Magical Girl

Chapter 6

In her hazy state, Marlene seemed to hear voices.

“Well, well, there’s actually a survivor here. Did that burrow hyena not notice her?” The voice was sharp and raspy, sounding less like it came from a mouth and more as if it were dragged out from the throat.

“The burrow hyena is blind. It senses humans by detecting life force. This child’s life force is very faint; she’s close to dying from illness.” Another man’s voice—Marlene could understand what he was saying, but his accent was unlike anyone she’d ever heard. His pronunciation was clear, each word elegant, gentle, and precise.

“Oh, then we don’t need to bother with her. She’ll die soon anyway,” the raspy voice replied.

At that moment, Marlene felt as if her body was floating, as if some force was lifting her upper body, letting her half-sit up. Then, a cold liquid touched her lips. Her mouth was so dry that she couldn’t taste it, but the liquid flowed down her throat and into her stomach. It was cool but carried a strange energy that entered her body, instantly dispelling the feeling of impending death brought on by her illness.

The raspy voice mocked, “Oh, who would’ve thought? Fischer, you actually have a compassionate side.”

“Don’t call me Fischer,” the pleasant voice replied. “This girl has a faint magical aura.”

“Incredible!” the raspy voice exclaimed. “A natural magic wielder in a remote place like this? This is Yamanron, for heaven’s sake!”

Ignoring his companion’s astonishment, the other man simply said, “A future mage shouldn’t die in a place like this.”

The liquid took effect, and Marlene felt a bit of strength returning. She struggled to open her eyes and, through a haze, saw a figure silhouetted against the light above her. Silver strands floated past her eyes—what was that? Hair?

The raspy, sharp voice spoke again, “It seems she’s waking up? Unbelievable. She actually has some consciousness left.”

“Of course,” replied the other voice. “A mage possesses a resilience that goes beyond ordinary people. She’ll survive.”

There was more conversation after that, but Marlene didn’t catch it, as she quickly lost consciousness again.

“Ash Priest, I found her! She’s alive!”

Marlene heard the commotion and finally woke up.

She opened her eyes to see figures moving around her. A person in a white robe came to her side and looked down at her.

“Goddess be praised, you’re alive,” he said.

It took Marlene a minute for her vision to return to normal. Recognizing the person beside her, she struggled to sit up. Still in a daze, she managed to say the name of the man in front of her, “Ash Priest? What happened?”

As Marlene sat up, the scene of c*****e around her filled her vision—a chaotic mess of broken bodies, dried pools of blood, indistinguishable human and non-human remains. The stench of blood and decay was so overwhelming that it left no room for any other scent.

Barely awake and unable to organize her thoughts, Marlene couldn’t stop herself from turning away and retching violently.

The Ash Priest patiently tolerated the survivor’s distress. Marlene went to the nearby stream to wash herself. The icy water washed the dirt from her face, bringing her back to her senses.

She realized that her physical condition was strangely perfect—she had completely recovered. Her fever was gone, her fatigue had vanished, and all the discomfort she’d felt before had disappeared. Looking at her reflection in the water, she saw that even the bruised and swollen area around her eye, where Carl had hit her, had healed, with no trace of bruising or cuts left.

She had survived, the sole survivor. It seemed someone had saved her, but upon waking, she only saw the Ash Priest and his group. Whoever had saved her had vanished without a trace, as if they had been nothing more than a dream.

From the conversations around her, Marlene learned that it was now the morning of the third day. She had fainted in the middle of the night and had slept for an entire day and night. Being able to sleep that long was probably related to the liquid she had consumed in her dazed state.

Due to Auderin's remoteness, few people traveled this road apart from the monthly caravan from Auderin. Fortunately, the Ash Priest had received word and informed Lord Rod, who had brought a group to help. That was how they had found Marlene amidst the c*****e.

The Ash Priest was the center of attention. Today, he looked different from before; he wore a priest’s robe adorned with leather armor and held a long staff that was taller than himself.

As he surveyed the area, he explained, “It was indeed a burrow hyena, a magical beast unique to the Yamanron region. Although I heard about it during my studies at the temple, I had never encountered one in reality. Burrow hyenas live in dark underground tunnels and rarely surface. They are incredibly powerful beasts; a single one could wipe out a small mercenary team.”

The people around him gasped in amazement. “So it was true!”

“There haven’t been magical beasts around Auderin for at least ten years.”

“These poor folks were really unlucky.”

“Could there be more magical beasts? If another one shows up, we’re all done for.”

“Damn, we can’t be that unlucky, can we?”

A middle-aged man stepped forward, interrupting the crowd's anxious chatter. “Silence, everyone. With the Ash Priest here, what is there to worry about?”

Marlene recognized the man who was trying to curb the panic—it was Neil, Lord Rod’s steward. But what was he doing here with the Ash Priest? And why was the Ash Priest here at all? In Marlene’s limited memory, the Ash Priest had never left Auderin.

At that moment, the Ash Priest spoke calmly and slowly, “Children, there is no need to worry. Magical beasts do not appear frequently, and creatures like the burrow hyena rarely come out to hunt.”

Hearing this, Steward Neil seemed reassured and said, “You heard him! Stop wasting time with excuses. There’s still work to be done!”

He continued his scolding, “You’re nothing but Lord Rod’s farmhands, his dogs! The money earned from this trip to Jetugara is more than your year’s wages. If it weren’t for those mercenaries failing to do their job, you worthless lot wouldn’t even have this chance. The Ash Priest has assured us we won’t encounter any more beasts. If any of you keep whining, you can leave now and crawl back to Auderin.”

Clearly, the promised payment was substantial, as they all stopped complaining and resumed gathering up the scattered belongings.

Neil wielded his whip, urging the laborers on as if they were donkeys. “Turn over everything here, even the dirt… The mercenaries’ iron tags are the size of a thumb, made of solid steel. They won’t break easily… I know exactly how many there should be, and anyone who tries to pocket one won’t keep his arm.”

One of the more defiant workers said, “Steward Neil, a single mercenary registration tag can fetch five gold coins. You can’t keep all the benefits for yourself.”

Neil replied, “Find me a tag, and when we reach Jetugara, you’ll get a good drink and a fine pork chop.”

Hearing this, the laborers cheered near the piles of corpses.

Neil stood by, waiting as the laborers brought the iron tags taken from the mercenaries’ bodies and placed them in his hand. He counted them carefully, confirming that the number matched the number of dead mercenaries.

These mercenaries had been hired from afar by the Rod family, many from cities like Jetugara. In life, they were treated far better than the local workers at the Rod estate. To them, the people of Auderin were all country bumpkins, and they looked down on everyone from the area.

But now, the "country bumpkin" was the one left alive, while the mercenaries had become despised corpses, possibly even carrying disease. The local laborers were dragging them away by their feet, tossing them together like a butcher stacking pork.

Among the pile of bodies, Marlene saw Bess. Bess’s lower body had been eaten away, her eyes wide open with an expression of pain and horror. When Marlene saw the other corpses, she tried to tell herself—don’t dwell on it, these were just characters in some absurd story, nothing to do with her.

This way, she numbed herself, viewing herself as just a passerby, so she wouldn’t feel too much.

But seeing Bess’s face, Marlene couldn’t suppress the sadness and anger that rose within her—she couldn’t ignore Bess.

This girl had grown up in the same village as Marlene. She wasn’t beautiful, she wasn’t the main character, she was so ordinary. She had a bunch of younger siblings and was always busy with endless chores. Marlene had seen her scolding her siblings like puppies and getting beaten by her father until her face was bruised for losing a sickle. Bess was not a good girl by any means, with too many flaws to count, and she wasn’t even really Marlene’s friend. But perhaps it was exactly because of this that she felt so real to Marlene, so imperfectly human.

—And now she was gone.

Marlene’s hands trembled as she wiped the dirt from Bess’s face, closed her wide, terrified eyes, and brushed the mud from her hair.

Marlene slowly calmed down from her fear. She was still alive, so she had to keep going.

The Rod family’s laborers gathered the bodies, piling the pieces together like garbage and setting them alight with dry wood.

Marlene was powerless to stop them. She murmured, “How can you do this… their families are still waiting for them to come home.”

The steward, Neil, sneered, “They’re just lowborn. They can’t even afford the cheapest graves, so what does it matter where they burn?”

The fire grew larger, filling the air with the sickening smell of burning flesh. In death, there was no distinction between the townsfolk and the mercenaries. All the bodies burned without a shred of dignity.