Chapter 138: OMAKE#11

Who summons a full-on elemental just to have it serve as an oversized distraction?

The Mayor of Aste, that's who.

Several days after my tussle with the man, I'm still pained over the fact that I lost, and my grieving process involves replaying the last minutes of unconsciousness.

My hapless surrender to his cold hand squeezing my neck, threatening to snap it with a single, tighten grasp. From a distance he wouldn't seem like the type with large hands but he is.

His breath behind my ears, blowing on my neck and his heart pounding against my back just begging to be stopped by some means. Unfortunately for me, I had none.

His spellcasting was much faster than mine, something I'm more than a bit ashamed to admit. For an elf of my age, a human of his shouldn't be capable of pulling such a fast one on me, yet here I am.

I let out a dejected sigh and ring back the next string of depressing thoughts when I hear a familiar voice spit out

"Oh yeah, keep sighing, it's such a bummer that we're stuck down here with you oh Miss magic."

I look up from the patch of dirt I've been staring at for the past few hours and my sore, swollen eyes meet Daria's.

Her eyes are red. She's been crying.

For someone so gutsy, proud and psychotic, one would think she'd have a better constitution for the situation we're in now.

She launches forth, gnawing her teeth at me but the chains on her wrists and feet stop her.

"I hate you!" She screams.

"Enough, Daria!"

I've got another cellmate in these dungeons, together we're the daring leading elven women of the would-be elven revolution. A thing that was squashed withing seconds of its starting.

"Yelenia…" Daria moans, not pleased at being told off.

"I know, she deserves all the hate and more." Yelenia agrees, but her shoulders are drooping and she's got a rather ugly looking injury across her torso that looks like it needs some desperate treatment.

"But she can't change a thing, none of us can. There is nothing that will save us now," she pants, her breath laboured and weak. 

Yeah, she's definitely dying.

"But, be that as it may, I'd like to have some peace and quiet while I suffer in the dungeons of the Mayor of this damned city that has pushed us so far."

Daria seems to calm down at this, but just barely. She still lets off one more jab at me, "We should have cut their caps when I said so. But no one listens to lil ol Daria, do they now?"

A silence falls and once more, all three of us in the dungeon cell, in nothing but what underwear we had on when we were caught.

A moment passes, and I've dozed off and awoken to pain more than a few times. Drearily, I peer my eyes open once more as I hear a sound, a familiar sound.

Something that isn't human but is alive.

My eyes scan the cell looking for the source of the sound. The strange squeaking sound bouncing off the walls seems like it's coming from all sides.

But then I look up. There's a drain, three or five slits for sewage and dirt to be washed down straight into my dungeon cell – a charming gift from the Mayor himself – but rather than just old sewage, there's a rat.

Without knowing when my jaw drops open and I begin to salivate at the thought of roasting the little thing.

Unfortunately, I'm the most securely chained. I've got a large ball and chain attached to both my feet and the cuffs set on my hands also have their own ball.

It's a great challenge to move my limbs and an even greater challenge to move my body more than five paces in any direction – including the corner I've been using to relieve myself – as I've also got a chain tying me to the stone pillar I'm leaning on right now.

The rat is just too far away.

If only I had magic.

Rather conveniently, the Mayor had in store some special mana draining stones in his inventory. Another charming gift from the man.

The damned stones take out my mana just like any mana ring does, but instead of storing it for later use it simply disperses it back into the atmosphere, mixing it with external, natural mana and therefore useless.

At least, useless to a conventional Mage like myself. Only a percent few Mages have the ability to manipulate natural mana in all its glorious abundance.

Mother happens to be one of the few with said skill.

I've never regretted not learning more magic than right this moment. To my eternal dismay, the rat skitters away as a flood of sewage comes passing through.

"Oh well. Not like looking at it would have gotten it into my stomach."

"Ah, you were staring at the critter too, were you?" Chains clatter ahead as Gerin, the flaunting leader of the Elven North shuffles closer to the bars of his cell.

I nod. It's the most I can do with this dry feeling in my throat.

"So was I, I remember when I could hunt, when I caught my own food, when the wild was mine for the taking, what I catch is what I eat. There wasn't anyone, not a single person looking out for me." 

His eyes stray off to Yelenia and Daria, they're fast asleep and amends, "Us, no one looked out for us, except for us." 

"And as we grew, taking care of ourselves, taking care of each other in this damned city that was out to get us all, out to have our heads on pikes and our ears hanging off the necks of sick humans!" he hisses.

"We realized quickly, that we'd have higher chances of surviving if we stuck to each other, if we listened to each other and looked out for one another, if we helped our fellow elves living in this city. And soon, the early stages of the Elven North was born."

He chuckles dryly to himself, "It was born before anyone of us realized we had something going on there, and by the time we did, we'd become a veritable refuge for all shuddering elves. We were safe, we provided food, little as it was, we provided shelter, even if the roofs were full of holes and we provided clothes…even if they were gotten off the floors of taverns and stripped off the bodies of the dead."

He looks up to me, even from this distance and with such poor light coming in through the vents and sewage pits, I can see tears glistening in his eyes. Unfallen tears.

"And we cut the caps of any human who dared to pretend to care about us, about our struggle, about our fears and needs and wants and desperation to live!" He screams, tears shaking within his eyes, still held in, held back.

He's woken Daria and Yelenia for sure. I can hear Yelenia groaning, but I don't look away from him, I can't.

"And now, just once, just because of a single lapse of judgement, because we took the bait your human threw, we've become like this…"

Fuelled by rage he screams as he slams his arm down on the floor, "We've been reduced to this by our trust in your human! Rariza! Utis! They're gone…"

He's panting now, still slamming his arm on the floor, but I can't take my eyes off of him.

"And I've become like this! Like this!" He cries, tears finally falling as he presents the two stumps where his hands normally would be, "I'm useless! I'm useless! I'm useless! Useless!"

He goes on screaming the word over and over again, crying deep held back tears as he does, shifting and rolling about in his own filth as he's never been bothered to put in the minimum effort to stay clean, even in the dungeon.

He cries for a moment more, glaring at his stumps. Yelenia, Daria, and I, we all have nothing to say.

Daria sobs, Yelenia looks away, and I…I cry as well. Tears roll down my cheeks as I silently realize what I've truly destroyed here. 

A past, a future. Hope.

"Look at us!" He goes at it again. "Look at us now! Where is your saviour! Where is your human! Where is your Master!" 

All questions I've asked myself these days. It's three days past the deadline for Asher to arrive. Where is he?

And Aren? What has the Mayor done to him?

He's just a former guard promised money, he has no stake in this. He should be set free.

But I know that won't happen. It never will.

Rariza and Utis were executed to serve as an example to the elves. Like the one-side slaughter that occurred that day wasn't enough of an example.

Vuius please! Where is Asher!

Screaming prayers in my head I only notice the danger I'm in when it's far too late and already hissing in my face.

Before me, slithering on my leg is a long green snake that has seemingly come from…somewhere. The beast bares its fangs at me as for a moment I want to live, but the moment is fleeting.

No, Death would be a much greater mercy, surely this is Vuius at work.

Resigning myself to be bitten and filled with venom from the serpent I'm caught wholly unprepared when it speaks.

"Kaylin, snap out of it. It's time to kill the Mayor."