Chapter 16 The Magic Box

After taking a few cautious bites of cooked meat, Suzuka pushed aside the boulder blocking her path. The rain had stopped some time ago, and the sky was clear. Though it was a bit chilly, Suzuka didn't feel it despite her tattered clothes. Her enhanced body generated enough heat to keep her warm even at zero-degree temperatures.

 When Suzuka went outside, she found that the wolf's body had been eaten, leaving only a pile of bones. The only remaining parts were the spine and the head on the ground. 

Suzuka then walked upstream towards the mountain, her point of interest, passing by the river. The trip was easy due to the flat terrain, but dangerous because she was easily visible from both sides of the river.

 After a few hours of passing through various monsters, such as acid slugs and different types of slime, she found a rocky area with fallen trees to take shelter and check her map. 

The location was easy to find, just a short distance to the right of where the river bent to the left. According to the map, she was less than 20 kilometers away from her destination.

As Suzuka checked her map, she noticed three wolves tracking her in the distance. They had not picked up her scent yet. Suzuka put her map away and jumped out of the rocks she was hiding in, trying to make haste. 

However, she suddenly stumbled upon a Red Acid Wolf who had come out of the forest at the same time she had gone into hiding. The Acid Wolf was licking water from a puddle, as he was caught off guard by Suzuka's sudden appearance. 

She scared the wolf off and the wolf ran back into the forest. Suzuka didn't wait to see what the Red Acid Wolf would do next and quickly rushed ahead, leaving the wolf confused about what had just happened. 

As Suzuka ran off, the Acid Wolf went back to its water puddle but was interrupted again. A Bloody Wolf jumped him from behind, but the Acid Wolf quickly dodged to the side and spat a red acid cloud around himself to protect himself. 

The brute Bloody Wolves didn't care too much about the acid, and one of them tried to crush the Acid Wolf by using its weight as an advantage. 

However, the Acid Wolf was small, swift, and agile, easily evading the huge, bulky Bloody Wolf charging at him and running off into the forest, slightly burning the Bloody Wolf with acid in the process.

Suzuka's encounter with the wolf gave her enough time to distance herself from them. Nearly an hour later, she reaches a spot where the river bends to the left, and she turns right, towards the mountain.

 She has less than 10 kilometers left to go through the forest. Finally realizing her strength, she climbs the cliff with ease and can see downstream pretty well. Her pursuers were not far behind. Beasts can't climb cliffs, so she had plenty of time to lose them. 

Strange noise comes from the left side of the river a few kilometers away, Ice spikes launched above the trees far in the distance. Suzuka decides to leave before she finds out who did it, as she knew she wouldn't survive an encounter with someone so powerful. 

She heard loud footsteps and hid behind a tree, six goblins and three ogres rushed towards the location where the ice spikes appeared. After they passed, Suzuka went to her destination, after following the feeder creek, she arrived at the waterfall but nobody was there, only a magic box.

There were no traces of people staying there and Suzuka started to panic:

"No! No! No! The gathering point is her! Why is nobody here? Don't tell me... it was... just the location of a magic box! No... nooo... what?! This can't be... my last hope, what do I do now? Wait, maybe I just don't see them... I better look around first."

After frantically searching, she still couldn't find anyone. Overcome with fear and despair, she sat down on a rock close to the magic box and began to cry. No matter how hard she tried to hold it in, her emotion come out of her throat in the form of a silent scream.

 Tears started to fall one after another, without any sign of stopping. Her vision started to blur and so did the sound around her. Her world got darker and darker as she fell deeper and deeper into despair. She sat there, sobbing after losing hope. But it didn't take long for this world to remind her of its cruelty. 

The bloody wolf hit her back with his huge paw and stomped her to the ground, putting all his weight on her. The first strike was only to prevent her from running away, after that it was playtime for the wolves.

Suzuka pushed herself off the ground, lifting the wolf who was stepping on her, who weighed almost four hundred kilograms. The beast didn't like her strength and sunk his blunt fangs into her shoulder, pressing her against the ground and making her scream in pain.

 As if she wasn't in enough pain already, the beast stepped on her with both front legs and cut his claws deep into her upper back. This time, the other two wolves didn't wait. The closest one sunk his teeth deep into her calf and with a strong pull yanked her out from under the other one's feet and ripped her out of his jaws. 

Her back was injured and blood was spilling from her shoulder. With a mighty spin, the beast threw her toward the magic box. Suzuka hit the magic box with her back, painting it with a big splash of her blood. After that, the wolf didn't fare well, and all three of them charged at her at full speed, pushing and biting each other.

Suzuka quickly dodged the charge of the wolves and they slammed into the magic box. She infused a little bit of mana into the box by accident and as a result, one of the wolves got pulled inside in her place.

 She then used all her remaining strength to climb on top of the magic box, to keep the wolves from reaching her, leaving a blood trail all over the box. Even with her fast healing ability, she lost too much blood and fainted the moment she felt safe. 

The wolves were unable to jump high enough or get to the top of the magic box. They circled the magic box for over twenty minutes before giving up and going to sleep close by. 

Two hours passed and the magic box began to emit a dim golden light, waking Suzuka up. The magic box expelled a pile of gore from the inside, which was the remains of the wolf. Smelling blood, the wolves came rushing to get a bite of fresh meat.

"Oh please! Get full already and leave me alone!... Maybe if I wait, they leave? Well, that's just wishful thinking... if they followed me this far, they sure going to kill me."

A whole hour has passed and wolfs still trying to get her even after finishing eating. Using their blunt claws wolfs tried to climb on top of the magic box but they were just too heavy for the climb.

"Can't even tell how long I was out... At least not bleeding anymore and my wounds closed up but my injury's still far from fine... I know! Wolf's touching box now... all I need to do, is infuse some mana into it! Wolfs gonna get pulled in like the first one and I'm safe."

Suzuka infused some mana into the magic box and it started to give off a barely noticeable glow. But wolfs were fine, this time she herself began to sink into the box. And as she was pulled inside the box she screamed:

"No! No! No! You stupid thing, pull them, not me!... I'm not compatible with any of the magic boxes, let me go! I don't want to be turned into a pile of gore!"

It didn't take long, only a couple of seconds before she got swallowed by the magic box. When she opened her eyes, it was dark inside but she could see what was happening outside. The walls of the magic box were almost transparent from the inside, like looking through black smoke. 

It felt like she was standing in the middle of darkness. She could feel her mana being slowly drained from her body and knew that when it hit zero, she would be trapped with no escape. On the outside, wolves were waiting to have a taste of her flesh, and on the inside, she would turn into a pile of gore when her mana hit zero.

"What now?! Think! Think! This isn't good! I already feeling the side effects... my body not gonna last, even if I can heal fast! If I wait maybe they go away and I have a chance to run."

But all she can do is wait and hope that the wolves give up on her, leaving her alone. While waiting for the wolves to go away, she looks around to see what's inside the room. In the middle of the room, she sees a large, black sphere that seemed to emit darkness within the box. Her curiosity got the better of her and she stepped closer to the black sphere. After taking one step, she felt a weak pull towards the sphere, but without paying much attention, she took another step. The pull became stronger, and Suzuka stopped to get a better look at the sphere.

"What's this feeling? It's like my whole body gets pulled by some force... hmm, I wonder what happens if I touch it?"

There was a ring of dark dust spinning around the dark sphere. She reached out to touch the dust cloud and felt a very strong pull, getting herself pulled toward the sphere. She tried to resist but the force was too great and she got slowly pulled toward the sphere, even her enhanced strength couldn't help.

"Oh no! It was a stupid idea!... Can't... get... out! No!"

As she got closer, the force just got stronger and stronger until she got sucked into the sphere of darkness. After getting pulled inside, she felt her body getting heavier.

"Aaaaaa! I'm gonna die!... Oh!... Wait... it's not so bad inside, and here I thought I gonna get crushed... I just feel a little bit heavier."

A few minutes passed, and the sphere transformed into a thick smoke cloud, enveloping Suzuka's body in a dense, dark cloud. She felt as if her body had doubled in weight.

"Oh! The sphere is gone!... And I still can see wolfs outside... dang it."

The bloody wolf's nature is to relentlessly pursue its prey until it is dead. Twenty minutes have passed and wolfs still circling around the magic box, waiting for her to come out. After getting bored to look for an opening to escape, Suzuka sits down and pulls a small apple out of her pocket, it was crushed but still good to eat. Her bag with food was outside, she lost it when the wolf threw her at the box.

-"Oh! That's right! Derrick said that one needs to stay inside a magic box for at least one hour to get one star's worth of magic power in exchange for their mana... and I am almost one hour in here! I feel my mana pool getting drained but at this rate, I can easily endure it for a day."

But little she knew the mana drain accelerates with each hour and side effects get stronger every ten minutes. 

As she was able to see outside, she saw how the sun hid behind a mountain covering everything around in a dark shadow, it was going to get dark in a couple of hours. A little bit more than one hour passed and it got even darker outside. 

As Suzuka lay on her back, images, formulas, and magic effects flashed through her mind, though she didn't understand what they were. Her wounds had almost healed and she felt a little discomfort. Exhausted by the healing process and the side effects of the magic box, Suzuka fell asleep.

 Five hours passed since she entered the magic box and the side effects grew stronger, causing her to dream nightmares and affecting her mind. Knowledge about magic power flooded into her mind, and her mana drain increased, amplifying the magic power's effect on her body. 

Another hour passed and she woke up in intense pain, feeling as if her body had been pulled down to the ground and was ten times heavier.

"Why do I feel so heavy now!?... I need to get out... but dam wolfs are still there! I need to do something soon before I get crushed by my own body weight. I can still manage but if this goes on I may be in big trouble."

She attempted to stand, but her body felt even heavier and the pain from her injuries was overwhelming. She had been able to remain inside for so long only because her healing abilities were keeping up with the damage to her body, but she was reaching her limits.

 After gathering some strength, she tried to walk towards the wall, but the bite mark on her shoulder started to bleed, and a few of her recently healed ribs broke again. The wounds on her back and leg reopened as she struggled to walk. As she got closer to the wall step by step, the pain and weight she felt increased tenfold, making it impossible for her to continue walking. 

The best she could do was to get on her stomach so that her injured back wouldn't press against the floor. As she tried to crawl back to the middle of the room, she felt her body getting a lot lighter; only close to the middle of the room was still bearable for her to stay.

 After five more hours, her mana pool was about to reach zero, leaving her in pain. Knowledge was flowing into her head, overloading her mind. Her nose and mouth started to bleed, her eyes became bloodshot and even her healing power couldn't keep up anymore.

 After three more hours, her loose teeth fell out as they couldn't support their own weight. She spat out seven of them, leaving her with almost no teeth. 

 Four more hours passed, and her eyes started to bleed, along with blood coming out of her nose and mouth as she lay in a pool of her own blood. Her broken ribs, sticking out, pierced through her skin. 

 She screamed in pain for help, but no one could hear her, not even the wolves that were waiting for her outside. It was as if she was experiencing hell itself, and with her mind going crazy from the abuse, all she could do was curse her evildoers.

"You bastard! I hope you all burn in hell!... For what you made me go through... If I survive... I am gonna torture you, Anton!... For selling me out to them! They all may be dead... but you Anton... I will make you feel my pain."