Fallen Mage Regressor

Mal was going to kill Nima. By the end of this fight, the brown elf boy would be lying in a pile of his own blood.

Lusia's damaged arm and hand hung limply at her side. She dropped the frying pan with a clang and pulled a knife from underneath her apron.

"Apologies, Master," Lusia said. "I should have used this weapon instead of the frying pan."

"It would have taken you an extra split second to pull out the knife, the frying pan might have been the best move."

Nima pushed himself off the ground with a groan. He stumbled back, a hand rising to his head in the same motion.

"Has anybody ever told you that your maid hits like a brick?" Nima said.

"No, because the kinds of people she hits tend to die. Congratulations, I think you're the first survivor."

Mal was acting confident, but on the inside he was anything but.

Nima looked a little dazed, but the expression was rapidly turning back to normal. Meanwhile, Lusia was still pale and shaking from whatever Nima had done to knock her out initially, and Mal could still feel the effects of the lavender toad in his system, even though he was able to use witchcraft again.

If Mal had to guess, the introduction of Lusia had only put them at about equal. It hadn't significantly changed their odds.

Nima clenched his fist. He disappeared with a crack, leaving the room completely silent.

Mal took a deep breath through his nose.

Arsenic and rotten eggs.

Nima was still in the room.

Mal blinked his eyes a few times to see if his mana vision would kick in—but no. It seemed that Nima had somehow managed to find a way to hide from his mana vision, probably by accident.

A flash of steel.

Mal dived forward and just barely dodged another strike coming to his head. Lusia's muscles tensed and her forearm parried an invisible wrist. As soon as it came into contact, Nima's hand appeared with a flash of light. Lusia let go, then stabbed down with her knife. The steel bit into flesh. Nima let out a pained cry, then pulled his arm back and disappeared into the air.

"Fine," Nima whispered from everywhere and nowhere at once. "How about you try this on for size?"

At that, a second Nima ran toward Mal. Mal ducked underneath him and spun out toward Nima's legs with his own foot. Nima jumped into the air, then pulled a knife from his sleeve and pointed it down toward Mal. Mal rolled out of the way. At the last second, Nima dropped his feet down and did a sharp pivot to chase after Mal. Before Mal could react, the knife came down hard into the same injured shoulder. He hissed through his teeth and banged his skull into the floor.

Glass cracked.

Instead of Nima, it was Lusia. Her shoulders stiffened and she pulled her hand off the knife.

Illusion mages were horrible to deal with in a group setting. The more people you had, the more of a problem they became. Even just two against one became a nightmare, as you'd have to double-check every time you were about to attack whether or not this was the real opponent.

Mal got back to his feet and scanned the room in a semicircle.

"He's running out of energy," he said. "Illusions this powerful cost hefty amounts of mana, and he's still only a first-year."

Lusia nodded and took up a position at his back. Three knives came out of the air, each targeting a separate part of Mal's physiology. The legs, the neck, and another one at his already injured shoulder.

The bramblevine bracelet twisted.

Ivies burst from the ground and wrapped up the area in front of him indiscriminately. They tangled around each other and hopefully around Nima.

Another glass-cracking noise.

Nima was knotted in the greenery, completely surrounded. He flexed against the vines, but they only wrapped up tighter around him like some sort of finger trap.

Mal's shoulder throbbed with pain as the adrenaline started to drain away.

"So that was all it took?" Mal said.

It couldn't have been that simple, right?

At that moment, Nima's scent flooded Mal's nose. The Nima trapped inside of the vines disappeared. Mal took a gamble and threw himself to the side.

When fighting an illusionist, you were fighting blind, and Nima was no exception. When he dodged, he'd made a gamble that the direction of the attack wasn't coming from the left.

He'd gambled wrong.

The knife sank deep into Mal's side. It pierced through his stomach and directly into the guts. He fell to the ground, knife embedded in him deep inside.

Blood spilled out of his wounds and his vision flickered black. He'd taken too much damage, and he didn't have anything left to give.

Nima popped into existence with another glass-cracking noise. Lusia put herself in front of Mal, her dressed figure forming a sort of shield in front of Mal.

"You know, I don't actually dislike you that much," Nima said with a lazy smile. "Really, I'm doing you a bit of a favor. You can't tell me that you actually work for this guy willingly."

"My feelings are irrelevant. I'm sworn to protect him."

Nima scoffed. "Honor-bound idiots like you are just the worst. Get a personality, why don't you?"

"I have a personality. Clarify."

"Of course you do."

At that, Nima disappeared, then reappeared on the table.

"So I guess you're gonna have to attack me here."

He disappeared and reappeared, this time behind them.

"Or here?" he said.

Another disappearance and reappearance. Leaning against the wall.

"Or perhaps here."

He pushed himself off the wall and chuckled. "Don't you see? You really don't have any way to keep up. Not without mana circulation—"

As if to prove Nima wrong, Lusia darted forward toward him like a crossbow bolt. She reached behind her apron and pulled out another knife, then as soon as she got in range of Nima, she slashed out at him in a single swift movement.

He vanished into a puff of smoke.

Then reappeared sitting at the dining room table.

Lusia did a perfect facial turn and accelerated to her maximum speed in a few seconds. She jumped into the air, knife pointed out, only to sail harmlessly through another cloud of air.

"I'm sorry to say—" Nima reappeared near the window. "—there's no way you can win this fight."

Lusia’s face had a slight crease at the center of her forehead. It was the closest thing to frustration that Mal had ever seen from the woman.

"Like, look, you're actually pretty good at this," Nima said. "But your physical abilities can't make up for a lack of mana circulation. I'm keeping up with you just by doing that, even though you've clearly spent way more time honing your body than I have. The only thing you've really got going for you is technique, and with my illusion magic, it becomes irrelevant."

Lusia made to step forward, then paused.

"Giving up?"

Lusia looked down at her hands.

Mal's blood chilled. Don't do it. There's no way you have the practice to pull it off effectively, and that's ignoring your core.

Mmana seeped into her skin and flowed through her body. Mal grimaced. It was a worthy attempt, but her core was still unstable. She wouldn't be able to maintain any spells for longer than a handful of seconds.

"Lusia, you need to lea—"

"Master, please stem your bleeding."

A beat of silence.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I don't know how long it will take to eliminate this threat. In the meanwhile, you must prolong your life as much as possible for when I take you to Professor Cassandra."

Mal was going to protest and tell her to stop, but before he could, she'd already darted forward.

Her speed had doubled, maybe even tripled. One second she was near the dining table. The next she practically reappeared at the location where Nima was. A puff of air. Nima reappeared a few feet away. His eyes were wide and his forehead glistened with sweat.

"When the hell did you pick that up? You were supposed to have a hollow core."

Lusia responded by taking a single step forward with force strong enough to crack the wood flooring. Her body launched forward faster than Mal could keep up with, her knife thrust out fast enough to make a whistling noise.

A sick sound and the spray of blood.

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