The Crimson Tale of Conquest

"Watch out!"

"I see it."

Side stepping a wolf type monster as they lunged at her, Ruby kicked it in its now unguarded side, sending it flying. Yuki followed up with Ruby's attack by using dark magic to restrain the beast with its own shadow, allowing Morella to finish it with some well-placed ice shots. Not a second later another monster attacked them once again.

It's been about five minutes since the fighting began, and both Ruby and Yuki were starting to feel the effect of their Mana-Links straining. They tried to be strategic and not use as much Mana as possible but the longer a fight lasted the worse it would be for them. Yuki's Links were strained much more than Ruby's since she's a mage, causing Ruby and Morella to worry about her pushing herself too much.

Ruby herself wasn't faring all that much better herself either. As a close quarters fighter she relied on Chi more than Arcane power to fight, which causes less stress to her Links. The problem is she's the only melee fighter in a party of mages so the burden of fighting every enemy that came close to protecting the party fell on her. Luckily the Mercenary troupe to their right is engaging with the larger part of this mini monster stamped that split off from the main force.

"I- I can't go on." Yuki said collapsing with ragged breath. Though she didn't look injured she was actually feeling a lot of pain as her mana-links screamed at her to stop.

"That's fine dear. Just rest up, we know why you can't go on." Morella said, concern laden within her voice.

"Yeah honestly I would've told you to stop earlier if it wasn't for the large quantity of monsters. good job hanging in there." The red haired Doctor said entirely focused on spreading as many curses among the monster as possible with her Dark magic.

"...Rest." Even though it was a short on word sentence it still showed that Ruby was worried for her. Especially since she was in the middle of not only fighting monsters up close but dealing with her own Mana-Link pain.

'Can't let them through, I have to protect them. Ignore the pain, push through it, Just move your body and don't think about it.' Ruby thought over and over as she sent another monster flying with her fist.

If one were to look at Ruby right now they would be forgiven for thinking the girl was really dedicated to her job. Her desire to protect the ones she cares about looked like a will to protect the clients and their stuff from an outsiders perspective. No one could tell just how much Ruby was pushing her body.

_________________________________

"With the way the bodies disappeared every time we killed one of them, we can safely assume these were dungeon monsters." Judith said surveying the now quiet battlefield.

After fifteen minutes of intense fighting everything has finally calmed down. Even though they fought over a hundred monsters there wasn't a single corps that could be seen. The only thing that indicated that there were monsters here were the many mana crystals strewn about on the ground after the monsters were killed. Which meant they were mana based beings.

Mana based being - Creatures made from pure mana - can be found naturally, Elemental spirits being a well known example. Monsters made from pure mana don't have an actual body so when killed the only thing left would be a crystallization of said mana. But mana based beings that look and act like monsters that can be found in the wild in such a large quantity is even more uncommon. The only real explanation is that they came from some unknown dungeon.

Dungeons are a weird phenomenon that occurs in the world that is a complete mystery. Monsters made from pure mana made to mimic ones found in nature most of the time are created within these places. The only things that can be found inside these places are the monsters and what is known as a dungeon core, which is what creates these monsters in the first place.

"Whether they were created from a dungeon or not doesn't matter to me. It's not a concern for us, and I would rather leave here." Morella said, looking over at Ruby and Yuki with concern.

Yuki, who stopped fighting intensely half way through the onslaught, was currently passed out against one of the carriages pale as a sheet. Ruby didn't look any better but was still standing, Well she looked like she was standing anyway. Maisy was actually helping Ruby to stay standing, Ruby refused to let down her guard with Yuki unable to defend herself. How much she would be able to do in her condition is unknown though.

"Fair point, but we should also collect some of these mana crystals like the others. Coming from mana based beings they should be much more pure in quality than normal monsters. We can get a good amount of money by selling these." Judith said already picking a bunch of the ground.

"... I'll help...." Ruby said. She attempted to take a step, but with the battle over and with adrenaline no longer pumping through her veins her body started to give out on her and she almost fell. Thanks to Maisy helping her she only stumbled but it was clear Ruby was in no shape to do anything. She couldn't even feel her limbs.

'Damn it.' She thought, frustrated she decided to sit down next to Yuki. 'Those damned workers, If it wasn't for them.'

*Sigh* "... Maisy, go help them collect the crystals." Ruby ordered the slime. Silently cursing the workers in her mind wasn't productive so she turned her attention back to the situation at hand.

"Okay, I will...." Maisy replied sounding reluctant. In descending order of who Maisy liked it goes from Ruby, to Yuki, to Morella, and lastly Judieth. As such the purple slime discreetly made her way to Morella to help.

No longer having any support from the Maisy, the monster girl slumped against the carriage heavily. It took everything she had to stay awake, feeling both pain and unable to feel anything was uncomfortable and weird. The other people hired looked in their direction with disdain in their eyes, assuming they were just lazying around at best, at worst being unable to pull their own weight because they were too weak.

"Hey, we're all tired too but you don't see us just laying around now do you?" Said the leader of the Mercenary troupe looking annoyed.

"If you can't even stand after only fighting for ten minutes you chose the wrong profession." The leader of the other hunter party said looking disapprovingly at them.

"...." Ruby only glanced at them before looking away to watch Yuki. She didn't really care to defend herself, and even if she did she was too exhausted to even try.

"Wh- hey whats with the attitude."

"We're all comrades while on this job it's just common courtesy to pull your weight, and if you can't at least give a reason."

While the man seemed ready to explode in anger - his fuse probably short from the stress - the woman seemed much more patient noticing how pail both girls look. especially with Yuki who looked much younger than everyone here even though she was the same age as Ruby.

"I'm sorry my companion here doesn't speak much in general, and that's when she isn't exhausted." Noticing the commotion Judieth stepped in to help clear up the situation. "Those two girls have broken Mana-Links currently so prolonged fighting but major stress on their bodies. I hope you can understand."

"... I guess I can understand." The Mercenary leader said looking disgruntled but didn't argue further before walking away.

"Oh I'm sorry." The woman said looking sympathetic. "I've had damaged Mana-Links before, it wasn't major but it made doing my job harder. It was expensive to fix so I wish you luck on your journey."

With that the woman walked off. Everyone else was listening in on the conversation so they stopped looking in their direction with annoyance. Though the stares didn't stop and they looked at them with pity, which annoyed Ruby a great deal. She did her best to ignore it though and focused on Yuki's breathing making sure nothing was wrong.

_____________________

The workers that brought the monsters to them were sent to Verland. They apologized profusely for the danger they put everyone in. They requested help to get back to town so they could report on what happened there. The merchants agreed to lend them two guards from the mercenary troupe for a price. They agreed they went their separate ways. Everyone left still agreed they should report what happened when they reached Prosperty anyway.

Soon enough they were back on the road. Yuki and Ruby were let into carriages that had seating in them. There was lots of stuff still piled inside, most of the stuff being things for travel or personal items of the clients. These were all the things that couldn't fit inside the traveling Merchant and their family personal carriage which was directly in front of this one.

Judieth sat in the passenger seat while Morella sat in the carriage with them, worry etch across her face. Thanks to Judieth's quick thinking, the resentment that was starting to build crashed before it could even get off the ground. What she said wasn't really a lie and something like damage Mana-Links is taken very seriously.

If Morella was being honest with herself she probably would've made things worse. It's one thing stepping back and letting her two younger sisters deal with things themselves while they could defend themselves, it was another when they were hurt. So seeing two people get aggressive - well one was anyway - she might've used force to get them to leave instead of words.

So she was thankful Judieth stepped in before she acted. 'How embarrassing of me, I'm the oldest one here I should act like it.'

At this point even Ruby could no longer stay awake and had passed out an hour ago. Morella watched the sleeping girl's face relieved she was finally resting. Though part of it was Judieth using magic to make the girl sleepy. Even while asleep this girl looked guarded and stiff but still reached out to try and hold Morella's hand unconsciously.

Morella then shifted her attention to the girl on her other side. She was fast asleep as well but was starting to look much better than she did before. Her arms wrapped around her own arm, snuggling against it. Unlike her and Ruby, who are kinda reserved with showing affection Yuki was the one who made everything feel soft and cozy with her presence.

She also acted like the youngest one among them even though she was nineteen like Ruby. That's probably on them for treating her as the youngest. It was hard not too with the way she acted, and with her growth slowing down it made them treat her as the youngest even more. Ruby especially spoiled her by never saying no to anything she said, not that there were many things to say no too while locked up. But Morella always tried to act as a role model for them, so with their limited knowledge or the outside world Ruby was spoiling her more compared to Morella.

'Though I guess since escaping it's more obvious than before how much Ruby lets Yuki do what she wants. I try to get her to be a little bit more reserved but I'm not much better when it comes to saying no to her too.' She thought.

Feeling a squeeze on her hand she looked over at Ruby who tried to show as little emotion as possible looking quite distressed in her sleep. 'Wonder what she's dreaming about?' With that passing thought Morella squeezed Ruby's hand back in an effort to comfort her. That seemed to have done the trick because her face relaxed a little in response.

'I know you'll do anything to make sure we're safe, including sacrificing yourself. But if you think I would ever let that happen you're mistaken.' Sighing Morella looked up. 'Yuki most likely realizes this too, I'm sure she would rather die before you sacrifice yourself for her. I'm the same way.'

Sighing Morella looked at both girls. These two are the only ones she cares about, Nymphs tend to keep to themselves a lot even with a lot of them close together. On top of that Morella was looking for a new place to call home when she was captured. Looking out for these two young girls gave her purpose when she didn't have one.

'Nothing will happen to you while I'm still alive.'

After a week and a half since they started their trip they finally made it to Prosperty City.