Sincerely, Vanessa [EN]: Chapter 33

To Teacher, From Vanessa (33/146)

Gideon asked calmly.

“Was there no one here to begin with?”

“They’re all dead. All….”

The man muttered, sobbing. Vanessa, standing behind him, swallowed hard. The man’s despair washed over her.

“I want to die too…. But I want to live…. I’m scared, so scared….”

“Shouldn’t you see the end of those who killed your family?”

At Andalus’s words, the man lifted his blank gaze.

“We will kill him, or them. So tell us everything you know.”

The man, staring at the special forces members with hazy eyes, swallowed hard.

A faint light returned to his lips, which had only cried out in pain, and to his eyes, which had only pleaded with despair. Because even in this despair, there was something he still wanted.

“That bastard’s ship… my child must be on it….”

Tears streamed down onto the dirty pillowcase.

“If you find them… could you at least bury them….”

“If they have a habitat, we’ll turn it upside down too. We’ll find them.”

Anna said. The gazes of the special forces members were very firm and strong. It was clearly confidence born from skill.

The man opened his mouth as if possessed.

“I don’t know what it looks like well… because it was a very dark night. It was just very huge… its eyes shone bright red, and flames soared from its back… strangely, my body wouldn’t move….”

“Your body wouldn’t move?”

“It was slowly approaching, and I just, didn’t want to move…. And I felt like I was stabbed by a horn on its head, and when I fell, it tried to chew and eat the flesh of my ship…”

The man suddenly leaned over the side of the bed and began to vomit. But only watery gastric fluid came out; nothing else.

Hyssop placed his hand on the man’s head. The man stopped vomiting and felt a slow drowsiness creeping in.

“I’ll leave some clean water for you. Stay in here and don’t come out. Be careful not to reopen your wounds.”

As the man’s eyes completely closed, the special forces members stirred and began to talk.

“Binding or hypnosis?”

“I don’t know how the power manifests. Nor do I know how fast it manifests.”

“Always move in pairs of two or more. There’s no way it has the ability to cast binding or hypnosis on multiple people.”

Gideon scanned the members and students in the room and opened his mouth.

“Captain Anna and Lieutenant Hyssop, Major Andalus and Lieutenant Grain, find the monster, but the students’ safety is the top priority.”

“What about you, Captain?”

“I’ll take care of myself.”

“You’ll regret saying that if you get bound? Oh, I should have listened to my subordinates-”

As Gideon turned his head indifferently, Grain stuck to him and chattered.

“Oh, Captain. Let’s go together.”

“Get off.”

“Are you immune to binding, Captain?”

Dalois asked blankly, and Anna laughed loudly.

“There’s no way. He’s just saying he’s strong. But it could be dangerous. Let’s go together, Captain!”

Gideon ignored her completely. He had to manage both groups, so he couldn’t stick to one side.

“Search every nook and cranny. Retreat immediately if it’s dangerous. Everyone has signal flares, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Everyone began to prepare to search. In the meantime, when Dalois took out a sturdy axe, attention was focused on him.

“An axe….”

Grain muttered. *He definitely needs to come to the special forces.* [Internal monologue]

“Kill every last one of them.”

As soon as Gideon’s words fell, everyone rushed out of the house like arrows.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

Anna and Hyssop, Vanessa and Dalois began to move towards the forest surrounding the village.

The four moved very quickly.

“Captain, do you know something as you’re running?”
Hyssop asked, running hard to keep up, with a suspicious expression.

“Hey, don’t you know about intuition! How many years of experience do I have! Dark and gloomy places.”

“Intuition, my foot.”

Hyssop pouted and clapped his hands. A faint light flickered at his fingertips, and his gray eyes sparkled.

“What are you trying to do?”

“The smell of blood. The fishy smell of blood.”

As Hyssop’s finger touched the ground, a golden line began to appear on the road.

“Let’s go to the densest place first.”

“Oh my, I really like working with Lieutenant Hyssop. Good! Let’s go, students!”

A slender rapier stretched forward. The four began to run, kicking up a fuss. Houses covered in layers of dirt and dust receded into the distance.

“Vanessa, do you know how to cast a barrier?”

“Yes. But it’s incantation magic, so it’s just one-time use, and the reaction is a bit slow.”

“The moment it gets dangerous, ignore me and Captain Anna. Only think about the safety of Vanessa and Dalois.”

Vanessa nodded. Dalois grinned and stuck next to Vanessa as he ran.

“Take good care of me. In return, I’ll chop off the head of anyone who gets close.”

“I’ll take care of you too.”

Vanessa and Dalois smiled and bumped fists.

“How cute. Ah, I see the forest path over there.”

Anna ran even faster and took the lead. The destination was a very small forest near the village.

The four stopped at the entrance to the forest. The inside, overgrown with trees, was very dark and damp.

Anna lowered her body and examined the marks left in the dirt.

“Should we cast a light?”

“We should.”

As Vanessa whispered and gestured lightly, round lights appeared, holding warmth, as if lanterns had been lit.

The light gently enveloped the four. Dalois laughed as if tickled.

“My first magic was similar to this. So I’m really good at this.”

Vanessa smiled, and everyone chuckled.

As their vision widened and their bodies warmed, their somewhat fearful hearts subsided. Anna was the first to plunge into the darkness.

A damp smell. As she groped the black soil with her hands, she saw the footprints of many things.

“Small ones, big ones. Diverse.”

“They’re all heading that way. Near that big tree….”

Dalois swallowed hard and gripped his axe tightly.

“Let’s focus now. No, maybe we don’t even need to focus.”

Just listen for the sound. Anna lowered her body completely.

Koo-uhk. Koo-uhk—

And the sound of rustling through the grass. Standing in the excessive silence, even each other’s breathing felt like thunder ringing in their ears.

In an instant, Anna lunged forward and thrust her sword.

Thwack.

Koo-uh-uhk. Koo-uhk.

The thing crying, pierced by the sword, was a small creature with long legs. Anna calmly pierced its neck completely to stop the sound.

Contrary to her worries, it was a simple end.

“It seems to have given birth to a small one. Is this a cow, or a monster?”

“It feels mixed. It seems to be a cub of a chimera [a creature made of mixed animal parts] with reproductive abilities. If the big one comes back….”

“It’ll go wild.”

Vanessa and Dalois approached the tree. The tree was so huge that a single root was as thick as someone’s leg, and there were many animal footprints left near it.

Hyssop approached and lifted the moss covering the roots. Vanessa frowned.

“It’s all bone fragments.”

Anna heard those words and cut open the belly of the baby monster. Fragmented bones were inside its stomach. As well as half-digested flesh.

“Is it possible to transplant carnivorous monsters into herbivores?”

As Vanessa asked cautiously, Hyssop nodded.

“These things won’t live long, but it’s possible. Look at this.”

Strangely, ash-like things continued to fall from the baby monster’s body.

“‘Naga’?”

Naga was a monster born from ash that spewed fire from its body. It was easy to deal with. Because it was weak to water.

“That’s right. But since it has the head of a cow, I don’t know if water will be its weakness.”

“We need to leave here for now. It could be dangerous if the big one comes. Let’s use the baby monster’s corpse to lure it out.”

Dalois lifted the baby monster with a flourish. The four tried to quickly escape the forest.

At that moment, Vanessa ‘felt’ something. But she didn’t see anything, and she didn’t hear any sound.

But the moment Captain Anna drew her sword without even having a chance to speak, Vanessa deployed a barrier on the left. It was very weak, but it was realized as quickly as possible.

And it shattered completely. Vanessa barely endured the pain that twisted her insides.

“Damn it, what is it!”

Anna reacted almost simultaneously with Vanessa. She jumped onto the black shadow and plunged her sword down. It was pierced through the neck, but instead, it threw Anna away.

Even as she fell to the ground, Anna stabbed her sword in again.

The rapier completely penetrated the monster’s torso, but it only gave it a moment of stiffness. Blood splattered.

Dalois, who was in the monster’s path, swung his axe, but failed to hit the head and only blew off part of the horn. The monster didn’t care and charged at them again.

Dalois didn’t have time to recover from his large movement.

Vanessa and the cow’s eyes met. Pitch black-

“Duck!”
Hyssop fired a killing spell as it was. The straight black line that stretched out pierced the cow’s eyeball and made a sound like thunder.

Koo-uh-uhk-! Moo-eeh.

A huge cry, like a roar, rang in their ears. The carefully constructed magic pierced the monster’s eye, but that was not the monster’s weakness.

The monster shed black water from its eyes and turned to run away. But they couldn’t let it get away.

Fortunately, Hyssop and Vanessa simultaneously prevented the monster from moving. The monster shook its hind legs, but the vines that grew from the ground bound its hooves, and one leg hardened.

The magic that Vanessa realized lasted only a few seconds, but it was effective.

The moment the monster cried out roughly, Anna’s rapier pierced its open mouth. Thwack. And Dalois’s axe, which flew in with a whooshing sound, was deeply embedded in the monster’s body.

Small flames soared from the monster’s body and then went out. The ground was soaked with black blood.

“Damn it.”

Anna, exhaling, threw her sword to the ground.

“It’s the size of three people combined! I can’t kill it in one go unless I cut it in half!”

“It ate well and grew well. Huff… Vanessa, Dalois. Very well done.”

Dalois, who pulled the axe out of the monster’s body with a groan, staggered over.

“Wow, thanks Vanessa!”

Vanessa gave a bitter smile as Dalois grinned. Perhaps because the barrier was forcibly broken, her stomach continued to churn.

“Come to think of it, the barrier broke earlier. Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m okay.”

“How did you know something was coming?”

At Hyssop’s puzzled words, Vanessa shook her head, not even knowing herself.

“I just felt uneasy. I got goosebumps like I was being pricked with a needle.”

“Vanessa is as sensitive as the Captain.”

Vanessa wrinkled her nose at Hyssop’s compliment.

“But. Strangely, the monster didn’t have any binding abilities or anything like that? It just died.”

At Dalois’s words, the two special forces members frowned.

“…We need to join Major Andalus and Lieutenant Grain for now. Come to think of it, other than that physical strikes are effective, we haven’t really figured anything out.”

“Yes. Let’s search a little more at the entrance of the forest.”

The four searched the forest thoroughly together, but no more monsters were found.

Carrying only the corpse of the small monster, they returned to the village, where Major Andalus and Lieutenant Grain had another monster’s corpse beside them.

Evan and Moshwi were completely covered in blood.

“Wow, Evan! Moshwi!”

“Vanessa! Dalois!”

The four were happy to see each other as if they hadn’t seen each other in days. While they were expressing their joy by hugging each other’s shoulders, Evan noticed that Vanessa was blinking slowly as if she was tired.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“Ah, the barrier was broken….”

While Vanessa was talking, the darkening sky flickered extensively. The moment everyone raised their heads, a bolt of lightning struck down the hill.