Chapter 74: More Casualties

"Alright! We found the curse seed!" Jamie, the squad leader, raised his arm in celebration. His squad members cheered alongside him.

"So, who's going to destroy the seed?" Sapphire asked, stepping closer to the black, pulsating stone.

"We'll let Magical Girl Black Lily do it," Jamie replied before adding, "By the way, I was told to ask Magical Girl Sapphire Blue whether it's possible to extract Anathema's essence from a curse seed."

"We wouldn't know from a distance, but now that I've seen it up close, the chances are quite high that the seed holds some Anathema essence. We should be able to plunder it," Blue said, slithering closer to the obsidian-like stone.

"Chances?" I frowned.

"We're not sure, nyaa," Felicia answered, tail flicking.

"Well, let's find out." I raised my naginata and brought it down in a single swift swing, shattering the black stone.

[Destroyed: Curse Seed]

[Reward: 200 Points]

[Remaining Points: 8100]

Dark miasma seeped out from the cracked seed, swirling toward Sapphire. While some of it went toward Sapphire, some dissipated before going to the vial.

"Huh?" Sapphire murmured, staring at the vial in confusion.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"From the amount of black miasma released, I thought I'd get more. But this only filled a tenth of the vial," she replied, shaking it slightly.

"Scanning complete. Possible reasons: Anathema essence from a curse seed is highly unstable. It will disperse in less than two seconds if not extracted immediately upon destruction."

"But Sapphire was standing right next to it when Lily destroyed the seed," Jamie pointed out.

"A better extraction method will be developed later. However, the current extraction skill can only retain about 10% of the Anathema essence, even with immediate extraction," Felicia explained.

"Alright. No time to dwell on it," Jamie called out. "Let's keep moving, everyone. We have more black essence to gather."

With that, he rounded up the rest of the squad, and we exited the building. The twenty flights of stairs were nothing for Sapphire and me, but the soldiers were panting hard by the time we reached the jeeps.

As the vehicles rolled forward, black sand swirled beneath our wheels, scattering into the wind.

The next location was barren—no curse seed in sight. But before we could move on, a Rank D Anathema emerged from the shadows.

If not for the open space, we would have been in serious trouble.

"Provide cover fire! Bring down that troll!" Jamie shouted as gunfire erupted across the football field.

The new bullets provided little help—each shot bounced off the creature's thick hide as if made of rubber.

I activated my clones and surrounded the giant. One clone positioned herself at a distance with a sniper rifle, while three of us attempted to flank the beast. I aimed for its leg tendons, hoping to cripple its movements, but this Anathema provided no openings. It swung its massive club wildly, forcing us back.

"Watch out!" Sapphire shouted as one of my clones, wielding a warscythe, was sent flying. She disintegrated on impact, her existence fading into a wisp of mana.

We all retreated, reevaluating our approach after witnessing how easily it crushed my clone.

"Shoot the legs," I commanded my sniper clone.

Not even a second passed before a bullet tore through the creature's thigh. The soldiers' bullets barely scratched it, but my sniper clone had loaded a Full Metal Jacket Silverbane Bullet—it had far greater penetration than the standard-issue rounds the soldiers used.

An explosion followed as another clone swapped her warscythe for a shotgun, loading it with an explosive round. The blast sent a shockwave through the air, momentarily staggering the beast and making it fell forward.

Seizing the opportunity, I dashed forward. My naginata gleamed under the dim sky as I slashed through the creature's thick neck. The beast let out a guttural roar as black blood gushed from the wound.

In a desperate final struggle, it swung its massive club erratically, but I had already leaped ten meters away.

With a heavy crash, the Anathema collapsed.

A system notification flashed before my eyes as Sapphire immediately pulled out a vial, extracting the swirling black miasma from the creature's remains.

"Nice! This one filled half a vial in one go. As expected of Black Lily—so strong!" Sapphire grinned, admiring her haul.

"Good work. We couldn't have done it without you," Jamie added before hesitating. "If I may ask, what kind of bullet was that? Our rounds couldn't even scratch it."

He snapped into a military salute and apologized after realizing his question might breach decorum.

I glanced at Felicia, who answered for me.

"The bullet you mentioned is a Silverbane Full Metal Jacket. It has significantly higher penetration than standard Silverbane rounds. The caliber is different, too. I believe you have the technology to produce it, but the enchantments are another story."

Felicia turned to Sapphire, and Blue, her snake familiar, slithered up her shoulder to answer in her stead.

"You need to upgrade your enchantment skill. The next level will allow you to enchant a piercing bullet or an exploding bullet," Blue explained.

"But that would cost me 2,000 points! That's more than I can handle…" Sapphire whined.

"So, where is the curse seed?" Jamie asked.

"None in sight, sir! Should we spread our forces more?" one of his men responded.

"There might not be a curse seed here," Felicia interjected. "The scanning device we borrowed from Zenith only measures the total miasma in an area. It doesn't specifically detect curse seeds. Moreover, we couldn't recommend relying on this approach since stealth-type Anathema could hide their miasma."

I had borrowed a similar device during my previous excursions here. I never thought they would be using the exact same model—I assumed they would have access to something more sophisticated. My brows furrowed slightly.

Nevertheless, the device worked as intended. Whether it was borrowed or not didn't matter as long as it did its job.

"What should we do?" I asked Felicia.

"In this case, we should comb the area, and if we don't find any curse seeds, we move on," she answered.

"Ugh… we should enchant a detector of our own," one of the soldiers grumbled.

"Detecting a curse seed is a difficult task. On a scanner, it would appear just like a normal Anathema. Besides, a regular scanner is sufficient for most cases. If you want to pinpoint an Anathema curse seed with precision, you'll need to buy the appropriate tool," Felicia explained.

"I understand. Sorry for asking. This device was borrowed, right? That means we didn't pay anything for it. We should be grateful," the soldier said apologetically.

Jamie gave the order for his squad to spread out. As expected, there were no curse seeds in the area. We moved on to the next zone.

"By the way, are you guys still feeling sick?" I asked the soldiers as they took off their masks inside the jeep, using the ride as an opportunity to take a breather.

"No, ma'am. The mask worked wonders. It still smells awful, but at least we're no longer nauseous or vomiting," one of them answered.

"That's great. I'm glad it worked," Sapphire smiled. The mask was her work, so she felt praised by the soldiers' comments.

"We shall rest in that abandoned building. Today seems like a good haul. We managed to recover about two vials' worth, right?" Jamie asked.

"Yes. We managed to harvest two vials. If others achieved similar results, we might be able to fill 80 vials today," Sapphire answered as we disembarked from our jeep and opened our rations.

"I knew it! The method we used yesterday was wrong. Damn Gwen. Who even came up with that plan?" one of the soldiers mocked the lieutenant.

"Well, we're still learning. It's natural to make mistakes. It's too bad we lost the thirtieth squad during last night's raid. That was a disaster."

The soldiers began chewing their MREs. It was a type of bread filled with mysterious fillings. It tasted sweet and salty at the same time. Certainly edible, but I wouldn't call it tasty.

I was about to purchase food from my food vault, but after seeing the happy expressions on the soldiers' and Sapphire's faces as they bit into their bread, I held back.

I would look like an arrogant princess if I did that. Instead, I silently chewed my bread as the soldiers cheered about today's victory.

The sun began to set. We cleared two more usurpations after that. All in all, we raked in four and a half vials for this journey. Jamie decided to call it quits, and we returned back to the base.

I thought we would be celebrating, but as soon as we arrived, rows upon rows of blue Magical Girls were running back and forth, treating patients.

Lieutenant Gwen sighed as he looked in our direction.

"Black Lily, greetings. Any casualties?" Gwen asked.

"No, sir. We have collected four vials today, sir!" Jamie saluted and gave his report.

"Great! Finally, some good news! I'm sorry, but I will need to borrow Sapphire for the rest of the day," Gwen said, motioning for Sapphire to head to the medical tent.

I silently nodded. Without further prompting, Sapphire immediately ran toward the nearest tent.

I didn't need to ask why Lieutenant Gwen wanted Sapphire. Just by looking at the soldiers carrying water and bloodied bandages, I already knew what was going on.

"We have wounded here! Guardian Fire Ranger is critically injured. His left arm and part of his shoulder are gone. We need a blood donor!"

"Help! Red Flame Darkness is wounded! He lost his hand!!"

"Felicia, what happened?"

"We are inside the Darklands. Anathema can range from F-rank to A-rank in an instant. The scanner only tells us the intensity of the miasma in usurpation zones. It should tell us the rough power of Anathema in that zone, but I could hardly call it accurate. So, I guess they were unlucky and encountered a high-level Anathema that was either stealthy or fast," Felicia explained. She then continued, "Luckily, there are no Guardian deaths yet. However, there were 15 casualties."

"Fifteen soldiers died?" I widened my eyes at the number. These were soldiers who had families waiting for them back in Eden.

"Yes. and over thirty more suffered critical injuries."

"Will they make it?"

"As long as our Blue Guardians can get to them, they should be saved. But I'm afraid many will be out of commission for a while. For beginner Guardians, losing limbs is painful, and some will need therapy before returning to action. Moreover, we need a high-level Blue Guardian to regrow limbs."

"We don't have any?" I asked Felicia.

"We do. But right now, we have to prioritize saving lives. And we also need to consider their mental well-being. Some Guardians retire due to PTSD after losing comrades or suffering grievous wounds from fighting Anathema."

"I see." I sighed in relief. It was harsh, but as long as nobody died, I believed we would pull through. Guardians have another job other than fighting Anathema nowadays. They could either become an enchanter or operators in Guardian Command. I walked toward one of the medical tents, searching for Red Flame Darkness.

Felicia informed me that out of the 60 Guardians who went out, 10 were gravely wounded, and over 20 had suffered a shield break and were lightly injured. Shining was among them.

I was once again reminded that this was the Darklands. Even today, if I had recklessly fought that Gloam, I might not have escaped unscathed. It was only because of my clones that we managed to pull through.

"Lily, how are you?" Shining greeted me. Her arm was bandaged, but she smiled. "I'm glad you're okay. Don't worry, this is nothing. Thanks to the recovery gum and the healing spray, I'm already healed. Look, I'll take off the bandage now."

Shining unwrapped the bandage, revealing that, just as she said, her wound had completely healed. However, her dog suddenly growled.

"Shining Arrow, you consumed recovery gum and suffered a shield break. Even though your body has healed, you need time to rest. Guardians are not recommended to venture into the Darklands if their healing gauge is not empty."

"Felicia?" I turned to ask my cat.

"Healing spells and recovery items such as first-aid gum are magical. However, even magic has its limits. It drains vitality. That's why we can't heal the same person over and over in a short period of time. We call this phenomenon the 'healing gauge' to make it easier for humans to understand. Essentially, whenever a Guardian is healed through magical means, this healing gauge starts to fill. If it reaches full capacity, we can no longer heal them. The gauge empties over time, which is why we recommend Guardians who received significant injuries and had to be healed through magic or zenith technology to rest."

"So that's also why they needed blood donors, right?"

"Yes. Blood donors could bypass this healing gauge, extending their life. Some Guardians have already reached their healing limit today. They may be out of commission for two or three days. On the bright side, we managed to harvest 20 vials today. Today's quota is fulfilled."

That didn't make me happy in the slightest. As we cared for the wounded, my mind raced, questioning whether this method was truly the right choice.