— Hikari —-
[Physique : 1708]
[Defense : 1905]
[Mana : 2815]
[Mind : 1550]
[Height : 6.1 Meters]
[Weight : 6.5 tons]
A wriggling tail.
Hikari's vision was blurred.
She blinks.
A wriggling tail.
A wet feeling on her foot.
Where are her boots?
Her eyes shut.
Headache.
Ears ringing.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Nauseous. Giddy.
She wants to vomit.
Her eyes open.
Blurred vision.
A wriggling tail.
It turns.
A wet feeling on her foot again.
Her senses slowly come back to her.
The cold, hard ground.
She feels the wind on her bare skin.
Where is her armor?
She moves her fingers.
Her nail scratches the ground.
A wet, slimy feeling on the back of her hand.
She moves her other hand.
Her breathing was shallow.
She opens her lips, allowing the air to flow into her lungs more easily.
Her head hurts.
She squeezes her eyes.
"What happened?"
She remembers fighting a mage.
The pull of her bowstring.
The feeling of her arrows leaving the bow.
The sensation of frost and stillness.
The sting of aether fire.
Slurp. Slurp.
A wet feeling between her toes.
It was followed by a warm toasting.
Her eyes opened wearily.
A slither of blurred vision.
The wagging tail.
"Ugh…"
She tried to move.
Her blood starts pumping again.
Her body feels extremely heavy.
It was like being strapped down by chains.
Her mana races through her body.
It was a familiar feeling.
"Control. Control."
She thought to herself.
She attempted her normal meditation drills.
Slowly, gradually, reduce the flow.
She breathed heavily.
Heat.
Her body was getting warm.
A fever.
The feeling of cold, sharp claws on her stomach.
It sucked away some of her raging mana.
The cold claws moved up to her chest.
And then into her forehead.
The cold around her stomach wears off.
The claws move back.
Then down to her legs.
Shallow, short breaths.
She tries to control it.
But the raging mana within her makes her giddy.
Her heart pounded.
"Ugh."
It hurts.
The amount of mana spreading throughout her body was unbearable.
Her body convulsed.
Numb.
She couldn't move.
She couldn't feel anything.
She could barely breathe.
Fever.
The heat kept climbing.
Heart of wyvern frost.
Her fever did not go away.
Heart of wyvern frost.
She couldn't activate it.
She felt like she was drowning in her own mana.
The sharp claws grabbed her stomach.
Incantations that had a familiar ring.
A sharp injection.
Her whole body reacts.
A mana blast in all directions.
Her body convulsed.
She almost threw up.
"(Heart of wyvern frost)"
She hears the voice in her head.
A wave of frost spread through her body.
It counters the heat.
But she still felt the fever.
She feels sticky.
She was sweating all over.
"Control."
She tells herself.
Control. Control.
The mana storm inside her builds up again.
She has to expel it.
The surge of mana rages through her body.
Giddy, nauseous, she wants to vomit.
She pushes.
Heavily breathing.
Her heart pounds even harder.
A burning aura of raw mana surrounds her.
Cough!
Her eyelids swing open.
She squeezes her abdominal muscles.
A sit-up has never felt this difficult.
Her muscles ache from the excess mana.
She had to support herself with her arm.
Her vision was still blurry.
A pair of golden eyes staring at her.
A tail wagging in the background.
A surge of vomit up her gullet.
She turns to the side.
The burning stomach acid burns through the hard ground.
"Where…"
She was trying to make sense of her surroundings.
It was dark, like she was in a cave.
But the ground was flat, too flat for a rocky outcrop.
She pulls her head away from the rising steam of raw mana.
Cough! Cough! It burns her throat.
"Water…"
The sound of steel sliding across the ground.
Her ears ring.
She blacks out.
"(Hikari)"
A voice in her head.
It echoes.
"(Hikari)"
It echoes.
Hikari came to.
She forces herself to sit up.
Back pain. She felt sore all over.
Ella was sitting right in front of her.
She nudged a steel tank filled with water towards her.
Hikari instantly grabbed it up and raised it above her head.
The cool water sizzled as it hit the back of her tongue.
She kept her mouth open to let the steam out.
Her body is literally boiling inside.
"(Lay down. Hikari's mana is unstable)"
Hikari didn't need more encouragement on that.
She feels Ella's claw tips poke at her skin.
The half-wyvern absorbs her heat and mana.
Her wings open, helping Hikari to vent the excess.
Despite her best efforts, Hikari was still boiling up.
The raging mana keeps resurging despite purging it again and again.
It builds up again.
Hikari feels her chest tighten.
She convulsed, releasing a destructive wave of energy.
Ella backs off, her wings folding over her, shielding herself from the blast.
Raw mana steams from her body as she expels it.
The raw mana burns her skin like acid.
She was sweating profusely.
The sweat evaporates the moment it leaves her skin.
Cough!
"Water…"
Hikari whispers.
Ella pours a tank into Hikari's mouth.
The sound of steam as the water touches her tongue.
Hikari's fever is still not going down.
Ella places her claws on her belly.
Heart of wyvern frost.
Shuffles up and down Hikari's torso and head, where the excess heat damages her the most.
Deep breaths. Breath in, breath out.
"Control... Control..."
Slowed, controlled breaths.
She expels her mana in a gradually outward flow.
Ella keeps casting frost on her.
Her wyvern scale could contain the raw mana.
Her head still hurts like hell.
Her throat feels like it is stuffed with beans.
Her throat felt so tight that she thought it was going to burst.
"Water…"
Ella pours another tank.
It was the last one.
Steam rose from Hikari's mouth.
Hikari swallows.
She raises her palm to the air.
An invisible stream of raw mana and heat was pushed upwards.
It distorts the air and pierces through the mist above.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Her fever was still there.
Ella checks her mana flow.
It has stabilized.
"(Ella will go get more water.)"
Hikari falls back to sleep.
…
Dong! Dong!
The faint ringing of the church bells.
It can be heard across the town.
"Ah… that's enough… Gerald…"
Hikari moans. She was sweating all over.
Her shirt was soaked and stuck to her body.
"No. You are only done when I say you're done."
"Gerald…"
Hikari pushes as hard as she can.
Her muscles burned as they were squeezed.
"Quit complaining or I'll add more weight. Come, I'll do it with you."
Gerald grabs a pair of his own dumbbells.
He positions himself in front of the giantess.
On her shoulders, a load that would have broken her companion's spine into two if he attempted it.
"Follow my lead. Slow, deep breaths."
Hikari's aching legs had a moment of relief as she stood straight.
"One more solid Rep, I promise. No more weights starting from tomorrow. That'll give your body enough time to absorb the burn and turn it into bulk."
Hikari just rests the weights on her shoulders.
Gerald was the height of her breasts.
"Ready, now go."
He bent his legs in a squat press.
Hikari follows his movements.
She bends her knees, the boulders on her shoulders and the weight of her muscular tops pressing down on her thighs.
"Hold!"
Gerald pressed his weights as close to his chest as he could.
It was well above what he could manage.
He did it to set an encouraging example for Hikari.
The veins on his forehead looked like they were going to pop/
"Gerald."
"Hold!"
His face was going red from the pressure.
Hikari looked at him with concerned eyes.
"Ah!"
He falls backward onto the ground as he tries to push himself back up.
The stone dumbbells make a crater in the ground where they land.
Hikari straightens her legs.
Carefully, she lowers the weights onto the ground.
A pair of boulders, each the size of her head, for each dumbbell.
With her arms raised, she stretches and touches her toes.
She sits down on the stone bench and drinks from her tin bucket.
She has no towel big enough for her, so she just has to let it air-dry.
"Gerald."
The mercenary captain sat on the ground groaning in pain.
His head was fine as it hit the soft soil.
But his legs were not.
Especially not the swollen part that Hikari stepped on with her hardened boots when he tried to dance with the gigantic lady.
Gerald peeled off the bandages.
"I'm fine. I'm fine."
Hikari hands him the medicinal paste.
Gerald rubs the sticky, light-green paste and reapplies the bandages.
"Gerald."
He tries to stand up.
Hikari lends him her arm, helping him to lean on his walking stick.
He was light as a toddler for her.
"Captain, have you been training again? How are ya going to march in a few days with one swollen leg?"
A woman in housemaid clothes. Dark, rugged skin.
Her cheek was swollen as she had taken a direct swing from an orc.
A missing tooth from the same swing, making her voice sound funny.
"Alright, alright, no more training until I have healed."
The healer grumpily redid his bandages.
"Marching?"
"Yes. Our next assignment just arrived. It's not the orcs. We have to deal with an undead outbreak."
"Zombies"
"I know you hate zombies. But we'll get paid well enough to buy a round of roasted rodents. Ok. That's actually not that much. And we can't cook the zombie meat afterward. But still, it's better than having to face the orcs."
Hikari nods reluctantly.
The healer finished the bandages.
She gives the mercenary captain a menacing look.
Her orcish-looking face.
Gerald replied with a warm smile.
She spits into the roadside.
"Come now, there are some people we need to meet. They'll be our party members for this raid."
They made their way through town.
Blacksmiths hammering at the anvils.
Craftsmen assembling muskets.
Only fried fish and mushrooms are on sale at the small merchant stands.
The rest is strictly rationed.
Small strides to match Gerald's pace as he struggles along on his walking stick.
They reached a clearing.
A stable, a warehouse, and an inn were nearby to receive travelers.
Few in the way of merchants trying to sell their wares to the areas sucked dry of their resources to provision the war.
A wagon stopped. The soldiers dismounted.
A common set of equipment to deal with orcs.
Wide-barreled rifle.
The standard ones for fighting against bandits will not make an orc bat an eye.
Bundles of Steel trip wires. The brutes never look before they charge.
A skinny figure in a rugged brown reddish coat dismounted the wagon last.
Bandages all over her, on her hands and face.
Burn marks over burn marks.
No signs of unscorched skin.
She clasped her staff tightly.
Cinderbark. A tree that is immune to fire.
But its surface was so rough that one would get blisters just holding it.
"Greetings. Elia wyrmspeak. We are expecting you."
"Gree-greetings." The woman's voice was soft and weak.
One eye was covered by thick bandages.
She could barely make eye contact.
Her stomach rumbled. She looks away.
"Join us for lunch. You can count on us for provisions."
The woman did not speak.
But she followed as they made it back to camp.
Hikari chops up the vegetables and grinds the beans.
Gerald pours water into the cauldron.
"Ah, damn, let me go get the matches from the warehouse."
A flare of mana.
The cinder mage points her staff at the bottom of the cauldron.
The coal was set alight.
The water begins to boil.
Hikari slides the ingredients from her chopping block into the pot.
She scrapes the stirring bowl filled with bean paste with her ladle.
"Good. I guess we can count on you when we face the undead after all."
The cinder mage's stomach rumbles.
She points her staff at the bottom of the cauldron.
Her flames roar.
"Ok stop that; you'll burn our lunch at this rate."
A louder rumble comes from Hikari's stomach.
She dips her ladle into the cauldron and stirs aggressively.
"Stop it, the two of you…"