Chapter 49: Yara Borealis (2)
Nyxie had been simpler.
Hearts like Nyxie’s ripened through attachment and helplessness. Not her own but other people’s helplessness.
Nyxie needed people to care for, people to tease, to protect, and people to love. She loved loudly. She trusted with embarrassing speed. She laughed so much it made others think she would survive anything. Yara let her bond deepen. Encouraged it, even. A near-death here, a shared victory there, one more reason for Nyxie to cling harder to the group.
When the time came, the panic would season everything. Hence why she attacked Elyes, the peskiest one of them all.
That one had pleased her since he was a rare find.
A four-star mage with mana control so natural it made lesser talents look embarrassing. He has a mind sharper than his laziness. He observed too much and questioned things around him. That made him troublesome but at the same time, it also made him valuable.
Buried feelings always fermented into something rich. Had it not been for his feelings for Nyxie, he would never have joined Skyreach. That amused Yara more than it should have. Even the clever ones bent eventually, if found the right angle.
Kylo had been easier.
He had never been hard to read. Vanity lived in him like a second pulse. Men like Kylo did not need devotion. They need temptation, and the slow, delicious illusion of being chosen. So she fed him herself in careful doses. He had ripened beautifully under her body and warmth.
It was a shame he left Skyreach. Truly. Still, Yara had never considered him a loss. If she wanted him back again, she could draw him back so easily.
Once she harvested what remained of Skyreach, she had every intention of joining Blackthorn since a larger guild meant more people, more candidates, and more hearts to cultivate. That had been the plan.
The process of nurturing Skyreach itself bored her. Reliability there, a smile here. She placed herself where their eyes would go when they needed answers. None of them understood they were only seedlings.
Then Misha appeared by the gate.
Yara remembered that evening clearly now. That black-haired woman arrived and claimed she had already reached the 7th floor.
That alone caught Yara’s attention.
But the woman herself? She looked wrong for it. Misha was too open, too soft, and too lost.
Green blood stained her clothes, dirt clung to her skin, and exhaustion dragged at every step that made her think that she was probably telling the truth.
Yara followed her and discovered the lie of meeting her companions quickly enough. No one was waiting for her, Misha had survived alone.
That made no sense.
Yara watched her through the night market after that, weaving through lantern light and merchant noise and the ugly little hungers of Genesis.
Misha noticing her at the market was by chance. Seeing her at the inn was planned. Then the accidental collision was something she designed.
Watching her spar with Gerbaut almost insulted Yara. The woman’s form looked awful, her timing lagged, and her body telegraphed fear too openly.
A 2-star, Yara thought. Barely worth the effort just like Jules.
And yet... she survived Gerbaut’s test.
And later, worse, Misha survived her.
Yara lowered her gaze to the blood on her hand again. That part scraped at her temper.
Misha should have remained easy. She should have just died properly when the moment came.
Instead, she endured and then stood her ground against her.
A low groan slipped from Yara when she tried to straighten fully. The wound in her body protesting. The burned parts throbbed beneath hastily applied frost. The alley wall at her back felt damp. Unworthy. She should not have been leaning against anything. She should have been standing untouched and immaculate, with all loose ends tied neatly behind her.
This was the first time she had ever been injured like this. It offended her.
Her lips curved slowly, coldly.
Misha had changed categories. That was all. She was no longer a harmless thing with too much innocence in her eyes.
Yara peeled her hand away from her side and watched fresh blood well up before she sealed it again with ice. The pain sharpened only.
Her gaze dropped to her arm. Pieces of melted steel still remained inside.
She reached up and pulled the first shard free.
"Hnnngh–!!"
The sound slipped out before she could stop it. She bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood, refusing to let the pain twist her face into anything uglier than it already had.
Then she formed a dagger of ice in her free hand, thin and sharp and clear as glass.
No one else stood here to do it for her. So carefully, she used her ice to dull her sensory pain. Then she cut into the torn flesh and forced the embedded steel out piece by piece. Blood ran down her wrist and dripped from her elbow in warm, steady lines.
When the last fragment clinked against the stones, she let the ice dagger melt from her hand.
Then she reached into her inventory and pulled out a bottle of red liquid. She poured it to her arm to stop the bleeding before she took one more thing outside her inventory. A frozen heart.
After melting the ice, blood slid between her fingers and down her wrist. The heart had already gone still, but it still looked obscenely fresh. Yara lifted it to her mouth and bit in without hesitation.
The flesh tore wet between her teeth, copper flooded her tongue, and heat moved down her throat and spread through her chest in ugly, familiar waves. It did not taste good. Still, it worked.
After devouring it all. The ache in her body dulled. The wound in her side pulled itself closed. The deeper cuts sealed over one by one beneath the influence of the stolen vitality.
Ding!
「 〔SYSTEM NOTICE〕
Biological Essence Absorbed.
Residual imprint from the consumed heart has been preserved.
New Skill Acquired:
Steel Nerves (A)
Effect:
The user inherits the consumed owner’s tolerance for pain and pressure. Physical shock and combat stress are slightly reduced for a limited duration. 」
Only the burns remained. Angry red scars crawled across her skin where the fire had touched her, raw and ugly in a way nothing on her body had ever been before.
Yara stared at her arm for a long moment. Then her lips curved coldly.
Misha had done this to her.
No, not Misha alone. It was that thing inside her. That monstrous presence wearing her body like a crown.
Still, the humiliation remained the same, and Yara had no intention of forgiving her.
That despicable bitch.
She straightened her back and rose from the wall with slow, careful control, hiding the stiffness in her movements before anyone could ever witness it.
Then she reached into her inventory once more and pulled out a dark cloak with a deep hood. The fabric fell over her shoulders and swallowed the worst of her ruined fabrics, the scorch marks, and the dry blood.
Next, she took out a rune with the numeral ’III’ carved into its surface.
It would be humiliating for her family to see her like this.
No... it was unacceptable.
She needed to recover somewhere else first, somewhere far enough that no Borealis eye would catch sight of her before she chose to be seen again.
Fortunately, she already knew where to go. Virelia, the trade city on the 31st Floor.
Yara crushed the rune in her hand.
A pulse of light swallowed her body then she vanished from the dark alley.