The Cost of Power
Caught in the powerful water pressure, I was swept away like laundry, spinning round and round in the depths.
[Gyaaah!]
“Blub! Glub glub!”
“Cough—someone save… gluuuurp!”
I didn’t have the slightest strength left to help anyone breathe or find their balance underwater.
All my focus had to remain on Endairon as he poured every ounce of power into shattering the tightly sealed door with crushing water pressure, pulverizing obstructing boulders into dust, and forcing his way forward. He nearly demolished the tiny hole we had fallen through while fighting the current.
In the midst of it all, the best I could manage was making sure my companions weren’t crushed to death by the shockwaves of everything breaking apart.
I couldn’t breathe either.
As expected, the greatest obstacle was the very hole we had dropped into.
The opening had nearly collapsed, so six adults and one wolf trying to pass through at once meant we had to smash it wider by force. That task was utterly exhausting. Water spirits weren’t built for this kind of work!
Every time Endairon shattered another layer of solid bedrock, I felt my own insides being crushed right along with it.
I have no idea how long I spent tumbling and rolling helplessly in the violently churning water while he broke through obstacle after obstacle.
Judging by how badly my lungs burned, a full minute had passed long ago.
“Grrk!”
Just as I reached my absolute limit on holding my breath, I sensed Endairon finally slip free of the hole and reach the lakebed.
It felt like finally drawing air into starved lungs.
A water spirit in water—how perfectly natural and refreshing that must feel. Swimming upward against the lake’s currents was the easiest thing in the world for Endairon.
I could sense his relief, and in the next instant our entire party was hurled onto the surface of the lake.
“Pwahhh!”
“Haaah! I nearly died back there!”
“Ughhh!”
Endairon hauled his massive body out of the water and released a long roar that sounded like a swirling vortex. Then, using a wave formed by the tip of his tail, he carried us to the shoreline where Undine was watching over the horses.
The moment everyone’s feet touched solid ground, he collapsed in on himself and vanished into the lake.
Not only Endairon—Undine was forcibly unsummoned before I could even explain. In my current condition, maintaining even her was too much.
Thrown onto land with such force that I rolled helplessly and nearly slammed into a tree, I was only stopped when someone grabbed my collar.
“Cough, cough!”
I had swallowed so much water that I spent a long time vomiting it back up. Only after hearing the voice did I realize Ash was the one who had caught me.
“Haa… Is everyone… all right? We’re all safe, right?”
Worrying about others first even while gasping for breath—how very like Ash.
Only then did I raise my head to confirm everyone was still alive. Rai seemed dizzy; he staggered sideways, wobbling unsteadily.
[Holororo.]
“Ugh… my head…”
“Oh no, one’s missing! There are only five of us!”
“…You didn’t count yourself, you idiot!”
“Wait, then… we all survived? Everyone made it?”
“Hooray! Ground! Thank you, gods! Spirit Masters are the best!”
You’re only realizing that now? I wrung out my soaking hair and scanned our surroundings.
Everyone was drenched, complaining of dizziness, and sporting bruises from being hurled onto solid ground, but otherwise they looked fine.
Thank goodness.
“Huh? No! My treasures! I put them in my pouch!”
“Argh! My startup capital! Where did everything go?!”
“My necklace! Bracelets! Gold bars!”
It wasn’t my fault so many things had been lost. I had saved their lives instead.
“What about the Cup of the Golden Star!”
“O-over heeeere.”
Lox, half-buried in a clump of grass in the corner, raised his hand. His eyes were spinning in circles.
His glasses seemed to have disappeared too, yet somehow he had protected the Cup of the Golden Star through all that. It was probably the best thing he had ever done.
It was an absolute mess, but everyone was alive and we still had the cup. That was enough.
After catching my breath, I forced my prone body upright.
I was so exhausted that my waterlogged clothes felt unbearably heavy. The severe dizziness and nausea made simply standing take forever.
“Are you all right, Jeanie? Let me…”
“I’m fine. I can stand on my own.”
“But your hands… they’re shaking.”
Only when I pushed away Ash, who was trying to support me, did I realize I was swaying on my feet.
When I lifted my palm, I saw it trembling violently against my will, covered in blood from numerous scrapes.
My knees throbbed. Looking down, I noticed my tough leather pants had been torn in several places.
I had been so out of it that I hadn’t even registered the pain from my injuries.
“I’m okay. More importantly, how about you? Are you hurt?”
Bruises would heal with time. What actually made me frown was the dizziness that felt like anemia.
Objects blurred together, the sky looked faintly yellow, and my vision kept flickering. My stomach churned as if I might vomit at any second.
But this wasn’t something that would improve just because someone worried about me. Pain had always been like that to me.
It was purely mine—completely unrelated to anyone else. I simply had to wait for it to pass on its own.
That belief cracked a little when Ash’s gaze toward me darkened with something close to despair.
“You…”
A large, water-soaked hand nervously wiped the corner of my mouth.
Wondering what he was doing, I looked and saw blood on his fingers. Come to think of it, there had been blood on my own hand too. I thought I had only vomited water, but apparently it was blood.
I roughly wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Knowing the cause, I wasn’t particularly surprised.
“It happens sometimes. Don’t you people cough up blood when you push yourselves too hard?”
Swordsmen probably didn’t experience this often. Judging by Ash’s grim expression, that seemed to be the case.
The real culprit was forcing Endairon out without a proper incantation to escape that place.
I had already known my insides would take damage when I skipped the spell and summoned him in a hurry.
If a human is a vessel meant to hold power, mine could handle Undain without strain, but it was still far too small for Endairon.
That was why the incantation existed—to temporarily make the vessel more flexible. Mages had to do the same thing.
When wielding power too vast for your vessel, the incantation was an essential step to lessen the burden.
Pour something too large into a small container and it overflows; you can’t use the power properly. Sometimes the vessel itself cracks under the strain.
Exactly like me right now.
“It always ends up like this when I overdo it.”
I muttered the words while wiping my mouth.
The saving grace was that this particular vessel could heal itself.
“Ah, I’m really fine, so you can stop making that face. Eat well, sleep well, and I’ll recover quickly.”
Ignoring the natural order never ended well.
Water should remain water. Earth should remain earth. Defying that truth only multiplied the burden.
Using Endairon as a tunnel-boring machine was not something I could repeat.
Of course, the way I used spirits was already bizarre, so I had coughed up blood several times during training. It seemed to have become a chronic issue after my fight with Robenin. Whenever I pushed too hard, blood came first.
My mouth filled with that metallic taste again. I wiped it away with the back of my hand, but another wave surged up, rendering my efforts pointless as a large volume of blood forced its way out.
“Jeanie!”
“Ah… maybe this isn’t fine…?”
This was bad. Vomiting this much blood was a first since the battle with Robenin.
I tried covering my mouth with my hand, but the amount leaking between my fingers was so enormous that I eventually gave up.
As I stared blankly at the blood pouring from my lips, a heavy silence fell over the group.
“……!”
[Master!]
“You…”
“…I-I…”
They all seemed unable to form complete sentences, staring at me with faces more horrified than I had ever seen. Suddenly I felt embarrassed.
To show them a sight like this… how humiliating!
“Ugh, what? Never seen someone cough up blood before? This much won’t ki—”
Damn. I was done for.
Pretending it was nothing was no longer possible. Standing itself had reached its limit. I pitched forward, nearly collapsing, but before my knees hit the ground Ash and Chad caught me.
At some point Rai had moved in front of me, waiting exactly where I would fall. I shook the two men off and flopped heavily onto Rai’s back.
Ah, cold metal really is the best.
“Jeanie! I’m sorry. This is all because of us…!”
“Lox! Get the medicine!”
“Huk… I don’t have any for internal injuries…”
“Ugh, stop shaking me… you damn idiots! This happened because you’re all so weak! Just go drop dead!”
“…S-sorry.”
After shouting at them, I at least felt much better emotionally.
I grumbled as I accepted the handkerchief Enk offered while practically prostrating himself. Even pressing it to my mouth, the dizziness refused to fade.
I flopped onto Rai again and groaned.
[You can’t die! Master!]
[Rai… don’t tell the enemy about my death…]
[Waaah! Nooo!]
I had fooled him. Rai really was an idiot. A total fool. Then again, like master, like spirit—I wasn’t any better.
I lifted my hollow eyes and slowly scanned the five faces before me.
Ash looked steeped in helpless despair, as if someone had already died. Chad’s expression was as grave as if he had been stabbed in the stomach.
Enk and Gail had seen blood before, yet they fidgeted like lost ducklings, completely at a loss.
Even Lox was struggling pathetically to free himself from the bushes.
I glared at each of them in turn with a scowl and spoke.
“I will definitely repay this debt.”
I gave Ash’s cheek a light pat, then, satisfied, released my grip on consciousness and fell asleep.
It was simply sleep brought on by exhaustion. It was absolutely not fainting.
Because I am Jeanie Crowell.
Abusing one’s power always demands a price. I suffered through familiar waves of fever and abdominal pain.
Recently I had gone through something similar after grinding up that irredeemable trash Grack, but this time I had a feeling it would last much longer.
I breathed in ragged gasps.
The heat boiling up from deep inside my skull made every breath a struggle. I clutched the area around my dantian, twitching intermittently.
Of course, none of it helped.
All I could do was endure the chaotic storm of pain swirling within me, groaning and praying for it to pass quickly.
This wasn’t my first experience, so I knew my consciousness was flickering in and out.
The longest I had endured this state was roughly a month.
It had been after fighting Robenin. Full recovery had taken that long, though I had only been bedridden for a week. Still, it had been humiliating enough.
They told me I had been unconscious for two full days back then.
Wondering if I was in a similar state now, I felt my mind flash white.
Fainting, waking, suffering motion-sickness-like torment in the darkness of unconsciousness, then falling asleep again in a fever that made my own body feel foreign—I repeated this painful cycle several times.
When I finally opened my eyes, drenched in sweat, my throat was parched.
I wanted to call Undine and drink clean, cold water, but I could tell I wasn’t in any condition to do so. Using mana now would only prolong this agony.
The fact that even maintaining Undine felt too difficult was the worst part.
“Jeanie, are you awake?”
There wasn’t a single part of my body or mind that didn’t feel shredded.
I breathed shallowly and blinked heavy eyes. Somehow sensing I had regained consciousness, Ash approached.