Chapter 84: The Next Fragments I

  As the adrenaline of the fight began to fade, Leo suddenly felt aches and pains all over his body. His hand was still a bit shaky from the earlier [Shock] spell, and his lungs heaved for air. He swallowed. His throat was dry; everything smelled and tasted like smoke and iron, and the entryway was completely destroyed.

  But it was done. They’d managed to beat both Asher and Darius.

  Leo checked his mana, finding he had just enough left to use [Renewal], and quickly activated the skill. Allan raised a hand, but he stopped him and gave a firm shake of his head.

  “Heal yourself first,” he insisted. The cut on the [Healer]’s neck had long stopped bleeding, but the dried red there was still a terrifying reminder of how close of a call that had been.

  Leo shuddered. He’d known things would be dangerous, and the whole fiasco on the Glass Lake had had plenty of near misses, but that had been different. He’d fought Sonia alone and hadn’t actually seen Allan or Spade’s fights. It was one thing to come near death himself—it was another thing entirely to watch it happen to a friend. Especially when that friend was only in that situation because of him.

  Allan frowned. By now, the earlier dizziness seemed to have cleared from his eyes, and replacing it was a growing look of frustration. Leo would’ve expected a bit of fear or maybe even relief that the ordeal was over. The [Healer] didn’t seem to think the same.

  Behind them, the sound of footsteps approached, and Leo turned to see Spade calmly striding forward. Her walk was a bit more uneven than usual, indicating that she must’ve hurt her leg, and she was clutching the bloody wound on her arm, but her face otherwise gave no indication of pain. Grey eyes swept over Darius’s corpse, lingering on the deep cut at his throat.

  “That was a good strike,” she said. “Quite accurate.”

  Leo frowned, gaze lingering on her arm. Now that the battle was over, he had time to fully process what had happened. He could still vividly recall the [Executioner] stabbing the dagger into her arm, then Darius’s subsequent scream as the same wound appeared on him.

  It seemed Allan had been aware enough when it happened because he, too, was staring at the injury. He took a step forward and raised a hand.

  [Allan has activated the [Mend] spell]

  Ultramarine light glowed from his palm. Spade raised an eyebrow, but moved her hand to give the [Healer] better access to the cut. With nothing covering it, it looked much worse.

  Dark red freely dripped down from the sliced open flesh, falling onto the ground below. The [Executioner] apparently hadn’t had any qualms about stabbing her own arm, if the depth of the wound was any indication. She hadn’t held back at all.

  “…That was your personal skill, wasn’t it.” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Yes, it was,” Spade said simply. She remained still, letting Allan continue to stitch the flesh back together with his magic. Leo opened his mouth, then closed it again. She seemed to understand his unspoken question, however, because she continued.

  “It lets me create a link to a target. While the link is active, any wound I receive is mirrored on the target and vice versa.” Her eyes shifted over to Darius’s dead body, then back. “I cut off the link before you attacked.”

  Leo nodded slowly. He’d never heard of a personal skill like that—he couldn’t imagine what kind of event would spur its creation, either. It sounded like a double-edged sword to him. Even just now, if she hadn’t stopped [Empathy] in time, she would’ve died when Leo sliced Darius’s throat. It was a terrifying thought.

  Leo found himself staring at the scars covering the [Executioner]. How many of those were from that skill? Another thought struck him, and he furrowed his brow.

  “But that’s just the active effect, right?” Based on her stat sheet, [Empathy] was at level 3, so it should also have a passive effect.

  Spade was silent for a moment. Leo thought she might not answer, but finally, she spoke in a simple, matter-of-fact voice.

  “The passive effect lets me see connections between people.” She gestured at him. “I like to think of them as stains. Every person has their own signature, and when you interact with someone, part of that mark is left on you.” She chuckled. “It’s quite useful for tracking.”

  As Leo processed the information, several pieces began to slot together in his mind. Realization dawned on him.

  “Hold on, so when you said you wanted to join us because you were looking for someone, you mean I—”

  “You don’t know them,” she interrupted. “You have a stain on your aura that the person I’m looking for also had.” She cocked her head. In the dying embers of the surrounding flames, her eyes seemed to gleam in the light like sharpened blades—dangerous and intense. “It’s an indirect link, but that indirect link is more than I’ve found anywhere else.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Leo didn’t know what to say to that. Lenore’s words suddenly rose in his mind unbidden. For everyone’s sake, I hope she never succeeds. He was still missing so many details, but he thought he was beginning to understand what she’d meant.

  The ultramarine light of [Mend] faded, and Allan exhaled, finally stepping back. The cut was no longer bleeding from what Leo could see, and it seemed mostly closed.

  “That’s all I can do with [Mend],” the [Healer] muttered. “I’m going to wrap it a few times. As long as you don’t move it around too much, it should be fine.”

  At the mention of bandages, Leo glanced around the ruined entryway. Nearly every part of the floor was damaged in some way, and only two pillars remained standing. Between the chunks of rubble and burned wood, Leo could see his scattered knives as well as their bags. He hurried over to them, pulling out a roll of bandages and tossing it at Allan. The [Healer] nodded gratefully and turned to begin wrapping Spade’s wound.

  In the meantime, Leo gave his notifications a more thorough read. He’d been too caught up in the fight before, but now that they were no longer in combat, he read through his newest skill’s details.

  [Return - Mana cost: Medium. After throwing an object, allows the user to summon the object back to their hand. The object will fly back in the shortest direct path possible. At higher levels, the range and allowed weight of the object increases.]

  He certainly could’ve used a skill like that just now, Leo thought somewhat bitterly. Unfortunately he didn’t have enough mana to test it right now, so he instead elected to move around the area collecting all his fallen throwing knives and daggers.

  As he did so, he used 200 points to raise both his agility and resistance up by 1. His encounter with Darius’s magic had been more than enough for him to want to keep the latter stat high; he couldn’t imagine how much worse [Shock] would’ve been if his resistance was lower.

  The last 100 points he used to raise [Return] to level 2. He suspected that skill would become crucial for fights in the future.

  Leo stored away the last knife, picked up their bags, and returned to where Allan and Spade were by the stairs. By then some of the smoke had finally begun to settle, and he was anxious to get outside and inhale the fresh air again.

  Allan stood back after tying off the last bandage. He and Spade had been conversing in low voices, too quiet for Leo to hear, but whatever conversation they’d been having seemed to have come to an end by the time he reached them. Based on the frown on Allan’s face and his furrowed brows, it must not have been a pleasant one.

  “I got our stuff,” Leo said, dropping the bags at their feet. He glanced around, but he couldn’t see any signs of movement nearby. Allan and Spade must’ve knocked the guard patrol out before they reached the entryway.

  Still, he wanted to get out of the manor as quickly as possible. The fight would’ve at the minimum lit up the windows, and at its worst someone might’ve heard the explosions. Who knew when guards would arrive to investigate.

  The [Fragmentholder]’s gaze landed on Darius’s still corpse, and he swallowed. He’d spent all that time questioning Sol and testing it himself to see if he could remove a fragment without violence. With the noble dead, none of that mattered anymore. Darius couldn’t willingly give up the fragment now even if he wanted to. Leo stared down at his dagger, then back at the motionless body.

  “Do you need to cut the fragment out?” Spade asked. Leo nodded slowly.

  “Yeah. It should be in the chest.” One hand moved unconsciously over to his own sternum where Sol had pointed. “Right about here.”

  She nodded. “I can remove it if you’d like,” she said. “It would hardly be the worst thing I’ve done.”

  Leo shuddered. “Thanks for the reminder,” he muttered. He’d almost forgotten about the [Executioner]’s other main job back in Sindrey. “Really nice imagery.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Leo spun around. Behind him, Allan stood staring down at Darius’s corpse, a strange look in his eyes. He frowned.

  “You sure? I can do it myself. It’s kind of my responsibility anyway.”

  “No,” Allan said with a surprising amount of force. Leo blinked. The [Healer] must’ve realized how he’d sounded, as he quickly backtracked and added, “I mean, I’ve been studying anatomy from that book. I’m the party healer now, right?” He smiled, though it was a little crooked. “This’ll be good practice.”

  Leo glanced down at the dagger in his hand, hesitant. It was clear the [Healer] wasn’t being entirely truthful about his motives. His eyes drifted back over to the dried cut at his neck. Maybe this was some kind of revenge or a form of closure. That kind of thing seemed out of character for Allan, but at the same time, given how close to death the man had been, he didn’t want to deny him something that might make him feel better, either.

  “…Okay,” Leo finally said, slowly handing the knife over. Allan took it, fingers wrapping tightly around the handle. For a moment he simply stared down at the blade, then after a pause, he stepped over to Darius’s corpse and crouched down.

  The ensuing process made Leo more queasy than he’d like to admit. He swallowed, but forced himself to keep watching as the [Healer] methodically cut open the man’s chest with a clinical precision. He shuddered a little at the squelching sounds. It didn’t help that neither Spade nor Allan seemed at all affected by what was happening. Still, this was what he’d signed up for. He’d never be able to become the Administrator if he couldn’t even handle this much.

  After what felt like hours but likely only amounted to a few minutes, Allan finally stepped back. One of his hands was covered in blood and flesh and other things Leo preferred not to think about. He opened his fingers. In the center of his bloody palm sat a large fragment.

  “ …It really was there,” Allan murmured, staring down at the shard with something akin to wonder.

  Leo grabbed a scrap piece of cloth and handed it over to the man, who wiped off his hand and then the fragment. With the blood removed, Leo could now see the distinct golden specks dancing beyond its glassy surface. His brows furrowed. It looked a lot bigger than usual.

  Clearly he wasn’t the only one to have noticed, as Spade raised an eyebrow.

  “That looks larger than the other two were,” she commented.

  Allan dropped the cleaned fragment in Leo’s palm. It was cool to the touch. He frowned at it, remembering when he’d experimentally removed his own fragments earlier.

  Slowly, he raised a finger and nudged the shard.

  It split into three.