ENF Academy - A LitRPG Ch. 025-032

Ch 1.25: Talkative

The woman, Myriala, stood pointing, waiting. Elaina raised her arm, knowing the lull wouldn't be for long; her opponent had signaled the start to the fight after all. She launched her crystal chain towards the woman, wrapping it around her right arm and leg, tying them together and then conjuring another chain to shackle her left arm to the pedestal in the center of the room. Carline charged, spear thrusting forward.

"Hmmm, so this must be what you did to that Waine you were talking about," the woman mused, more interested in the the chains around her than she was her actual opponents. "It probably worked fine, on a mortal." She yanked her arm forward, snapping the chain from the pedestal behind her and slashing at Carline, who had to dive to the ground to avoid getting sliced in two. Carline slid along the metal floor, sneaking a quick jab into the woman's ankle with her spear as she went under the woman's blade.

No blood was drawn.

"A glancing blow from a wooden weapon? Tsk tsk, little pets. It'll take more than that to wound me." She hopped away on her free leg before Elaina could try and restrict her again, still with an uncanny grace. "The crystal chains though are somewhat bothersome, I must admit. But how long can you hold them in place like this?"

The woman started to pull at the chains, rapidly draining Elaina's mana. She'd bonded them together the same way she had bonded them to the wall against the starhounds, and that at least was making the mana use more efficient than holding them together by sheer force, but it still wasn't sustainable.

Elaina froze herself with [Personal Restraint], halving the effort she'd have to expend, at the same time Carline had managed to get up and start a second charge. Myriala again went to slash at Carline with her elbow blade, but Carline stopped just outside of the slash's range, letting go of the front of her spear and thrusting it forward with her back hand, feet planted in the ground.

The speartip connected this time, actually connected, and thick blue blood fell out of the hole it left when Carline jumped back, out of a wound far too small to matter. "Actual blood drawn?" the woman said, smiling. "Impressive; I can see you've actually practiced with weaponry before. But, pray tell, isn't your little group a bit unequipped for this? Your healer is the one doing the attacking, after all. I thought you mortals kept more balanced parties."

She jumped back into the wall, and launched off of it with a kick, free arm's blade headed straight towards Elaina. Elaina had to drop [Personal Restraint] and run to the center of the room, but she still got cut on her uninjured side. She looked down at her torso—less severe than before, but still not good—gaping at it as a foot crashed into her chest, launching her to the carved out entrance of the cold metal room, her back landing on the jagged metal. She looked up at Myriala from the floor, realizing the woman had broken free of the crystal chains in the time Elaina had dropped her skill and been injured.

"Such a shame." The woman was speaking as she engaged with Carline, the white-robed Vitalist jabbing into her reach with her staff. "You were interesting, but I should have known an environmental-targeting mortal wouldn't be up to par. Guess your System had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for an Administrator."

Carline was a force of nature: light on her feet, keeping her opponent at bay with her weapon, and, for some reason, keeping her party member alive. Elaina couldn't believe it, that her stomach was healing yet again as Carline danced around the room, utilizing the System itself as a barrier to keep distance. Carline was also woefully outmatched.

Elaina closed her eyes, partly to fight back the tears, and partly to let Carline activate [Unseen Watcher]. Gods I'm useless. She had one job, to hold back one set of limbs with what should have been an unbreakable chain, and she'd failed even that. Carline was over there fighting her heart out while keeping Elaina alive, even dulling Elaina's pain.

She opened her eyes, looking down at her side. The outside of the wound was already healing over, having not been a terribly wide cut, but her dress was a disaster, both sides now cut and stained with blood. But it wasn't only her dress; she was a disaster.

[Humiliation Factor] started to well up, and she laughed at how pathetic she was. How cruel of the gods, to give her a skill that made her stronger if she was already ashamed of how inconsequentially weak she was.

She looked back up at the fight. Myriala was clearly playing with Carline, because as deft as the spearwoman was, the crystal-adorned invader was that much many times over, skipping around on tiptoes, flipping over Carline's spear and making quick slices with her fingernails, not even attempting to go for a killing blow with the giant crystal blades extending from her arms, leaving the poor girl stabbing away, always just a hair away from meeting her mark and crystal claws ripped away at her, robes and skin littered with red. But in watching her moves, Elaina saw an opening.

"Carline, her wound, forget me!" Carline must have trusted Elaina, because the pain flooded back to her side without any acknowledgement, both Elaina and Myriala screaming out as Carline shifted from restoring one wound to worsening the other.

"Interesting aspect," Myriala said, jumping backwards as she clutched her side, azure blood seeping out of her hand. "[Wound], is it?"

"You talk too much!" Elaina shouted, raising her hand and conjuring a new set of chains. She'd realized something, thanks to Carline. It was only once, early on, that she'd landed a hit on Myriala. A small blow, even as Carline amplified it with her aspect, but it proved one thing, that Myriala wasn't invincible, that she could bleed.

The chain she made wasn't the type you'd see holding a chandelier at Endrin, not the lustrous metal meant to adorn the world's greatest institution. No, this chain was what Elaina was used to seeing hold things together back home, a deteriorated, jagged, misshapen mess of links with equally poorly kept shackles on each end of the length, clamping on both of Myriala's wrists.

That wouldn't be enough though; the rusty chain didn't extend straight between each wrist. It instead wrapped around its captive's neck first, sharp links cutting into her throat. She'd still have the raw strength to break these chains apart, if she wanted to try, but before that the tension would pull on the links themselves, all force directed straight into her own neck. To make sure of it, Elaina dumped all the mana she could, including from reactivating [Personal Restraint] and the lesser boost from [Humiliation Factor], into fortifying the chains. They would hold long enough, and Myriala was finally, actually, trapped.

"Hah, now that's clever!" the woman said, a beastly snarl growing on her face.

Carline was already on the move, rushing in with reckless abandon; this could be their only chance at a killing blow.

"But not clever enough, I'm afraid." Instead of pulling away to try and break the chains, she pulled them in, bringing her hands together. A horrific crunch echoed throughout the chamber as Myriala crushed her left hand with her right and slid the mangled appendage out of the shackle, slinging the chain round her throat, ignoring the damage it did to her neck, and throwing the free end of the chain forward.

The empty shackle hit Carline directly in the head before Elaina could dismiss it, and Carline crumpled to the ground.

"Carline!" Elaina shouted, running towards her friend.

"It really was a good move though," the woman said as the chain around her faded, scratching away at the abrasions on her neck with her good hand. "A lesser member of the Red Order might have succumbed, one not willing to make the sacrifice to escape."

Carline was breathing, alive, but spilling blood from her forehead.

"She needs help!" Elaina shouted, for some reason trying to plead with the monster in front of her.

"Tsk tsk, little one. Too sentimental for your own good. I won't let her die—she's clearly worth keeping—it's you I'm undecided about." She walked forward, pulling Elaina's teary face upward again. "On the one hand, you're quite a clever little bitch, but you're just so temperamental! Freezing up in the corner while your poor, dear friend was fighting all alone, and now sitting here crying?"

Elaina jerked her head away, struggling not to explode. The woman was right, though. If Elaina had acted earlier, been smarter from the beginning, then maybe things would have turned out differently.

"No, as a warrior, you're no good, just a girl who happened upon a cave where she really had no business being. As a pet, though?" The woman pressed her bloodied, mangled hand to Elaina's face, pushing her back into eye contact, smiling at her with cruelty in her eyes. "You're cute enough, even cuter than the useful one. I think we could make this work. What do you say, little puppy?"

"Fuck you!" Elaina said, grabbing Carline's spear from the ground and shoving it upward. Myriala looked shocked, almost in disbelief as the weapon struck her in the center of the chest, staggering backwards as the haft slipped from Elaina's fingers and clattered to the ground.

"You, insolent—" Myriala stammered, looking down at the wound, a wound sure to kill, as blood poured out of it, right from the heart. Thank the gods...

But then the blood slowed. Elaina watched in horror as the stream of blood crawled to a trickle, then again as it stilled entirely, the wound closing completely. The woman's crushed hand cracked and popped, reforming itself as she glared down at Elaina, eyes brimming with rage.

"Even my starhounds never made me discipline them the way I'm about to do to you, little pet."

Ch 1.26: Punishment

The back of the woman's hand was first, the wrecked hand that was still popping itself back into place, striking Elaina's face and sending her reeling to the ground. Elaina couldn't believe what was in front of her. The woman had been stabbed through the chest, heart rent open just moments before. The amount of blue blood dripping off her body was enough to spell her death, but now she was just standing there, rage-filled eyes bearing down on Elaina as the hand she had crushed herself continued to heal, fully forming into its prior state. "I told you the test was over. I'm not holding back anymore."

Elaina struggled to her feet, calling her crystal chain to try and restrain Myriala. The beast glided away though, feet leaving the ground with no visible effort as she flew into Elaina, claws driving into her collarbone. The pain was sharp, absurd, a burning akin to the manes from the starhounds earlier radiating through Elaina's torso. She cried out, being lifted off the ground with the hand that had pierced her, doing her best to scratch and push away at the arm holding her up.

"Oh, poor dear," Myriala said, murderous rage in her eyes. "Does it burn? You see now why I didn't use my aspects before. Your pathetic species wouldn't have stood a chance." Her voice was emotionless as she threw Elaina across the room, slamming her into the opposite wall.

Though new pain appeared, the burning mercifully stopped as soon Elaina had left the grasp of the monster before her. She was no woman, that was for sure, not a person. A monster through and through just like the hounds she commanded. "Carline!" Elaina shouted, clutching her wound. Burning or not, she was still wracked with pain, but Carline only laid there, motionless.

"If you want to be my pet, you'll need to get used to this," Myriala said, floating through the air towards Elaina as she tried to crawl away. "You're a masochist mage, after all, right? You should actually be enjoying this." That wasn't true. Elaina could admit it, that throughout her life some amount of pain had been... bearable. This was different, and even [Pain Response]'s meager alteration to some of the pain did nothing. A small amount of arousal could not overpower the suffering she was enduring.

"But truth be told, I don't think you'll survive the discipline that you deserve. It's really too bad. A masochist and a voyeur? We could have had so much fun. I could have cut you up while she watched, she could heal you, and then we could do it again. Over and over." She grabbed Elaina by the back, claws ripping through her dress and flesh, gripping her by muscles before hurling her to the center of the chamber.

Elaina's back crashed into the pedestal holding the System with a crack, her limp body flipping over it as she flailed through the air and landed next to Carline. Her spine was on fire, being stabbed a thousand times an instant. So much pain, more pain than she'd ever felt in her life, more than the cuts, the stabs, even more than the smokey tendril worms that had been inside of her, this time too intense, too constant to even allow her to black out.

"It's a shame your kind is so fragile. I bet you wish that littermate of yours was awake, yes? To use her aspect to heal you?" Elaina was lifted up by her jaw, torso dangling below as soft fingers pressed into her face. She scratched again at the arms holding her up, and she tried to kick away at her attacker as well. Her legs wouldn't move.

"You see the problem, yes? Relying on others is just not good enough. My [Regeneration] won't fail me, ever. But you? Once your little friend is down, there's just no hope for you left. After all, what do you have, [Chains]? It's really just so sad." She dropped Elaina to the ground, her feet crumpling beneath her, useless.

"The last part of your discipline is thus: no food or water for a week. Don't worry, I'll come back for your corpse. Your bones will make excellent toys for my other pets. Maybe I'll let the other pervert have your skull, to remember you by." She floated back to the System, placing her fingers on the orb and sending that red lightning storm back into it. The System shrieked once again. "If you do survive, of course I'll welcome you back into my family—it's only fair—but let's be honest here, you'll probably bleed out next to your pervert friend before I even get done with the software restraints on this subcore. She will lead me to any other cores on this planet, I'll come back for your remains, and we'll be on on our way back home."

Wait... Elaina's mind was cloudy, flooded with disorientation as she felt a tug at her mind, but she swore she heard something important.

"Administrator rights should pass to my new pet, and I'll receive a bountiful reward for returning multiple cores to the Order."

Software? That word wasn't important, not to Elaina—she'd never even heard it before—but there was something else, something she was missing.

"And while I'm here, I might as well take a look at that town you mentioned. Hearthstead, was it? Can't have my good pet missing her old litter, so I'll have to dispose of them." At least that was a fake village, no one there to hurt. Elaina was proud of herself for that, for keeping as much information secret. It was a small victory, but she'd kept a lot secret: the school, the System's true age, her aspect.

[Restraint]

Software restraint the woman had said. It welled in her, awareness. There were only two things in the room that qualified for it, the crystal chain she had been granted, and the System itself. The System was restrained, somehow, by whatever a software was. Elaina hadn't been aware of it until Myriala had mentioned it was a restraint, but that's exactly what it was, and now she could feel it.

"Hey," Elaina choked out, struggling to reach towards her chain. "Tell me one thing."

The System quieted as the woman lifted her hand, turning around. "I told you not to tell me what to do."

"Sorry, I was just wondering... how it feels to lose to a pathetic little puppy." She reached forward with [Restraint] into the very being of the System, feeling for the locks holding it in place, the restraints on its capabilities. It was a tangled mess of logic and formulations, ones she didn't truly understand, but she understood one thing: how to undo it all. She snapped the restraints on the System at the same time she commanded her chain to fly towards the pedestal.

Myriala turned back around as the System glowed a bright blue. "System initializing, awaiting Administrator commands." The crystal chains wrapped around the orb and flew towards Elaina's hand, passing right by Myriala as she reached out to grab it, just a moment too late.

Elaina caught the bundle of crystal. "System, get me and Carline out of here! Take us to the other core!"

Myriala was already flying towards her, elbow blade heading straight for her head. "You fucking—"

"Affirmative," the System said, and, with a flash of light, the two battered and broken students once again disappeared.

Ch 1.27: Escaped

"Elaina, Carline!" the System shouted as Elaina crashed to the ground of the cave, crying out as the light from the System filled the area. "I'm so glad you made it back!"

"I can't move, I can't move!" Elaina screamed, trying to flex her legs. For all she knew, they might not even have been attached anymore.

"Please, accept this reward for a mission completed. There will be further rewards forthcoming."

"I don't care about rewards! I'm fucking paralyzed!" Elaina looked over, finding Carline still unconscious, laying a few feet away. Her staff and Elaina's chains, still wrapped around the other subcore, were in between the two of them.

"Please open the chest, Elaina. It has a potion that will help you."

Elaina looked over as a small chest, the same design as the one from the dungeon, materialized in front of her, blue light crafting it the same way her class gear had. She pressed the crystal.

[Bonus Reward]

The chest opened.

[Potion of Greater Restoration]

It was sparkling red liquid inside of a crystal flask. "Drink most of it," the System said, voice shaking. "Give the last bit to Carline."

Elaina did so, popping the crystal top off and throwing it aside before forcing the vial to her lips. Every drop was wonderful relief, pain easing off of her back. Some pain was still there as she took it from her lips, and she wanted to finish the entire thing, but if the System said Carline needed some then she wasn't going to risk it.

She placed the vial on the ground and tried moving her legs. Her spine screamed out to her in torturous agony, but her legs moved. She managed to get to her knees and grabbed the bottle again, shuffling over to Carline's body with tears streaming down her face. "I'm so sorry..." She turned Carline's bloodied head and lifted it up, pouring the scarlet liquid into her mouth.

Carline's eyes shot open, and she began coughing, rocking Elaina's body and causing her to double over in pain, the empty vial clinking across the cavern floor.

"Elaina!" she said, pushing herself to her knees and looking around. She placed her hands on Elaina's back, under the rips in her dress from Myriala's claws. "I'm so sorry! I don't know what happened.

The pain left Elaina's body all at once, and she took a deep breath, not even having realized she'd been holding it to stop the pain before. "No, I'm sorry. I fucked up! She got you with one of my own damn chains..."

"No," the System said. "It is I that made an error today. I... I sent you two into unconscionable danger. Please, allow me to apologize and explain." Elaina gritted her teeth, holding back her response. She'd said a lot of things already today, to both the System and Carline, a lot of things she regretted.