Iris had to move quickly.
Wendigos possessed an incredible sense of smell, and with blood already running down her hand, there was no chance the creature would stay away for long.
She hurried toward the nearest tree, bit down hard on her index finger, and began drawing across the bark.
The pain was sharper than she expected.
Apparently, twenty years of scars and supernatural battles had made her forget just how much something as simple as cutting open a finger hurt when your body wasn’t accustomed to it.
Still, Iris ignored the sting and continued until fifteen tiny magic circles covered the trunk, each one drawn close enough to the others that activating them together should produce something substantially more destructive than any individual spell.
By the time she finished, Iris’s skin had gone pale.
Blood loss was only part of the problem.
Even the relatively thin concentration of Miasma inside this D-Rank T.A.L.E.
was affecting her far more than she’d anticipated, invading a body that had never developed any resistance to it.
Her stomach twisted, her vision swayed, and she had to brace herself against the tree just to remain standing.
“Not… not yet. I still need to get the artifact…” she muttered, struggling to keep her thoughts in order.
“I’ll get it… then I’ll kill the wendigo… save Mom…” A weak smile crossed her face despite everything.
“And then you’re next, Superbia.”
Her stomach finally gave out.
Iris doubled over and vomited onto the forest floor.
She remained hunched there for several seconds, coughing until the nausea finally eased enough for her to breathe properly.
When she wiped her mouth and glanced down at her arm, her expression immediately changed.
Thin blue lines had begun spreading through the veins beneath her skin.
Miasma poisoning.
That wasn’t good.
“I really don’t want to die again,” Iris whispered, forcing herself upright while wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“The first two were at least quick. Getting eaten alive sounds significantly worse.”
A branch snapped somewhere above her.
Then another.
Iris’s head shot up.
Something large raced through the treetops, branches bending and cracking beneath its weight as it rapidly closed the distance between them.
The wendigo’s screech tore through White Wood Forest, sharp enough to make Iris’s ears ring, and a pale shape suddenly launched itself from the fog.
Iris threw herself backward just as it crashed into the ground where she’d been standing.
“So much for a surprise attack.”
At this point she smelled like blood, vomit, sweat, and probably enough fear to make tracking her embarrassingly easy.
The wendigo slowly rose from its crouched position, saliva dripping between its jagged teeth as it dragged its elongated nails against one another.
The motion almost looked deliberate, as though it were sharpening them before continuing the hunt.
Iris stared at it.
“Disgusting.”
The wendigo lunged.
Iris stepped aside at the last possible moment, letting its claws slice through empty air before quickly putting several feet between them.
Her current body wasn’t trained for combat, certainly not compared to what she had become twenty years later, but sixteen-year-old Iris had still been incredibly athletic.
Years of fighting classmates, climbing fences to escape trouble, and generally behaving like a problem child had apparently given her something useful to work with.
“Its movement pattern is simple,” Iris muttered as the creature twisted toward her again.
“You smell where I am, leap toward my current position, and try to tear me apart with those nails. You’re fast, but you’re stupid.” She glanced toward the tree behind it.
“All I need to do is get you exactly where I want you.”
The wendigo pounced again.
Iris moved.
This time, she wasn’t fast enough.
Its hand closed around her arm.
“Ah—!”
Long nails pierced her skin, drawing several lines of blood as Iris instinctively tried to wrench herself free.
The creature tightened its grip instead.
Then its mouth slowly curved upward.
Iris froze.
It smiled.
That bastard actually smiled.
It was enjoying this.
Whatever part of the original creature had been preserved within the T.A.L.E., this wasn’t simply an animal following some supernatural instinct.
It understood fear.
It understood pain.
More importantly, it seemed to enjoy causing both.
Iris’s eye twitched.
“Yeah. Definitely killing you.”
Before she could pull away, the wendigo lifted her completely off the ground and hurled her across the clearing.
“Gah—!”
Iris slammed back-first into a nearby tree.
The impact knocked every bit of air from her lungs, and she collapsed at its base while pain spread across her spine.
Her injured arm throbbed as blood ran between her fingers, while the wendigo slowly began walking toward her.
Iris coughed.
Then she looked up.
And smiled.
It was almost unfortunate that the creature’s eyesight was too poor to properly appreciate her expression.
Because it had just made a very large mistake.
It had thrown her exactly where she wanted to be.
A glowing Roman numeral I appeared across the back of Iris’s hand as she pressed her palm against the dirt.
“Ignis-Ruin-Min.”
One after another, fifteen matching numerals appeared along her arm.
Behind the wendigo, every magic circle Iris had drawn across the tree suddenly ignited.
“Cinder Bomb!”
All fifteen detonated at once.
Each individual explosion was pathetic.
One Cinder Bomb barely possessed enough force to seriously damage the tree, which was exactly why Iris had prepared fifteen of them.
Fire and pressure erupted across the trunk simultaneously, tearing through weakened wood with a deafening crack.
The wendigo’s head immediately snapped toward the sound.
Too distracted by the explosions—and far too blind to understand what was happening above it—the creature never noticed the enormous tree beginning to tilt.
The trunk crashed directly onto its back.
The wendigo shrieked as it was slammed into the ground, its long limbs thrashing beneath the weight of the fallen tree as it desperately tried to pull itself free.
Iris remained against the neighboring trunk for several seconds, struggling to breathe.
Then she forced herself upright.
Blood ran freely down one arm.
Blue veins had spread farther beneath her skin.
Every muscle in her body begged her to simply lie down.
Iris smiled anyway.
“Got you.”
The creature snarled, digging its claws into the ground as it attempted to drag itself free.
Iris dipped one finger into the blood running from her injured arm and quickly traced another circle across her palm.
The wendigo’s movements grew more frantic, the fallen tree shifting slightly as supernatural strength began overcoming its weight.
She didn’t have much time.
A Roman numeral II appeared across the back of her hand.
“Ignis-Sagita-Du.”
Flames gathered around Iris’s fingertips.
Unlike Ember Wing or the tiny Cinder Bombs, the fire didn’t spread outward.
It compressed.
Layer after layer of crimson flame tightened into a narrow shape until a single burning arrow hovered above her hand, its point glowing bright enough to paint the surrounding fog red.
Iris raised her fingers toward the wendigo’s head.
The creature finally managed to lift part of the trunk.
“Bang.”
The flaming arrow shot forward.
It pierced straight through the wendigo’s skull.
The creature froze.
For a moment, its claws remained embedded in the dirt.
Then its body went limp.
Silence returned to White Wood Forest.
Iris lowered her hand and released a long breath.
The burning arrow vanished along with the Roman numeral, leaving only the throbbing pain in her head and the poisonous blue lines beneath her skin.
“Thank you.”
Iris screamed.
She spun around so violently that another bolt of pain shot through her back.
The ghost girl stood directly behind her.
“Could you stop doing that?!”
The girl giggled.
Iris glared at her, but the annoyance slowly faded when she realized something had changed.
The wounds were gone.
There was no missing flesh, no exposed bone, and no blood soaking through her brown dress.
Even the section of her skull that had been torn away was whole again.
For the first time, Iris could see what the girl must have looked like while she was alive—a perfectly ordinary sixteen-year-old with long brown hair, freckles, circular glasses, and pale blue eyes.
“Thank you,” the girl repeated, this time without laughter.
Iris stared at her.
The spirit stepped forward.
“And good luck, Iris Blackwell.”
Iris’s expression changed.
“How do you know my—”
The girl leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss against Iris’s forehead.
Then she disappeared.
The effect was immediate.
White fog began retreating between the trees, thinning until sunlight finally slipped through the canopy again.
The oppressive feeling hanging over the forest faded with it.
Those strange eye-shaped knots in the bark became ordinary imperfections, and for the first time since entering, Iris could hear the distant sounds of birds.
The T.A.L.E.
was collapsing.
Iris remained still for a moment, touching the place where the girl had kissed her.
“I wonder…”
Had that really been nothing more than something created by the T.A.L.E.?
She didn’t know.
And right now, she didn’t have time to find out.
As the final traces of fog disappeared, something deeper within the forest became visible.
A massive white tree towered above everything surrounding it, far larger than any of the others Iris had passed on her way through.
Its trunk was thick enough that several people holding hands wouldn’t have been able to encircle it, and black markings twisted across its pale bark in patterns resembling countless staring eyes.
Iris smiled.
“There you are.”
Her legs nearly gave out beneath her.
She caught herself against a nearby tree before forcing herself forward again, dragging her battered body toward the enormous white trunk.
“The Grade 0 Artifact.”
Every step hurt.
Her back screamed whenever she moved, her arm continued bleeding, and the blue veins spreading beneath her skin served as a fairly convincing reminder that she needed to leave soon.
None of it mattered.
She had come too far to turn around now.
“If I remember correctly, Jonathan found it buried near the base of this tree a few years after the massacre,” Iris muttered.
She dropped to her knees and immediately began digging through the dirt with her bare hands.
Her fingers quickly grew raw, dirt filling beneath her nails while her injured arm protested every movement, but she kept digging until her hand finally struck something solid.
Iris stopped.
Then smiled.
“Aha.”
A small chest.
She dug around its edges until there was enough space to grip it, then pulled with what little strength remained.
The chest came free from beneath the roots, sending Iris backward onto the dirt.
She didn’t care.
“There you are.”
Iris dragged it into her lap and lifted the lid.
Her smile disappeared.
Then her eye twitched.
There was no Grade 0 Artifact inside.
Instead, a red book rested at the bottom of the chest beside a neatly folded piece of paper.
Iris stared.
“No.”
She picked up the note.
Hi Iris,
I had a feeling you’d come looking for this artifact.
Unfortunately, no freebies for you, Miss Regressor.
I’ve taken the liberty of making sure Jonathan gets it instead.
He has better compatibility with it than you do anyway.
But I wouldn’t want you to feel like this entire trip was a waste of time, so please enjoy the artifact I prepared especially for you.
—Superbia
Iris stared at the message in absolute silence.
A vein pulsed against her forehead.
Her hand began to shake.
“I’m going to kill him.”
She crumpled the note in one hand before reaching into the chest with the other.
The red book looked completely ordinary beyond its color, but Iris knew better than to assume anything Superbia had personally left for her could possibly be harmless.
Unfortunately, leaving it untouched wasn’t much of an option either.
She placed her fingers against the cover.
Bright red light erupted from the book.
“What—?!”
Iris jerked backward as the artifact dissolved beneath her hand, transforming into countless glowing particles that flowed into her skin.
A burning sensation spread across the back of her hand before disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived.
Iris stared at it.
A butterfly now marked her skin like a tattoo.
“What the hell…?”
She rubbed at it.
Nothing happened.
“Superbia, if this thing turns me into a frog or something, I swear to—”
Something wet struck the paper in her other hand.
Iris stopped.
A dark red stain slowly spread across the note.
Not ink.
Blood.
Letters began forming beneath Superbia’s signature.
Iris’s face went pale.
P.S.
Enjoy dancing with Michello.
Silence.
Iris stared at the sentence.
“No.”
Something warm dripped onto the top of her head.
Her body stiffened.
The White Wood Forest T.A.L.E.
was gone.
She had watched it collapse.
The anchor was dead.
Which meant whatever was standing behind her had absolutely no reason to exist.
Unless someone had put it there.
Slowly—very, very slowly—Iris looked upward.
A wendigo towered behind her.
Its mouth opened.
Iris’s eye twitched.
“Oh, you bastard—”
Its jaws came down.
Pain exploded across Iris’s face.
There was no clean snap this time.
No brief instant between awareness and darkness.
Teeth sank into flesh and bone, crushing through her skull as the creature tore away everything above her jaw.
Iris tried to scream.
She couldn’t.
There wasn’t enough of her face left.
For one horrifying instant she remained conscious, her body convulsing as pain unlike anything she remembered tore through every thought she possessed.
She could feel teeth grinding through bone.
Feel warm blood pouring down her neck.
Feel something pull at what remained of her skull.
Then—
Iris opened her eyes.
She was standing inside the school again.
Yellow butterfly dress.
Blood on her knuckles.
The same hallway.
The same morning.
For several seconds, Iris didn’t move.
Then she remembered the teeth.
Her knees immediately buckled.
She collapsed onto the floor and vomited.
Her entire body shook violently as both hands flew toward her face.
Fingers desperately traced over her forehead, cheeks, nose, eyes—touching skin that had been missing only seconds ago.
It was there.
Her face was there.
But Iris could still feel it.
Teeth sinking through her skull.
Bone cracking.
Flesh tearing.
The horrifying absence where half of her face had been.
“No… no, no…”
Her breathing became shallow.
The first time Superbia killed her, his hand had gone through her heart.
Quick.
Michello had snapped her neck.
Quicker.
This had been different.
Death might not be permanent anymore.
Pain still was.
Iris pressed both hands over her mouth, desperately fighting another wave of nausea as that realization settled into her mind.
She couldn’t treat dying like a tool.
Not if she had to remember every second of it.
Not if every death could be worse than the one before.
Iris barely managed to lift her head.
Then, from somewhere farther down the hallway, came the absolute last voice she wanted to hear.
“Blessed morning!”
Iris’s blood ran cold.
Footsteps approached.
Then came that familiar cheerful laugh.
Michello was coming.
And this time, Iris was already terrified before he even reached her.