小嫂子的味道

The goblins piled up upon Favian's body one by one, soon there was a whole tower of them standing straight above him. Their knives skinned his flesh, their hands pulled out his insides, and their teeth ripped off his limbs.

He was in pain, he must've been in pain. After all, there's no human out there who can endure this type of painful death. There is no one like that, yet he didn't scream; he didn't let a single word out of his mouth.

Why? The reason was silly, but it was the most logical thing in the world for him; if he screamed, then Xara was sure to look at him. She will witness the condition he was in—that he was dying, and knowing her she will come to help even if she says it was not intentional.

Then…the goblins will attack her too; she was already having her fill with the number of goblins on that side and if the ones here charged at her too, it wouldn't be impossible to say that she would meet the same end as Favian.

Therefore he piled all the pain inside his heart and closed it off as he resigned himself to life. However, things do not always go as you want them to.

"Favian! Favian! Man, get out of there quickly! Get out or you'll die!"

Someone screamed out loud and said the words Favian was hesitating to say, and this someone just happened to be Zero who was standing at a safe distance from him.

He had a look of concern on his face, it seemed as if he was panicking by seeing Favain in this condition. If Favian would've been in a condition to speak he would say that "shut the fuck up" to Zero.

But he wasn't and there was no one to stop him…at last, what he feared the most happened. The words "Favian" and "you'll die" fell on Xara's ears and it didn't even take her a minute to burn a few goblins around her to make space to turn and look back.

Her soul dried up upon seeing the view before her; a horde of goblins with Favian on the ground. They were violently ripping off his body and there was blood everywhere; it was hard to say that he was still alive.

Time froze for her, and her movements stopped. She shouldn't have let her guard down at a time like this but this shocked her down to her very core. No, "shock" was not the right word; she was more like "stunned".

Constantly staring at the place where Favian once had been standing, she felt something moist roll down her cheeks.

Were they tears? Was she crying? Why? Why was she crying? Because her comrade died? No, that can't be. After all, even if it was not common these days, according to the ancient stories told by old adventurers, the death of a party member was as common as taking on quests.

And she was pretty sure that the pain she was feeling right now was way worse than that. It was like her heart was being crushed under a thousand tons, then the crumbled pieces were being crushed even further and the process didn't stop.

She was breaking from the inside and didn't know how to react, all she could do was cry, but even that felt painful.

However, while it seemed like time itself had stopped for her, the world didn't. It was not long before the goblins around her regrouped and charged at her again.

"Xara! Watch out!" Spene warned as he eliminated the goblins around himself; he was still unaware of Favian's loss.

He was warning Xara about the upcoming attack but she didn't reply, nor did she do anything. But as the group of goblins came close, a blast of heat was released from Xara's staff as her lips read the destructive incantations.

The flames she produced were strong, much stronger than the ones she uses normally. Their area of effect was also bigger as around 20 goblins were taken out in one go and the rest were blown away by the shockwave.

The burning dead bodies slumped on the ground as the smell of burned flesh entered the nostrils of Spene. The spell had ended up taking a fair amount of goblins on his side too, and while this should've made him happy, the fact that he himself was inches away from getting burned made her think otherwise.

"Woah, Woah, Woah! Be careful with that, you almost killed me here," he said as he turned in her direction; continuously fending off the goblins even now.

And this time too, there was no reply. Xara was just staring in one direction and all her attention was focused there. Then it clicked to Spene that something was weird because it's been more than a whole minute and he was not taunted by Xara.

That was in the realm of impossible.

"Xara! This…isn't the time to be dozing off like that," he spoke, handling two goblins at the same time. "Get yourself together!"

A slash from Spene's sword beheaded one goblin, and the other was kicked by him, it rolled to the ground and was crushed to death by its own kin.

"He died…"

"What?" Spene's reaction was like he was saying, 'this is not the time for jokes.

"He…died...Favian," Xara revealed in a low, trembling voice.

Spene was about to voice his thoughts but he soon realized that she wasn't joking; the weight in her voice was as real as something could possibly be.

He then followed her line of sight and saw what was left of his friend; the goblins were slowly moving away from the body as they had eaten most of his meat and the skeleton clothed with few stripes of flesh was out in open; for everyone to see.

Spen felt a chill go down his spine. Just like Xara, he could not think straight for a while, but considering the current situation, he somehow regained the little composure he could. Maybe it was possible because the feelings he had for Favian were on a different level than what Xara had, perhaps that's why…he was sad but didn't feel like his whole world was taken away from him.

"W-When…" he wanted to ask when and how did this happen but no words left his mouth. This type of thing usually happens when you have so much to say, so much you want to ask, but due to some reason, you aren't able to say anything.

"Calm down Xara, we are in a hard situation right now," he advised. Although this time too, there was no response on Xara's side.

But only a while later he did get to hear something, but it was not the reply to his question, rather they were the incantation Xara started chanting just now.

These incantations were the same she uses for her fire magic, however, there were a few mixed in that he hadn't heard before. His sense of danger advised him to fall back, and considering that she'd almost burned him a few moments ago, he followed his instincts and backed off.

Also, it was not like the monsters were waiting for Xara and Spene to first come out from their emotional shock so that they could attack them later on…there was no stopping the monsters. From every direction, they—goblins, were coming.

Thus Spene didn't have the privilege to worry about Xara—he couldn't even if he wanted to. So he shifted his focus back to the monsters and kept slicing their heads and limbs off. It was hard since the difference in numbers exceeded the limits of common sense but there was no other option.

He was pushing his body to its very limits, his muscles were aching, his bones were cracking, his heart was throbbing from the pain, and the mental stress he had from Favian's loss was immeasurable. Even so, he was fighting.

"Aggghhh! Take this you son of a bitch!!!" he roared a battle cry. At the same time he swished his sword down and the goblin that was standing before him was chopped down into two pieces.

When Spene was raging like a mad bull, calm was brewing at a distance from him—which was likely the calm before the storm.

Xara was standing still in her place, she'd already blown up the goblins around her so she had a couple of minutes before they regrouped again, and she was spending all her time in an incantation while staring daggers toward Favian's corpse.

This was probably the longest she had ever used; the words were difficult and tongue-twisting, and the speed at which she was chanting was also high—around 2 words per second. As she continued the chant the gem on her staff shone brighter and brighter with each passing second.

But soon it stopped and the light that was once the brightness now morphed into flames and began pouring out from the sides of the gem. The staff that was made of hardwood should've burned but it stood rigid like a proud warrior.

Maybe there were still a fair amount of words left but Xara's break time was over now, the goblins who were eating Favian's flesh were coming on her side and slowly forming a circle around her to block any way of escape.

"Kwaahhhh!!!" the goblins cried a piercing sound as they charged toward Xara all at once.

There were probably 100—no, maybe 200 or even more…all of them charging at her wildly.  The group came close and raised their knives to attack, but just at the moment—

"Incinerating bane inferno: Morphation!!!"  Xara completed the incantation with those final words.

The gem on her staff released a massive amount of heat and fire, it was like a wave of flames; and those flames stretched out outwards and then curled upwards, forming a lotus of fire.

The goblins who were hit by the flames and the pressure behind them were thrown away, the ones who were close enough vanished into thin air, and the ones on the back fell to the ground. The flames surged out from the gem for half a minute before their size decreased and the lotus was now only the size of an apple that burned on top of the staff's gem.

But while the discharge of the flames was over, Xara's spell was still ongoing…after all, it wasn't exactly a "spell".