Chapter 10: The Slime and The Vampire
After Charlotte asked for help they took her back to the inn.
"Can you take off your hood now?" Lily asked Charlotte.
"S-sure," the girl replied, taking down her hood. She had jet black hair and red eyes, her ears were slightly pointed and her canine teeth were slightly longer than usual. She had scars all over her neck and face as if she had been tortured, Hannah gasped when she saw them and brought the girl closer to her.
"Do they hurt?" asked Lily. Hannah sent her a glare.
"Not anymore, they just remind me of the pain in the past," she replied lowering her head to hide the scars. Lily shook her head slightly, she couldn't imagine what this girl must have gone through.
"How old are you?" Lily asked, curious.
"I'm not sure, I was kidnapped from my village when I was really small, I used to be an elf. They did a lot of things to me and I became like this. I-I think I have been down there for many years, it felt like that anyway."
"This isn't good, I' nowhere near good enough to fight a Duke's guard and save someone. We should go back into the forest and level up until we can actually fight them. Right, Hannah?" asked Lily.
"Yeah, I think that would be a good idea," replied Hannah. "Charlotte what rank are you?"
"I don't know what that means, I'm sorry," said Charlotte
"Nothing to be sorry about, ranks are like monsters evolutions. Humans go purely by levels but monsters can get stronger by evolving," explained Hannah.
"Oh. I still don't know, I've never seen my status."
"That's ok"
Hannah pulled Lily to the side.
"This girl is going to be a problem she seems a bit weak and will hold us back," Hannah commented.
"We can't just leave her," Lily replied steadfastly. "Isn't there a way to make her stronger?"
"If we do go leveling in the forest we could bring her along, but I doubt that she will be able to even land a finishing blow on the monsters we will be fighting, so that will be a problem."
"I refuse to leave her, we will bring her along, I can't imagine what it has been like for her."
"Yeah fine I guess we will bring her," Hannah said gathering her things and getting ready to set out. "We just got here and we are leaving again."
"Big sis, the sun hurts me, I can't go outside," Charlotte said, looking at Hannah.
"Big sis?" Hannah asked questioningly to Charlotte.
"Ah I'm sorry, it was an accident," Charlotte said, embarrassed.
"It's ok I don't mind," she smiled at the little girl, then turned to Lily and said, "You're right, we have to save her."
"Glad you are on board," grinned Lily and winked to Charlotte who gave her a thumbs up, the little bit of Lily still on her shoulder.
The three girls waited for nightfall so Charlotte could move around freely and then decided to go into the forest. Upon entering the forest they immediately encountered a pack of wolves, which Hannah slashed until they were weak and let Charlotte finish them off. The way Charlotte fought was quite strange as she used her bare hands and ripped their heads off, she seemed to enjoy the sight of blood very much.
After not spotting any monsters for about an hour they finally found a hideous being made of the rotting flesh of monsters. It was as tall as a hill and radiated a horrific smell.
Zombie Abomination (1000/1000) |
Lily sucked in a breath when she saw the HP of the monster, it was clear that it was much stronger than them. She quickly put her remaining stat points into Magic getting it up to 25. The zombie swung at Hannah first, probably because she was the biggest target. Unfortunately for the zombie Hannah was also the fastest and easily dodged its attacks.
While Hannah was distracting it Lily was gathering all types of mana and getting ready to fire a massive magic assault onto the Zombie.
A massive amount of different mana has accumulated. Skills [Minor Earth Manipulation], [Minor Nature Manipulation], [Minor Fire Manipulation], [Minor Lightning Manipulation], [Minor Water Manipulation], [Minor Ice Manipulation], [Minor Air Manipulation] have been created. |
Basic skills [Fireball], [Ice Spike], [Stone Bullet], [Wind Blade], [Grappling Vine], [Water Current], and [Thunder Bolt] have been created and combined into combined skill [Multi Elemental Basic Attack] |
While all this was happening Hannah was still busy dodging its attacks and slashing at it. She wasn't strong enough to cut completely through the monster however and was only taking pieces off at a time. Hannah had managed to reduce the monster's HP by 100 in the time that she was fighting it.
Lily yelled, "Get away Hannah!" and Hannah quickly jumped off the monster's shoulder and landed a few meters away. Lily fired a massive attack at the monster's head, which came clean off.
"Nice one!" Hannah yelled in joy.
Lily however was still nervous as she could see a bar that read:
Zombie Abomination (473/1000) |
"It's not over yet Hannah!" Lily yelled as the monster's arm came down on Hannah, who quickly managed to dash away using her ability. Charlotte stepped forward and started slashing at the monster but Lily noticed something weird. Charlottes HP was going down every time she attacked. Lily needed to prepare another attack to finish the monster that now had less than 100 HP.
She used her skill [consume mana] to regenerate her lost mana but she needed at least five minutes to regain her mana, and a single disturbance would cause it all to flow out of her.
"Keep it busy Charlotte!" Lily yelled as she concentrated on gathering mana. When Lily was almost done the monster's arm slammed into her side sending her flying into a tree.
Lily(92/150) |
"Damn," Lily muttered in pain. Suddenly a massive amount of mana flew towards Charlotte who grew taller and more plump. Her red eyes were now glowing, she launched herself at the monster grabbing its chest and ripping it in half before falling back to the ground in her normal form.
Zombie Abomination defeated you gained 63 XP. Your subordinates gained 30 XP |
Charlotte (5/200) |
Lily and Hannah ran to the little girl laying on the ground. Lily pulled the girl's head into her arms and attempted to heal her.
Skill [Minor Nature Manipulation] activated. |
Skill [Minor Heal] created. |
Charlotte (5/200) |
Lily freaked out and stopped healing her immediately, she couldn't understand why healing was hurting her. Charlotte looked at Lily and her eyes started glowing.
Charlotte weakly said, "I'm hungry sis" before biting down on Lily's neck.