Chapter 32

# Episode 32: New Adventurer Bern (30) – The Firefly

In the fading consciousness.

Blankah absently recalled what had just happened.

The disorienting world spinning around her.

Her body swaying like a leaf in the wind.

Curses, plague, and deadly poisons – the oils squeezed from all the evil and filth of the world ignited in an explosion.

And then, the arms that embraced her, shielding her from that explosion.

The moment that memory surfaced, Blankah instinctively tried to sit up.

“Ugh…!”

The ache of being pummeled was felt all over her body.

Ignoring it as best she could, Blankah frantically looked around.

The ground had collapsed, and the building debris scattered everywhere as the air was filled with dust.

Amongst all this, spotting a familiar red head, Blankah ran out only to find herself trembling violently at the sight before her.

“Ah, Aah…”

Bern’s condition was nothing short of horrific.

His right leg had been crushed under a large rock, and his skin, as if poisoned, had turned a sickly black. Smoke continued to rise as if his body was burning in real-time.

It was likely that when this erosion was complete, he’d vanish, turned to dust without a trace left of his body.

With a thud, her legs gave out, and Blankah collapsed, crawling closer to Bern before she cast a healing spell.

Over and over again, until his wounds healed.

But it was all in vain.

Her white light could not dispel the dark magic eating away at Bern’s body, nor could it heal his wounds.

Still, Blankah continued chanting the spell.

“You should heal, you have to heal. If it doesn’t work now, then what’s the point of it all…!!”

In her childhood, her mother chose to sacrifice herself to protect her powerless daughter.

And now, the only person who truly understood her, who shared her dreams, was dying because of her again.

At the thought, when Blankah’s heart began to rot away.

There was a soft grip.

“Hum… That’ll do, Blankah.”

Had he gathered his senses by now?

With calmness that didn’t seem to match someone on the brink of death, the red-haired adventurer held Blankah’s hand.

“Don’t waste your mana unnecessarily since this wound can’t be healed. Instead, maybe we should focus on your injuries first.”

At his nonchalant tone, Blankah knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help but choke with emotion.

“Is this really the time for such words!? Why… why on earth did you cover me!?”

“Hmm.”

At her almost wailing, desperate inquiry, Bern replied as if it were the simplest of matters.

“Because your life was more important, Blankah.”

Who had gasped audibly? It was hard to tell.

Faced with his words, Blankah was speechless, and Bern continued awkwardly.

“I originally intended to keep this a secret but, if I don’t tell you the truth, you may carry unnecessary burdens. Let me explain.”

Bern went on, like a magician revealing his tricks to a child, maintaining a playful tone:

“The adventurer Bern is not a real person. This body, this persona, is nothing more than a fake created through magic.”

“The real ‘me’ exists elsewhere, faring just fine.”

“So, there’s no need for worry or undue guilt.”

“I apologize for deceiving you, Blankah.”

But Blankah remained silent.

She couldn’t utter a word.

Of course, she couldn’t, could she?

“Am I… am I so useless, so pitiful that you resort to telling such lies to comfort me?”

Her throat tightened as if on fire.

She wanted to shout at him, ask him if he thought she was a fool.

But Blankah couldn’t.

Even while dying, he was trying so hard to save her from any feelings of guilt.

How could she ignore his clumsy, cruelly kind final consideration?

That’s why Blankah spoke.

“Really, Bern… that’s too much. I didn’t know you were this shameless.”

Was her voice trembling?

Was her acting so bad that he noticed?

Though internally trembling with anxiety, Blankah was lucky enough that Bern didn’t pick up on it.

“Haha, sorry. I’d apologize more, but we don’t have the time right now.”

Bern’s gaze shifted upward.

To the hole in the ceiling where they had fallen.

“More than likely, the attack ensnared him as well, but he’ll soon revive. Richi has a ‘heart,’ a sort of extra life stored through his magic. So we need to move before that.”

“Move for what?”

Blankah couldn’t help but counter.

At this point, with Bern out of commission, the battle was effectively over.

So, fighting any longer wasn’t necessary, right?

Wouldn’t staying by his side until the end be better?

“For victory.”

However, Bern cut her argument short firmly.

“We haven’t lost yet. We still have Renya and other adventurers upstairs… most importantly, we still have you, Blankah.”

Blankah tried to shake her head.

Impossible, she wanted to say. Without you, I can’t defeat Richi, she wanted to deny.

“Someone who’s watched you, Blankah, I can vouch you can do it. If you win, that would be my victory. No, it would be ‘our’ victory.”

But Bern said she could.

That she could accomplish it.

Thus, Blankah nodded vertically rather than horizontally.

It was the least she could offer him in return.

Satisfied, Bern smiled.

Swallowing her tears threatening to spill, Blankah smiled back.

Blankah rose to her feet.

With her sword in hand, she climbed atop the debris step by step, climbing higher to honor her fallen colleague with a victory.

To make his final adventure a success rather than a failure.

Step by step.

As Blankah reached the original layer, she saw the group of adventurers regrouping and Richi engaging them in battle.

Even if Richi reclaimed the purple mist during his high-level spellcasting, the damage done to the adventurers upon contact with it remained.

Weakened by the mist’s numerous harmful spells and fatigue, the adventurers had reached their limits.

In contrast, though Richi had lost all his high-tier golems to Bern, he still had considerable mana and minions left.

Given his prior escape attempt ended disastrously, they were forced to fight. Almost no resolve remained in their faces.

“Hrm, did you crawl to your death voluntarily? If you’d waited for me to finish here, you might have survived a bit longer.”

Richi had evidently realized Bern was down. His tone had returned to a smug, almost obnoxious confidence, a fake charisma reserved for scenarios where he had the upper hand.

How could she have ever feared him? The man who cost her dear ones twice.

Deep within, something surged within Blankah.

This emotion, she didn’t suppress this time.

Her steps moved forward. The swordplay and agility she had learned from him were with her.

Her fists clenched. The ring given by him demanded her presence.

Her heartbeat echoed. It was the life he had sacrificed himself to protect.

Mana’s property: the trajectory of life. The way one had lived, acted, and looked forward were the elements Blankah had carried, now merging into a colossal tower.

“Hm, have you lost it all?”

Whether annoyed by Blankah’s silence or fearing her approach, Richi shot a cursed dark orb, lethal enough to injure a fully armed knight with one direct hit.

Though Blankah intercepted with “Burning Rock,” it couldn’t stand up to a superior spell.

The slightly weakened orb charged towards her, and she swung her sword.

A massive explosion went off, catapulting her across the ground.

Seeing her wounded from burns and erosion, Richi laughed boisterously.

Blankah used her sword to prop herself up.

“Persisting is futile.”

Richi shot another spell, which she tried to ward off. Again, she lost the power confrontation and rolled on the ground. Still, she rose again.

“What…?”

Initially, Richi had played with her like a toy, but now, his face hardened perceiving an odd tension.

Though he barraged her with devastating attacks trying to finish her, Blankah wouldn’t fall.

Even spitting blood and rolling on the ground, she kept fighting, maneuvering her sword and magic to avoid grievous blows and healing herself repeatedly.

Once, it could be seen as good luck.

Twice, it could be resilience and determination.

But repeated over and over?

“What did you do!!”

With a roar, Richi unleashed another charged spell.

Blankah countered with fire this time, clashing with his magic.

The scene looked the same as always at first glance.

But when her flames extinguished his spell completely, it revealed the significant difference.

That a 3-tier mage could match a superior spell from a 5-tier mage shocked Richi profoundly.

Finally perceiving something odd, Richi noticed a peculiar magical flux around Blankah.

The mana from “Slightly Enhanced Body” and “Mild Healing” spells Blankah cast began to glow when interacting with environmental mana, and their efficacy grew stronger.

Magic Attribute: “Firefly”

Blankah amplifies the effects of her magic by catalyzing it with surrounding environmental mana. The more ambient mana in the battlefield, the more potent her spells became.

An almost predatory counter to mages who inevitably spread their mana during combat, especially Richi Mortius, who dispersed his mana as fog.

Comprehending the danger, Mortius tried frantically, albeit futilely by now, to end Blankah quickly. The harder he tried to kill her, the more his mana strengthened Blankah’s abilities.

Mortius realized the cycle but had no other recourse. What else could a mage do but cast spells? His usable warrior-class minions were already destroyed by Bern.

As her spells grew too powerful to repel, Mortius attempted to escape into his magical mist.

Naturally, Blankah wouldn’t let him.

KAAAAAAANG!

The ball of flames, initially child-sized, grew into something enormous reacting with Mortius’ mist, engulfing him.

Summoning a barrier in vain, Mortius was destroyed alongside his protective walls.

His charred body reconstituted around a floating, heart-shaped object.

Blankah shot fire again, burning him anew upon resurrection.

“Stop! Stop immediately!! That heart belongs to your mother! Her life and soul are contained within it! Do you truly want to destroy it with your own hands?!”

Blankah ceased her attack, briefly.

Sensing an opportunity, Mortius continued his plea desperately.

“Woman, be my disciple, my ally, and I shall resurrect your mother in a proper body! It’s an easy feat once we both reach the 6th tier! If you let me fall here, there will be no meeting your mother again! Is that fine with you!?”

Mortius had several recruits from the Guild and knew well about Blankah, including that she became an adventurer to save her mother.

Surely, a woman who sought her mother wouldn’t resist such bait, he surmised.

A temporary halt would buy him time to handle things differently later.

He believed this was his best strategy.

But…

“I’m fighting to ‘liberate’ my mother. Why would you assume I’d fall for such sweet talk? Especially in front of two people who matter?”

Mortius didn’t know who the two people were in her mind.

Nor did he have time to contemplate it.

A blade had pierced his chest, severing the heart.

For a mage like Richi, the heart was akin to an “anchor” needed to stay in this realm.

As his last heart was forcibly separated, his soul ascended.

Or it should have.

“Wow, great performance! You’re not third-rate with your skill but too petty for first-rate, so, second-rate maybe.”

The voice was seductive yet lively, mature yet youthful.

An entity holding Mortius’ soul, able to instill primal fear even in souls beyond death.

“A mage’s reward is the life essence and vitality of a body. Mine is the soul itself, though I can’t touch the innocent souls thanks to that pesky prince’s rules, it matters not to you, does it? Right?”

Mortius tried to scream.

But the soul left with no such luxury.

The wicked mage who had played with countless souls was finally rendered powerless.

And the darkness behind those ruby lips of the entity swallowed—

“It’s dinner time.”

Glug.

***

After everything ended,

Blankah returned to where Bern had been.

The red-haired adventurer, who fell victim to Richi’s nefarious spells, had vanished without a trace.

Holding the heart once belonging to her mother, chasing after the remains of the man she loved, the girl finally let out the cries she had withheld.