Chapter 32: Duet.

“Huff… huff…”

The air reeked of thick blood and rust.

Hill steadied her breathing; sweat beaded on the hand gripping her mithril shortsword.

Before them, the Abyssal Butcher—the monster that had just killed Marius—slowly turned.

The red glow lingering in its single eye fixed unblinkingly on the last two living beings. The enormous axe it dragged across the ground sparked with grating screeches against the stone.

It was in no hurry.

As a slaughter machine that had survived from ancient times, it savored the pleasure of cornering prey.

“Phyllis.”

Hill lowered her voice; her gaze never left the monster for even an instant.

“I’m going in. But this chain…”

The chain was only two meters long.

Engaging in high-intensity close-quarters combat while carrying a partner who had overdrawn her mana and just vomited blood was, by any common sense, suicidal.

“Do you want to release it?”

Phyllis leaned weakly against Hill’s back; her voice trembled slightly, yet her fingers still clung desperately to the hem of Hill’s cloak.

“But… I’m so scared… If we release it, won’t it charge over and kill me the way it did him just now?”

The fresh memory of Marius’s gruesome death was still vivid.

Even with a shield, the scholar hadn’t survived.

If they released the chain now and left Phyllis alone, she would very likely become the monster’s next target.

“…Tch.”

Hill gritted her teeth and abandoned the idea of releasing the chain.

“Then we don’t release it.”

Hill took a deep breath; her eyes hardened with resolve.

“Hold on tight. I’ll try to match your pace… If you accidentally fall, just roll away, got it?”

“Mm.”

Phyllis’s voice came from behind.

“I won’t fall, Hill.”

She suddenly let go of Hill’s cloak hem and instead grasped the taut golden chain.

Phyllis lowered her center of gravity.

She looked frail and unsteady—but in the blind spot Hill couldn’t see, those azure eyes were clear and calm.

“I’ll… watch your back.”

“ROOOAR!!”

The monster attacked.

No warning.

The hundreds-of-pounds rusted axe swept horizontally with a whistling tear through the air!

Too wide!

Hill had originally intended to dodge left—but in the instant she committed force, she felt a sharp tug from the chain on her left hand.

Not left—right and backward!

“This—”

No time to think. Hill instinctively followed the pull and fell backward.

Boom!

The axe smashed into the ground where they had stood moments ago; stone shards flew.

If she had dodged left—even at top speed—the shockwave would have injured her.

“That side… was a blind spot!”

Phyllis’s voice rang out through the dust, breathless but urgent.

“It shifted its weight to its left foot just now!”

Hill’s heart jolted.

Phyllis…

Even in such a weakened state, she was still reading the battlefield?

And moreover…

That pull just now had been timed with terrifying precision.

“Got it! Then let’s dance together!”

The confusion vanished from Hill’s eyes, replaced by blazing battle intent.

She no longer saw the chain as a restraint—but as a neural link connecting their movements.

“Wind Stride!”

Hill gave a low shout.

She activated the enchantment on her gear.

A silver streak flashed toward the monster.

But not in a straight line.

She circled the creature’s massive, lumbering body.

Phyllis became her perfect shadow.

When Hill lunged forward to thrust, Phyllis slid sideways along the chain’s inertia, opening attack space for her.

When the monster raised a foot to stomp, Phyllis sharply tugged the chain, signaling Hill to leap.

The golden chain danced through the dim ruins like a living whip of light.

It bound them together, creating a strange, perfect resonance in their movements.

“…Holy Radiance!”

As Hill slashed toward the monster’s knee, Phyllis raised her staff and—squeezing out her very last reserves of mana—released a blinding burst of light.

The monster instinctively closed its eye.

Now!

“Die!”

Hill’s shortsword plunged deep into the creature’s knee joint.

She used the momentum to vault upward, twisting midair in a clean flip; the blade aimed straight for the back of its head.

Its only weak point—the exposed, rotting brain unprotected by skull.

But in midair, Hill had no way to adjust trajectory.

The monster’s giant hand was already sweeping upward.

“Hill!!!”

Phyllis’s desperate shout came from below.

She did something insane.

She drove her staff into a crack in the stone floor as a fulcrum, then threw her entire body weight backward, yanking the chain with ferocious force.

Snap!

The chain snapped taut.

Hill—who was still airborne—was suddenly jerked downward.

Just enough to evade the monster’s sweeping hand.

And that violent pull gave Hill fresh acceleration.

Like a falling meteor.

Squelch!

The mithril shortsword pierced cleanly into the back of the Abyssal Butcher’s skull—hilt-deep.

Wind-attribute battle aura detonated inside its cranium, shredding the rotten neural tissue to pulp.

The colossal body froze.

The giant axe slipped from its grasp and crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Thud…

The mountain of flesh toppled slowly backward.

Hill kicked lightly off the monster’s shoulder mid-fall and landed gracefully.

She held the half-crouch landing posture, breathing hard.

Sweat dripped down her cheeks.

Yet an irrepressible smile of exhilaration spread across her face.

They had won.

The two of them together.

No unnecessary casualties. No being forced into desperation.

This coordination rivaled the synergy she had once built with comrades over years in her previous life.

“Phyllis…”

Hill turned, eager to share this hard-won joy with her partner.

But what she saw was Phyllis collapsed on the ground.

Her staff had snapped in two.

The hand that had gripped the chain was deeply bruised purple; the skin had torn.

Phyllis lay motionless; her golden hair fanned out across the dust-covered stone like a fallen angel.

“Phyllis!!”

Hill’s heart skipped a beat.

The thrill of victory evaporated instantly, replaced by boundless panic.

She rushed over madly, dropped to her knees beside Phyllis, and tremblingly lifted her into her arms.

“Don’t scare me… Phyllis, wake up!”

The person in her arms was soft—light as a feather.

Several long seconds passed before Phyllis’s eyelashes fluttered faintly. Slowly, her eyes opened.

Those eyes—once brilliant as sapphires—were now dim and exhausted.

“…Hill?”

Phyllis’s voice was barely a whisper; her gaze wandered unfocused for a moment before settling on Hill’s face.

Then, with great effort, she managed a pale yet incredibly gentle smile.

“Thank goodness… you’re not hurt…”

“Why are you still worrying about me at a time like this!”

Hill’s voice cracked with unshed tears; she held Phyllis tightly, refusing to let go.

“Your hand… and that pull just now—did it hurt you anywhere?”

“It’s fine.”

Phyllis shook her head weakly; she tried to raise a hand to touch Hill’s face, but it fell limply halfway.

“As long as I could help Hill… as long as I wasn’t a burden… even if my hand broke, it wouldn’t matter…”

“Don’t say stupid things like that!”

Hill seized that injured, rope-burned hand and pressed it to her own cheek; her heart ached so fiercely it felt like it might shatter.

“If not for that pull just now, I’d already be minced meat. You saved me.”

Phyllis said nothing; she simply rested quietly in Hill’s arms, letting Hill’s body heat warm her.

In the angle Hill couldn’t see—

Against the chest she was pressed to—

The corners of Phyllis’s mouth curved into an almost intoxicated smile of satisfaction.

Look how tightly Hill is holding my hand now!

Nothing else matters.

We survived together.

That’s the only thing that matters.

Perhaps this is what they call… the suspension bridge effect?

What a wonderful magic.

After a long while—once both their breathing had steadied somewhat—

“Mr. Marius…”

Phyllis suddenly seemed to remember him; her body stiffened slightly as she looked toward the pool of blood nearby.

There lay only a horrific corpse and a staff split in two.

Hill followed her gaze; the light in her eyes dimmed.

“…He’s dead.”

Hill spoke softly, voice heavy with deep frustration.

“As captain and bodyguard, I failed.”

Phyllis sensed Hill’s mood sinking.

That wouldn’t do.

Leaving psychological scars on Hill was unacceptable.

Phyllis struggled to sit up.

Her gaze suddenly fell on a bloodstained notebook on the ground.

It had slipped from Marius’s robe pocket.

The cover looked like the same book he had carried in the carriage—the one recording ancient scripts.

“Hill, that’s…”

Phyllis pointed at the book.

Hill walked over and picked up the blood-soaked notebook.

Right now, she felt no lingering desire for the book that once contained a comrade’s last letter—only inexplicable revulsion.

“Don’t look at it.”

Phyllis spoke softly.

Her gaze seemed to avoid the book.

“That thing… gives off a very bad feeling. Mr. Marius was probably so obsessed with it that he…”

She didn’t finish the sentence.

But the implication was strong enough to plant a powerful psychological suggestion in Hill’s mind…

This book was an ill omen.

“You’re right.”

Hill stared at the book; her eyes gradually turned cold.

“Something like this shouldn’t exist.”

She did not hesitate.

She did not open it to see what secrets it still held.

After the life-and-death crisis, after watching Marius die before her eyes, after seeing Phyllis collapse gravely injured… under the weight of all these blows.

Only one thought remained in Hill’s mind:

Protect the important person. Stay away from dangerous things.

Whoosh!

Wind blades ignited along Hill’s shortsword; in an instant, the thick ancient tome was shredded to pieces.

Every secret it contained was reduced to drifting scraps of paper.

Phyllis watched the falling fragments; the smile in her eyes finally bloomed fully.

Perfect.

The witness is dead.

The evidence is destroyed.

Along with Hill’s past secrets and obsessions—buried forever.

Hill is only the current Hill now.

The Hill who belongs solely to me.

That’s enough.

“Let’s go, Hill.”

Phyllis extended her injured, rope-burned hand toward Hill.

“Let’s… go home.”

“Mm. Home.”

Hill took that hand, carefully helping Phyllis to her feet. Then—ignoring her protests—she bent down and lifted her onto her back in a steady piggyback carry.

“Hold on tight. This time, I’m the one carrying you.”

Hill carried Phyllis on her back, stepped over Marius’s corpse, and walked toward the exit without looking back.

In this dead-silent underground ruin.

A silver-haired girl bore a golden-haired nun on her back; their silhouettes overlapped.

The chain of light remained unbroken, clinking softly with each step.

As though proclaiming…

In life or in death, in sin or in virtue.

They were already locked together—accomplices forever.