Project Necro is an official initiative by Re:Library.

I downed several bottles of Magic Water to replenish my lost magical power, and after what felt like a short while had passed, I finally seemed to have recovered enough to be in decent shape.
Just as I was about to head back down the road I had originally come from… I noticed the sound of numerous footsteps approaching from that direction.

Emerging from deep within the forest were men, each wearing crude armor and looking, at first glance, as though they couldn’t possibly be legitimate mercenaries.
I immediately turned on my heel to flee, sensing the menacing atmosphere, but it was already too late. They appeared from all around me, blocking my escape routes as if they had known I was there from the start, and the path leading back to the highway was cut off in the blink of an eye.

“Well, well, a young lady, huh? A top-notch healing mage, no less. Quite the beautiful young lady, too.”

I furrowed my brow at the remark from the bald man who stepped forward from the group, presumably their leader. It clearly implied that he knew who I was.

“How do you know me…?”
“Ah, well…”

The man’s face twisted into an ugly grin. It was as if he were toying with his prey.

“This guy told me. Didn’t you?”

After being slapped hard on the back, the one who stumbled out was—

I didn’t want to believe it. Given that I had only met one person since coming to this world, there was no way anyone else could be here.

“A…no… that’s a lie, right…?”

I’ve been…betrayed…?

The man—Scott-san—was standing in the shadow of a bald man a few years older than him, dressed in what looked like the leader’s gear. He turned toward me, peering out apologetically. I looked to him as if clinging to the hope that “this can’t be true,” but the moment our gazes met, his eyes instantly turned away.

“N-no, no way…”

I shook my head, trying to say “no, no,” but his demeanor didn’t change—he wouldn’t even look at me.
That middle-aged man, who had been smiling wryly and saying he’d try his best next time—did he tell these guys about me?

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, miss…”

Hearing him mutter without looking at me, the blood rushed to my head.

“Shut up! I don’t… I don’t want to hear anything…!!”

Tossing my long hair wildly, I raised my staff and began to chant.

The four spears of light that appeared were a manifestation of my will to reject him.

.

“Guh…!”

My body creaked under the recoil, and four more spears were fired. However, it was difficult to track multiple moving targets at once; half of them—two spears—struck the men, while the other half lost their guidance and flew off into the void.
But I had no time to dwell on the misses; I turned on my heel and retreated.

“Don’t worry about it! That light won’t kill even if it hits—as long as one of us catches her, the rest’ll be a cinch!!”

I gritted my teeth.
The enemy leader’s words were correct. My weakness had been exposed sooner than expected.
I was using the four spears to thin out the enemy while retreating. The physical enhancement spell I’d cast on myself at full power had granted me just enough speed—even with these frail legs—to barely buy some time, but the difference in stamina was still significant, and the distance between us was slowly but surely closing.

I had already fired three times from a distance. Although the ones who had taken the light spears head-on were lying scattered here and there, the condition of those men made the flaw in my attack obvious at a glance.

No matter how powerful a single strike might be, the 『Divine Spear』 lacked the power to kill or injure people.

At first, the men were wary of the light spears’ power to knock someone out with a single strike, and I took advantage of their moment of hesitation to create some distance… but now that they had realized it couldn’t kill, that tactic no longer worked.
All I could do is keep retreating like this, incapacitating those who closed in to reduce their numbers.

However, they had an overwhelming numerical advantage.
On top of that, my limbs had been feeling abnormally heavy for a while now.
My throat was tight, crying out in pain with high-pitched “huu, huu” sounds.
Even though I was only Level 1, my stats should have been set far higher than the default values. Based on how I felt, I should still have enough magic power for a few more shots—yet the sensation in my limbs was already beginning to fade slightly.

『…………Mana Drow……!? Lea Lea Lea—di Vierga!!』

The roughly thirty-second cooldown had ended, and as I turned to cast it again, my concentration wavered for an instant at the sight of a figure closing in far faster than I had anticipated.
Barely managing to maintain my focus, I completed the incantation and attempted to unleash 『Divine Spear』… but at that very moment, I realized my timing had been thrown off by the lag from earlier.
The recoil from the 『Divine Spear』—which I’d fired while my feet were still slightly off the ground—sent my light body flying without a moment’s resistance; leaving me rolling on the ground several times, and—

“Gah! Ah, cough…!”

My back slammed hard against a tree, the air squeezed from my lungs. I knew I had to get up and run, but my lungs, desperate for air, wouldn’t let me. I gasped for oxygen, and by the time I had barely regained my breath, my pursuer was right in front of me, reaching out to grab me.

.

――The figure of the man brandishing a knife overlapped with that of the pursuer closing in right before my eyes.
A searing heat returned to my back. As I looked at the face of the girl crying out in my arms and repeated “It’s okay” over and over in a voice too faint to be heard, my back flared with sharp heat time and again, and sensation swiftly faded from my lower body—

.

“――! Aaaaaaah!?”

That scream, as if giving form to sheer terror, cut short the incantation, creating several spears that fired haphazardly and knocked two more men unconscious.

“Guh, uu…!”

The recoil pressed my body against the tree trunk with a creaking sound, making my bones groan, but at least it prevented me from being blown away again.

“…Haa, haa… I have to… escape…”

With the tree at my back, I staggered to my feet and tried to run again… but the moment my back lost its support, my limbs, drained of strength, refused to obey me, and I collapsed helplessly into the snow.

—Ah, I see.

The thing that had been tormenting me and hindering my movements all this time. This is… fatigue.

Ever since I woke up in this world and made my way here, I had felt it countless times, yet I had kept covering it up with magic.
I should have thought things through a little more carefully. I should have realized that 『Divine Spear』 had a recoil that was a little too much for this body to handle—I had verified that, after all—yet I hadn’t even considered the possibility.
I’d assumed that 『HP』 and 『MP』 were separate, just like in a game, and that they didn’t affect each other.
The magical recoil I had dismissed as “just a little” had, unbeknownst to me, struck this frail body time and time again. While it had saved me from danger on numerous occasions, it had also weakened me with every blow.

“Haha, gotcha! You sure gave me a hard time…!”

Finally, a man caught up to me, grabbed my hair, and yanked me to my feet. My limbs, now completely drained of strength, wouldn’t obey me at all. I was helpless as he pinned my hands behind my back and forced me to the ground. It felt like coarse rope—or perhaps something else—was being wound tightly around my wrists, scraping my soft, snow-white skin like sandpaper.

Being pinned down from behind inevitably brought back memories of “that time.”

—Stop. Don’t make me remember that time.

I’d finally started to forget. If I remembered it here, I wouldn’t be able to resist anymore. And yet, I saw nothing but a dark future ahead.

But… the terror overflowing from the wounds of the past, once reopened, instantly robbed her of the will to resist and painted her consciousness black.

.

“Aaaah… Miss, no…”

Her petite body, limp and unconscious, was bound tightly by the hands of those vile men.
The face that had smiled at me back then was now as pale as snow, and I could see her eyes cast down, lifeless like a doll’s.
All around, the men were in a frenzy over their prize, groping the unconscious girl’s body. As I stood there stunned by the scene, a hand suddenly landed on my shoulder, making my body jerk.

“Thanks to you, I got my hands on an unexpected treasure… I’m grateful, man. Let’s do something like this again next time, mkay?”

The mocking laughter in his voice faded into the distance.
That’s right—out of self-preservation, I had sold that girl out.
I had cast that lovely, kind-hearted girl—who had healed me, saved my life, and shed tears of relief that I was still alive—into a bottomless, pitch-black abyss.

That shocked expression on her face when she looked at me just before she ran away. That clear rejection. How deep must her sense of betrayal have been as she tearfully brushed me off, saying she didn’t want to hear a word…?

If I had known it would come to this, it would have been far better to defy my master and die.

It was already too late for regrets. Staggering, I strayed onto a side path leading away from our base and, overcome by overwhelming guilt, shame, and emptiness, tried to slit my throat with the butcher’s knife I carried…

“No… I can’t just die that easily… I won’t be allowed to…”

I have to go call for help. I’ll die afterward—and it has to be at that girl’s hands.

With that single thought in mind, I started out dragging my feet, but soon found myself running with single-minded determination, as if driven by some force.