Chương 85: Fucking Intruders!

POV: The Assistant, Nyx Lunessa looked at me, and there was something careful in it now, like she was recalibrating everything she'd walked in here assuming. Heat came climbing up in me. My ears burned, and I had no idea what my face was doing. The adrenaline was draining out fast, and after it had mostly subsided, something close to regret began to bloom. I felt, all at once, like some cheap throwaway girl in a romance manga; the one deemed to lose by the final chapter.

But it was done now, and I had no intention of taking a word of it back—not that I could, but I really would to do everything in my power. Especially now, with something out there that could truly bring him back.

"I see." Lunessa rose.

"Then there's nothing more I can do about it." She started to turn away, then stopped, and looked back at me.

"May I ask you something? About Milo." A pause.

"Since... you seem to have known him for quite a while." Another thing I hadn't seen coming. She really did wring every last opportunity for information dry. Refusing would only make me look like a sore loser, though, and one question or two probably wouldn't do any harm.

"Is he a good person?"... A basic question, yet I found I didn't have a clean answer for it. The Milo now was a different person from the one back then. Some traits carried over, some echoes remained, but even I knew he wasn't really him anymore. And even so, I—"I think he's an idiot."

"... Sorry?"

"An idiot." I crossed my arms.

"I've been telling him, over and over, exactly how to raise his Terror Level quickly, and for some idealistic reason, some noble little fantasy about being a better person, he keeps refusing to do it. If he'd just listened, we wouldn't be in half the mess we're in now." Lunessa's brows lifted, faintly.

"His brain works strangely, too. Sometimes he's decent, and other times he's dense as a brick. I've half a theory there are several people crammed inside his head, working in shifts, and how clever he is depends entirely on whose turn it is at the controls." I warmed to it, despite myself.

"He can't devise a plan to save his life. He trips over his own feet, or over nothing at all. He stutters like a fool whenever he's nervous. And every single time he tries to act cool, it's excruciating to watch because it's just cringe."

"I really don't think he's as—""But." I heard myself say it before I'd decided to.

"His idiocy did manage to bring something good out of it. His idiocy is why Evelisse is here. Why you're here. And his idiocy, for whatever reason, made him brave." I thought of what Greg had shown me; Milo, furious on my behalf, squaring up against a Ywain drowning in blessings, with his own pitiful Terror Level. That had been the moment, I think. The moment I'd faltered, and found it so much harder to keep looking away from him. And that hadn't included the times before he'd ever been this Milo.

"It's the one of the most cliché things in the world, but once he sets his mind on something, he throws everything he has at it. He'll lose, badly, more often than not. But he does it anyway. He used to tell me he'd rather regret doing a thing than regret never trying it at all." Something crossed Lunessa's face.

"Even back when we were—"... Oh, no. I shouldn't have let that out.

"—um. Anyway. He's... okay. I suppose. And he's a pervert, by the way. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but he's absolutely thought all sorts of unsavory things about you and your sister." Lunessa only smiled.

"Most men are, I'd imagine. That part doesn't trouble me." Then she gave a knowing tilt of her head.

"Nice try to reduce the competition." Tch.

"Still, for what it's worth, I could tell you weren't lying when you said you loved him." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I didn't have an answer ready for that.

"I won't wish you luck, though." She smoothed her shorts.

"I don't see anything wrong with Milo... yet. So for now, I'll be rooting for Eve." That irked me. She talked as if she expected some flaw in him. Never mind that I'd just spent a solid minute listing his flaws myself, but that was—ugh. Whatever. Lunessa turned and drifted off toward the kitchen.

"Anyhow. I ought to start on dinner. Anything in particular you'd like?"

"Whatever. Make what you want." She laughed, light and infuriating.

"You know, it seems like you're only ever talkative when it's about him."

"Wha—just—shut up!" I was up and stalking off to my room before she'd finished, and I did not look back. I couldn't say how long I'd been out. It seemed I'd dropped off almost the instant I hit the bed, likely due to the exhaustion from the embarrassment of that little half-confession. Though, I was more concerned about what had happened in the living room. The sound of plates shattering had woken me up. I came out of my room to find Lunessa face-down on the floor, out cold.

Shards of broken crockery scattered around her, a spill of stir-fried pork flung across the boards. No blood that I could see, but there, jutting from the side of her neck, was a dart. Likely something akin to a tranquilizer. I threw myself sideways on pure instinct, and sure enough, a second dart hissed through the space where I'd just been standing and buried itself in the wall behind me. I swept my eyes across the room. No one, but I could've sworn I heard footsteps.

Someone had ambushed the house, and they were probably cloaked with a concealment spell of some kind. Damn it. And of course it had to be now, with Milo and Luke both gone. Whoever these people were, they'd chosen their moment wisely. I bolted back into my room and slammed the door behind me. For a moment there was only silence, but I knew the intruders were still out there. I had no way of knowing how many; two, at least, judging by what I'd sensed, or perhaps more.

Only two possibilities came to mind; Either Ywain had picked up some new allies, or these were the arrogant little elf's friends. I'd bet it was the latter. She had warned us, after all, that her friends would come for her. Though that was precisely the part that didn't sit right. Milo had talked her into guiding us to Silvanis tomorrow, which meant she should have passed word along through whatever means the elves used and informed her people. Attacking us after a truce like that made no sense.

Unless she had been planning to double-cross us since the beginning, or even she didn't know about this attack. She could surely sense her own kind in the house; a single word from her would end the hostility. So if she stayed silent, if she did nothing, then it meant she'd never had any intention of leading us to Silvanis in the first place. And that Milo, once again, had trusted a pretty face far too easily. Either way, I had to get out. There was far too little to go on right now.

If Luke were here, she'd sniff them out in seconds, but, again, she wasn't, and that was the whole problem. So I wrenched the window open and threw myself out. The air rushed up to meet me, cool and damp. There was no one outside, not that I could see them, anyway. Lunessa was still out cold on the floor inside; Mel and the elf were somewhere in there too. Tch. I couldn't just store the house and fly away, not with people still inside it.

One option: fly up, smash through a window, drag Mel out, and try to bait the enemies into the open. But that still left Lunessa and the elf, assuming she wasn't sleeping through all of this. Then, faintly, I caught it, the sound of my bedroom door swinging open. They're in. Right. New plan. Fly clear, get above it all, and mental link Milo. He could teleport straight back, and between him and Luke, we'd have these cloaked cowards flattened and trussed up like the elf in no time.

I shot upward, climbing toward the open sky where I could mental-link Milo without some dart finding the back of my neck first. It meant leaving the others down there, exposed, but if the intruders were using tranquilizing darts, then they weren't here to kill, so at least they should be somewhat safe. As I rose, I spotted Mel at the second-floor window. She threw it open, and I swept in close.

"W-what's happening?" Her voice came out shaky.

"I heard plates smashing, and when I went down the stairs there were these darts flying at me, and I—""Someone's here. Cloaked." I cut across her.

"Do you know any spell that can reveal them?"

"I— I can cast a kind of magic-jamming field, but it won't fully reveal them. Only for a moment, at most."

"Good enough. For now, we—" A dart struck her square in the back. I watched her eyes roll upward, and then she simply crumpled, pitching forward through the open window before I caught her by the arm, hauled her up, and carried her to settle on the roof. Damn it. What an absolute mess this was turning into. I lifted off again, weaving up and down through the treeline as I reached out for Milo. Please let him not be off on some ridiculous little date with Evelisse, too distracted to notice— And it connected.

"Come back right now!"

"Nyx? I'm already on—" Then I slammed into something. The impact snapped me backward, the unconscious Mel torn from my grip as I hit the ground. Soil, wet and cold, and the crush of leaves against my face; my forehead throbbing where it had struck. Sitting up, rubbing at it, I finally saw what I'd flown into; a wall of faint, translucent green. A barrier. Someone had sealed us in. I was gathering myself to fly up and try Milo again when I felt a small, sharp prick at my shoulder. Of course it's the fucking dart.

The world went soft and heavy almost at once, a leaden warmth spreading down my limbs, my thoughts smearing together. I fought it but it made no difference at all. The green wall blurred, the trees blurred, and I fell on my back. Before I lost consciousness, I swore I saw an elf girl staring down at me; she had twin-tails that I'd bet Milo would associate with some tsundere character. I just... hope that he... wouldn't... oh fuck. Then everything went black.