Season 2, Chapter 10, Part 4.
The Frozen Forest.
Not Friends!
Meanwhile, Haze and Lydia walk up the staircase, which leads far upward. After a while, the stairs end, and they find themselves in a dark, long hallway. They traverse the dark halls while carrying a lantern that Sebastian gave them. The light flickers on the sparkly ice, which clings to the walls, and the teens' breath is visible in the freezing air.
"This place is so cold and eerie," Lydia utters to try and fill the silence with something.
"Yeah, yeah, that's nothing new. Now, how about we are both silent?" Haze grumpily says as he keeps going.
"What? Excuse you," Lydia tells him.
"You are excused," he tells her lazily without a care on his face. "What is with your attitude all the damn time?" she asks him.
"My attitude? I just like getting things done, not that it matters to you, little miss naive," he tells her.
"What? What makes you say that I am naive?" she asks, and he looks at her face filled with query and a slight hint of annoyance.
"You walk around thinking that you will get through whatever with your teammates on your side, and you are constantly overly positive about crap that doesn't matter," he tells her.
"Well, it is way better than looking at the gloomy side of everything and walking around, believing that everyone is against you," she retorts, and he scoffs.
"I am just being realistic, and I don't like wasting time making friends either," he tells her.
"What is wrong with making friends?" she asks.
"We are a part of the Magic Knights, which means we will be sent to battle enemies and tough creatures, meaning that is what we are supposed to do. This isn't a friend-making club where we braid each other's hair and give each other friendship necklaces."
"You really don't get it," she tells him.
"I get it. You are the one who doesn't get it. Now, do your job and stop acting like you give a damn," he says and keeps walking.
"Man, you really are such a pest. It is amazing that Tory and Alisa still are your friends by the way you are constantly acting."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that you are insufferable."
"Well, right back at you, miss priss," he mocks.
RUMBLE!
"Uh, did you hear that?" she asks.
"It sounds like rocks are moving," he says and lifts the lantern up high and looks behind him as the entrance shuts.
"Fan-freaking-tastic, now what!" he exclaims, gritting his teeth as rocks fall from the tall ceiling and land all over the big open space.
"I've got a bad feeling about this, Haze," she says and brings out her grimoire and creates vines that she grabs a hold of, keeping it at the ready as it snakes out from her grip, moving about.
"It is just rocks," he tells her and looks at them.
"Rocks don't have bug eyes," she says and points, and he sees some of them open their yellow glowing eyes and they roll out and get to their longish legs and show their big teeth as tiny hairs on their backs stand up. Underneath the bugs are many thick hairs running along their lower body, and they have thick hairy legs too.
Haze brings out his grimoire too and hovers the lantern with his mana.
"This is not what I wanted to deal with."
"Is there ever anything you would like to deal with?" she asks.
"Oh, shut up already, would ya?" he tells her and readies his magic as the creatures are getting ready to jump. "Mist magic, mist balls!" he yells and shoots as the bugs jump, spitting acid at the mist balls and comes up close.
"Damn you," he says, increasing the amount of mana he puts into his mist balls and he shoots some of them down. Lydia whips others away with her vines, hurling the creatures back to the center of the room.
"Damn it has little effect," Haze says and keeps firing.
"Don't tell me they are like everything else in this forest," she utters, whipping another bug away, flinging its body at the wall.
"What do you mean?" he queries.
"Well, it seems like most things in this forest have one weakness in common."
"Which is?" he asks.
"Have you not been paying attention? They must be weak to fire," she replies, whipping another away.
"Well, that is good and all, but our flame mages are not with us right now. I knew we shouldn't have split up," he says.
"Seriously, you advocated for us splitting up, remember?"
"Yeah, details, whatever. We need to fight these off, and the tiny lantern we have is far too little fire to burn these guys away," he says, stepping back a little as the bugs advance. "Damn, there are so many of these things," he complains.
Lydia looks up high, seeing spiky rocks in the ceiling. "I have an idea; we might get out of this," she tells him.
"Uh-huh, like how?" he asks.
"Fire your strongest blast at the ceiling, and put as much mana into the spell as you possibly can," she tells him.
"What will that do?" he asks.
"Come on, please just trust me," she tells him, and he looks up.
"That will make those rocks fall, and I don't feel like getting skewered," he tells her, moving his hands that he has in front of him to shoot at more bugs.
"I have a way around it, okay!" she yells, locking eyes with him before she flicks her vine and smacks another bug away.
"Tsk," he scoffs, firing more balls at the bugs.
"Come on, do you have any better ideas?" she asks, and Haze looks at her and the stern look on her face. "Come on, we are both Magic Knights, which means that we work together," she tells him, and he looks at his family ring.
"Together, huh," he utters. ("She is sounding like Asta, and") he narrows his eyes, looking at the ring and at the large number of big bugs in the room.
"Tsk. Fine!" he yells and takes his hand up and unleashes as much mana into a single shot as he possibly can and fires at the ceiling that begins to shake wildly.
"Darn it, that only loosened them," he says.
"That is enough for me," Lydia swinging her arm holding the vine up as it branches out to many vines, and they stretch high up, grabbing a hold of every sharp rock in the ceiling and with a violent pull, they fall.
"And we are dead!" he exclaims, covering his face to brace for the impact and closes his eyes, he hears the rock crushing the bugs on the floor.
He opens his eyes as everything stops shaking, and he sees that he is inside a thick layer of Lydia's vines as the fiery light from the lantern lights up the pink space made from her vines. "We aren't dead," he says.
"Yeah, but we brought down more than I thought. It is super heavy to keep the vines up; we need to do something about the rocks above us," she utters through heavy breathing.
"I knew your plan wasn't thought well enough through," he tells her.
"Oh, silence; it got us this far," she tells him. "If you are so smart, then find a way out of this," she tells him, and he begins to think.
He looks around the small open space that they are in. "Is it possible for you to open up some so we can see what is going on outside?" he asks.
"You are asking a lot here," she tells him.
"Come on, do you want a way out of this?" he asks her.
"Fine, just be careful," she utters, moving some of the vines above her, and they see are ice-covered stone.
Haze narrows his eyes; he lets out his mist magic and pushes at the stone and loosens it and carefully puts it down next to him and he takes the lantern and holds it high up. "Okay, the rubble above us isn't that much," he says and looks to her.
"So we should be able to climb out?" she asks.
"Maybe," he says and places down the lantern and jumps up and grabs the stone and climbs up and gets past the surface. He looks around in the dark frozen room around him and looks down into the hole.
"Take my hand," he tells her. "You are kind of far up, but sure," she utters, creating another vine that stretches up to him that he grabs, and she takes a hold of it and begins to climb with his help, and she looks down at the lantern, creating another vine to grab its handle and pulls it up along with her.
Haze pulls and helps Lydia up from the hole and gets the lantern. Lydia undoes her spell, and the rubble they are on collapses a little.
"Whoa, you really want to die?" he tells her.
"Oh, leave it be, we are fine," she pushes back.
"You're crazy-"
"Finish that sentence, I dare you," she snaps back, and they lock eyes with each other, and he sees the fire in her eyes ready to shoot daggers at him if he continues.
"Whatever, talking to you isn't worth it," he says and gets to his feet, picking up the lantern as he walks over down from pile of rocks and continues to walk the hallway for a bit.
"What is that supposed to mean? If there is something that you would like to say, then say it," she dares him.
"I wouldn't dream of it, princess," he says in a mocking, lazy tone. (''This guy is seriously raising my blood pressure at times,'' she thinks to herself as an angry vein shows on her forehead. ''Calm down, girl, you got this,'' her mind tells her as she gets to her feet and walks after Haze, who continues for a bit and sits down by a wall in the hallway. "Why are you sitting down for?" she asks.
"Excuse you, but you weren't the one who nearly completely depleted their mana reserves getting the shards on the ceiling loose," he pushes back.
"All right, but there is no need to be so grumpy about it," she tells him.
"Tsk," he retorts.
"What the hell is your problem? Everything that someone says or does seems to piss you off for some reason. Why is that?" she asks him.
"It isn't my fault people are annoyingly stupid," he retorts.
"Okay, that sentence is laced with crap," she tells him. "Tsk," he tells her.
"Enough with the attitude already," she tells him, and they lock eyes as anger wells up in both of them.
She takes a deep breath, calming down. "Is this about your family?" she asks, and his eyebrow furrows at her as he remembers his father basically casting him out of his family, and he remembers his mother's face.
"You don't know anything about my family," he defends.
"Okay, I clearly struck a nerve there," she tells him. "Tsk, whatever," he replies and looks to the side.
"You don't have to share details, but we are supposed to work together, and the least we can do is try to get along," she tells him. "And you are telling me this," he scoffs.
"Okay, elaborate, please," she asks him. "Tsk, you're just Little Miss Perfect, aren't you? So high and mighty while her family and friends praise you. You sure have it easy, don't you?" he tells her.
"Is that seriously how you view me?"
"Well, isn't it? I have seen how well people speak of you and your family when you are in the royal capital. Even the highest-ranking ones speak fondly of you," he tells her, and a painful expression crawls up on her face.
"It may look like it, but it isn't as easy as it seems. Whenever I am out, I constantly have to be on my best behavior and choose my words wisely and carefully, and I mustn't screw up, so I have to read up and know a lot of different subjects in order to represent us well," she tells him with a softer tone.
"Tsk, it sounds like a complaint."
"It is a lot of pressure that I am constantly under; it is stressful." she utters and Haze clenches his fist.
"Did you get scolded after the mission with the pirates?" he asks with the assumption that she didn't.
"I did, actually, and I was told to do better. And there is another thing," she utters as her mind trails off, remembering something heavy. "What is wrong?" he asks. "Nothing, it is just that it gets lonely constantly having to put on a face to please everyone and to make sure your family looks good," she tells him, opening up without meaning to.
"Boo-hoo, the princess goes through trouble," he retorts.
"Is this seriously how you respond when someone shares vulnerable parts of themselves with you?" she asks with disbelief.
"What of it? I never asked for you to dump your crap on me," he snaps at her.
"Woah, I thought we could find some common ground here and get along, but clearly I am the bad guy no matter what I do here," she says, taking up her hands, gesturing surrender. "Tsk," he scoffs and looks away.
"Let me guess, you got this way once Laura died," she tells him, and his eyes burn, locking eyes with her as his face turns dark. "Don't you say another word about Laura, or I will show you my nasty side," he threatens, his words filled with barely contained anger.
Their eyes are locked upon each other as they shoot daggers at each other.
After a moment, Lydia takes a deep breath. "Sorry, I went too far," she says with a softened voice.
"You sure did," he tells her.
"You know you had a wrong in this too, right?" she says, her voice growing stern, and they lock eyes once again for another moment, and she breathes.
"You know what, fine. I thought we could at least find common ground on our first mission that we both failed, but it is clear that you do not want it," she says and stands up and walks, heading further into the dungeon.
"Where are you going? You know you are screwed on your own," he tells her.
"I know, I am just moving a bit away," she says and sits down and leans against the cold wall.
"What is the point of that?" he asks.
"Are you seriously asking me that? You know what, no. I may have to work with you; besides that, I do not have to look at you when you are being this determined to not getting along," she says and turns her face away, and he looks at her.
"I am determined to not get along, where are you getting that from?" he asks.
"Seriously, think about what just occurred. I tried to find common ground, and you just shot me down and threw insults at me," she tells him.
"What, I am just telling you how it is," he scoffs and looks away.
"Oh really, you seriously believe that?'' she asks and looks away ''Don't talk to me unless you are apologizing and are open to establishing common ground. Until then, you can keep your nonsense to yourself," she says, not looking at him.
"Whatever," he scoffs.
The hallway grows silent as he looks ahead and thinks things through in silence...
Minutes pass of him thinking through Lydia's words... . He looks down at his hand at his family ring as a brunette comes to his mind who turns and smiles, her eyes full of life (''Let us do it together'') the brunette uttered... minutes pass, and his mind moves to the mission with the pirates. (''I suppose we all had trouble on that mission and the aftermath'') he thinks to himself while he bites his teeth together in annoyance. Before standing up and picking up the lantern and walking down the hallway passing Lydia.
(''He is leaving already?'') Lydia wonders to herself and gets up and walks after him.
Upon seeing him stop, she walks up next to him, and he lets out a heavy sigh. Lydia clenches her fists and keeps them at her sides as to control herself (''What is it now?'') she thinks to herself, getting fed up with Haze's attitude and demeanor.
"I suppose one would need to work together on some things..." he says, and Lydia's face falls into surprise. "But it does not mean that we have to be friends," he adds and turns his gaze to Lydia, who takes a breath.
"Fine," she says, accepting his offer with clear reluctance in her tone, as she expected something else to come out of his mouth (''I suppose apologizing is not something this guy will ever do, no wonder his family's business and hold is crashing and burning fast if this is how all of his family behaves'') she thinks to herself as the two walk the hallway, only to find another set of stairs leading up, and they begin to walk up them.
(''I hope the others are faring better on their teams, and hopefully Asta isn't in too much trouble'') she thinks to herself as the two teens keep walking up the stairs.
Meanwhile, in the snowy land filled with hills of tar-like substance, Asta swings his blade at one of the monsters that comes up to him. As his broadsword reaches the middle, the magic keeping the creature like tar gets nullified, and the tar kind of melts together, leaving its sticky substance around the sword.
"What the," Asta utters and pulls at the sword, but it is stuck in the tar, and he pulls harder, only dragging the big lump of tar with him.
Millie cuts through another creature made of tar with her katana enveloped in white flame, burning away the tar with her white flame that goes over the red and orange shimmering katana.
She turns her gaze towards Asta, and she tightens the grip around her katana before carefully bringing white flames over to Asta's sword and burns away the tar while Asta pulls. And as soon as his blade gets loose, he nearly falls over.
"Whoa, thanks Millie. Damn, what are these things even made of?" he asks.
"I do not know, sir," Millie softly replies and looks at the monsters. She thinks something over. "Life shield magic-shielded shards," she quietly utters, firing at the tar-like monsters, but it does little to nothing to them. (''So I will have to stick to my flames in here; this is unfortunate,'' she thinks to herself.)
Cutting through more of the black creatures while her flame burns through the rest of them. (As I suspected, the tar is made from physical matter, which is why anti-magic does little to it. I really don't like having my flames as the only option.) She thinks to herself as memories of a distant past flow to the surface, to a time when she is under a contract with Mal, and she was outside with the devil Casimir, who at this time was like a tyrant, and messed with Millie in cruel ways whenever he could.
I looked at him after our little training sessions, and I was beaten and bruised. He smiled with a sinister grin. "What even were your flames?" I asked.
"Flames from hell, they could burn through anything with ease, and I meant anything," he told me. (I doubted he would tell me about any weaknesses to it if I asked.) I thought to myself and let it be, but from the training so far, it seemed like there wasn't any.
My mind fast-forwarded to years later, long after Mal became history, when Casimir and I were more like friends. "Casimir, could you tell me about your flames? Did they really have a weakness?" I asked him.
"Not to anything of this world, but from magic of downstairs it did. I guessed the biggest weakness to it was that they were a bit hard to control at times," he told me.
"Hard to control?" I questioned.
"Yes, it reached a certain point it detached from my magic control over it and it lived a life of its own and began to burn away anything without discrimination as it could live on without me supplying it with mana. There was always a push-back when it came to the flames," he explained.
"A push-back, huh?" I uttered.
Then my mind fast-forward and time has passed, I do not know how or when it happened but we grew close, after sharing countless happy moments together. However, after a fierce battle with Devea, Casimir was gravely injured. and I rushed over to him. "Do not worry, I got you," I whimpered. "It is meaningless, Millie; your magic can't heal this," he told me.
"I have to at least try life shield magic-shielded healing," I said with tears in my eyes, healing him to the best I could.
"Millie," he uttered and grabbed my hand. "It is all right," he reassured me. "No, it isn't. I can't lose you too," I told him as tears ran down my chin, and he narrowed his eyes as a warm smile came to his face. "It is odd for someone like you to be shedding tears for someone like me," he said with a hint of irony. "Of course, I would cry for you," I told him, and he looked at me and he pulled his hand to himself and looked at something in his hand and upon his second arm, filled with red marks and symbols.
He looked at me again. "Then I am probably worth your lingering tears too."
"Don't talk like that; you are not dying," I told him.
"Hmm, I wonder..." he uttered. "Millie, I will give you something, and in return, you have to promise me that you will survive," he told me in a serious tone, and I looked at him.
"Survive? Stop talking, please. Conserve your energy to healing."
"Millie listen, this is important."
"No, Casimir; you will get through this, you hear."
"Millie, I will need you to repeat a phrase for me," he said.
"No."
"Millie, it's all right," he reassured me.
"No, it isn't. I will save you," I told him, and he grabbed my hand.
"Millie, I will give you something, and in return, you have to promise me that you will survive," he told me in a serious tone, and I felt a chill run through me.
"No."
"Please, Millie," he uttered, and I grit my teeth, and my mouth began to quiver. I nodded with a shaky breath.
"Repeat this phrase," he told me and said something in a diabolical language. I cried and stammered as I reluctantly complied and uttered the words, and he continued speaking in the diabolical language, and I could feel a part of me slip away before I could no longer sense his soul. His hand holding on to something glowed.
"What did you do?" I asked, and his eyes locked with mine.
"Millie, I will really recommend you get to Mozo village fast after this," he said as he released his mana, and a red circle encircled around him and moved over to circle around me.
"Survive this, Millie, no matter what," he said, and he began to evaporate into black smoke.
"No, NO, Casimir, please don't go, don't leave me," I cried out, but it didn't matter.
"Casimir, don't, please, I love you," I told him, and he smiled as more of him faded away into black smoke.
"Survive, Millie, just survive," he told me, and I wept, my tears falling as I looked at the moon in the sky.
My body felt colder than usual all of a sudden. "Millie, get to Mozo village as quickly as you can," I remembered his words, and with tears in my eyes, I took to my white-feathered wings. My once-blond hair flickered in the wind as time passed, and I landed in the middle of Mozo village. I went over to a house and knocked on it, and Meir's grandmother opened the door.
"Oh dear, what happened to you, my child?"
"It is a long story, but Casimir is, well, he is," I uttered as Merissa walked into the main room. A little later, we sat together.
"So the blasts we heard from a distance earlier were his fight against another devil?" Merissa asked, and I nodded as my vision got blurry. "I don't feel so good," I uttered and fell to the wooden floor.
"Millie!" I heard Marissa yell before everything went dark.
More time passed, and when I awakened, I looked around dumbfounded.
"Millie, you are awake, finally," Meir's grandmother said.
"Grandmother, I have given them the medicine," Marissa said and looked over at me on the bed.
"Millie, you are awake, thank goodness," Marissa said and ran over to me and hugged me tightly, like she had missed me for a long time.
"Merissa, are you all right?" I asked.
"Of course, I am, especially now that you are finally awake," Merissa said, relieved, and placed her hands on my shoulders, and her eyes went to the window. "How long was I out?" I asked.
"Millie, you had been unconscious for over nine months," Merissa told me.
"What?" I asked.
"Yes, we had to give you nourishment through a tube and take care of everything, but the oddest part is your appearance," she told me.
"My appearance?" I asked, and Merissa nodded and handed me a handheld mirror. I was shocked to see what I saw. Aside from me being incredibly skinny, my hair had turned from honey-blond to black, and my honeyed eyes to silver. I took out my wings only to see that my white feathers had turned black as well.
I looked into the mirror and saw the ribbon around my throat had turned from sapphire to crimson. My body felt heavy and odd.
I put the mirror on the end table and took my feet under me and stood up, only to fall over.
"Careful; you have lost a lot of muscle mass as well," Merissa told me.
"It is fine," I said, putting my hands on the bed and pulling myself up.
It took months until I could walk properly again without needing aid and support. And I discovered that I had way more mana than before, which made my shield magic hard to controll.
then by accident I discovered that he had given me his black flames, but when I used them, they turned white, and the tint of my transparent shield had turned from sapphire to white.
Millie's mind flows to the present as she cuts down another black creature made from the tar-like substance, and she burns it away.
"I've trained a lot to get to where I am, controlling these flames," she thinks to herself, "but it's like Casimir said: if I'm not careful, they'll take on a life of their own, and then we might be in big trouble." She turns her gaze, seeing Asta slash through some with his sword. She notices his blade getting clogged up with the tar, slowing down his movements.
Millie tightens her grip on her katana and sends her white flame to Asta's sword, burning away the tar. "Thanks, Millie," he says, looking at her with a bright smile. His friendly demeanor surprises her for a split second, but she turns her gaze as another creature made from tar approaches her. She swipes with a spin, slashing the being coming from behind as well.
She looks up at the grayish sky above, filled with red holes dotted all over, resembling Swiss cheese. The holes are purple and white, and she narrows her eyes.
"What's on your mind, Millie?" Asta asks while hacking down another creature.
"The mana coming from those holes in the sky is strong, sir."
"Maybe that's the way we have to get through to escape this place," he says, taking a step. They both stop in their tracks and look down. "A bone? What the heck?" Asta exclaims. They take another look around them and see the snow dotted with human skulls, ribs, and spines scattered about. It's hard to see the white skeletons in the white snow, like ash laying about.
("The villagers must have gotten trapped here somehow, and this is what's left of them,") Millie wonders to herself, cutting down another beast. "Well, there's no time to consult the journal I found to check it out either. I suppose I'll have to read up on what happened later." She thinks to herself, her eyes darting to the side, seeing Asta on his slayer sword heading for one of the holes in the gray sky.
Millie brings out her wings and flies after him.
She hears a shrieking sound and looks down to see the tar creatures changing shape into huge bats, flying toward the two.
Asta and Millie get up close to one of the wormholes. "Now to get through," Asta utters, taking out his dweller sword and putting it against the hole. Black lightning with red lines shoots out of the hole as the mana within gets nullified, and a black ooze comes out, covering his blade. Meanwhile, the black bats get closer and closer. Millie burns away the tar, and Asta pushes the blade further in.
Millie turns around quickly and slashes down a bat, burning it away. She puts up a shield around the two, and the bats fly into the shield with great force, chipping away at it. She narrows her eyes as some tar is left on her shield and senses that the tar is slowly breaking down her spell, so she ignites the outer layer of the orb with her white flames.
"Aargh, come on!" Asta shouts as he keeps pushing into the magic-filled hole. His face drops into surprise as his blade is suddenly pulled in. He grabs Millie's wrist, and her face falls into confusion as the slayer sword heads into his grimoire. They are both dragged into a white and purple space before being spit out on the other side, landing on a gray surface. They both right themselves.
They look around, and the sky above them is gray too, with one big wormhole in the middle. The space has huge twisting, dark-purple branches with big thorns spiraling down from the ceiling, where they seem to be growing from.
"I suppose we're supposed to head up there," Asta says, getting up, and Millie stands up as well. They both narrow their eyes as creatures from the rest of the incredibly tall ceiling are formed and fly down towards the two, who brace themselves.
Asta's eyes widen as he sees that Millie is already heading for the beasts. "Uh, her Ki?" he utters.
"What is it?" Liebe asks.
"It's just that she seems to want to take on the creatures by herself again," he utters.
Liebe wants to say something but chooses not to.
Asta's face is filled with slight concern as he ponders, "What will it take for her to not take on things on her own?" He brings out the demon slayer sword from his grimoire and throws it before he jumps on it, flying after Millie.
