Just Let Me Be The Grand Duchess! (SECOND SEASON)

Episode 50 - Loyalty and Grief

Blood.

A lot of it 

Boudicca had never experienced this type of thing before. She felt queasy and twisted, beckoning her to hurl up the nothingness she ate that afternoon, perhaps to relieve herself of her own stomach.

Her eyes darted from person to person as beads of sweat trickled down each side of her head.

Her Father chanted from inside the cart providing a barrier of light that protected it from most attacks. 

“To yar left!” Cavael grit his teeth, stepped in between one of the creatures and their team’s archer, his arm numb from all the defense he’s done to this point. He extended his arm and swung it hard, using the shield he had like a baseball bat battering ram. The beast on the other side of such an attack was sent flying.

“Thanks,” Teresa took a second to breathe before pulling on her quiver. Only a single arrow left, “crap.” She muttered silently to herself.

“Gotta make it count then,” Cavael teased and the girl sighed with a small chuckle.

“These don't seem to be normal beastmen!” Alejandra yelled as she ducked under a strike. “They're—mindless, mutated, or something?” She kicked one down and got a good look at it. The humanoid features of a beastman still existed in its faces but it got warped into a more corrupted beastly form. It roared at her and pounced but she dodged barely in time.

“They're also larger—ack!” Millo took damage but it was healed rather quickly by the elven girl between all of them, “thanks a lot, Miss Bou.”

“N-No worries!”

Bou seemed excited to be contributing as the beasts ran towards her again. Teresa stepped in just in time, she took the arrow of her quiver and instead of shooting on her bow, she crouched down, did a sweeping kick to send the beast to the ground then stabbed its eyes manually with the arrow.

“Phew–” Teresa wiped the blood that spurted from the dead beast. “You good?”

Bou’s flushed pink as she stared at Teresa, pushing her hair up to a knot and wiping her cheeks with her thumb to clean it off of dust and grime. “U-uh—y-yes?” She stammered for whatever reason. Are you sure this girl was younger than her? Humans are so strange.

Teresa nodded calmly and called out to the rest. “I could really use some more arrows!”

“Alejandra!” Millo noticed the maid’s predicament and gestured towards Alejandra, who was busy guarding their rear, “you okay there?” He called as he deflected a clawed strike using his shears.

“Managing,” Alejandra replied. Her footwork was light and nimble, she dodged two consecutive attacks from two of the deranged beastmen and slashed with a speed fast enough to debilitate one of them, “need something?”

“Can you retrieve some arrows for Teresa?” Millo parried another strike and kicked the best to Cavael who struck it down, finishing it with his hammer, splattering its brain mush everywhere.

“On it,” Alejandra hastened her feet, “Bou, keep me healed please.”

The elf girl nodded nervously, “O-on it!” Bou was trying her best to keep up with the rest of them, knowing only one spell and practically spamming it with such inefficiency is draining her of her mana.

Teresa examined the corpse of the foe she had just killed. “These beastmen—they don't just have blood—” she dug her fingers deep inside one of its wounds and pulled out a mass of black soot, “what are these?”

Cavael glanced at what she was talking about and was confused as well. “Beastmen spill normal blood, whatever that is—it may be the reason they're like this.” Cavael concluded, using his hammer as he swung hard at another approaching mindless beast.