Conqueror

No one questioned me appearing in front of them so I just rushed and looked at Zieglind and Neco's condition. Neco's charred and burnt body is slowly regaining back its former form. But... as I looked at Helga's status, she's nearly running out of mana. But... healing magic shouldn't take that much mana. "Is there something wrong with Neco?"

"Yeah." Feran was the one who answered. "The flames that burnt Neco had a lingering curse which damages the affected by a percentage of their health the longer distance they've travelled."

"What? That never happened to me. I didn't feel anything when moving." I then glanced over my HP and I'm already at 70% health. When I barely got hit in that battle. "Wait what!?"

"Have you been also burnt by the manticore?"

"Yeah..."

"Stay a while there and don't move." Feran then checked my status. "Good. You're only at one stack of the debuff."

"One stack..?"

"Yeah. The debuff itself stacks. Neco is at 11 stacks when we saw him so his life was literally burning. But Zieglind is on 59 stacks. So every ten meters he move or so on, he'll lose 500 health points. That's why we got stuck for a while since Helga cleansed this buff off of them before we could move. Right now Zieglind is at 230 HP. Neco'll be fine."

"Zieglind? How about him?"

"I don't know about that. Helga is running out of mana incredibly quickly. And she's exhausted with cleansing the debuff."

"I think I can-" Wait... Yurid... Yeah she used every single bit of mana just to disperse the attack of the manticore. I can't obviously give Helga the rest of my mana since I'll collapse from mana illness. "I have no mana left... Hmm..."

"That's a problem then... Zeta, can you teleport me to a nearby kingdom? I'll buy some mana potions."

"No... I don't have any mana left. Yurid drained me of everything." I took a look at Neco and Zieglind and tried to think of other ways. I can pass on mana to others but I can also drain mana. Looking at Feran and Rize, they don't have any mana left so they'll just be useless at this situation. But... how about Zieglind?

"Hey Zeta, look. It seems that Neco is fine for now. Helga is now moving on to Zieglind."

I ignored Feran's comment and looked at Zieglind. I opened up his status window using a skill and they're right. He's barely holding on with that 230 HP. But what made me stumble was seeing his mana. "330,532... MANA!?" I couldn't help but be shocked by this number. I looked over at Feran and he then shrugged.

"I don't know why Zieglind has that much mana despite his level."

"I know... I'm at level 432 and Zieglind is just level 301 but my mana is only around 12,450. I don't understand it at all. Is this much mana allowed at his level? Damn..." I don't have time to be amazed. Even though I have so many questions on how he achieved that much mana, I'll just keep it to myself for now. I placed my hand on his chest, "Mana Plague." It injects a virus into the affected and sucks away their mana and instantly passing it to me. 

[Illness Resisted]

[Mana Plague is destroyed.]

He even deflected Mana Plague. This is the fastest way to get mana since the virus spreads quickly... Slow way it is. "Mana Sap!" I began to steal some of Zieglind's mana. And in just five seconds, my mana pool was completely full. I also felt an intense sharp pain. It means that I've taken in way too much. I still can't believe how much mana Zieglind is containing. But that doesn't matter right now.

"Did you do it?" Feran asked.

"Yeah." I went over to Helga and placed my hand on her shoulder. "Mana Transfusion." I passed over 4,300 mana since that's her maximum mana capacity. "Summon Wisp!" I summoned a wisp to help Helga finish faster since it helps heal for every second.

"Zeta." I heard Yurid calling for me. 

"What is i-" My vision of the surroundings around me disappeared and I was dragged in a never-ending darkness. "I told you to tell me if you're going to drag me in my own consciousness."

"They're going to hear you."

"First of all, are you fine? You seem to have used a lot of your own and my mana to compress that manticore."

"I could've beaten that manticore if I have all my mana. Anyway, that's not what I dragged you here in for."

"Then what is it?"

"Zieglind. Absorb him."

"NO."

"What? I thought you love knowledge? Just absorb him completely. You'll expand your mana pool and skill list using 'that' skill. If you do that, you'll gain his 300 thousand capacity of mana. That mana capacity can't be found everywhere."

"It's still a no."

"Why? With this we can take revenge for my father or as you call him, your master! His mana capacity is far from what we've learned. If we gain his skills that we don't even know about, you and me? We're sure to benefit a lot from his death."

"It's going to be a no for me Yurid. Zieglind has already helped me a lot. To the point that I already killed who killed master. Right now our goal is to find out who Ouroboros really is."

"Are you sure about this..? He's strong. Seeing how his mana capacity is that big. And he resisted Mana Plague. He's going to be a trouble if he'll become an enemy of us. You know that right? It's better to eliminate this kind of person before he becomes incredibly stronger than you. Look at him, he's incredibly injured. I feel like we can just one shot him and we'll get his experience, gold, skills and all mana."

"No."

"...Fine. If you want it that way. Then can you do one thing for me?"

"As long as it won't hurt anyone close to me."

"Just use mana sap to regain some mana for me will you? I feel like I'm going to disappear. I've exhausted all of my mana on that fight."

"Hmm... I guess that's fine."

"Alright. Thanks." Yurid snapped her fingers and I'm back at Izgoy. I put my hand on Zieglind's chest again and used, "Mana Sap!" To drain some of his mana directly at Yurid.

"You can stop now." I heard her from inside. "To think that it just took him ten seconds to fill my 45,000 mana pool. This is seriously just a waste."

I ignored Yurid and went on to check on Helga. Her mana is running out again. I gave her some of my mana again and again until it turned into night. 

Helga's treatment were just simply first aids for their wounds was far too difficult for her to fully cure. Zieglind has three amputated limbs and all Helga did was close of the wounds and heal Zieglind. She won't be able to fully bring back his limbs. Her healing magic is still pretty weak.

Neco's condition is fine. But his hands up to his elbows has a massive scar there. In the first place, Neco's body was just scars all over the place from the burn but Helga healed all of it. But she can't heal these scars on his arms.

They're in a state wherein they won't die. But heavy damages were put on them. Zieglind is also in a deep sleep while Neco has already woken up two hours later. He's still in shock but he managed to regain his composure seeing how he's safe for now. He was puzzled on what happened to his hands so Helga explained it to him and he accepted it.

The first thing he did was to ask us for his forgiveness since he's the one who invited Zieglind to that artifact dungeon. He showed us the two artifacts that he found in that dungeon which are completely soul bound to him. I never thought they were real but Neco have them.

Even though curiosity is taking over me on the desire to read that book, it's simply impossible since it's soul bound.

We completely forgiven him since everything in this world is practically 50% unknown. So things like these will happen unexpectedly that's why we need to be more careful for the future.

I went outside and called back Afal, Greta, Precia and Yefa back at Izgoy. I walked around to breathe some fresh air but I saw Rize, sitting on a tree stump. 

I walked over to talk to Rize. It seems that she's still in shock on what happened.

"You see... This is basically our fault. Zieglind asked us to rush over to where he's at but there's a giant barrier covering the place. The manticore saw us and blasted that Hellfire Blast or whatever he called it. We didn't have time to dodge it but Zieglind was there. Jumping right into the attack to cover for us." Rize's tears welled up to the point that she couldn't contain it anymore. "Ahh... why are we so weak? He rescued a goblin like me from an encampment despite him being weak. Fed me, nurtured me and gave me a second chance to live. But all these time... He's always saving us without asking anything in return. I simply can't do anything right for him."

I wanted to comfort Rize with words but my throat just wrangled up. I couldn't say anything. Because right now, even me, that's how we all feel.