Ch 1.25: Talkative_ENF Academy: For Some Reason, She Can Only Save the World if She鈥檚 Naked

Ch 1.25: Talkative

 The woman, Myri, stood pointing, waiting. ina raised her arm, knowing the lull wouldn’t be for long; her opponent had signaled the start to the fight after all. Sheunched her crystal chain towards the woman, wrapping it around her right arm and leg, tying them together and then conjuring another chain to shackle her left arm to the pedestal in the center of the room. Carline charged, spear thrusting forward.

 “Hmmm, so this must be what you did to that Waine you were talking about,” the woman mused, more interested in the the chains around her than she was her actual opponents. “It probably worked fine, on a mortal.” She yanked her arm forward, snapping the chain from the pedestal behind her and shing at Carline, who had to dive to the ground to avoid getting sliced in two. Carline slid along the metal floor, sneaking a quick jab into the woman’s ankle with her spear as she went under the woman’s de.

 No blood was drawn.

 “A ncing blow from a wooden weapon? Tsk tsk, little pets. It’ll take more than that to wound me.” She hopped away on her free leg before ina could try and restrict her again, still with an uncanny grace. “The crystal chains though are somewhat bothersome, I must admit. But how long can you hold them in ce like this?”

 The woman started to pull at the chains, rapidly draining ina’s mana. She’d bonded them together the same way she had bonded them to the wall against the starhounds, and that at least was making the mana use more efficient than holding them together by sheer force, but it still wasn’t sustainable.

 ina froze herself with [Personal Restraint], halving the effort she’d have to expend, at the same time Carline had managed to get up and start a second charge. Myri again went to sh at Carline with her elbow de, but Carline stopped just outside of the sh’s range, letting go of the front of her spear and thrusting it forward with her back hand, feet nted in the ground.

 The speartip connected this time, actually connected, and thick blue blood fell out of the hole it left when Carline jumped back, out of a wound far too small to matter. “Actual blood drawn?” the woman said, smiling. “Impressive; I can see you’ve actually practiced with weaponry before. But, pray tell, isn’t your little group a bit unequipped for this? Your healer is the one doing the attacking, after all. I thought you mortals kept more bnced parties.”

 She jumped back into the wall, andunched off of it with a kick, free arm’s de headed straight towards ina. ina had to drop [Personal Restraint] and run to the center of the room, but she still got cut on her uninjured side. She looked down at her torso—less severe than before, but still not good—gaping at it as a foot crashed into her chest,unching her to the carved out entrance of the cold metal room, her backnding on the jagged metal. She looked up at Myri from the floor, realizing the woman had broken free of the crystal chains in the time ina had dropped her skill and been injured.

 “Such a shame.” The woman was speaking as she engaged with Carline, the white-robed Vitalist jabbing into her reach with her staff. “You were interesting, but I should have known an environmental-targeting mortal wouldn''t be up to par. Guess your System had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for an Administrator.”

 Carline was a force of nature: light on her feet, keeping her opponent at bay with her weapon, and, for some reason, keeping her party member alive. ina couldn''t believe it, that her stomach was healing yet again as Carline danced around the room, utilizing the System itself as a barrier to keep distance. Carline was also woefully outmatched.

 ina closed her eyes, partly to fight back the tears, and partly to let Carline activate [Unseen Watcher]. Gods I''m useless. She had one job, to hold back one set of limbs with what should have been an unbreakable chain, and she''d failed even that. Carline was over there fighting her heart out while keeping ina alive, even dulling ina’s pain.

 She opened her eyes, looking down at her side. The outside of the wound was already healing over, having not been a terribly wide cut, but her dress was a disaster, both sides now cut and stained with blood. But it wasn''t only her dress; she was a disaster.

 [Humiliation Factor] started to well up, and sheughed at how pathetic she was. How cruel of the gods, to give her a skill that made her stronger if she was already ashamed of how inconsequentially weak she was.

 She looked back up at the fight. Myri was clearly ying with Carline, because as deft as the spearwoman was, the crystal-adorned invader was that much many times over, skipping around on tiptoes, flipping over Carline''s spear and making quick slices with her fingernails, not even attempting to go for a killing blow with the giant crystal des extending from her arms, leaving the poor girl stabbing away, always just a hair away from meeting her mark and crystal ws ripped away at her, robes and skin littered with red. But in watching her moves, ina saw an opening.

 “Carline, her wound, forget me!” Carline must have trusted ina, because the pain flooded back to her side without any acknowledgement, both ina and Myri screaming out as Carline shifted from restoring one wound to worsening the other.

 “Interesting aspect,” Myri said, jumping backwards as she clutched her side, azure blood seeping out of her hand. “[Wound], is it?”

 “You talk too much!” ina shouted, raising her hand and conjuring a new set of chains. She''d realized something, thanks to Carline. It was only once, early on, that she''dnded a hit on Myri. A small blow, even as Carline amplified it with her aspect, but it proved one thing, that Myri wasn''t invincible, that she could bleed.

 The chain she made wasn''t the type you''d see holding a chandelier at Endrin, not the lustrous metal meant to adorn the world''s greatest institution. No, this chain was what ina was used to seeing hold things together back home, a deteriorated, jagged, misshapen mess of links with equally poorly kept shackles on each end of the length, mping on both of Myri’s wrists.

 That wouldn''t be enough though; the rusty chain didn''t extend straight between each wrist. It instead wrapped around its captive’s neck first, sharp links cutting into her throat. She''d still have the raw strength to break these chains apart, if she wanted to try, but before that the tension would pull on the links themselves, all force directed straight into her own neck. To make sure of it, ina dumped all the mana she could, including from reactivating [Personal Restraint] and the lesser boost from [Humiliation Factor], into fortifying the chains. They would hold long enough, and Myri was finally, actually, trapped.

 “Hah, now that''s clever!” the woman said, a beastly snarl growing on her face.

 Carline was already on the move, rushing in with reckless abandon; this could be their only chance at a killing blow.

 “But not clever enough, I''m afraid.” Instead of pulling away to try and break the chains, she pulled them in, bringing her hands together. A horrific crunch echoed throughout the chamber as Myri crushed her left hand with her right and slid the mangled appendage out of the shackle, slinging the chain round her throat, ignoring the damage it did to her neck, and throwing the free end of the chain forward.

 The empty shackle hit Carline directly in the head before ina could dismiss it, and Carline crumpled to the ground.

 “Carline!” ina shouted, running towards her friend.

 “It really was a good move though,” the woman said as the chain around her faded, scratching away at the abrasions on her neck with her good hand. “A lesser member of the Red Order might have sumbed, one not willing to make the sacrifice to escape.”

 Carline was breathing, alive, but spilling blood from her forehead.

 “She needs help!” ina shouted, for some reason trying to plead with the monster in front of her.

 “Tsk tsk, little one. Too sentimental for your own good. I won''t let her die—she''s clearly worth keeping—it''s you I''m undecided about.” She walked forward, pulling ina’s teary face upward again. “On the one hand, you''re quite a clever little bitch, but you''re just so temperamental! Freezing up in the corner while your poor, dear friend was fighting all alone, and now sitting here crying?”

 ina jerked her head away, struggling not to explode. The woman was right, though. If ina had acted earlier, been smarter from the beginning, then maybe things would have turned out differently.

 “No, as a warrior, you''re no good, just a girl who happened upon a cave where she really had no business being. As a pet, though?” The woman pressed her bloodied, mangled hand to ina’s face, pushing her back into eye contact, smiling at her with cruelty in her eyes. “You''re cute enough, even cuter than the useful one. I think we could make this work. What do you say, little puppy?”

 “Fuck you!” ina said, grabbing Carline''s spear from the ground and shoving it upward. Myri looked shocked, almost in disbelief as the weapon struck her in the center of the chest, staggering backwards as the haft slipped from ina''s fingers and ttered to the ground.

 “You, insolent—” Myri stammered, looking down at the wound, a wound sure to kill, as blood poured out of it, right from the heart. Thank the gods…

 But then the blood slowed. ina watched in horror as the stream of blood crawled to a trickle, then again as it stilled entirely, the wound closingpletely. The woman''s crushed hand cracked and popped, reforming itself as she red down at ina, eyes brimming with rage.

 “Even my starhounds never made me discipline them the way I''m about to do to you, little pet.”

AliNovel

Ch 1.25: Talkative