The forest was completely silent. Even the soft wind that had been blowing had stopped entirely, wrapping the whole surroundings in an unbelievable stillness.
The only sound echoing in Renna’s ears was those footsteps moving over the bushes, along with her own heartbeat rising higher and higher.
She was almost sure it was that Witch approaching them. The same Witch who had captured her mother and tortured her for decades, until only her skeleton remained.
Even imagining it was horrible, the thought that she herself might go through that torture.
It made her finally realize how stupid her earlier thought had been, wanting to come here and face the Witch herself.
She could barely stand hearing the footsteps without feeling this terrified, and now the idea of standing before the Witch and fighting her felt like a joke.
And in the middle of all that despair, there was a face close beside her, so close she could hear his breathing.
When she looked at Magna’s face, the only thing she saw there was dead calm.
’Is he not scared at all?’ She couldn’t help but wonder, looking into those dark brown eyes.
They didn’t look like the eyes of a child. They looked like the eyes of a predator lying patiently in wait for its prey.
If Renna hadn’t known they were hiding, she would have thought Magna was just waiting for the right moment to strike.
’Is it the life he went through that turned him into this?’
It even started to give Renna a strange sense of safety and calm, slowing her heartbeat and quieting the wild fear inside her.
It was the first time in her life she had felt this kind of safety beside someone other than her mother or grandmother.
She was so focused on studying every detail of his face that she didn’t even notice the footsteps had already faded away.
She only snapped back to her senses when his eyes turned to meet her crimson ones.
"Are you alright?" Magna asked, looking slightly puzzled by her fixated stare.
"Yeah." Renna replied, looking away.
"She doesn’t seem to have noticed us." Magna slowly got to his feet, though he never let his guard down, still checking their surroundings.
The Faceless Witch was known for playing with her prey, so the thought that she might just be toying with them stayed in his mind.
"I don’t know if she already knows we’re here, but we need to find somewhere to hide." He started walking.
Magna had already accepted that there was no way out of this place for now, so his only hope was that Celeste and Rowena would come looking for them.
That would take time though, since time moved very slowly inside this dimension. So until they arrived, he and Renna needed to find somewhere to hide and stay alive.
"Do you know any spell that could hide us?" He asked, turning to Renna, who was following behind him.
Even Faye had her camouflage spell, and she wasn’t even a 1st Trial Witch yet. A 5th Trial Witch’s spell range should have been even wider.
She just stayed silent at the question.
When Magna turned to look at her, he saw her head lowered, her face hidden beneath her hat, only her red lips pressed together visible.
’Really?’ Magna couldn’t believe how this Witch had passed all her trials without even one hiding spell in her arsenal.
’Guess she’s more of the smash-first type.’ He chuckled to himself, guessing that her skills were probably all attack based.
He also checked his own mana reserve.
Mana 10.2%
That was from what he had gained earlier, after eating breakfast and the golden sunberry Faye had given him.
Without any more of those recovery pills on him, he also had no way to use his Glacial Calamity spell again.
That thought brought a question to mind, and he turned his head to ask again. "Do you have any food or potions that raise mana?"
She had come here intending to face the Witch, so she must have prepared at least something.
Luckily, she answered. "Yes, I have food. You hungry?"
Remembering his earlier wish to visit a bakery and assuming he was hungry, she pulled a pouch from the pocket of her robe.
She took out a small, round red item that looked like a pill and held it out to him. ’’Don’t let the size fool you. It’s small, but it will stave off your hunger and tiredness too.’’
Looking at it, Magna’s eyes lit up as he took it from her hand.
He only glanced at it, since he could already feel the mana radiating from it, and quickly popped it into his mouth and swallowed.
The moment it slid down his throat, he felt his mana reserve rising, and all the tiredness in his body vanished at once.
[New substance detected... Red Recovery Pill...]
[Energy particles detected...]
[Converting nutrients into mana...]
After the messages, Magna checked his mana reserve.
Mana 21.2%
He had gained exactly 10% from that small pill. It was a little less than what Titus had given him before, but it was still a great discovery for him.
"Do you have more?" he asked eagerly.
Renna first looked at his face with surprise. That pill could kill an ordinary person’s hunger for an entire day, so she couldn’t understand why he was asking for another.
She still nodded, holding out another one. "I have 9 more."
Magna immediately took it too, popped it into his mouth, and swallowed, savoring the satisfying feeling of his mana rising.
Then he held his palm out toward her and demanded more. "Give me 7 more."
"7 what?" Renna thought she must have misheard him.
"Those pills... Never mind, give me all of them. Do you have anything else? It has to be mana rich." Magna demanded again, not caring about her confusion.
"Yeah, I have a few other things, but why do you want so much? I need them to restore my own mana too." She didn’t want to refuse him, since Magna was already helping her escape this place.
But aside from how expensive they were, she also needed them for herself, in case she ended up in a desperate situation. So she hesitated.
"Just show me everything you have." Magna was grinning widely now. "I have a plan."
Then he added the words that would both convince Renna and be nearly impossible for her to believe.
"We might actually be able to kill that Witch."
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