Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

Chapter 104: The crest (4)

"W-what was that!?" Jeanne exclaimed in surprise after a bright white flash of light filled her vision for one solid second. They were just weighing the pros and cons of each other's plans, when suddenly both of them couldn't see anything for approximately one second.

General Emilio squinted his eyes and gripped the hilt of his spear in caution, while looking around the room to check if anything had changed.

"Th-that flash... Could it be...?" Firiell flew her gaze towards the direction where Chaerin went to, and gasped upon the sight.

"Big sister Chae!" She raised her voice in shock, and concern was apparent on her tired face.

"Oh, gosh!" Jeanne jumped from her seat to quickly approach the unconscious girl that was laying on a certain white-haired man's arms that was crouching on the floor. Her long hair touched the clinic floor as her head tilted to the side. Seeing that, the main in question adjusted her position so none of her hair touched the dirty ground.

"What happened?" General Emilio approached the both of them, too. Although he only displayed a little frown and looked composed, a little crack was slipped in his tone of voice.

"Not much, she's just tired. Tee-hee!" General Zhang replied while tightening his grip on the dark-haired girl in his arms. Her face was peaceful, without any fresh wounds or even a frown, as if she was just taking a sudden midday nap out of nowhere.

"What do you mean-- Stop acting like that! Why is she suddenly unconscious!? She was fine just a moment ago!" Jeanne panicked as she kneeled down until they were on the same eye level, "don't tell me... Did you... Did you attack her with your lightning?" She let out an audible gasp while looking at the grinning eel with wide eyes.

"Ehe~" He replied ambiguously while taking a step back and turning his body around so that Jeanne couldn't snatch the girl in his arms away from him.

"Stop fooling around. You didn't attack her. That flash of light from before was different from your magic. What in the hell did you do this time?" General Emilio interrupted with a growl.

"Why are you guys accusing me, I'm the good guy here. See? I'm taking care of her~" He pouted as he brought Chaerin's head closer to his chest, hugging her, but also pinching her squishy cheeks.

"Let me check on her." Jeanne frowned and inched closer.

"Nope. Only I can," general Zhang denied her as he hugged Chaerin's body and stood up, "you guys can continue your bickering. We will be waiting patiently here~"

"Why--"

"That big bro is right. He didn't do anything to big sis Chae." Firiell suddenly popped up, joining the conversation while struggling to walk out of her bed.

"You seem to know something, kid." General Emilio raised his eyebrow in question and turned to face her.

"That flash of lightning just now... And the fact that big sis Chae had just fallen unconscious..." She gulped, before continuing, "I'm pretty sure she just triggered the second phase."

"What!? But we haven't even started the first phase yet... And wait, before that, only royals can activate the phases, right? So how could she...?" Jeanne bombarded her with questions, flabbergasted by what she had just heard.

"No, try to take a look at the heart closely." Firiell shook her head, and pointed towards general Zhang's hand, who was now holding a pale-pinkish heart.

"Only look, no take." General Zhang casually chuckled, as if the situation didn't bother him in the slightest.

"I didn't notice that the heart already changed colour, that it has already been activated before," Firiell frowned, her voice was trembling, "but how did big sis Chae activate the first phase? She... She doesn't have royal blood flowing in her... No, wait. The main issue here is what should we do!? At this rate, she's going to die!"

"Can we cancel the second phase? Or perhaps, do something to stop the disturbance in her mana flow?" Jeanne frantically asked.

"I... I don't know. We haven't been able to cancel it before, since we didn't really need to." Firiell shook her head and looked down.

General Emilio sighed upon hearing the statement, "ugh. Now it's decided that we're not giving the crest to that elf king, but we've landed ourselves a new problem."

"I'm so sorry, if only I realized it sooner, then this wouldn't happen..." Firiell apologized with teary eyes as she fumbled with the hem of her worn-out jacket.

"Stop. There's no reason to discuss who's at fault," general Emilio interjected, "rather, what do we need to do after this, kid?"

"Umm... We just wait until big sis Chae wakes up by herself, or we find a way to cancel it somehow," she answered with a little hesitation, "but no one has ever tried canceling it before, so I genuinely have no idea how to do it..."

"... If we opt to wait for her to wake up, we have no way of knowing when it happens?" Jeanne asked.

After a brief silence followed, Jeanne opened her mouth again to ask another question, "Firiell, how long was the longest time a new owner stayed unconscious? You said that the elves conducted several tests, right?"

"Well, we've had a case where the new owner woke up in just a week." She explained, her voice trailing off as she averted her eyes to the side.

"'Just' a week!?" Jeanne exclaimed in surprise, "we're supposed to wait for at least a week, while avoiding that elf king? ... That... Is troublesome, indeed." Jeanne put her hand on her chin, trying to come up with a plan, any plan that could get all of them out there alive, including the hostages. After all, the lives of those she cared about were all that mattered to her. Too bad, though, nothing good came up on her mind.

"She asked about the longest time, not the shortest time. Answer the question, kid." General Emilio pressed on, seemingly unsatisfied with the little girl's answer.

Firiell flinched a bit, before looking around the room again to avoid the gazes that were glued on her.

"Um..."

"It's okay, tell us, how long?" Jeanne urged her on gently.

"... 2 years."

--------

"... What the heck is going on here?" Luke groaned as he got up from his bed inside Chaerin's mana, scratching his head in a mix of confusion, irritation, and shock.

Up until a while ago, he was just chilling in his bed inside his dear host's mana, contemplating on whether he should try creating a huge, 120 inch TV to watch movies like how he observed the humans did during a certain time period, or to cocoon himself back in his smooth, fluffy blanket and enjoy another few hours of blissful sleep.

Ultimately, he decided to wrap himself up as comfortably as possible inside his blanket, since he figured that TV stations might not reach all the way here, anyway, so why should he bother making a cool 120 inch TV?

But now, the room he had built and designed himself had started to distort and swirl into what seemed like a dark, creepy void where he couldn't even see what was inside.

It started with a small, black dot that appeared out of nowhere. It was minor, and anybody wouldn't have noticed it at first glance. But Luke, he immediately knew the second the foreign black dot appeared. No, it wasn't because his eyes were keen enough to spot a speck of dust floating in the middle of the white room, but because even though it was just one black dot, the mana flow disturbance was great enough to make him jolt from his bed.

Even before he spotted the teeny-tiny dot, he noticed the mana turbulence first, and immediately located its source, which was just a small distance away from where he was. Which meant that whatever it was that caused such disturbance had sneaked its way up to near the core of Chaerin's mana, where he currently resides.

After he finally stood face-to-face with the tiny dot, he tried to force Chaerin's mana to contort to his will, just like how he did it when he first designed his own 'room' inside her mana. However, the mana seemed to refuse to bend as he wanted it to bend, which surprised him since he and Chaerin's mana should be one and the same.

And yet, this mana flow seemed to go against him. Which, according to his thinking, meant that if something was about to mess with Chaerin's mana, it would mess with himself, too.

"No way..." He muttered to himself, bewildered by the sight of the small dot that was progressively growing bigger and bigger, alongside its spikes which were also getting longer and... More swirly?

"Oh gosh, did that suicidal rat include me in her suicide plan? What did she do this time..." He sighed, and started to stretch his muscles from top to bottom, to brace himself for what was coming.

"Hey, kid! Can you hear me? What the heck happened outside? Is this your doing, or what?" He bellowed into the air, waiting for a response from the unconscious girl that never came.

After a brief pause, he let out an annoyed sigh, already giving up on getting a reply.

"Alright, whoever or whatever you are, come out. You gotta face me before you fuck things up around here. After all, I got a noisy landlord. Can't have her yelling at me for messing up my rent-free room." He grinned, and walked straight into the void that was starting to make the contour of the white room he was in appear swirly.

"Let's see what you truly are, shall we?"