The Girl Who Hacked The Magic System

"I WON'T LET YOU!"

Martius scoffs at Ingela's scream and kicks Yaci again. But his foot never lands the kick.

He looks down in surprise only to see that his foot was not where it was supposed to be, and he instinctively jumps back.

He notices, relieved, that the foot is back in its rightful place

"What the...?"

"You're lucky that I still didn't manage to sever the space, only to displace it a bit. But you won't be so lucky the next time."

Her whole body is bathed in eerie flames, and even space itself seems to bend around her.

"What are you??"

"Your doom."

Martius steps back and then turns to flee, only to find Ingela in front of him.

But she hasn't moved an inch. Instead, space itself twisted in a jarring way.

Martius turns back to his original position, and Ingela is exactly where she was before. But when he looks back, he's within her arm's reach.

"There's no escaping this room for you, vampire."

Ingela extends her arm forward to touch him, but he jumps back... only to find himself being caught on his back.

Ingela activates a spell as soon as she touches him, igniting his whole body.

She keeps pouring energy into his body to burn him completely, all the while cutting all possible escape routes from him.

After some time, the only thing that remains from the vampire who escaped a dungeon and created a whole demonic cult in the underworld of the royal capital is a pile of dust.

"Ingela..."

"Yaci!"

Ingela deactivates her spells and tries to run towards Yaci, but her body doesn't respond to her commands. Instead, she falls to her knees.

"Ugh..."

"You used too much mana again, didn't you?"

"... How about you? How are your injuries?"

"I don't feel anything on my back, which is probably bad news, considering the strength of your fireball. And I might've broken a rib or two. Nothing that Lovelace can't patch."

"That's... good... I..."

"Shhh, it's okay. You were magnificent there, the way you killed him. You just need to rest a bit, and then we'll look for Lovelace."

"You watched it? I thought you..."

"Only the last part, when he was so desperately trying to flee from you. I was pathetic in this fight, even with Lovelace's strengthening. He pulled me to get the hit from your spell, and then I passed out for most of the fight."

"You weren't pathetic by any means. It was a very good tactical decision from him to use our strength against ourselves. He was a cunning opponent."

"And yet you overpowered him neatly."

"I thought that you would die... I became so afraid that I lost my cool."

"If this is how you fight when you are afraid and lose your cool, then you just need to learn to wield all that power consciously and without losing your mind."

"Easier said than done."

"In any case, I think that you were so cool. I think that when I woke up, he was already more afraid of you than you were afraid of anything."

"Th-thanks, Yaci..."

Little by little, Ingela crawled until she managed to get close to Yaci and then hold her hand. It's only at that moment that she noticed that she was completely naked.

"Wait... was I fighting naked the whole time?"

"Yeah... all those flames coming from your body must've burnt your clothes right at the beginning of the fight. When I woke up, you were already like that."

"Why didn't you say anything? Ugh, this is so embarrassing..."

"You have a beautiful body, Ingela. It's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"Ugh."

Noticing the discomfort in Ingela, Yaci quickly changes the subject.

"Anyway, we just need to rest a little... soon we'll go to Lovelace and then back home."

"Yeah..."

:::

PoV: Aurea

"What do you mean they left to fight the vampire?"

"Exactly that, Your Highness. It's been three hours now, and we didn't hear any news from them, so we thought it would be better to call you."

What the hell? Why did they go without me?

And to be silent for so long... it sure wouldn't take hours to kill a simple vampire, would it?

"Okay, I'll go after them right now."

Good thing that I have these mementos from Yaci and Lovelace, so it's easy to go wherever they might be.

From what the knight told me, it's still night outside. In any case, I don't even need to change because I've been sleeping in my uniform in case of any emergency.

Any emergency exactly like this one.

I silently chant the aria to open the portal to where Lovelace is, then step through it.

:::

"What the hell is this place??"

The mana in this place is so twisted that it's nauseating. Lovelace is on the floor, unconscious, and at her side there's the half-eaten body of what looks like a demon, from which a deep black ooze is dripping.

Around the room several dead bodies lie scattered. From the markings on the ground, they seem to have been performing some kind of macabre ritual.

And there's no sign of Ingela and Yaci anywhere. Nor the vampire.

And these guys seem to have been normal humans, not vampires. And the room... is this an underground facility? I've never seen anything like this in the capital.

In any case, the first thing to do is to wake Lovelace up. She doesn't seem injured or anything, but... oh.

Her mouth.

Did she half-transform back to her scorpion form? That is not a human mouth, that's for sure. If she did, then the demon must've cornered her badly to make her lose control like this.

"Lovelace! Lovelace! Are you okay?"

No signs of her waking up... Hmm, maybe I should feed her a little bit?

Damn, all the mana in this room is truly nauseating. To extend my magical body out, I have to touch the environmental mana, and it's disgusting. Kinda like wading in a pool of gore.

Not that I've ever done that. But I've watched enough horror movies and anime to have a clear idea of what that's like.

Okay, I connected my body to hers. Now, let's make the mana flow into her... slowly... Damn, she was almost dry.

"Hmmm... yummy... h-huh? Aurea? What are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you, you dummy. Where are Yaci and Ingela?"

"I don't know..."

"What?"

"They were with me, in this room, but a hole opened on the ground, and they fell deep underground while I was fighting that demon."

"And the vampire?"

"He was probably the one who opened the ground. It seems that he went after her. That demon... he was a formidable opponent."

"Was it you who chewed on him?"

"Huh? What?"

I show her the demon's half-eaten corpse. The confusion on her face is very visible for a moment before she realizes something.

"Oh... I see... He was a dark elemental being like me, so he was immune to most of my attacks, and casting spells from other elements drained my mana completely. So I became hungry and..."

"And you defeated him by eating him. Then passed out because of the bad mana you were ingesting."

"Y-yeah... I remember now. He felt when the vampire was killed but insisted on continuing the fight. I doubt that just nabbing at him would be enough to destroy him. He probably just fled back to his native dimension."

"I see... anyway, your mouth is still different."

"My... mouth? Oh!"

Lovelace reaches her hand to her mouth, realizes what's going on, then turns back to the other side.

"I'm sorry you had to see me in such a sorry state."

After some moments, Lovelace turns back again, her face completely humanoid.

"It's okay. How are you feeling now? Are you good to go searching for those two?"

"Yes. I think that there should be a way down in that direction."