Where Are You, Ria?
Whoa? 8. Whoa?
Izel groaned, her eyes fluttering open to the crushing pain in her ribs. The backlash from the explosion still crackled through her body like static, but before the agony could fully register, an eerie silence washed over her entirely.
She whipped her head around. The cot where Leona should have been lay empty. Blood-soaked bandages lay unraveled on the floor amid the dust. And the door hung half-open.
“……Hah.”
Days after the explosion. Leona would collapse like she'd fainted dead away, only to crawl back to those ruins the moment any shred of consciousness returned, as if entranced.
Izel snatched her coat irritably and stormed outside.
The West Outskirts Ruins were still shrouded in ash even after she shrugged on her coat haphazardly. Days had passed, yet the acrid stench of gunpowder and metallic blood clung stubbornly to the air.
From a distance, grotesque sounds drifted over.
Rustle. Stones shifting. Scraping. Fallen timber splintering. It would falter from sheer exhaustion, then erupt again in frenzied spasms.
Izel didn't break stride. No point listening. She already knew exactly where those noises came from.
In the center of the clearing, amid the deepest gouge in the debris, Leona knelt. Her sword lay abandoned at her side long ago.
She clawed at the rubble with nothing but her bare hands—lifting stones, scooping dirt. They were a ruin already: nails torn free, fingertips shredded and pulped, blood streaming in rivulets. Fresh crimson layered over crusted black, mingling with soil into thick, dark-red mud.
Yet Leona never once glanced at those mangled hands.
Her face was chillingly vacant. As if she'd evaporated every last scrap of capacity for pain.
Izel drew close and growled low. “Stop.”
Leona ignored her. Blood dripped in heavy plops as she shoved aside a chunk of splintered wood.
Izel stepped closer. “Leona.”
No response. Fed up, Izel seized Leona's wrist in a rough grip.
“I said stop.”
Only then did Leona slowly lift her head. Her pupils drifted unfocused. She seemed to look at Izel, but her gaze reflected nothing.
Leona's lips parted slowly. “Move.” Her voice was raw and cracked.
Izel didn't release her. “Can't you see your fucking hands? Keep this up, and you'll never swing a sword again.”
Leona flicked her eyes down to her gore-slicked hands for the briefest instant. Then back to the rubble.
“Doesn't matter.”
“Why the hell are you doing this?!”
Izel bellowed. Even with her wrist pinned, Leona scraped at the ground with bloodied fingertips.
“Call her.”
“……What?”
“Ria.”
Leona's bloodshot eyes roamed the void before fixing on Izel. “Keep calling. She says save her. It hurts.”
A spasm twitched at the corners of Leona's eyes. Close them, and there she was—no, even now, eyes wide open, the silver-haired girl stared from the darkness. Beneath the black rubble. Dust-caked little body. Blood-smeared face. Crushed arm. Trembling fingertips. Ria watched her from the shadows, bloodied but beaming her usual bright smile. Why'd you lie to me? Why'd you leave me? I'm still here—save me. Don't be late this time.
Resentments Ria would never utter aloud. A nightmare voice conjured purely from Leona's venomous guilt, carving razor-sharp into her skull.
Leona's ragged breaths hitched sharply. “Late again.”
Izel snapped. “That's a dream!”
“Bullshit from your own damn guilt!”
Izel shoved her hard, veins throbbing. “Snap out of it, you crazy bitch! She's dead! How the fuck does anyone survive that blast? I barely clung to life after it shredded my barrier—and she was at ground zero!”
She twisted the knife deliberately, cruelly. Anything to halt the madness. Izel ground her teeth. “Admit it.” Her own voice cracked. “She's gone.”
A beat of silence.
That instant, Leona's frantic digging hands froze solid.
Blood beaded between her fingers, drip, drip.
Leona unfurled her fist slowly.
Blood and dirt caked her palm like mud. Nestled in that gruesome sludge: something clutched without release for days, not even in sleep.
The silver orb.
Half-smothered in gore, yet within, a faint, prismatic glow swirled unbroken.
Faint, iridescent glow persists
Contract connection: Intact
“Made a contract. With her.”
Leona muttered low. Izel's face hardened.
Leona extended her bloodied hand toward Izel, just a fraction.
“Contract's... still linked.”
Her hoarse voice quavered, teetering on the brink.
“Ria... is alive.”
Izel's expression crumpled. “That's a glitch.” Leona's gaze shifted to her.
Izel huffed. “Explosion scrambled the mana—residual traces mimicking a link.”
“No way the orb survives unscathed.”
Leona's fingers locked rigid over it. For the barest instant. What if. If this light isn't life. If the orb's just busted. If Ria really—
“No!”
Leona snarled like a beast.
“Ria can't lie.”
She yanked the orb to her chest, clutching it vise-tight. Crushed flesh? No sensation.
“Said it'd be fine. We'd meet again... She can't lie.”
Head bowed, Leona whispered to herself. “So she's alive.”
Izel clenched her eyes shut.
She jabbed a finger at the rubble. “Fine.” Her voice scraped raw. “She's alive, like you say.”
Leona's eyes flicked to her.
“But not in there.”
Leona halted.
Izel bared her teeth. “Even if alive. Not under that! Think I've only cast detection spells a few times?”
Izel screamed, thrusting at the ash-choked mound.
“Nothing underneath! No life! Not a drop of blood, scrap of flesh! Nothing left!”
Leona's hands went utterly still. First time in days they truly stopped, no matter the words.
Leona whispered. “Nothing... at all?”
Izel sighed, exhausted. “Yeah. Nothing.”
Silence.
Izel thought she'd finally pierced the denial. But Leona's head rose slowly—and twisted grotesquely aside, staring elsewhere.
“Right. Not here.”
“……What?”
“No Ria here. No point digging.”
Unbridled madness vortexed in Leona's pupils. Words accelerated.
“She was here. We saw her. Ria's shape.”
“No traces... Someone took her.”
“Leona, what the fuck—”
“Valen wasn't solo. Tons grudge me. They helped.”
“Definitely did.”
Leona's lips hitched into a ghastly smirk. Baseless bullshit logic, yet it soothed her.
“Pinning me here. Making me late again—those rat bastards snatched Ria...!”
The realization drained her face paper-white. Days wasted clawing stones. Ria suffering elsewhere in that span. Somewhere else, again. Ria's face: It hurts. Save me. Late again.
Leona's breaths exploded ragged.
“No. Then right now—”
She lurched upright, staggering. Body at breaking point, starved and sleepless. Side bandages bloomed fresh red.
Yet she snatched her sword from the dirt. Gripped the hilt despite palm flayed to bone.
“Find her.”
“Leona! You're out of your mind! That body moves, you die!”
Izel paled, blocking her path. Leona's stare pierced past, shredding the city's shadowed alleys.
“Can't die.”
Leona added, voice hollow.
“Haven't found her.”
Leona sidestepped. Izel blocked again.
Izel didn't buy Ria alive. But denial now would shatter her. Needed a tether.
“Tell the guild.”
Leona froze midstep.
“If stolen like you say, especially don't go solo. Search party—”
“Late.”
The curt word sealed Izel's lips.
Leona toyed with the orb in her bosom, murmuring. “They relocate while we assemble. Rats infiltrated guild.”
“Leona.”
“No more waiting.”
Enough. Izel released her. Couldn't follow anyway.
Leona remembered. Valen's associates. Back-alley vermin who'd sell him intel. Faces clinking glasses with Valen. Likely intel peddlers. Those who'd gnashed teeth at her. Swallowed humiliation but never dropped their gaze. Spared, assuming done.
Those faces surfaced one by one.
Valen wasn't alone. Couldn't be.
One knows. Someone saw. Someone hid her.
Then hunt them. Every last one. No exceptions.
Days later.
The Adventurer's Guild overflowed with missing adventurer reports—five times the norm, easily.
First: Valen's back-alley cronies.
Then: Mercenary bands with old grudges against Leona.
Soon: Even peripheral info brokers, gone traceless.
No witnesses. Survivors—if any—clammed up in terror.
Rumors swirled: Someone hunting adventurers.
No mention of Ria. Or Leona.
Just: Adventurers vanishing, one by one, somewhere in the city.
Leona didn't sleep. Eyes drifted shut? Darkness surged. Blackened rubble. Dust-matted silver hair. Tiny bloodied face.
Couldn't.
Exhaustion crested; brief doze, and rubble-crushed Ria reached out, bleeding. Late again?
Leona swallowed hard, eyes snapping open.
First check upon waking: not the knife-twist of wounds.
The orb.
In her blood-mud palm: faint flicker.
Silver orb glowed dimly.
Still linked.
Only then did Leona draw breath.
Couldn't eat. Throat choked solid—food wouldn't go down.
Last sight: bloodied, forcing that smile. I was really happy. For real.
Words resurfaced; throat clogged.
Voice like tinnitus; guts wrenched.
Leona hurled the stale, cold bread to the floor.
Wounds stayed raw. No respite.
Sword grip split her palm anew; motion tore her side.
Didn't stop. Pain? Irrelevant. Fitting penance, maybe.
Ria hurt worse. Scalp yanked. Chained to cold stone. Blast epicenter.
Thoughts like that? Spurred her on.
So Leona pressed.
Empty warehouse, stale air heavy. Thick reek of blood.
Drips from sword tip: plip. Plip.
Darkness echoed only her harsh breaths.
Leona slipped her trembling, gore-sodden hand inside her shirt, drawing the orb.
Faint glow. Still linked. Ria lived.
But where the fuck?
Valen ties: nothing. Grudge-holders gutted: zilch. Dead ends.
Orb insisted alive.
Ria: nowhere.
Leona's eyes crumbled, adrift like the lost.
Bloodied fist crushed the orb.
“Where are you.”
Voice splintered.
“Ria……”