Chapter 100 Lingering Sadness
The werewolf wasn't going to die like this, stuck in the ice coffin, hence I decided to finish it myself.
There was a problem: my body wasn't in condition to kill the monster.
I was on the brink of collapse, my legs were going limp from the blood loss, but I was holding them stable with pure willpower.
I reached the ice coffin with staggering steps while wobbling here and there, but I still reached.
I opened a tiny hole in the ice coffin and put my finger into it. Then I cast [Bloody Healing] with the last bit of my mana that I left for emergencies.
Though I still left a minuscule amount of mana in me to prevent the mana exhaustion and passing out.
The life energy of the mana monster was strong and lively, healing my muscles that were torn because of the excessive mana I poured into them. Then healing my bleeding wounds, closing them slowly and growing some flesh on my left arm.
However, I didn't heal completely as the mana I used was too little to heal myself entirely. Though it was enough for now as the bleeding stopped and some amount of blood replenished.
After healing myself, I turned to Aria. She was still lying on the ground after being kicked by the werewolf.
'Did she pass out?' I thought and went to her side.
There I noticed something that I failed to notice earlier, it was that she wasn't moving at all. Like no breathing and heartbeat.
'I forgot that she has a weaker body than mine and her mana quality was weaker too.' I thought and turned her body to me.
There I saw her rib cage dented inside, probably impaling her heart, but as always her expressionless face was still the same.
"How weird…" I said it out after feeling a familiar emotion inside me that I didn't feel for a long time.
There was sadness in me. A sadness for Aria, who was with me for about 2 years and looked after me.
But this sadness too wasn't much, just a little bit. Like I dropped my favorite ice cream. I was sad but not enough to make me cry, just enough to sigh with pity.
"Sigh…"
I closed Aria's eyes gently and got up, then went to the werewolf's side. I needed to kill this monster before the ice coffin dispersed with time.
I took out my blood dagger and made a hole in the ice coffin again, but this time on the throat area of the werewolf.
I thrust the dagger with strong momentum, stabbing its throat without a 2nd thought.
Only the dagger's tip got through the thick skin of the werewolf but I knew this would happen.
Hence I hit the dagger again and again, until the blood dagger pierced through the throat of the mana monster and killed it.
Which worked better than I thought as it died even before I hit the knife for more than a minute.
I let myself to gravity and fell to the ground after confirming that the werewolf was dead.
I lay on the ground like this, looking at the sky that I couldn't see because of the dense leaves that covered it.
I didn't know what to do after killing this mana monster.
My headaches were gone, so I was okay to live right now but Aria and Amelia died, leaving me alone.
I didn't feel lonely as it was almost impossible for me but I was rather bored like before.
And now that my boredom distractions died, I didn't know if I would be able to endure boredom.
'Well, I will think about this later when I am more bored than right now.' I thought and got up.
Then I let go of my control of the mana that was holding the ice coffin, making it disperse to the air.
Corpse of the werewolf fell to the ground with a loud 'Thud!' noise.
I harvested its mana core and held it in my hand. It was a blue sphere smaller than my head, which meant that it was smaller than the snake's mana core. However its quality was higher than snake's as this mana core was blue while the snake's was light blue.
'I should quickly learn to use subspace magic and find my storage artifact.' I thought and went to Aria's side.
Then I got her body into my arms and made my way towards the cave. I wasn't thinking of future threats or anything like this as the owners of this cave died.
Though I was sure that some mana fiends would come and eat the body parts of this werewolf and snake, but I didn't care about it too much. I could use their hide and scales to make an armor but I didn't have any training on this craft.
Anyway, I entered the cave and left Aria's body on the ground, then I sat down on her side and leaned to the wall.
I was tired both mentally and physically, and needed a proper rest to recover and get rid of this lingering sadness inside of me.
I closed my eyes and was about to let my mind fall into the darkness, I heard a familiar voice in my head.
>> Master. <<
It was Aria's usual monotonous tone, which should have been impossible to hear as she was dead.
So, I opened my eyes and looked at her corpse, which was as cold as most corpses.
'Am I under a mind spell?' I guessed while looking around the caster of this spell.
>> You are not under a spell, master. I am here in your ring. <<
I again heard Aria's voice and looked at my ring, which had changed slightly.
The transparent ball that I put into it was shining lightly, and for some reason I knew the reason for this.
Aria's soul was in the transparent ball and somehow she was telepathically communicating with me.