EP.220 Life is a Flower. Love is the Nectar of That Flower (7)
You could say it was the worst of the worst.
Dawna’s sudden abnormal behavior could thankfully be suppressed for a while, but the damage it caused was still immense.
There was no need to mention Apis, who barely survived, and Regis, who was on the verge of death.
The once sturdy Hero was now pierced by Dawna’s electric shock and had fainted, so it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the Hero Party was on the brink of total annihilation.
“Oh, look who it is! The Hero is here with us. How nice! I’m really sorry about that time when I tried to kill you.”
With a wicked smile, she whispered those few words.
That eerie voice sent the surrounding temperature plummeting to below zero in an instant.
“Hah, damn·····.”
Apis couldn’t hold back, suddenly spewing out irritated curses as if she was fed up.
Regis shared similar feelings but, in his current state, lacked even the strength to voice his frustration, merely releasing a heavy sigh.
“You survived well with those injuries. I distinctly told the kids to finish it all before my recovery was complete·····.”
“Well, so what?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a bit unfortunate. The fact that I lack good fortune.”
“That’s what makes it unfortunate. You idiot. I’ve lived long enough to see a woman with less common language than an elf.”
“·····”
The sudden intense debate unfolded, with Apis quickly taking the upper hand.
It was a completely natural outcome.
Verbal skirmishes were second only to her archery skills, after all.
Even Regis, who couldn’t stand her reckless behavior, wisely remained silent, so there was nothing left to hold Apis back now.
“·····”
“·····”
As the two women fell silent, the air around them began to stir uneasily.
A tense silence hung thick, as if it might go on forever but could break at any moment.
It was the voice of a woman, carrying a faint smile, that shattered this breathtaking deadlock.
“Heh, trying so hard to act strong is truly pitiable. You can’t even handle your comrades.”
“─!”
The woman, suppressing her rising anger with a calm tone, pretended to be at ease.
There was a moment full of potential for strategic advantage ahead, but unfortunately, the agitation Apis felt surged beyond that.
“Ah, you’ve been beautifully consumed by your desires. Well, no matter how renowned a Great Mage you are in the system, you’re still just human, after all.”
Her scheming, crescent-moon-like eyes illuminated Dawna, who was swaying unsteadily.
In that moment, Apis instinctively realized.
That Dawna’s strange behavior until now was a vile plot influenced by this woman.
“You bastard·····!”
“Oh, how frightening.”
When Apis glared at her, the woman’s face blossomed with a wide smile.
“Kuuh─!” Chwa-reul-leug! Crash!
In that instant, a sharp chain shot forth from the woman, grazing Apis’s cheek.
A sudden attack aiming to provoke an emotional response.
However, Apis was not so defenseless as to allow the same trick to work twice.
“·····Tsk.”
“You·····!”
The woman clicked her tongue, and a storm of deep anger reflected in Apis’s expression.
“Apis!”
Whoosh!
In that moment, Regis, who had been watching from afar, threw Apis her bow.
Like an extreme acrobat, she skillfully snatched the bow out of the air.
Her next action was as fluid and swift as flowing water.
“I’ll put a hole in your eye. Let you breathe through it.”
“Hah, is this how elves always are? So barbaric?”
Apis aimed her arrow at the woman’s forehead.
In response, the woman produced an overwhelming number of chains, enough to feel pitiful trying to count them.
It was a grim situation, underrepresented both qualitatively and quantitatively in weaponry, yet Apis had no choice but to face it head-on.
For here, in this moment, there was no one else capable of fighting but herself.
Just for a single moment.
For even a split second of showing her back, that cascade of chains would surely engulf her dying comrades.
But even now, Apis had to be wary of more than just what lay ahead.
“Sing. O Queen of Seasons─.”
“Oh no! Dawna!”
A deadly voice echoed behind her, making Apis’s consciousness tense and stand on edge.
Unable to take her eyes off the enemy before her, she couldn’t dare turn around.
Yet even without turning, Apis could easily guess what was happening behind her.
Dawna was about to cast a spell again on the fainted Hero.
Though Regis was trying to stop it, she knew better than anyone that such a simple intervention couldn’t hope to halt the expression of that deadly magical power.
There was little hope the Hero would simply wake up on his own.
No matter how indestructible he might be, it would take considerable time for him to regain consciousness after having his heart pierced by electricity.
Even if Regis used his remaining miracle to wake the Hero, whether he would awaken was questionable at best.
Ceaseless siege. It was truly a situation of ceaseless siege.
Though Apis had faced all sorts of adversities over hundreds of years, there was no moment she had confronted despair so blindingly clear—none at all.
Swoosh.
The taut bowstring suddenly loosened.
Whether that brief movement was due to the weight of damp exhaustion or another feeling mingling into her thoughts, even Apis herself couldn’t quite tell.
“All your futile efforts until now. You’ve truly worked hard, Elf. I think I’ll graciously accept Regis, thank you very much♪.”
That sultry voice, spilling from her sliced lips, clearly showed she believed victory was assured.
It was then.
A flash of thought, akin to a thunderbolt, suddenly flickered through Apis’s mind, enveloped in the depths of despair.
“Now, this is my last mercy. Hand over Regis to me quietly, and I will let your lives be spared.”
As those words lingered, the writhing chains behind the woman stirred ominously like hunting hounds near their prey.
“Praise. Destruction. Worship. Death.”
Dawna’s spellcasting was on the brink of its final verse.
In this very moment, the only final resistance Apis could manage was to shoot arrows. Arrows that would surely be blocked, that would bring little impact.
The fierce confidence the woman felt was undoubtedly rooted in such expectations.
But Apis’s chosen course of action veered far beyond what the woman anticipated.
“Hey! Hero! Dawna! The Priest is off to meet another woman right now!”
“·····?”
Suddenly, the woman tilted her head in confusion.
The content of that loud proclamation was so disjointed and random it felt nothing less than the last words of a dying person.
“·····!”
The moment Regis, looking like a dumbstruck idiot for a while, quickly regained his wits.
He had belatedly realized.
What kind of intention lay hidden within Apis’s bizarre declaration.
“Have you lost it? What are you suddenly saying·····?”
“Ah! I’m bored; I think I need to go meet a girl─!!!”
“─!?”
With that ridiculous declaration from Regis, the woman, already shrouded in deep confusion, felt her mind plunge into the abyss.
Apis’s nonsensical outburst.
As Regis unbuttoned his collar and unexpectedly charged at her.
She couldn’t comprehend why they were acting so absurdly right now.
Then, at that moment, another unforeseen situation descended upon the woman, still unable to satisfactorily address the chaos around her.
Boom! Crash!
“What!?”
The woman’s eyes widened in panic.
It was for no other reason than that her chains, which were poised to snatch the target’s life at any moment, shattered into pieces without exception.
She couldn’t even grasp how or by what they had been broken.
It was like flipping through the pages of a book she’d been reading smoothly, only to accidentally skip two pages.
The moment her consciousness cleared, the situation had already ended.
“Wha·····t·····.”
Boom! Crash─!
“Ugh!”
Before she could even stabilize her confusion, a shower of icy shards erupted from the ground, ruthlessly piercing her gut.
The woman’s vision, shaken by the successive impacts, suddenly fixed on the front.
What lay before her at that moment were the main members of the Hero Party, the Hero, eyes wide and sword drawn, and Dawna, clutching her staff tightly, preparing her next spell.
