I've Got A Mana Processor In A Magic World-Chapter 84: Noctis

After a while, Jet’s mind settled and he reflected on what had just happened. Surprisingly, he was feeling dandy. His head was way clearer, like he’d just released a lot of built up discomfort he’d kept bottled up for a long while. He stood up and checked around the surroundings for anything of note. But there wasn’t any. Everything had been burnt to ashes, leaving only some scrap ornaments made of stone that the grotesque demons wore.

He cleared his traces of being there and left the area as quickly as he could, wary about anyone finding the two demons missing and coming out here to search for them, though he doubted they would. Based on a few sightings, the way the demons lived was so vicious that he felt the others would simply think these two had died in a fight—which wasn’t wrong.

But reality had a way of defying expectations. He hadn’t even gone too far, only covering about ten miles, when, due to his preference of always finding higher ground, he took the risk and carefully climbed a small hill that had fumaroles spewing hot gases out of the ground in intervals, careful not to get scalded.

As he reached the top of the hill, staring at the dark red horizon, he spotted some movement in the distance and focused quickly on it. It was another pair of grotesque demons, walking and pointing at the ground as they moved. Jet ducked quickly, lying flat on the ground. But he was not quick enough. One of the demons looked up and spotted him in the distance, alerting his partner. Jet stood up immediately, giving up on his exposed position and running out of view just as they also charged towards the hill.

"Fuck! How did they find me so fast?!" He yelled as he ran, scanning around the whole surroundings for any place to hide himself. He was not ready to take on another set of demons. Ones who knew he had taken down two of their kind, and would be very cautious in dealing with him. Not to mention the fact that he was still recovering his strength from the last fight too.

That was what led to the present situation.

Jet punched the ground in frustration as he spat out the remains of the black tar-like substance. He had covered himself with it to mask his scent before he hid. The fact that they’d been able to track him all the way here meant they had superior senses, so he needed to take extra measures.

Jet had hid for nearly twelve hours. In the same spot. Barely moving at all. His body was sore from staying within that cramped space, and his pores were practically begging to breathe as he scraped off the tar from his body.

The worst thing was, now that the demons were gone, there wasn’t any close source of water nearby for him to use to wash off the oily tar that covered his whole body.

But at least, he’d survived that encounter, and had learned a lesson. He would live to see another day in this godforsaken abyss.

.

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Somewhere in Noctis. On the other side of the planet...

Kathelyn let out a hot breath of air that misted as she moved. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

The woman in front of her paved the way to the village she had been living in for the past month.

She had crashed here on this planet about a month ago, and up till now, she was still confused as to what was going on.

Her entry point had been from a high altitude, but she was lucky enough to land safely. A massive snowy mountain was right above her point of entry, so the distance to the ground wasn’t all that much. In fact she hadn’t sustained any significant injury aside from a few scratches and a slightly broken wrist. And that was even due to the fact that she’d crashed right into an unsuspecting person going about their own day.

The person had sustained more injuries than Kathelyn had, making Kathelyn, who was still confused about the whole situation, immediately wary after she quickly stood up and widened the distance between both of them. Kathelyn had expected a retaliation from the person, but as the person stood up; First, Kathelyn was surprised. The appearance of the individual took her totally off-guard. The person was obviously female, but looked like... a fox?

No. She only had prominent fox-like features. And if one looked closely, one could also see traces that pointed towards elven heritage. She was like a fox-elf woman. With white fur that covered her whole body, pointed ears that looked very elven, and a short snout that looked like it was beginning to evolve into a nose more elven-like. Her teeth were sharp and serrated like a fox.

She stood up from the snow with a pained and panicked look on her face as she scanned around for her assailant, before focusing on Kathelyn.

Just like Kathelyn had analyzed her features, she also analyzed Kathelyn’s features, scrunching her face at Kathelyn’s appearance.

Eventually, after staring at each other for nearly a minute, Kathelyn, sensing no malicious intention from the fox-elf woman, straightened up, holding her wrist that had broken from the crash and bringing her attention to the state of the surroundings. The air this high up was very thin and the cold was extreme. There was barely any light at all, and everywhere looked like a perpetual twilight. Kathelyn was standing slightly elevated in the snow, with the fox-elf woman a few steps down the sloping mountain.

"Where am I?" Kathelyn asked the fox-elf woman as she scanned her surroundings, hugging her shoulders tighter as she shivered.

"Raeufcait jaefquitis?" The fox-elf woman asked, holding her head as she sat down in the snow to catch her breath. She also didn’t sense any malicious intent from Kathelyn, which allowed her to relax a bit, focusing instead on the pain radiating from her head down her spine. Kathelyn had crashed directly onto her, and her head had borne the full brunt of the impact.

Just as Kathelyn was about to reply in confusion, she saw the beginnings of a spell happen as the surface of the fox-elf woman’s skin began to glow with precise and beautiful-looking inscriptions. She placed a hand on her forehead, trying to focus while also keeping Kathelyn within her view, as a pulse of light flowed directly into her head, bringing her evident relief.

"Healing magic?" Kathelyn whispered in slight surprise. From the woman’s pointed ears and a few elven-looking features here and there, she had deduced that the woman most likely had some trace of elven heritage. But seeing her cast healing magic set everything in stone. Now, Kathelyn tried to make sense of the new situation. Where was she right now? Why did this woman look so different? And the way the woman cast her magic... it looked very different from anything she’d ever seen.

But most importantly. Could the woman spare her any piece of clothing?! Kathelyn was about to freeze to death! She was stark naked without any shred of covering on her. The gateway link had dematerialized everything that she had fallen into the light with, leaving her bare.

She walked up abruptly to the woman, shivering intensely as the cold bit into her body deeply.

"Cl—Cloth—" her teeth chattered as she forced out the words with a stoic face.

The woman, seeing Kathelyn move abruptly, also stood up with a start.

"D—Do you h—?"

Thump

Kathelyn barely finished her statement when she fell rigidly into the snow, flat-faced, sliding down the slope nearly to the fox-elf woman’s feet.

"Ara...?" The woman yelped in confusion as she stared at Kathelyn’s unmoving body.