manners?” the old man barked at me.
“That metal you’ve shown me… Garage? Antimage? Whatever the name was,” I prefaced. “Can it be fashioned into a weapon?”
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