Stray

It was not the pain that awakened Ann, but the numbness and itching caused by the rapid healing of her wounds. Her sweaty clothes clung to the wounds on her skin, giving her the feeling that her skin was rotting. ‘Maybe it wasn’t an illusion, but this was what death should look like,’ Ann thought dimly.

She tried to move her fingers, but they seemed to be buried deep in the mud at the bottom of a marsh. She couldn’t even lift a single one. The orange light passed through her eyelids, and she suddenly exhausted all her strength before lifting them up. From the small gap, two dirty faces immediately filled her field of vision, causing the female soldier to reflexively closed her eyes.

“She’s awake! I just saw her blink!” Nemo announced excitedly.

Ann turned her eyes laboriously. The sunrise in the summer was very early, and half the sky was already bathed in bright blue that belong to day. Of course, she didn’t miss the eye-catching huge icicles, which helped her put together most of the facts in her mind without much difficulty about the events of last night.

She opened her mouth and tried her best to ignore the pain in her throat caused by thirst.

“Who hit me?” Ann whispered in a hoarse voice.

They probably didn’t think that the first sentence out of her mouth would be this, causing Nemo to take a step back subconsciously. “It’s me…” he responded unconvincingly. “I… I thought you were burning out with magic power.”

“I’m not planning on doing anything to you.” Ann leaned her mouth close to the water bottle that Oliver handed over, ignoring the stains on the opening of the bag and swallowed its content greedily. “I want to know how you survive… Was it really Abyssal magic?”

“Can you use Abyssal magic?!” Nemo shouted, subconsciously turning his gaze to Oliver.