Putting all the things back into the spatial ring, Dil straightened up and looked around at his companions.
Leah had already calmed down a bit and still ate her portion. However, the nervous clenching of her robe spoke of her tension.
'We need to speed up. She still won't calm down, so she probably has about nine hours left. We should be able to make it...' Dil pondered as he walked deeper into the caves, lighting the way with his lantern.
The swordsman glanced at the former slave girl following him.
The girl looked much better than before.
After the meal, she was visibly revitalized, and it was as if she began to shine a little in this impenetrable darkness.
Dil smiled weakly and spoke.
"You know, Morvi... you should definitely see my homeland."
The golden-haired girl looked at the knight in surprise, quickening her step to catch up with the man.
"You think so?"
Dil scratched his chin and continued.
"Yes, the customs sun will do you good. You're so pale, like a ghost from the books. All the more reason for a growing body to need sunlight and good food. The latter is not a problem in my land either."
Hearing the swordsman's last words, the former slave girl seemed especially revitalized.
"Will there be the same food we ate today?!" she asked, almost jumping up and down.
Dil laughed and stroked the girl's head with a metal glove.
"Yes, there are mountains of meat out there that are much better than today's." he said, smiling warmly.
The swordsman and the slave girl talked for a while longer, until they were interrupted by Leah with her angry voice.
"Will you stop it already, Dil!"
The girl shouted, holding onto her robe.
The knuckles on her fingers turned white and cold sweat dripped onto the stone, leaving a trail.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly up and down and translucent steam came out of her mouth.
The man frowned and his lavender eyes stared at the sorceress in bewilderment.
"What do you mean?"
Lia waved her hands, pointing at Morvi.
"Stop being so nice to trash like her! She only wants to elicit your compassion so she can steal from you later!"
The shadows cast by the light of the lamp grew thicker and stirred strangely, as if observing the conflict.
"Where do such conclusions come from? Is it only because of her background?"
Leah reached for her staff, clutching it so hard that the wood began to crack.
"These things are all the same! My family reached out to them with food after that disaster and they couldn't get enough! They banded together and started a riot, killing my father!"
Morvian looked at the enchantress in surprise and his gaze grew sharper than before.
'Is she really talking about the riot of the people a few years ago, left with nothing after the coming of the goddess Windera! Though food was given out, it was not enough at all and most starved.'
Morvian knew all of this, as he had been honored to see from the front rows, wandering between the hungry people, looking for food.
Morvian's eyes narrowed and his fingernails grew a little longer as he looked at this poor maiden.
The lust for killing rose from the depths of his heart, making his heart beat faster.
However, it was still too early for the sorceress to die.
Meanwhile, Dil seemed to not understand Leah.
"What are you saying!!! Leah, your father is still alive! Have you gone crazy after yesterday?"
Leah stared at him with round eyes and clutched her mouth, realizing her mistake.
She stared like that for a few moments before raising her staff at the man and his slave.
The black lightning bolts sparked again, spreading across the stone walls of the cave.
The air crackled and the lightning tickled the body of the sorceress, who stared wildly at her companions.
Dil grabbed the hilt of his sword, but did nothing more, trying to calm the witch.
"Calm down, Leah! If you do that again, the cave will collapse and you'll bury us all here!"
The sorceress' skin began to crack and crumble a bit, and her eyes took on a pale color. Her hair began to thin and blood began to come out of her eyes.
'Is the curse already working! She must have had time!
Dil took his hand off his sword and prepared to lunge.
He needed to knock Lia out quickly so she would stop wasting the time she had left.
The air around the sorceress shrank and made it harder to breathe, and black sparks of lightning flew in all directions.
The staff crackled and shook from such force, and the girl's hands tried to hold on to it.
At that moment, a black creature with its mouth open jumped out of the darkness behind Lia.
The swordsman's eyes widened and his body moved. However, there was no way he could make it in time.
The jaws were already closing on the girl's crying face, but at that moment, something amazing happened.
The short slave girl crashed into the body of the sorceress, knocking her to the ground.
The creature's jaw snapped shut with a snap, grabbing only air.
The two girls fell beneath the monster's feet, completely defenseless.
The black creature heard them fall and immediately surged towards a new target.
However, Dil crashed into the abomination with his shoulder, knocking it backwards.
The creature slid across the floor a few meters before stopping and glaring at the knight with mad milky eyes.
A cacophony of snarls filled the tunnels and several more of the same monsters emerged from the darkness.
They all stared ahead mindlessly, listening to every rustle as they slowly walked closer.
The first creature leapt forward again, growling something to its kin, and they too moved.
A swing of the sword sliced the abomination's head in two, ending the creature's life. However, the abomination's kin came up and clutched at the knight's shoulder.
Dil grimaced and stabbed the monster with a huge blade, piercing it through.
A fountain of blood bloomed in the cave, spraying the swordsman's body with a scarlet shower.
Dil roared and threw the monster's collapsed body at the rest of the creatures, knocking them back. He then stood up in a stance, pointing the edge of his blade at the enemies.
"Morvi! Grab Lia and get out of here! There's not much time left before we get out of the cave and she can still be rescued in time. I know she treated you badly, but now is not the time for revenge."
The golden-haired girl looked at the knight with tearful eyes and her hands were shaking.
"N...but what about you!"
Dil smiled weakly, glaring at the creatures.
"Who said I'm going to die here? I'll be back a little later, but for now, get out of here! Now!"
Morvi nodded her head and Lia cried out - where the slave girl had grabbed her arm,
where the slave had grabbed her arm. The skin was peeling off like old paint.
The golden-haired girl ignored it, however, dragging the exhausted sorceress, taking her staff with her.
Dil was left alone with several abominations walking slowly towards him.
The hum of their snarls filled his head, but the swordsman's thoughts were clear.
Morvian ran, dragging the enchantress, hearing the sounds of fighting behind him.
They ran like this for several minutes, eventually coming out into a large cavern, with various dwarf buildings.
Wooden bridges and platforms were everywhere, and moonlight came from a hole in the ceiling.
Morvian saw that there were stairs leading to the exit, so he began to search with his eyes for a way to get there.
He couldn't run right away, however, for he was very tired.
His lungs were burning and his chest was rising and falling rapidly.
A nauseating feeling attacked his head, which was spinning and buzzing from lack of oxygen.
Steam came out of his mouth, dissolving into the air.
'This body is too weak!' thought Morvian, trying to catch his breath, 'Why couldn't I have gotten into Dil's body, or at least that fool's!'
Thinking about it, Morvian turned to the enchantress and a flash of light illuminated the entire cavern, accompanied by the rumbling and cracking of wood.
Several platform bridges collapsed to the ground and caught fire, illuminating the entire cave.
The golden-haired slave girl lay on the ground, staring at the sparking staff of the enchantress in horror.
"Damn! Don't dodge bitch!" said Lia, pointing the staff at the slave girl.
Morvie came to her senses and darted away just in time, as a roll of thunder melted the stone where she had been sitting.
The half-living Leah slowly followed Morvie, building up the power in her staff again.
Half of her skin was already peeling off her body and bloody streaks covered her bare flesh.
Her once beautiful hair had almost completely fallen out, and her mad eyes were watching the girl lurking in the buildings.
A new rumble of thunder broke through the wood, but did not hit the slave girl, who disappeared somewhere.
"Show yourself!"
Tubercles of smoke were billowing upward, and a bright fire lit up everything around her. However, she still couldn't find Morvie.
A frantic scream added to the symphony of crackling fire and breaking boards.
Black lightning bolts entangled the sorceress' body and dispersed in different directions, sweeping away everything around her.
Heavy breathing began to accompany the already tired body of the sorceress.
At that moment, Morvi's cheerful voice carried through the cave as if mocking the girl in the robe.
"I was reflecting on what you said earlier. Your father died, didn't he, during the riot?"
Hearing this, the sorceress exploded with rage and new streams of magic smashed everything around her.
However, the voice continued.
"Because of this, you began to hate the slaves and the poor who were just unlucky. However, you, our poor girl, spit on that. And you can be understood... I guess. However, there is an oddity."
A rumble of thunder drowned out Morvie's words, but she repeated graciously.
"That look of yours on the cliff, when you looked at those dying slaves who were on death's doorstep because of you. It was simply marvelous! Your rotten soul still has bits of humanity, even though they're just projections of the past!"
Hearing the last, Leah froze in surprise, and blood dripped from her body onto the floor.
"Are you really one of the test subjects!"
Morvi chuckled.
"It's finally gotten to you, you fool. However, that's not important right now. What's more important is that you're about to die. And the funny thing is, by your own stupidity and in part, because of those very slaves you hated. Your hatred was too weak to suppress the horror of what you did. Now you will die with that thought."
Leah stared at the burning tree in horror, crying blood.
Her body began to wriggle in convulsions and it wasn't long before blood was pouring from her mouth.
She fell to the cold floor, choking on her own blood, her soul burying itself in agony.
The shadows cast by the fire around her danced in time with her choking and crying.
The lich's curse was in full force.
Her vision began to blur, but in her last moment of life, she saw Morvi.
The blonde-haired girl stood over her, and a crazed smile twisted her small face.
Lia gathered her last bit of strength, saying .
"D...do you think you can live peacefully after my death? My family will find you and punish you after the trial is over . Unless of course you die before in these mountains. Your habits and mannerisms can betray a man even when he's in another man's body. Consider yourself a walking corpse already, bitch!"
A fireball of burning wood came down nearby, throwing a sea of sparks upwards. The entire mine was collapsing.
Morvian looked at Leah's bloody corpse with emotionless eyes.
At that moment, Dyl ran out of one passage into the cave, covered in blood.
He was missing one arm, but the bleeding had been stopped. And a huge palash was scratching the floor.
Seeing his companions, the man ran up to them.
His eyes glazed over when he saw the corpse of his old friend and Morvi standing over her.
Realizing what had happened, he knelt down and covered Leah's eyes with his hand, mentally bidding her farewell.
A roar came from the passageway where Dyl had run out from.
After that, the swordsman looked up at the exit in the ceiling.
After assessing the situation, his lavender eyes stopped on Morvi.
The man let go of his palash and it fell to the stone surface with a clatter.
"Morvi, listen to me carefully." he spoke, opening Lia's hands from the fabric of the robe.
The cracked skin still bore black tattoos of beautifully depicted bugs.
There were scarabs on her right hand and dragonflies on her left hand that the slave girl had never seen before.
After that, the man cut the golden-haired girl's hand, but she didn't resist.
Drops of blood fell on the tattoos and something strange happened.
The black images came to life and came out of his hand with a dark liquid before flying into the slave girl's hands, remaining on them as a pattern.
"The scarabs on your right hand can cure you of fairly severe wounds, but you must remain still during the process. On your left arm, on the other hand, you have bursting dragonflies. You can launch them forward and blast them at will. They will regenerate after a while."
Morvi looked at Dil with tearful eyes incomprehensibly.
The swordsman pulled a spatial ring with a blue stone from his pocket and placed it in the girl's hand.
"Take it... it has everything you need. All you need to do is pour a little bit of energy into it, then think about what you want to pull out. Now stand on my palm."
Morvi obeyed and stood on the man's broad palm.
Lavender eyes gazed at the girl with tenderness mirroring her face.
"I would like to show you my lands, however you will have to do it alone. Morvi, please survive and see the beauties of this great world with your own eyes."
Saying this, the man threw the girl through a hole in the ceiling.
The slave girl flew there successfully and after a while showed herself in the passage.
Dil looked at the girl with a smile, but a growl behind him interrupted him.
The man turned, but decided to look at Morvi again. One last time.
He looked at the passage, but the girl was no longer there.
Only two orange dragonflies the size of apples were crawling on the edges of the exit and flashing red.
"What?"
Dil's question was muffled by two explosions that destroyed the exit, piling it with stones.
Dil stared at the piles of stone in bewilderment and disbelief, but the closed jaw on his face stopped his confusion for good.
Morvian stood a few meters from the rubble-strewn passageway and breathed in a full chest of cold mountain air.
His golden hair and fur cloak fluttered in the wind and flakes of snow were sticking to his body.
Golden eyes watched the lights of the city in the distance from the mountain he was on.
The shadows beside him began to stir and after a moment a tall, bony figure emerged from them.
The lich looked at the little girl who had killed two people without doing anything with her hands.
A vile voice came from the living blob of darkness, penetrating to the bone.
"You are very interesting, child not of this world..."
Morvian looked at the lich with bored eyes, then walked past him.
"I'm actually a girl."
The blob of darkness chuckled, floating behind the slave girl.
"Trying to trick me? You don't lack courage or stupidity. Would you care to make a contract?"
Morvian ignored the lich's words, continuing down the snowy path.
And the blob of darkness floated behind him laughingly.
The wind howled and flakes of snow flew everywhere.
Flocks of huge birds flapped their wings silently, tearing through the clouds.
The shattered slave caravan buried itself under piles of snow and black creatures prowled around looking for food.
And the cave that the sorceress, knight, and slave girl had entered was littered with the latter. Leaving all those he didn't want in the arms of death.