Chương 11: Lance is an Insufferable Know-it-all
"Here we go."
Chiaki let out an enormous exhale before stepping into the outskirts of the forest where she had to gamble with her life. Without a rare armour in her hands, her only protection was Lance, the living armour.
The problem was that they never went to a battle together. It was different from going with her fellow generals — or previous bed partners, Chiaki's unhelpful mind supplied — or even with her rambunctious nephew.
Amidst the blinding lights and deafening roars, Chiaki rushed forward. Her hands gleamed with a white crystal aura; she brandished the power to the air and the gentle energy dispersed into ribbonlike lines that soon surrounded her like an envelope of a barrier.
The barrier protecting Lance was characterised by his inner power; ripples of pressurised air wrapped him, its translucent properties still allowed Chiaki to look at him like someone looked down beneath the water surface.
They spent an hour spinning and sweeping the floor with their best techniques, rays of light colliding with the sources of the lightning in the sky, high above the towering mass of clouds. Uncoordinated, their bodies hit each other a few times.
Until one beam of lightning branded and burnt down the tree between them; Lance in the middle of shimmying amidst the strikes, Chiaki's crystal dagger so close to clawing his cheek before their backs bumped into each other, followed by a reactionary grunt.
Mother-
"Why didn't you dodge it?"
"I was protecting you!"
"But I was protecting you!"
"Use your eyes, ignorant princess! Did I even tumble because of the lightning?"
In all honesty, Lance looked like he could withstand the bolt more than Chiaki could. But her protective instinct flared up, and now he blamed her for thinking on her feet?
Her agility allowed her to almost fly to his side and blasted the lightning with the glowing crystal shots from the tip of her dagger. So, what was the real issue here?
"Lord Hua, if you want to act on your own-"
"Act on my own, my arse! I pity the Council for having appointed someone as incompetent as you as their Guardian."
His cold eyes averted from Chiaki, whose heart palpitated as the flooding defiance of defeat made apparent in her dance against death.
To Lance Hua, Chiaki wasn't reliable; her pessimistic nature put everyone being unable before her eyes.
To Chiaki, Lance Hua acted without thinking, spurring into action and lifting his weapons without consulting his battle partner.
Fighting a tremendous threat like this would indeed send them back in coffins sooner than they expected, breaking the record of the fastest 'till death do us part' promise fulfilment.
Above them, the heavens refused to bow down to humanity. The vexing air gathered into a roiling mass of grey and black heavy clouds, shielding the previously bright summer morning from view. Sunlight barely passed through the blockade of the fat condensation of vapour, threatening the land below it with a deluge.
Each rolling thunder was the beat of the war drum — thump, thump, thump — resonating with their throbbing heart.
Each roar was followed by the next lightning strike, burning the air, sky, and the ground beneath. The barriers surrounding Chiaki and Lance remained intact, but the smell of burnt wood and meat reached where they were standing.
"The baby animals that couldn't run . . ."
"Focus, General Spring. Or we're the next."
System, I want a cheat. A proper one, not the one with two options like you shared before. Something that doesn't involve arguing with Lord Hua.
[Coin balance: +100 from daily check-in. Total balance: 200.]
A cheat, not today's check-in, please.
[Proceed to easy mode?]
There was only one button: OK. Chiaki refrained from rolling her mental eyes; her monthly quota for metaphorical eye-rolling was stacked against her.
What else do I have the option of?
[Easy mode confirmed. -100 coins for payment. Total balance: 100.]
System! In the future, if I need to pay to proceed with anything, tell me in advance. Otherwise, I might end up with a negative balance.
[System assumes the players are aware of the consequences in otome games.]
Well, assumptions kill.
The dialogue box disappeared.
Replaced by Lance Hua's deep voice ringing in her ears, "If you don't listen to my command one more time, don't blame me if I cut you up."
Cut me up?
"We have to practise together after we're back."
If we can make it back, that is.
"Alright. My lord shouldn't worry about my obedience this time. Let's wrap this up."
The anomalies tried to wrap them up.
One gigantic electricity whip slashed the sky open and speared the earth, the soil material splattered as high as their heads. Chiaki raised her forearm to cover her closed eyes before any particles snuck; they might lacerate her cornea.
As her hearing sense grew keener, she heard the cracking air as smooth as the slithering movement of a tremendous snake.
Her eight o'clock: a strike. She hopped farther from the spot of the crash, missing it by the skin of her teeth. The next second, she smelled a burning aroma from her battle dress; a large hole with tattered edges exposed her burnt calf.
Next to the lightning whipping spot, purple and red bruises began to bloom like flowers covering the wet, messy soil that was her fair shin.
System, I asked for a cheat, not to be barbecued alive!
Mentally too busy to catalogue the long-term effect of the injury, she forgot to scream, her body felt like being pushed down by a boulder from the precipice of a hill when she was climbing.
Her legs turned to corroded iron, she slumped on the ground with a loud thud. Lance glanced over his shoulder to check; the sheer magnitude of vortexes around them that sucked the air and the lightning to disappear into the suction tunnel didn't dwindle.
"Get up and join your magnetic fields here! My bones are breaking!" His voice was swallowed by the wind whirling around him, fading in and out like a distorted dream.
"Quick, General Spring! If I die, you'll lose half of your current power."
As if this motivated her enough to stand up. At worst, Lance Hua's vortexes would be gone; Crystal Garden's energy level would be restored to the point like just before their wedding.
But she couldn't let him die, could she? She still wanted to see through this otome game, she still wanted to feel the euphoria of winning, unlocking a new story direction, or retrieving a rare item.
Above all, she didn't want Lance Hua to die in this battle. For goodness sake, she hadn't started the investigation about her foster sister's death.
If there had to be a strong enough reason to save someone she didn't like, it would be to kill that person later with her hands when he had recuperated.
She hauled her mess of a leg, stabilising her posture with another leg, and dragged her staggering limbs to his side.
Chiaki recited the spell in her head, letting the rhythm of her breathing set the tempo of the gushing field around her body. The little chunks of crystals of various colours, from onyx black to white jade, rosy quartz and purple amethyst, sparked with momentum, twisting as charging the air around them with a pulsating layer of a palpable electromagnetic field that expanded and shrunk as her chest fluttered.
With her quavering body, Chiaki withstood the recoil effect of the energy blast. The magnetic field joined Lance Hua's whirling air, shooting at the seedlings of the budding lightning.
Lance Hua amplified their combined power with his own energy signature, sending the package in eddies of air upwards to the sky. He rotated in his place, his palm open to send out similar lightning strikes that targeted to search and destroy the sprouting lightning visible from underneath the clouds.
The collision of the twin forces of massive electricity, one from Lance's palm and the other from the anomaly, shattered the earth with a piercing boom, deafening everyone's eardrums.
As the heavenly roar exploded in the air demolishing the clumps of dark clouds, the bright and cheerful sky reappeared in its magnificent glory of baby blue.
Sunlight competed with the unveiled beauty, like the burgeoning of a new era full of promises and hope, pushing its rays as if it wanted to bathe the forest in warmth and attention. Like the twirl of the water sluicing through the sink, the gloomy miasma swirled upwards, reversed into an unknown source high above the atmosphere.
Immediately, she raised her hands and delivered the last crumbs of her crystal power to the atmospheric barrier, patching the irregular holes across the forest, capital, and the neighbouring cities. Her lungs burned with each breath.
Without the lightning anomaly that disrupted the fortification, the strengthened barrier would last for years to come. Her dagger broke into pieces. The completed stretch of the barrier illuminated before returning as transparent, protecting all the living beings below.
But the victory was short-lived. As the dark clouds were sucked by the atmospheric barrier, their fat bellies vomited their loads like projectiles down the earth in water droplets. Chiaki couldn't retain her own barrier because the last protection spell depleted her power. Rain soon drenched Chiaki's robes.
Lance Hua looked down, noticing the South Guardian sitting on the ground; her tattered trousers revealed the singed skin. Beginning at her ankle, red welts soon formed following an arborescent, fern-leaf pattern marring her fair calf. Where did the skin stop and the pattern begin?
She tried to relocate her weight on the other foot. Panting with her reddened face, she tugged a strand of hair behind her right ear and hauled herself up.
Struggling, the pair walked to the perimeter. Rain steadily washed away the evidence of destruction, letting the rubbles flow to the nearest brook. Her navy blue dress clung to her skin, accentuating her slim waistline that was tied by an intricate belt.
The same mess didn't apply to Lance Hua because he put a barrier over him. In a comedic mismatch, the husband was dry as dust while his wife looked like a rat coming out of a sewer.
Taking stock of her condition, Lance stopped walking. He was annoyed to have to match his fast pace to her slow, disabled steps. Lance Hua closed his eyelids and massaged the bridge of his nose. And then, he knelt on the ground.
What the heck is he even doing now?
"Waiting for you to catch up might take one day just to reach the backup troops."
Chiaki still froze, unsure what to do.
Getting impatient, Lance pursed his lips in a thin line and whispered slowly, "Ride on."
Huh? He's giving me a piggyback?
Being practical, Chiaki gave.
The size difference made her like a jetpack on the brunet's back. Lance Hua, a mature warrior seasoned in combat, was tall and muscular, his shoulders tense and broad. Chiaki was not short, but she was slimmer as a woman, clutching his neck with her weakened arms.
"Thank you." She whispered at his ear, sending the wet, barely audible voice directly at his cold heart.
Chiaki dozed off and then jolted awake several times; she drifted in and out of consciousness after all her power oozing out.
In her weakest state, the direct stimuli became the only things to hold onto not to pass out completely; they were the chilly coldness that seeped into her pores from the sopping wet clothes, the pitter-pattering of gentle summer drizzle.
And the faint scent that kissed her nose sensuously, a teasing blend of camphorous cedarwood and warm, rich sandalwood. A scent that was wholly Lance Hua, buoying her as she gave in to the pain, the tip of her nose still sinking into the base of his neck.
And if she ever thought about the curious lightning pattern like the anomaly's twin that emerged from Lance's eddies, she might forget it; his scent made her only recognise calmness.
At the corner of her mind before drifting off, a progress bar inched slowly to the right. Even only a minuscule of the remaining status, she still wanted to know what this bar indicated. She registered the small bold fonts above the bar written: Intimacy Level.
This buggy System had a different understanding of a cheat, apparently.
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