Shadow of Self-Reliance. Part 3

Wild stood behind the tree, his breathing uneven, his heart pounding like a drum before battle. The figure on the path drew closer, and with each step, more details emerged. The cloak, dark and tattered, billowed in the wind, but beneath it, something bulged at chest level—unnaturally, almost grotesquely, as if the fabric concealed not a body but something else. This wasn't an old man bent by years, nor a broad-shouldered warrior. No, the figure's lines were softer, more graceful, feminine, yet there was something wrong, something that sent shivers racing across Wild's skin.

As she neared, he glimpsed her face—or what remained visible of it. Round, clouded goggles sat crookedly on her nose, reflecting the faint light of the setting sun. Behind the lenses, her eyes loomed enormous, unnaturally large, like an insect's, glinting with something wild, almost unhinged. Her mouth stretched into a grimace—not a smile, not anger, but something in between, horrifying yet strangely magnetic. She wasn't merely a woman but a being torn from his own nightmares or the tales Tekra had spun in his childhood. Wild froze, his weak legs rooted to the earth, his mind screaming to flee—but he couldn't. Curiosity, laced with fear, anchored him in place.

She stopped a few paces away. Her left hand—long, bony, with fingers like claws—emerged slowly from beneath the cloak. Wild didn't even have time to draw a breath before it reached for him. Her weight, unexpectedly heavy for such a gaunt frame, crashed into him, knocking him to the ground. His back slammed against the hard, stone-strewn soil, and a sharp pain lanced through his spine, as if a molten spike had been driven into it. He screamed—or tried to. Only a choked wheeze escaped his throat, raspy and pitiful, like the sound of a dying animal. His arms flailed, attempting to push her off, but they were too feeble, too tremulous to resist.

"Don't scream," a voice cut through. Feminine, low, with a gravelly edge, it carried a weariness tinged with irritation. She loomed over him, her face so close he could feel her breath—sour, laced with herbs and a metallic tang. "Calm down and let me sleep." Her words were absurd, as if he were not a victim but an obstacle to her rest. Before he could grasp their meaning, her hand—the same one that had felled him—darted to his face. Cold, rigid fingers clamped onto his skin, and in that instant, his consciousness blurred. The world—the path, the trees, her grimace—spun and dissolved into blackness. He slipped into sleep, too swiftly to comprehend what had happened.

Yet even in the dark, his mind didn't quiet. On the edge of dream and reality, he felt the pain in his back, sharp and throbbing, a reminder of his frailty. Fragments flashed before him—his past life, stacks of unread manuscripts, the sound of an explosion, then Tekra, her smile, her tiny flame. And this woman—her goggles, her hand, her voice. Who was she? A wandering teacher? Or the very mousetrap he'd feared as he trudged toward the village? His skepticism, his philosophy that everything in this world bore a price, now turned against him. He'd wanted to learn, to grow stronger, but what if this was the cost—his freedom, his will, his life?

The darkness tightened its grip, pulling him deeper, leaving his questions unanswered. But somewhere in his chest, a faint, barely perceptible warmth still flickered—the sparks of mana he'd felt before. They hadn't extinguished. And perhaps that was the only thing keeping him from total despair.