It wasn't a rush, but a steady noise of footsteps which, unnaturally, was too loud.
Is it really an invader? I questioned myself.
As my casting continued to make the manified water take the form of an arrow, a girl wearing a white kimono with white hair and red, ruby-like eyes came in, saying, "I have co..."
Without listening, I stopped the cast to launch the arrow, yet it deformed into water again, falling onto my chest and the girl sleeping above it.
I really messed up here hard. Not only did I fail to realize my body was mana-deficient, but it was a weak one too that didn't have the power to fight, and dragging systems aren't the best system.
Yet at that instant, before the water touched her, by barely the width of a fingernail, a bubble formed, stopping the water from touching her.
I looked toward the girl still standing at the door.
Her hands were trembling with a heavy crate floating around in a bubble; her eyes had dilated to a terrifying level as they mixed with bloodshot veins.
She aimed a stick—or rather, as this reality changed into a genre I called fantasy, it should be a wand. It was a simple, plain wooden wand.
She took a small gasp, moved with her constant rhythm, and came near me and the girl.
In her glaring eyes that were staring at me, I saw a murderous intent, enough to give me shivers.
She moved her arms beneath the arms of the girl lying on my chest and moved her sleeping body in a calm and rhythmic way, silent enough that her presence itself could be questioned by ghosts. She put her beside me, came next to me, and with another deep gasp, punched at my face.
And all I could sense were sparks of flame around her fist, without a cast.
At that moment, I wanted to shout, yet my throat betrayed me. I closed my eyes instinctively to at least calm my mind in the same way a child does before getting injected with a heavy dose of medicine.
Thwack!!
"Ruby!!!!"
In front of me lay the same sleeping girl with messy hair, blocking her fist with her hand.
Ruby retreated, yet her arms were trembling. She spoke, "I, I, I..., Lina, I..."
Lina looked at her with a smile, moving and wrapping her arms around her, saying, "Calm down. You don't have to explain; just go and wash yourself. Your kimono beneath has gotten a bit dusty."
Listening to her voice, Ruby's tears shed from her face as she answered, "As you wish, mas..., Big sis."
She moved with a rushed pace until her shadow could no longer be seen.
Afterward, Lina looked toward me—not by standing, but moving her face to a point where I could feel her breath and analyze my skin and body for a bit .
She asked me in a calm voice, "Does it still feel like a burning sweat near your groin?"
I looked toward her with a completely confused face, and in answer to it, she hit me with a dekopin, saying, "Don't be saintly and modest, you're past your teenage years."
At that moment, although I still didn't recognize what a groin was—remembering when I was awake, the part below my gut and above my knees that I didn't usually name—
"So that part is called the groin? It sounds a bit formal. Can use to describe it afterward?"
I nodded my head, as I couldn't feel it now.
She chuckled, saying, "To be honest, curing you for 6 months was hellishly hard, but seeing your brittle, red-blushed face, all my efforts seem worth it."
Is my face blushing? No, it isn't... is it? I questioned myself, but her chuckle didn't carry a single trace of fakeness.
So I knew in that moment that not only was my brain, due to brain fog, reacting like nothing happened after almost getting jabbed by a fist meant to break my neck, but it also betrayed me to the point where I had no recovery left for whatever bit of honor I had remaining.
So she said, "Neither try to pick up anything nor try to stand. Your skin is purely newly generated and like a baby's, so it isn't going to tolerate your recklessness."