Chapter 87 I’ll Kill Them.

  Isaac’s eyes fluttered open. The world was cast in muted grays and the only things that he could smell were blood and wood. The large amount of obliterated wood had settled into shrapnel, shavings, and dust on almost every surface in the warehouse. The warehouse was somehow still standing, or at least he hadn’t been crushed by it.

  There was more light in the warehouse than he remembered but that thought was barely able to form as his pounding headache slammed down on every little thought that was trying to go through his head. Isaac let out a groan and tried to get his hands and knees under himself so he could get to Lenna. The movement sent an aching stab through his core and he sucked in a cry of pain before he let out a shaking breath.

  Isaac’s body was fine, he was sure of that, but the same could not be said for the rest of him. His core was empty and felt like all of his power had been forcefully ripped out of him. It felt like every drop of mana that he used to have in his reserves was pulled out through his core in the wrong direction. His head wanted to explode from every little movement or noise and his muscles felt weaker than they ever had before. In short, everything sucked.

  “Lenna.” Isaac croaked as he tried to focus his eyes on her. She was a lot closer to him than he had originally thought. He reached out and managed to grab her shin. Lenna had collapsed with her head toward Isaac’s toes which left her feet by his shoulder. He tried to send some of his death flames into her but was immediately wracked with pain from the middle of his chest. His core felt raw and cracked. It was as if his hands were dried out to the point where they cracked open and bled and then he immediately tried to climb a rusty cast iron ladder. He was bleeding mana. He could feel some of it leaking out of his core even as ten times as much stayed to refill his reserves. If his mind had been clear, he might’ve been hit with a wave of mortal terror but his head wasn’t even clear enough for that. Even if it was, Lenna needed him too much for him to worry about it.

  Isaac couldn’t even muster the energy necessary to groan anymore. He took as deep of a breath as he could and then focused with every last scrap of mental power and concentration that he could. He sent a trickle of death flames towards his mind in an effort to curb the headache. All he could do was power through the pain in his chest for the brief moment that it took for some of his power to cleans his mind of most of his mental agony. The world was still out of focus and his head still very much hurt but at least he was able to think again.

  “Lenna,” He said again. “are you okay?” He questioned his wife and then forced himself up onto his knees. He stopped there for a moment as the world began to spin. He took another deep breath and then managed to shift into a sitting position by her chest. “Lenna?”

  When she didn’t respond, Isaac put his hand on her shoulder and sent the absolute tiniest amount of power that he could into her. His Polarity Sense wasn’t being helpful in the slightest so he had to rely on the same method as every other healer. He felt her body greedily drink up his power before he could even figure out where it went or how badly she was hurt.

  Isaac looked around the utterly destroyed building. The walls were somehow still mostly intact save for three obvious impacts. Isaac and Lenna were right below one of them. The next had the Bottomless Bag that Isaac was after under it. While the third had tons of bone splinters still caked inside it and a small pile of bones directly beneath it. “If you died too…” Isaac began but he ripped his attention away from Shamesh and back towards the Bottomless Bag.

  Isaac spent the next two minutes crawling on his hands and knees to get Lenna’s Bottomless Bag and then back to her. He took off her helmet and laid a folded blanket under her head. He was shivering from all of his blood, that absolutely covered everything that he wore and had started to approach freezing temperatures, but he knew that he had been healed enough to survive the cold for a little while. He pulled out the last two healing potions that they had in reserve and propped her up onto him slightly.

  “Lenna, my love, I need you to drink this.” He spoke softly into her ear. He knew that she probably couldn’t hear him but it was the only way that he could express his regret. Isaac’s heart ached and not just from his damaged core. He needed to heal Lenna, something that normally would be incredibly easy, but he was unable to do it himself. He was forced to rely on healing potions. He now knew what it meant when he had heard that; ‘Relying on a healing potion is the greatest kick in the gut for a healer.’ It was truly awful. He felt so helpless as he tipped the potion back into his wife’s mouth as she was cradled in his arms.

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  ‘I’ll kill them.’ Isaac swore in his head. ‘I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them.’ Over and over again as Lenna slowly gulped down the potions. She was still unconscious in his arms but her body had moved on its own enough to swallow the life saving medicine. Once both potions were finished, Isaac laid her back down on the folded blanket. He reached over to grab the Bottomless Bag and then stopped.

  Isaac had been too focused on too many other things to notice it earlier but their Bottomless Bag was leaking mana. It wasn’t very much but it was leaking. Isaac sighed through gritted teeth and grabbed the bag. He started taking out everything that he knew was in there. Clothes, toiletries, money, food, water, Ocean in a Bottle, Sending Stone, Paired Compass, rope… “Fuck it.” He finally said when he couldn’t think of whatever else they had packed inside it. He turned the bag inside out and pitons, scrolls, a hammer, throwing spikes, and a dagger were launched across the shattered wooden floor.

  With the bag emptied there wasn’t a risk of the enchantment failing and something happening to their stuff anymore. The real reason he had made sure to completely empty it was because he didn’t want it to explode all of the contents out in every direction when the enchantment finally lost power. He took the tattered inside out bag and swapped it with the blanket that he had used as Lenna’s pillow. He then covered her with both of the blankets and settled in next to her.

  Over the next few minutes Isaac slowly trickled death flames into her. It wasn’t very much because the more he sent the more agony his core would be in, but it was enough that he knew he was helping her. He wanted to get Shamesh but he knew that his physical shadow would need more of his mana to function than he had to spare at the moment. He still wasn’t sure if Shamesh was salvageable or not, but his wife’s health came first. He liked Shamesh, he really did, and if he had died his final death then Isaac would avenge him, but Lenna’s health always came first, even if she was supposedly out of immediate danger.

  As Isaac sat there next to his unconscious and injured wife, he began to feel some of her mana drifting away from her. That immediately sent a chill up his arms and then up and down his spine. He wasn’t sure exactly how much mana she was taking in but at the very least a substantial amount of it was leaking back out. “Lenna,” Isaac began and then swallowed dryly. “you need to be alright. I need you to be alright.” He brushed her hair with his still slightly bloodied hand and left tiny streaks of red in her silver locks. “No one wants to see a world without you in it. Especially not me.”

  Isaac’s head snapped towards the door as he heard faint voices from outside. His first thought was to prepare to end whoever arrived but his second thought was one of hope. There was a decently large chance that whoever was out there was a member of one of the groups that they were working with. If they were a part of the Guard, well, some of them were honest folks and would be willing to at least help them to a church. If they were a part of the vigilantes, then that would be even better. If they were adventurers, then Isaac would be able to buy some healing potions off of them to help heal Lenna. If there were gangsters… well… Isaac would just have to fight them and hope that they had some potions on their corpses. Crippled or not, Isaac wasn’t going to let anything happen to Lenna.

  ‘Damn, if only Shamesh was up.’ Isaac swore internally. He took the food, water, and some of the random junk that he had acquired throughout their journey and tossed it onto the ground. He then made sure that he had their spare clothes, magic items, and money inside his Inventory. He had just finished when the newcomers reached the blown up door.

  “I ain’t goin’ in there. You go in there.” The one argued.

  “Bro, you are the frontline warrior bro. It’s kinda your job.” The second calmly reminded the first.

  “I’ll be right behind you.” The third assured him.

  “Listen guys, I ain’t superstitious but,” The first started to argue once more.

  “Kent, I swear on your sister’s ti-” The third one began.

  “Hey! Leave my-” The first shot back before he was cut off.

  The second, who had cut off the first, continued with his very relaxed and casual tone: “She does have nice ti-”

  “I will kick your ass if you do not go in there first.” The third finished.

  Isaac could only shake his head to himself as he forced himself up onto his feet. ‘Well, they aren’t guards or soldiers.’ He mentally grumbled. ‘Gods I hope they are adventurers.’

  “Fine!” The first yelled back at the other two who had seemingly ganged up against him. “But if something eats me or whatever, Imma haunt both of you.” He huffed. “Espes’ally you fir talkin’ ‘bout my sister like that!”

  Isaac heard him turn and then stomp up to the door. He paused on the other side of the doorway for a moment before he finally worked up the courage to take a step inside. The first thing he saw was the utter wreck that was the interior of the warehouse. The second thing was a hunched, five and a half foot tall, black furred, bloody humanoid creature staring directly at him from in between the rays of grey skylight that managed to sneak through the missing roof tiles.

  “Ah! Fuck!” He cried out and then jumped backwards directly into the edge of the door frame. “Gh-Gh, Ware-, uh, M-Monster!” He tripped over his words as he tripped over the door frame back out into the street face first.

  Isaac winced at the volume. “Great. An idiot.” He sighed. “Hopefully the other two are smarter than they sound.”