Chapter 11
The abnormal chill had already completely penetrated Illya's entire body by the time she woke up. Shivering, she started up her Magic Circuits, warming them up and herself as well. At least it didn't seem like she was in a dream, since her Circuits worked.
"How did I even get here?"
The last she had remembered, she had eaten dinner and then fell asleep immediately. There were no dreams or fainting outside, so how had this happened?
Equally as important was where she was as well. Although it looked like she was still on the Einzbern grounds, she didn't recognize this part of the forest. She was in a small clearing surrounded by many tall pine trees, forming a wall around the clearing and blocking her vision. Even though it felt like day, the steel grey clouds above her blocked all the sunlight, reducing visibility, while the pine trees cast many shadows. It also looked like a blizzard was coming soon.
Stretching out her magical senses, she felt Berserker next to her in the clearing.
"Berserker, do you know what happened?"
"The maids told me it was for training and moved you here through a secret passage." She replied telepathically.
"I see." In that case, she would just have to see what kind of trials Jubstacheit had set up for her here. There was no use staying here, so she would start exploring and see if she could find anything.
"Let's go Berserker. Only materialize when you sense imminent danger."
They left the clearing, walking into the woods.
The woods were deep and dense, with the trees growing tall, forming a leafy canopy that blocked any source of overhead light. Back when Illya was younger, she probably would have frozen in fear in these woods. Now however, they were just another type of environment.
*Crunch, crunch*
The sound of her boots seemed small in the vast forest, almost echoing in the air. Occasionally, the wind would howl, picking up and wiping away any other source of noise.
Illya was still probing with her senses, but she couldn't seem to find anything. In fact, it felt like there was something actively obstructing her senses, and even her eyes seemed to be playing tricks on her. Twice, she could've sworn some of the shadows far in front of her lengthen and then shrink with no explanation. She was quite sure there were Bounded Fields in the area, but she couldn't accurately detect them, even though they should have been of Einzbern make and familiar to her. Somehow, she had the feeling that they were older, more ancient.
After an indeterminable amount of time, she stopped. Berserker took the chance to ask her a question.
"Master, have you had the feeling that we're being watched for some time now?"
"Since we first left the clearing."
She had also felt it, and minutes ago she had definitely felt something skirting around the edges of her senses, almost as if too shy to get close to her, yet still curious.
"It's strange though, usually after so long I should've already found somewhere familiar, but up til now I still haven't found anything I recognize at all. I've already been to most of the areas in Einzbern territory, so where could this be?"
She looked around again, trying to find some sort of clue as to where they were. There was nothing but pine trees, snows and shadows. Yet, she was sure that something else was out there. Where had she not been to in the Einzbern grounds yet? She racked her memory, trying to find anything that would help her remember where they were.
As she did so, something stealthily approached through the snow, it's footsteps light and silent. Completely white, it even blended in with the snow, darting from shadow to shadow and slipping closer and closer to Illya while she wasn't scanning the area.
*Vuon*
Suddenly a lightsaber cut its path through the trees to the creature and cut it in half. Screeching, it tried to dodge, but the blade proved swift and sliced it's leg and most of its pelvis off, making it collapse to the ground while steam leaked out of the two cauterized stumps on its body.
Illya had purposefully lured whatever was stalking them in by stopping her scans, and pretending to focus on something else, then telepathically told Berserker to look for anything. It had worked, and she went over to investigate what exactly had been stalking them.
When she got within a few meters, she could finally tell what it was. It was a homunculus like her, albeit naked, as well as a different gender. Even with a leg and half it's pelvis sliced off, it still wasn't dead, looking at Illya while trying to prop itself up to stand on one leg. Somehow it succeeded, and hopped on one leg in awkward steps while charred black bits of flesh and skin fell onto the ground.
As it tried to escape, Illya activated her Mystic Codes.
"Engel Note."
Wire constructs made out of her hair manifested, two birds hovering in the hair waiting to do her bidding. Concentrating, Illya made the two birds traced out of blue-lines dissolve back into threads, then rush at the homunculus to bind him. The thin but sturdy threads wrapped securely around his arms and remaining leg, preventing further movement.
Walking up to him, she asked him.
"Do you know where this is?"
The homunculus turned his head to an almost unnatural degree to stare at Illya, red eyes blank and empty. Illya also noticed patches of skin missing, exposing the raw flesh below, while there many small cuts and slash marks all over his body. Some of his hair was also gone, with irregular tufts if hair remaining on his scalp. Opening his mouth, he spoke with rusty vocals, like a stranded shipwreck victim who hadn't spoken to another human in years.
"Whyyy? Iiiii wwaasss a goooOooD Bbbooyy, whyyyywas I throwWwnnnn iinn Hhhhereee, whhyy, wwwHhyyYy, JubbSttachheiiittt…"
Thrown here? Illya thought about it. It looked like he was one of the defective homunculi and thrown here would mean-
*Shf*
She suddenly felt a slight prick on her leg. Looking down, she saw a hand with all its fingers turned into syringe-like tubes inject something into her body.
"MASTER!"
A crimson blade sliced off the arm at the shoulder, but not before a vials worth of liquid could be pumped into her. Quickly, she ran her Magic Circuits in an attempt to purge the mysterious liquid from her body. They opened up fully, pushing mana throughout her entire body, rejecting any foreign magical substances.
Standing beside her, Berserker, now fully materialized, watched as multiple homunculi rose from the snow, like corpses rising again. They had laid dormant while Illya had passed over them, giving off almost no magical signatures to detect, and their bodily functions had been heavily slowed by the snow as well, preventing Berserker from finding them with her physical senses. In addition, these failed homunculi had also been designed to be stealth operators, capable of generating Bounded Fields to divert attention away from them.
Now they surrounded Illya and Berserker, each one of them equipped with some type of body augmentation, the failed results of past Einzbern magi experiments.
"Berserker, hold them off while I try to purge the poison from my system!"
There was no response.
Whirling around, Illya yelled again
"Berserker!"
She was nowhere in sight, but the homunculi were still closing in, and it seemed like more of them were rising from the snow, with increasingly grotesque forms. Without warning, something lightly touched her on the shoulder.
She looked up and saw what looked disturbingly similar to her mother hanging from a tree, with the lower half of her body stretched into a long fleshy tendril that wrapped around the fir trees and terminated into a tail with a tip surrounded by several wriggling tentacles and was that a mouth.
It spoke.
"M̷̨̨̡̛̛̝̺̘͉̘͕̩̣̠͔͖̫̤̣̦̙͍̻̲̝̠̘̻̻̙͎̗̹͇͊̅̊̊̓̑͝͝aà̵̧̛̛̦͍̜̣̝̜̜͚̤͓̳̹̣͔͕̭̎̉̃̀̓̀̆̅͑̀̈́͌̇͑̎̅͑̑̀̾̉̒͌͋̈́͊̈́̿̍̈̄̾͜͝͠s̶̢̡̨̜̘̖̠̜̳͔̺͓̰̰̬͎̪̳̬̱̩̳̞͍̑͑͋̅͌̃̏̀̑͒ͅͅSt̶̜͚͍̭͍̯͍̱̮̙̼̝̞͔̜͒̂̔̐̒̆̔͐̀̈́̈́̽̓̌͌̊̀̄͊̋̊̓̽̒̈̌̈̋́̋͂̂̍̏̒̐͛̾̓̾̈͘͠͝͠͠͝Tẻ̶̡̡̛͈̤̲͙̞̣̟͉̠̺̭̻͈͎̝̜̹̝̖͇͈̞̮͎͕͎͙́͊̈́͌̒͗̏͌̓̄͛̌́̊̔̕͜͜͜͝ͅȑ̸̢̛̛͇̥̙͎͚̱̩͇̫̰̬̺̳̲̩̭͈̤̩̦̝̞̥̺͚̯̞̺̌̏́̊͐̑̋̓̈́̆̽̋̒͂͗̔͗̅̓̋͑̏͌͛͘͘̚͝͠͝͝͠ͅͅ"
Instantly, she turned around and bolted with a speed that put 100m world records to shame, rushing past all the failed homunculi to somewhere deeper in the forest. The darkness of the forest swallowed her up as she ran, until she disappeared into its depths.