Uriel ran as fast as he could with Ininise in his arms.
Fshhh!
The sound of bows firing arrows echoed behind them. The other assassins were chasing them.
The moment Uriel heard the sound, he was already prepared, activating the Resilient Skin skill. This time, however, he could feel the arrows striking his flesh.
"Nghh!"
Pain shot across his entire back. For a moment he almost collapsed, but he gathered the strength he needed and kept running.
"Uriel! Are you okay?"
Clearly he wasn't. Honestly, this hurt far more than when his father used to beat him, but he wasn't going to stop for anything in the world. If he did, it would mean the person he was protecting would die, and that was something Uriel would never allow.
"Yes, don't worry about me. I barely felt it. It was like getting stung by a bee, hahaha."
"This is no time for jokes!"
In truth, it was the perfect time for them. It helped him forget that his back was being relentlessly struck by arrows. In the end, he thought, he had been right. If he had carried Ininise on his shoulders, he would probably have turned into a human pincushion by now.
"How long until you can cast spells again?"
That information was very important to Uriel. If they ran into enemies, they would need every bit of extra firepower they could get. After seeing how Ininise had eliminated the corpses, he had high expectations for her. His hopes were set on her recovering quickly.
Ininise's gaze darkened, which meant bad news for Uriel.
"I used all the mana I had in that fight."
She bit her lip.
"I used so much that now I'm suffering a negative status."
Ininise looked at him with pain in her eyes, as if she knew she was about to destroy all the expectations and hopes he had been holding onto.
"I won't be able to cast spells again until my mana fully recovers."
Uriel felt as if a huge weight had been placed on his back.
He didn't know whether Ininise had known that would happen or not. It seemed reckless to him to have done something like that. They could have continued finishing off the corpses; there had been no need to spend every last drop of her power just to make a spectacle.
"I'm sorry…"
Ininise looked like she was about to cry, which surprised Uriel.
He had probably let his bitter expression show too clearly.
"Don't worry. No matter what happens, I won't let them lay a hand on you."
Uriel smiled at her. However, he was beginning to feel the accumulated exhaustion from so many battles and from overusing his skill. Soon he would have to stop to catch his breath.
But no matter how hard things were getting, deep down he had already made a decision: he would protect Ininise.
For the first time, he felt like he was doing something more than simply surviving. Personally, he liked these people.
They supported one another and were good fighters. Uriel wondered if he would ever have a team that cared about him the same way. He found himself wishing for it.
He kept running without stopping. In a way, the sudden event had helped him: it had gathered most of the corpses in the area into a single point, so he hadn't encountered anything troublesome along the way.
"Hahh…"
"Hahh…"
Ininise brought her hand closer to Uriel's face to get his attention.
"Let's stop and rest. If you keep running like this, you're going to collapse."
Her face was full of concern.
If you ask me like that, I don't have much choice but to listen, Uriel thought as he slowly came to a stop.
They had moved quite far from the area where the battle had taken place. Uriel would have to choose one of the houses, and there were probably still some corpses inside. That meant he had to be extremely cautious.
He couldn't leave Ininise outside, so he would enter first and kill anything inside as quickly as possible.
"Don't go too far. I don't want you getting caught by surprise."
Ininise nodded at Uriel's words. She wouldn't move far from him or out of his reach.
Uriel opened one of the shattered doors. At first glance there was nothing there, but those creatures stayed alive even after being cut in half. Nothing guaranteed that one wasn't hiding somewhere.
"Fiiiuuu."
He whistled loudly enough for it to echo throughout the house.
Two corpses crawled out from beneath some raised floorboards.
Uriel's body felt heavy, and the damp, painful sensation on his back was terribly irritating.
Even so, he summoned his weapon, ready to earn some rest after the marathon he had just run.
One of the corpses burst out of the floor faster than the other, but when it rose, the only thing waiting for it was a crushing blow that smashed its head.
Hitting these things was a thousand times easier than killing the pink imps. They were slow and didn't require much skill.
The corpse's body collapsed onto the floor, and Uriel kicked it back into the hole with his leg.
The other one hadn't managed to get out; it had gotten stuck between several boards.
Uriel approached it. Looking at it more closely, something caught his attention.
All the corpses had signs of having died from bites.
At first he hadn't paid much attention. He had thought they were just generic zombies, but the pink imps looked exactly like the kind of creatures capable of causing those kinds of wounds.
Uriel was absorbed in the possible connection between those creatures and the city when suddenly—
"URIEL, THE STAIRS!"
Ininise shouted.
There was still another corpse, and it was about to leap at Uriel.
"RRWWAAARH!"
The corpse lunged at him.
But before it could grab him, Uriel raised his mace and delivered a powerful strike to its face as it fell. The corpse collapsed instantly, motionless on the ground—this time forever.
"Hahh…"
"Hahhh…"
"Hahaha…"
"Ahhhh…"
Uriel couldn't go on any longer and let himself drop onto the floor.
He was truly exhausted. After running and fighting for so long, he was determined to take a rest.