Chương 10: [LD-1] 9. Poisoned

IX Poisoned I grabbed the snake's head and pulled. I pressed down on the wound as best as I could, but my bodily fluids slipped between my fingers and splattered the floor. The lower body of the serpent bubbled while I sagged to the floor.

"Mas—Master! The great Kilrog is alive! Thank you for—" he darted out of the snake's guts, covered in liquids. His single eye fell on me.

"Master! Are you alright?!"

"Venom," I groaned.

"I'm…poisoned." Fuck. It was getting hard to breathe. Was I really going to die like this? After all that talk of 'going out on my own terms?' Kil hurried to my side.

"Let me see." He made me remove my hand. His pupil widened once I did.

"That bad?"

"No…it's…the wound is closed, Master." A glance to the side. I blinked. There was a layer of skin underneath the blood.

'Huh?' Entirely confused, I rolled my shoulder. No discomfort. In the bones, that is. My veins were still on fire. It'd lessened, however. Even my breathing came more easily. That's when I noticed a second sensation beneath the burn. It was the energy Cull had fed me.

'It can heal me?' Was it some kind of life drain?

"I'll be alri—" A rasping cough cut me short. Kil turned away to shield himself from the liquids in flight before turning back to me.

"Master…" I rotated my palm. Spatters of red blood painted the underside. Inside me, the soothing energy dissipated. Where it vanished, the burn took back over.

'There's not enough.' The life drain could mend the damage, but it lacked the strength to combat the poison; most of the power must've been spent closing the wound.

"We need to move." I grabbed Cull and pushed myself to my feet. Luckily, the life drain also seemed to work on muscle fatigue to an extent.

"It might be better to meditate and raise your constitution." Kil bobbed around me, clearly worried. I shook my head.

"It'll take too long." Killing the snake had given me enough experience to reach level two, but experience had to be consolidated before I could use it to level. It'd take around half an hour, if not longer. Also— My stance weakened. I briefly leaned on the closet for stability and caught my breath. —the burn was interrupting my thought process. Getting myself into a meditative state would be difficult. The miasma rising from the ambusher's corpse siphoned into my veins with an afterthought. I stepped outside.

"Kil, help me find some enemies. Quickly, please."

"Yes, Master!" He shot past me into the hallway, and I followed behind him— A scream to my rear made me whirl. Sneakers whined, and a dishevelled girl bounded past the corner. She almost slipped and bashed into the wall, but caught and regained her balance. Her bright blue eyes locked onto me.

"Run!" My legs smashed against the pavement before the echoes of her yell faded. The girl, whom I recognised as the trembling girl with the barrette, dashed after me. Four goblins leapt into view behind her. One of them knocked an arrow.

"Duck!" I yelled. The girl dived under the bolt. That would've let the other monsters close the gap. But she rolled with the motion and ended up back on her feet. There'd been almost no break between the dodge and when she started running again.

'She's trained.' Had to be. I whirled back in front, unsummoned Cull, and vaulted over a thick root. There was a split in the path ahead, but two of the three exits were blocked, leaving us to take a hard left. I used the wall for support and swung around the corner.

'If we can't shake them soon we'll have to fight them.' Running through this place like a headless chicken was more likely to lead to our death than facing a few goblins. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. So my thoughts went as I cleared the bend. The view on the other side entered my sight in slow motion. Thin, wrinkled fingers that hadn't been washed once in their lifetime poked into a too narrow nose.

The goblin lounged in the undergrowth and watched lazily as another of the mongrels pointed at it, no doubt berating its lack of manners. It was the first to catch the figure entering the corner of its sight. Dull brown eyes widened, but not fast enough. I was already within range. My hands swiped out to the side. The goblins, seeing I was empty-handed, didn't bother to dodge and barrelled forward instead, levelling their clubs and crude spears. Cull materialised in the middle of my swing.

The goblin closest to me didn't stand a chance. The second managed to lean back and turn a life-ending attack into one that cleaved part of its nose and one eye.

"Masterful technique, Master!" Kil yelled. I disregarded his antics and the subsequent system notification, let Cull dissolve, and ran. The weapon had fed me the life it'd stolen. Yet I didn't feel better.

'My blood is rushing to my head.' But not only my head. My increased heart rate was pumping the poison to all corners of my body! Breath grew ragged as the flight down the halls continued. More packs of goblins like the first waited around every corner, and it was only a quick surprise attack that saw us pass them. However, more and more from each pack were joining the hunt. Somewhere, I even heard barking.

"Dammit," I cursed.

"Why are there so many of them?!"

"Goblins are group hunters by nature!" Kil glanced behind him. A yelp escaped his throat as he ducked underneath a sailing arrow which buried into a vine.

"What are we going to do?!" the girl yelled. Fighting was no longer an option. Not with my body deteriorating and the increased numbers. We needed to hide, but where— My sight snapped to a waving arm poking out an entrance in the middle of the hallway.

"There!" I yelled. Throwing caution to the wind, I smashed into the room with the girl right behind me. The entrance shut behind wus. A white-haired boy held his finger in front of his mouth. Not one of us dared to breathe. That turned our heads into isolated chambers through which the storming footsteps outside clattered and echoed repeatedly. Only after the last rumble passed did I dare let out a sigh and scan the rest of the room.

Shota and his two henchmen were crouched in the corner, the leader of the group glaring daggers at me as if I was at fault for existing. There were more people besides them, three students whom I didn't recognise from the elevator ride up.

'They must've been from an earlier batch of students. Orr from the other elevators.'

"That was too risky," Shota snarled. [Techno - lvl. 1] The boy who'd waved us over scoffed and strolled to a corner of the room not covered in too many vines. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. …

'He's asleep.' This guy really was superhuman. Shota evidently didn't think that highly of the boy's powers. His face contorted. However, since the target of his rage was asleep, he needed to let his rage out on another. He whirled on me.

"You—""Be quiet," a girl seated in the lotus said. His mouth snapped shut. I gave her a second look. She wore golden-rimmed spectacles. Her face was full of sharp and serious lines, and a sword rested beside her on the floor.

'That's the student council president.' Alexa Pedante. The principal's daughter. [Razor - lvl. 3] Embarrassment and a drive to punch Alexa warred on Shota's face. But his features eventually smoothened. He grinned.

"You must not be that worried, Alexa." He sighed theatrically.

"It was your father who arranged this after all." He would've died if gazes could cut. For a moment, I wondered if the president would draw her blade. She shook her head instead.

"If this is the intelligence of his heir, Sir Sarakawa must fear his clan is never going to join the Houses." And then the drive to slaughter her was back. Shota's tall lackey rose to his feet, while Evans tried to make himself small. I disregarded the altercation that followed. I'd been leaning on my knees and heaving after entering. Now, I couldn't stand.

'Dammit.' Iron went down my throat as I swallowed.

"Are you…alright?" I weakly turned around. The timid girl from before. Dark spots matted her blouse. Her hair clip hung on by a thread. She refastened her barrette and stepped towards me.

"You look—" Kil placed himself between me and the girl.

"Supplicant! Do not overstep! My master requires her space!" His words drew the eyes of the others in the room, who raised their brow then glanced at me. I lowered my chin in both exhaustion and embarrassment.

'And here I thought he was politely being strangely quiet.'

"Supplicant?" the girl said.

"Please…don't mind him," I whispered.

"He's my familiar." Her head tilted as she regarded him. I turned my attention to my insides. The poison's burn had lessened—I'd killed a few more goblins on the way over—but it wasn't gone.

'It's a race against time.' I needed to meditate right away. I crossed my legs as Kil did his best impression of a frown.

"What are you looking at? You want to go?" His bobbing up and down must've been an attempt at being threatening. A moment. The girl chuckled.

"He's kind of cute. What's he called?"

"How rude! I'm—" the eyeball paused and floated closer to her.

"Sorry, I'm not sure if I heard right. What did you call me?"

"Cute," she said and reached out to pat him.

"Ah, so soft!" I tensed. When Kil began to squirm, I opened my mouth to tell her to stop—"Supplicant!" Kil cut me off.

"You have a good eye." My eyelids shut, and I massaged my forehead. The girl giggled again and started petting him, a fact the eyeball couldn't get enough of. Then she approached me and placed a hand on my back. It spoke to my physical state that I failed to react to her at all.

"I knew something was wrong," she said.

"You're poisoned." Her quick assessment had me looking over her head. [Restorer - lvl. 1]'A healer?' The pulse passing into me confirmed my thoughts.

"I won't be able to cure the poison," she said.

"But this should help you meditate." It was true. Already, the pounding in my skull had lessened. Which was why I wasted no time calming my thoughts. I'd never been one to meditate in my previous life. However, this world's version of me had had plenty of lessons on the subject. And not only on meditation. There were multiple stages to levelling, the first two of which were divided into Neophyte and Initiate. The former was the infant stage every mage started out as.

It was the mage at their most naked and vulnerable, their future path of magic still formless so they could yet become anything.

'In the mind of the beginner, the possibilities are endless,' Professor Hamar had said one day in class.

'In the mind of the expert, there are few. Every high realm magus is an expert in their field.' I exhaled, letting the discussions in the room wash over me. The burns within me flared with each breath like I was fanning a fire. I didn't fight the pain.' Feel it.' Accept it. As I did, slowly, the world stilled around me. Voices turned into less than background noise, an indecipherable ripple beneath the waves of a deep ocean.

As I drifted further from the realm of the living, I felt myself floating closer to the well of my power hidden deep in the recesses of my soul. Until I opened my eyes in a completely different world.