It Felt Really Good

Thud—

After saying that, Hilde could no longer hold herself up. Her legs gave way, and she collapsed to the ground.

Even she had no idea where she'd found the strength to fight back just now.

For a moment, she had truly thought she was going to die.

She glanced at her left hand, half-severed by the blade, and tried to pull it free of the sword. She couldn't even manage that.

"Hilde!"

Rudeus rushed over.

He took one look at her injury and gritted his teeth.

"That was too reckless. Would it kill you not to push yourself so hard?"

"But we won, didn't we?" Hilde said softly. Even speaking any louder felt like too much effort.

"..."

Rudeus really couldn't stand it.

She always pushed herself too hard, always pretended to be calm, always took everything on as though it were nothing...

And then she acted like she didn't care.

She was infuriating.

"Forget that for now."

Hilde took a deep breath and leaned against the wall beside her, waiting for the darkness swimming across her vision to pass.

She pointed at her left hand.

"Help me. I can't get it off myself."

Rudeus looked at it in silence.

The blade had cut halfway through her palm and lodged between the bones. It could neither be pulled free nor cut any farther, and blood was still pouring out.

He could hardly imagine how much it hurt.

Yet Hilde had endured that pain while gripping the enemy's blade with her blood-soaked hand, then punched straight through him.

Calling her extraordinary didn't go far enough.

She was practically superhuman.

"What are you waiting for? Hurry up."

Hilde's face remained expressionless.

"All right, all right..."

Rudeus sighed. He really didn't know what to do with her.

He held her arm and kicked the enemy's corpse away. It took a tremendous effort, but he finally pulled the sword free of her bones. The instant it came loose, he caught a sudden twitch in Hilde's tightly set face.

Her tough body didn't make her immune to pain.

She simply didn't want Rudeus to see her looking weak.

"Intermediate Healing Magic can mend bones to some extent, but it can't heal them completely."

Rudeus spoke as he cast Healing Magic on Hilde.

"It'll let you move your hand for now, but once this is over, you should find a higher-level healer to treat it again. Otherwise, you might end up with lasting damage."

"I know that without you telling me," Hilde said flatly.

Soon, under the effect of the Healing Magic,

Hilde's palm began to mend.

The gruesome wound vanished bit by bit until only traces of blood remained.

Hilde tried clenching her fist.

As expected, a piercing pain shot through it.

It seemed that hand was out of commission for now.

The good news was that Hilde could still swing a sword with one hand.

Hilde looked up. Past Rudeus's shoulder, she saw Eris hiding in a corner, her face pale.

"Come here," Hilde said.

"W-what do you want?"

Eris instinctively shrank back.

"Enough talk. I said come here."

Hilde had no patience to argue. She fixed Eris with a commanding stare, her tone leaving no room for refusal.

Eris pressed her lips together.

In the end, she gritted her teeth and walked over, one step at a time.

Hilde grabbed the collar around her neck and yanked her forward, making her stumble. Then she examined it closely.

Under that piercing gaze, Eris immediately felt uncomfortable all over.

She instinctively turned her head away, trying to put as much distance between herself and Hilde as possible.

"Hold still!" Hilde rapped her on the head. "Move again and I'll hit you!"

"Damn it..."

Eris bared her teeth but stayed still.

"What is it, Hilde?" Rudeus asked.

"The problem must be this collar."

After examining it, Hilde calmly reached her conclusion.

"That one-eyed man didn't find us by following our tracks. He had some special way of pinpointing our location, and the secret must be in this collar. I don't know how it works, but as long as she's wearing it, we'll never completely shake our pursuers, no matter where we go."

"I see..."

Rudeus nodded. The answer wasn't surprising.

That meant even if they reached the exit and escaped the royal capital, they couldn't return to Fittoa Territory.

"Let's deal with this thing first."

Hilde looked up at Rudeus. "Well? Can you do anything?"

"...There's something I could try. It might not work, though."

Rudeus thought for a moment.

Roxy had once taught him a little about magic circles.

When a magic circle was inscribed on an object to make its effect semi-permanent, so that it worked when supplied with mana, the result was called a magic item.

But even a semi-permanent magic circle had a limit to how many times it could be used and how much wear it could withstand.

In theory, triggering it repeatedly at high speed over a very short time would push it past that limit and break it.

Magic items were consumables, after all.

Use one enough times, and of course it would break.

In practice, though, almost no one had enough mana to do that.

Rudeus was the exception.

He got straight to it.

"Eris, sit down. Come closer to me."

Rudeus pulled Eris down beside him and pressed his palm against the collar around her neck, then began pouring mana into it.

As mana flowed in, the magic-circle runes on the collar began flashing rapidly, like LED lights in a nightclub.

"How long will it take?" Hilde asked.

"Uh, ten minutes?"

Rudeus wasn't sure either. It was his first time trying this.

Hilde nodded silently and sat down too.

She recovered her strength while keeping watch for any new enemies approaching.

When Eris saw Hilde sit down nearby, she instinctively edged closer to Rudeus. In her mind, Hilde might as well have been a demon. Just having her nearby made Eris's skin crawl.

Hilde noticed the little movement, of course.

She didn't care in the slightest and kept doing as she pleased.

Rudeus smiled helplessly.

I guess Hilde really doesn't like children...

As he recalled, even back in Buena Village, Hilde had never played with the other children. If some child had been foolish enough to bother her, they'd have gotten a sound beating.

But even though Hilde didn't like children, she had reached out to help both Sylphy and Eris.

Rudeus didn't explain any of that to Eris, though.

Because sitting close to a beautiful girl...

Felt really good!