“You?”

Four pairs of eyes gazed on Elva with ridicule and scanned her body.

Elva was busily taking another swig of wine as they observed her smooth pale neck, a slim but curvaceous figure that a tattered brown, sleeveless dress loosely clung on to—and one beautiful, cold, pale-grey eye, staring at nothing.

Eager eyes dampened when they observed a long vertical scar that ran over her closed eye and a stumped arm which hung lifelessly at her side.

One of the men scoffed. “Delusional woman. You—”

“Dan!” Another cut in, “We don’t have enough time. It’s almost time for that creature’s mealtime. Let’s just take this drunkard and go.”

One, thick arm snatched Elva’s waist and lifted her up. She chuckled aimlessly as she hugged her bottle of alcohol.

The little boy mutely stared at this progression with his wide, light brown eyes. Something occurred to him, and he began to struggle once more, but to no avail.

“We could just use her for ourselves anyways,” was the last statement. Rows of yellow teeth appeared once more on their faces before they reentered the darkness.

Rows of broken, hedges filled the view, and dead trees cast shadows on the dusty ground with their gnarled arms.

“Oy, you broke my bottle!” Elva yelled loudly, her voice echoing throughout the maze. She flailed her legs and arm in protest.

The man who held her cursed as he tried to tighten his grasp around her. “Your bottle be damned.”

As the world grew darker, the hedges increased as the group approached closer to their destination, growing increasingly barren.

Subtly, as they approached a large tree’s shadow, Elva cut through the bottom-half of her dress with a shard of glass and reached toward her leg.

“Wait wha—” A long, dark column of darkness descended quickly on the men. Elva let out an ear-splitting scream as a massive cloud of dust flew up in the air, blocking the light.

“Shit I can’t see!”

“Who did this!”

Taking advantage of the moment of obscurity and the men’s cries, Elva grabbed the little boy by his arm and threw him in an array of large bushes.

“Kid, come out and your life will end.” A flat voice sounded close to him. One rough hand stole away his ragged, hooded jacket.

The boy opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word, he watched Elva walk away with a leafless branch, hooded and clothed with his jacket, in her hand.

Night engulfed the world, but the little boy could clearly see the woman’s messy silver hair dancing and growing farther away under the moonlight.

“Catch her! She's got the boy!” A desperate voice of a man shrilled.

Elva laughed wildly as the men chased her through the maze, allowing the passing branches to whip her skin. She had already abandoned her sandals and was feeling the dust and rocky ground hit her bare feet.

“Keep running woman.” A menacing voice panted behind her. “Your end would not be good anyway.”

Hearing this, Elva grinned and ran faster.

A large mansion loomed ahead, and Elva stopped before it. The building seemed entirely unoccupied, judging from its cracked walls, and the shriveled vines that limply clung onto its dents. The tall hedges that propagated the area remained similarly dry and lifeless.

It was not long before the entrance opened, the hinges grating together in a discordant melody. An unfamiliar, hooded shadow glided slowly forward, the owner's black, polished shoes clacking against the stone steps in descension.

“Hm, what’s this?” A delicate, male voice drawled. White, wrinkled hands took off its possessor’s hood. A stark, pale face of a strikingly beautiful young man with blue eyes and a mole on his cheek held a condescending gaze toward the four men grasping Elva and forcing her to the ground.

He lightly combed back his long, platinum blonde hair with his long nails, revealing a long, tapered ear.

Elva’s eye slowly moved up from facing the ground. An elf? Why and how did he exit the dungeon?

White teeth gleamed and grinded together in the moonlight. “A bunch of trash. I asked you for a healthy, pretty little boy as my next harvest. And what did you give me...”

The elf walked forward, then lifted Elva’s chin with the tip of his shining shoe. “...you gave me human with a missing eye and arm.”

“Sir!” The group of men immediately knelt down, trembling in fear as one of them spoke. “We have actually found the perfect sacrifice, but this wo—”

“SILENCE!” The elf’s clean, white face contorted, twisting together like a knot. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. I bestowed you low lives benevolence, seeing you possessed the miniscule amount of worthiness to be used by me and my purpose. I even offered you my power. But you have been falling from my grace!”

“Have mercy, oh great one! Have mercy!” The men cried, bowing profusely.

The elf’s wrinkled hands clenched into tight fists, then loosened, reaching for Dan. Intense disgust shown in his gaze. “I have no choice...”

His extended long nails scratched against a short, kitchen blade.

“Hold it, pretty boy.” Elva chuckled. “You should eat me first. I don’t want to feel guilty.”

His white face twisted in another direction.

“And why should I listen to you, you insignificant, defective human!” He hissed and reached again for one of the men.

Taking advantage of the men’s loosened grip on her, Elva swatted the elf’s reach and leapt toward the creature.

Elva blocked all of the elf’s long nails with the flat edge of her knife. She numbly assessed the elf’s increasingly contorted face and his hits growing stronger and stronger, his graceful, lilted voice turning into screams of rage. The blue light of mana traveled throughout the surface of his body and grew in intensity around his fists. In response, she allowed mana to flow from her core to deflect his strength.

Immediately, sweat began to wet her back and her brows pressed together from the sudden influx of her mana.

The large stone fountain before the mansion broke apart from the impact of the elf's stretched fingers as Elva moved out of reach.

A rank D, C, no, a potentially B-ranked creature, if he continues to increase his mana force and possesses a special ability he has not utilized yet. A small crater dented the ground as the elf sprang toward her in full force, arms outstretched. Elva leapt to the side, narrowly missing a large cut in her skin on her blind side, but was not fast enough to avoid the elf’s forearm brushing up against the shoulder of her stumped arm from the inertia of his blow.

In an instant, Elva felt an itching pain around where they touched. She glanced down and witnessed the last part of her severed upper limb shrivel up and fall to the ground.