It’s okay. I’m here.

She caught Alicia by the hand and lifted her up. The hand was small; so was its owner—gold hair, sea-green eyes, a delicate blossom. That petite girl held a statuesque redhead with older-sister allure, asleep. The mismatch should’ve jarred, yet the image was unexpectedly serene, like moonlight cradling a burning ember.

Ait couldn’t trust his eyes. In a heartbeat, he couldn’t even react. The child sleeping in Alicia’s arms vanished, then reappeared at her side, catching her collapsing body.

It all happened in the span of a blink. For Ait, an elf only a touch stronger than a normal human, simply catching Ling’s disappearance was a miracle.

But this wasn’t the time to marvel at miracles. The air felt wrong. There was, out of nowhere, one more enemy.

Ait worshiped knowledge and perfection. Beating one foe never meant the others were chaff. He had to keep every step 100% inside his projections.

And Ling dropping onto the board was the variable. Like a Yu-Gi-Oh!-style duel—victory in reach—then your opponent goes, “I activate the Action Spell: Evasion!” What can you do? Besides fume, what can you do?

So, to choke off the variable, Ait knew he had to change the plan.

“Y-you… why did you wake up?!”

Ling didn’t answer. She smoothed Alicia’s mussed hair with one hand. Then she lifted her into a princess carry. Tall, mighty Alicia now rested like a small woman, head tucked on Ling’s shoulder. Asleep, yet her cheeks were pink—probably a side effect of mana depletion.

“You know what this will cost you, right?”

A question delivered like a verdict. Ice threaded her voice. Ait felt his back chill, as if something cold crawled up his spine.

Wait… just wait… the mana drain is already maxed out. Hold a little longer and it’ll be done…

That was Ait’s one crutch. He believed it like scripture: strip anyone’s mana, and they lose the will to fight.

“No need to wait.”

?!

He didn’t need Ling to explain. He wasn’t dumb enough to wait for the enemy to remind him to check the rig.

He yanked a phone-like device from his coat. Fingers flicked across the screen. Progress bars bloomed like neon caterpillars.

The top bar blazed red. Its readout said “3%.”

“What the hell?!”

“Perplexed?”

The voice grazed his ear from breath-close. Shock lit his nerves. He flinched back half a step—then his left foot hooked his right. Legendary move unlocked. Reward: the classic flat-ground wipeout.

Thud!

“Ow— that hurts…”

A grown man pratfalling and yelping like a girl… the sight made Ling’s lip curl. In her head, she tagged him [pervy, airheaded fake maiden]. She added a fresh reason to school him—he’d insulted the sacred art of the flat-ground fall.

Her hands were not free. No pulling off the barehanded cage-break flex. She settled for the next best thing: she bled a sliver of natural mana outward, every thread aimed dead-on at the iron bars.

Mana always carries a hint of corrosion. Usually it’s so faint it flows through flesh without harm.

But quantity becomes quality. Mana dense enough to turn solid corrodes like acid. No one uses such a wasteful method—no one but Ling.

The cage had never parsed Ling’s mana. It had no targeted defense against her signature. It couldn’t stand up to high-grade mana either. Only one ending remained: thorough corrosion.

The bars Alicia couldn’t dent? Ling just glared, then served them a lavish mana feast. They opened.

Ling stepped through the corroded gap and fixed her gaze on Ait, still on the floor.

Figures—he’s a scientist. No combat chops. With Ling still venting mana, he couldn’t even make his body obey, let alone form words.

Whoosh—

She drew back the excess mana she’d released. Ait’s face regained a hint of color, though he still looked bloodless.

Her right foot slid back. Under Ait’s confused stare, she kicked.

She didn’t plan to kill him. The loli-soft foot only whipped up a playful gust before his face. But blowing away someone weaker than a tutorial slime many times over? Child’s play.

Ait lifted off under the wind’s pressure. The force flung him back. His spine hammered the wall.

“Boring. By the time I think, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ my body’s already finished the job.”