I Reincarnated as the World's Worst Healer-Chapter 73: Broken Healing vs Grand Freeze (5)

The slender blonde, her body covered in burns that had begun to bleed, gripped the wooden shield she had picked up from the ground.

Old Marcus kept watching Ebony closely while gasping for breath and clutching the sword in his hand.

"This will be your grave, you damn bitch," the old man said as he charged forward, his body barely responding to the orders of his mind.

Ebony, exhausted to the core, answered the attack by raising her shield against every slash that came her way.

"This is impressive... To think an old man like you could last this long... Doesn’t matter..." the blonde said as she dodged each attack, moving her tired body with difficulty.

"Stop moving... Ahh..." Marcus panted as he tried to land the final blow.

At that moment, the artificial clouds floating at the top of the cavern began to stop raining. The acid drops no longer fell; now they were safe, but only from the rain, since both of them were still trying to kill each other.

"Ha ha... HA ha ha ha," Ebony began to laugh as she watched the old man struggle to take her life.

"This is impressive... Where did your strength go, old man?... Now there’s nothing left for either of us... Let’s finish this once and for all."

Choking from her broken ribs, the blonde lunged forward and struck Marcus with her wooden shield; after that, the old man staggered several steps back.

No matter how much rage Marcus felt, and no matter how long he clung to that plane of existence, his body could no longer endure and he collapsed.

Seeing the body of her traitorous ally on the ground, Ebony let her guard down for a second. "Hey, you shitty old man... Give my regards to the ones I sent down there... Enjoy your retirement from this life."

With the last of her strength, Ebony managed to gather momentum and slam the old shield hard into Marcus’s chest.

A sound rang out as if a rib had cracked, but the shield shattered into pieces in the process.

With no other option, Ebony climbed onto her enemy’s body and began punching Marcus’s swollen face, battered from the fight.

Each punch echoed in her ears, each blow tearing the skin on her knuckles, already damaged by the acid that had fallen from the sky.

But she left the old man bleeding as well before reaching her limit and collapsing to the side, completely exhausted.

Thus both opponents struggled to keep their eyes open, but their strength was leaving their bodies with every passing second.

"Hey, woman, tell me why you won’t die... Who do you serve...? What purpose do you have that keeps you from dying and clinging so hard to life...?" Marcus asked, trying to stay conscious.

"Serve? Well... That’s just how I am, old man. I don’t care about serving others, I don’t care about their titles or their power... I actually don’t care about any of that, I just..." Ebony smiled for a moment with all the strength she had left.

"I... just want to go back to being who I used to be. I just want to... earn a living so I can enjoy my life... It’s the same as yours, but less boring, ha."

Marcus, with a faint smile, thought about the blonde’s words. He had given years, decades, to the lord who had taken him in when he was just a child along with his brother Theon.

But now he would die just like Theon, just like all the animals he had once devoured. His life now weighed no more than any other.

In the distance, a voice began calling for Ebony; it was the green-haired elf Lucian, desperately searching for his companion.

"Ebony! Where are you? Ebony?!" he shouted among the houses in the distance, through the dirt streets of that citadel.

"Hey, old man, tell me something before you die... What were you and all these goblins doing here?" Ebony asked, trying to stay conscious.

"...My lord... He wants his own country... He thought it was only fair to take the hexagon that reset first before anyone else... And he ordered his goblins to rule each floor, but for that we need better weapons... That’s... that’s..."

After a few moments, Marcus had run out of breath; he had fallen unconscious and his life was in danger from having completely exhausted his magical energy, as well as from the rib inside his body that had pierced his lung.

When a body ran out of magical energy, it could die or fall asleep for days; that was the famous mage’s sickness, an illness caused by abusing magic.

Seeing the old man’s state, Ebony smiled and said:

"I told you, old man... I win."

But suddenly a message appeared in front of the girl’s face; it was a semi-transparent status window, which read:

[- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -]

Congratulations, player!

You have managed to defeat the boss of the first floor of the central tower. You may now rest until you feel ready to accept the challenge of this tower’s final floor, or choose to leave it instead.

However, as a reward you will receive 1 free Stat point. Use it whenever you wish.

[- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -]

Ebony smiled and slowly began to close her eyes as the mountain seemed to start collapsing and Lucian’s shouts grew louder.

"(In the end I managed to win, idiots... In the end... I won...)" the blonde thought one last time before finally losing consciousness.

.

.

.

The blonde girl slowly opened her eyes. Above her the ceiling was dark, close, and made of stone.

She looked to the side and saw her companions; Lucian and Daniel were sitting near a campfire inside a gigantic stone hall.

To one side there were stairs leading upward, but that was all and nothing more, since that stone chamber was what the tower floor became once cleared. It was no longer an open battlefield, just another floor inside some tower.

"Idiots... How long was I out...?" Ebony asked while holding her spinning head as she stood up from the floor and removed the blanket that had been covering her body.

"Ebony!" they both shouted in surprise as they approached their friend.

"Take it easy, don’t push yourself too much. Try to rest, we’re still inside the tower... well, even if it doesn’t look like it. But in any case, you’ve been unconscious for three days..."

Lucian said as he knelt and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, a gesture of concern that made Ebony smile.

"You really scared us, shorty! For a moment we thought you’d lost your duel with that bastard, but in the end you held out longer than he did. Though if we’re being honest, you only survived thanks to our help, so be grateful, dumbass!"

Daniel said with a laugh as he looked at the girl; despite his mocking tone, his eyes were full of relief.

"Well thanks... idiots, for saving your boss... heh."

There was a second of silence before they all started laughing. After that, they began drinking the chocolate they had brought in Ebony’s backpack.

"Luckily the battle ended well for us... However, tell me something, Eb. Now what do we do? You said this tower was special..." Lucian said, worried that the girl might want to keep climbing the tower even in that condition.

"Well, just like I promised... this tower has a secret passage. We’re not going up if that’s what worries you, we’re going down," Ebony said as she sipped her cup of chocolate.