"Please don't do this, I beg you!" The voice was desperate, pleading.
I kept my fireballs ready as the smoke began to clear, a satisfied grin spreading across my face. "Jackpot."
But when the haze finally dispersed enough for me to see clearly, what I witnessed shocked me so completely that I momentarily lost control of my magic. One of the hovering fireballs destabilized and nearly exploded in my face. I had to dive sideways to avoid getting barbecued by my own spell.
"What the hell?" I muttered, picking myself up and staring forward in disbelief.
I blinked several times, convinced I had to be hallucinating from mana exhaustion or smoke inhalation.
"Wait... you're supposed to be a fairy?" I asked, genuine confusion coloring my voice.
"...Yes," she responded, though she sounded reluctant to admit it.
This couldn't be right. Everything I thought I knew about fairies was being completely overturned by what stood before me.
The woman—and she was definitely a woman, not some tiny winged creature—was absolutely stunning in a way that seemed almost supernatural. Her hair was a lustrous shade of green, held back elegantly by what appeared to be a golden ornamental band. Her eyes were the same emerald color, and her face... well, her face looked like it had been crafted by someone who'd never heard the word "flaw."
She wasn't just beautiful in the conventional sense. She was BEAUTIFUL in capital letters, the kind of beauty that made you question whether such perfection could exist naturally. Her clothing resembled something from ancient Greek mythology—flowing, elegant garments that seemed designed to accentuate rather than conceal. They left very little to the imagination while somehow maintaining an air of divine grace.
Her figure was what romance novels would describe as an hourglass—curves in all the right places, proportioned with mathematical precision. Her skin had an almost luminescent quality, smooth and pale with a subtle glow that seemed to come from within. Her lips were naturally pink and full, and there was something about her entire presence that screamed otherworldly perfection.
But weren't fairies supposed to be tiny, mischievous creatures with delicate wings and childlike features? How the hell was this goddess-like being claiming to be a fairy?
"You're really a fairy?" I asked again, this time with obvious skepticism in my tone.
"I am," she said, and now she looked genuinely annoyed at my repeated questioning.
"You don't look like one at all. Don't try to play games with me," I warned, manifesting several more fireballs around myself as a precaution. For all I knew, this was some elaborate trick—maybe fate's way of throwing a curveball at me. Introduce someone impossibly attractive to make me lose focus and start thinking with the wrong head.
Well, that wasn't happening. She could be the most beautiful angel in all of creation, and it wouldn't change my objective. Either she was handing over that relic willingly, or I was burning this entire tree to the ground.
I saw her lips twitch visibly, and a vein appeared on her forehead as her composure cracked slightly.
"What do you mean?!" she suddenly screamed, her voice rising to near-hysterical levels. "I am a fairy! How are you even supposed to know what fairies look like anyway?! You're just a child!"
I wasn't in the mood for fairy tale logic or semantic arguments. Time was ticking, and I had places to be.
"Well, I don't care what you are," I said flatly, allowing no warmth or humor into my voice. "All I want is the Trinket of Destiny. Hand it over right now and save both of us the stress of you begging me to take it later."
"How dare you?" she said through gritted teeth, her beautiful features contorting with indignation.
I shrugged casually and let one of my fireballs fly past her head as a warning shot. The explosion close enough to singe her hair made my point clear.
If she wasn't going to cooperate, she could watch her precious trinket get destroyed along with everything else. Though I had to admit, I wasn't entirely sure if the relic could actually be destroyed by conventional magic. I guess we'd find out together.
.... and yeah, my mana.
It's probably almost out.
"WAIT! STOP!" she screamed as I prepared another attack.
I knew she was in an impossible position. If she directed her magical attention toward attacking me, she wouldn't be able to maintain the protective barrier around the tree. It was either defend herself or protect the relic—she couldn't do both with her current mana capacity... or so I hoped.
"Are you ready to give it to me?" I asked with complete emotional neutrality.
"I... I don't know what you want. I don't know any Trinket of Destiny. Please... How do you even know a fairy is here? No... How do you even know about the Trin—"
She was starting to ramble, probably trying to buy time or figure out my angle. But I checked my watch and realized I only had about forty minutes left before those academy tracking teams arrived at my last known location. I couldn't afford to play word games.
Time to speed things up.
BOOM! I sent another fireball crashing into the barrier.
"Wait!" she pleaded.
BOOM! Another explosion.
"Listen to me, please!"
BOOM! I wasn't listening anymore.
"I will give you something else instead!"
BOOM! Not interested in consolation prizes.
"Alright, alright! I'll give it to you!" she finally cried out, her voice breaking with defeat.
When the smoke cleared this time, I could see her face was flushed red, tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked utterly devastated, like I'd just destroyed everything she held dear.
For a brief moment, something almost like guilt tried to surface in my chest. What had I just done to this woman? She looked genuinely heartbroken, and here I was, basically robbing her at magical gunpoint.
But then I mentally slapped myself. This wasn't some tragic romance novel where the villain gets redeemed by a beautiful woman's tears. I wasn't the protagonist, and I certainly wasn't some beta male character who'd be swayed by emotional manipulation.
"I'm not falling for the act," I said coldly. "Give me what I came for. I don't have all day to waste on theatrics."
I started walking toward her while keeping my sword at the ready. You never know when someone desperate might try something stupid, and I wasn't about to let my guard down just because she looked defeated.
"You're an evil soul..." she whispered, her voice filled with a mixture of hatred and despair.
"Yeah, my father used to say the same thing," I replied without any emotion. "Now make it quick. I'm on a schedule."
I glanced at my watch again, though I couldn't shake the strange, nagging feeling that Selena was somehow watching all of this unfold. Which was impossible, of course, but the sensation persisted anyway.