Boom!
An explosion rang out.
The small spherical bomb Rosie threw exploded, sending sparks flying in all directions.
Amit the smoke, a faint blue shield rose, blocking all damage.
“Here's a little something for you!”
Following Rosie's move, the dwarf also hurled a small sphere at Anna.
Boom!
Another explosion erupted.
Flames intermingled with billowing smoke.
The faint blue shield flickered unsteadily, looking as though it would shatter at any second.
“Charge! Get her!” Rosie shouted.
The two of them charged at Anna simultaneously from the left and right.
The moment they took their second step, a sudden chill swept through the room, enveloping the entire space.
The temperature plummeted, and countless tiny ice crystals seemed to condense in the air.
A blue light flashed.
Fwish!
A layer of slick ice instantly coated the entire floor.
The dwarf's feet slipped, and he tumbled to the ground with a stumble, his axe sliding far away across the icy surface.
Rosie kicked off the ice, activating Charge. Her entire form turned into an afterimage as she closed the distance to the female mage.
A cold gleam flashed. Carrying the momentum of her dash, the meteoric iron sword slashed toward the shield around Anna.
Clang! A dull thud echoed.
Ripples spread across the shield, yet it remained unbroken.
However, the force of the strike was immense, sending Anna flying back, shield and all.
Anna's figure traced an arc through the air.
But even before she hit the ground, she raised her wand and gave it a swift flick.
A barrage of ice spikes materialized out of thin air in front of her, raining down furiously toward Rosie.
Rosie raised the alloy shield on her left arm in front of her.
Crack! Crack!
The ice spikes slammed into the alloy shield, shattering into countless fragments as a freezing mist billowed upward.
Rosie shuddered from the cold.
Yet without a moment's hesitation, she lunged forward, executing a backhand upward slash aimed directly at Anna.
Anna rotated her wrist and swept her wand downward.
Her figure blurred in that instant.
Rosie's sword sliced through empty space, cutting nothing but air.
“She's behind you!” the dwarf's voice rang out from behind.
Rosie whipped around, only to find that Anna had somehow appeared right by the doorway.
Blink magic?!
“Fireball!” a sharp shout rang out.
Rosie kicked off the ground, retreating backward in a hurry.
However, the expected flames and heatwave did not manifest.
Instead, a freezing chill condensed behind her, forming a sharp ice spike out of thin air that thrust toward Rosie's back.
Rosie swung her left arm violently, her alloy shield smashing the ice spike into a cloud of frosty mist.
“Where's your Fireball?” Rosie stabilized her stance, her eyes locked onto the doorway.
“Voices can be deceiving sometimes.”
Anna smiled, waving her wand at the dwarf.
The dwarf, who had just scrambled to his feet, felt his feet tighten as a layer of ice firmly froze his legs, leaving him unable to move.
“Don't worry about me!” the dwarf yelled. “Get that bitch!”
Swish! Swish!
Two throwing knives flew from Rosie's hand toward Anna.
Anna raised her wand, condensing an ice shield in midair that knocked both throwing knives aside.
Just as she was about to wave her wand to counterattack, she noticed a small sparking sphere falling from a higher trajectory right behind the throwing knives.
The throwing knives were a distraction; the bomb was the real killing blow.
Boom!
Rosie's last spherical bomb exploded right above Anna's head.
The flames and shockwave of the explosion enveloped her figure. The faint blue shield flickered and finally vanished.
In a flash, Rosie used the cover of the explosion to appear before Anna once again.
Her meteoric iron sword thrust out violently, aiming straight for Anna's heart.
Anna quickly flicked her wand twice, and another ice shield materialized out of thin air to block the front.
The meteoric iron sword stabbed into the ice shield, making a harsh, scraping screech.
With another wave of Anna's wand, an ice spike shot up violently from the frozen floor, thrusting directly at Rosie from below.
Rosie dug her heel in and instantly dodged to the side.
“Hey, eat this!”
Unnoticed, the dwarf had pulled out his last small sphere, hurling it at Anna during the gap in Rosie's evasion.
Boom!
Anna adjusted her ice shield just in time to block the blast of the explosion.
The ice shield shattered into pieces, scattering all over the floor.
But the moment the explosion cleared, Rosie was already at Anna's flank once more.
Her meteoric iron sword thrust forward with a howling wind.
Anna only had time to condense a layer of ice armor around herself before the blade pierced her flank.
Squelch!
The meteoric iron sword pierced through the ice armor, sinking into Anna's body.
She let out a muffled groan as warm blood stained her blue robes red.
Just as Rosie was about to twist the blade, Anna let out a sharp cry, “Ha!”
The ice armor violently detonated outward.
Rosie only had time to raise her alloy shield to protect her face.
Shards of ice, carrying immense force, sprayed over Rosie like shrapnel at point-blank range, blasting her and her sword backward.
Rosie flipped a few times in the air, sliding quite a distance across the ice before stabilizing herself.
Her black leather armor was riddled with holes from the ice shards, and tiny cuts covered her exposed skin. Blood seeped from the cracks, only to be quickly frozen by the ambient chill.
Pain shot through her nerves.
Rosie grimaced. “Ha, that really hurts!”
Not far away, ignoring the wound in her abdomen, Anna raised her wand and waved it rapidly, the tip glowing with a red light. “Fireball!”
Unable to cast Holy Light in time, Rosie immediately dove to the side, hiding behind a filing cabinet.
However, the scorching flames never came.
Rosie poked half her head out from behind the filing cabinet.
Anna was standing right there, completely motionless.
“Hmm? What trick are you playing now?” Rosie asked, staring her warily.
Anna remained utterly still, not even twitching a finger.
“Shining Holy Light! Answer my call and bestow your power upon me!”
“Holy Light!”
The expected Silence did not occur.
Golden light enveloped Rosie's body. The wounds beneath her leather armor healed rapidly, and the pain quickly subsided.
Even after the healing was complete, Anna still made no movement.
Did she die from that single stab?
Rosie wondered to herself, but immediately dismissed the thought.
Due to the obstruction of the ice armor, that stab hadn't hit any vital organs.
“Trying to play dead to ambush me? No way!”
She fished out a throwing knife and flicked her wrist.
Swish!
The throwing knife flew toward Anna.
With a soft squelch, the knife embedded itself in Anna's chest.
She still didn't fall, nor did she show any reaction whatsoever.
“What's going on?”
The situation was far too bizarre, making Rosie hesitate to draw closer.
She warily kept her eyes locked on Anna's figure.
Her mind raced with suspicion.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something in another direction.
The dwarf was standing completely frozen in place.
No, to be precise, he was sealed inside a solid block of transparent ice, and the frost still seemed to be spreading.
Only the dwarf's eyes were left exposed, blinking furiously at Rosie.
“How did you turn into a popsicle?”
Rosie quickly ran over and slammed the hilt of her sword hard against the ice.
Crack!
A crack split across the ice.
After several more hard strikes, the ice finally shattered. The dwarf broke free, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.
“Huuu... Cold... Freezing to death... That... that bitch has already run off...”
“Run off?”
Rosie glanced back at Anna's still-motionless figure.
“That's a fake, a mirror image!” the dwarf said with a trembling voice.
The moment he spoke, Anna's body suddenly dissipated like a puff of smoke.
With a metallic clank, the throwing knife that had been embedded in her chest dropped to the floor and bounced twice.
“Sss! What a cunning woman...”
Thinking about how she had been testing and warily dealing with a mere mirror image, Rosie couldn't help but feel a bit speechless.
She had to admit that Anna was indeed a troublesome opponent.
To be able to calmly secure an escape route even while injured—such scheming and quick-witted judgment truly befitted a disciple of a Grand Mage...
“She's injured, she won't get far. Let's chase her!”
The dwarf picked up his axe and pointed at the trail of blood on the floor.
He had been relegated to a spectator for almost the entire battle, which left him feeling highly disgruntled.
Rosie shook her head. “No, we're not chasing her.”
The dwarf thought he had misheard. “You're letting her go?”
The Rosie he knew had always been ruthless, exterminating her enemies to leave no loose ends.
And now she was actually going to let that cunning mage off the hook?!
Rosie looked around at the surrounding filing cabinets. “Didn't you notice? She only used ice magic.”
“What difference does that make?” the dwarf asked, puzzled.
“A huge difference.”
Rosie squatted down, touching the slick ice with her fingertip.
“She didn't use her signature fire magic once from start to finish.”
“My guess is that it wasn't because she couldn't, but because she didn't want to burn this place down.”
Rosie stood up and continued, “Leaving aside whether we can catch her, even if we do, a cornered beast will fight. Who knows what other tricks she has up her sleeve?”
While this battle seemed like a minor victory for Rosie, in reality, it was only because Anna had been holding back.
Furthermore, that woman was clearly inside the room earlier, yet she simply stood by and watched the Count's men get slaughtered to the last.
This behavior was extremely bizarre.
Rosie even suspected she had done it on purpose.
The dwarf looked around the room. “That bitch even pretended to be illiterate before, but just now she was flipping through things more skillfully than anyone. Maybe her passion for knowledge is the only thing she didn't lie about.”
“Unfortunately, she still made off with the goods,” Rosie said with regret.
“Since we're not chasing her, how about we go check out the Weapons Archive?” the dwarf suggested.
“The archive happens to be on the fourth floor, so we might as well drop by on the way.”
Rosie nodded, sheathing her meteoric iron sword.
“But before we go, let's grab some gear.”
Her gaze drifted toward the corpse of the knight she had slain earlier.
Rate on N.U.
