"Bang!"
"Clang!"
After the gunshot, the horse-cutting saber slipped from lifeless fingers, crashing heavily to the ground as the dark wizard's body collapsed in a boneless heap.
Before him, Glenn ceased his defensive stance and discarded the captured sword.
His face was grimy—sweat mixing with weapon-kicked dust into muddy streaks. His robes bore crimson spatters from others' blood, creating mottled patterns across the fabric. His hands trembled slightly now, tiger's mouth split open, palms already stained scarlet. Sleeves hung torn and damaged from blade strikes, exposing pale arms beneath—yet strangely, where cuts should have marked his flesh, the skin remained completely unharmed.
Surveying their surroundings, over twenty shattered corpses of dark wizards lay scattered around Glenn and Hermione. Various bodily fluids leaked from within, mixing into indistinguishable pools of filth.
This encounter—Glenn and Hermione had emerged victorious.
Distant enemies fell to Hermione's marksmanship; when foes closed range, Glenn and Hermione switched positions fluidly. Glenn would repel or eliminate nearby threats while Hermione handled distant opponents behind Glenn's position.
Glenn managed close quarters, Hermione controlled long range—their established cooperation pattern. Just as now, the young girl bore only dust, without a single injury marking her body.
"Damn... forgot to leave someone alive for interrogation..."
Thinking this, Glenn watched Hermione engage the USP's safety, return it to her robes, step over several corpses, and run toward him.
Hermione seized his hand, bringing it close for silent examination.
"This is impact damage from weapon collisions during combat. Nothing serious. Other than this, no other areas sustained injury."
"Grandmother's magical artifact functions passively even under the anti-magic array's suppression. I planned to trade injury for injury earlier, but when the opponent's blade sliced across my arm, it only severed my sleeve—my hand remained completely unharmed. So don't worry."
"We need to break the anti-magic array immediately. You require treatment."
Hermione pulled Glenn toward the anti-magic array maintenance device they'd observed earlier without argument, but Glenn didn't move, instead drawing Hermione back.
The young girl lowered her head, saying nothing. Glenn retrieved an uncontaminated handkerchief from his robe pocket, lifted Hermione's face gently, then began wiping her lips and the areas below—chin and slender neck.
There, a long streak of blood had formed.
The blood's source: Hermione's lip, which she had bitten completely through.
Killing—even killing those who deserved death—required tremendous willpower and courage. Especially the first time taking lives of one's own species, causing such massive casualties simultaneously. The torment churning within Hermione's heart defied imagination.
Yet she had done it anyway. She hadn't allowed the discomfort and revulsion in her heart to distort her shooting technique. Hermione had suppressed every emotion, abandoned her natural kindness, temporarily transforming herself into a cold-blooded killing machine.
Would her conscience condemn her for this?
Would her spirit suffer because of these actions?
The answer was painfully obvious, but those struggles could only be resolved by Hermione herself. Glenn recognized his words couldn't dissolve the knot forming in the young girl's heart.
All he could provide was a safe space for Hermione to release her suppressed emotions.
"You can cry now."
Glenn gently drew Hermione into his embrace, speaking with infinite softness.
Within his arms, Hermione's expression remained hidden, but trembling from her petite frame grew increasingly pronounced. Soft sobbing began flowing through the silence, then erupted into full release.
In this vicious, blood-soaked place, within the embrace of Glenn whose hands dripped with gore, Hermione—whose hands bore "blood" for the first time—wept inconsolably.
........................
Hermione possessed strength, yet before Glenn she remained simply an ordinary girl. Tears soaked Glenn's chest as the young girl's crying continued for two or three minutes before finally subsiding.
Lifting her head, Hermione had become a little tabby cat—tears mixing with grime from Glenn's robes. Glenn silently took up his handkerchief, wiping away dirt from Hermione's face.
"Feeling better?"
Glenn carefully cleaned Hermione's face, restoring her grimy features to their original appearance.
"...How could it be that fast? I still feel somewhat choked up inside."
Hermione's voice emerged hoarse as she spoke helplessly in small tones. Then her gaze inadvertently shifted toward the corpses scattered around them.
"Ugh... blegh!"
Her complexion turned slightly green as suppressed nausea surged upward. Hermione pushed Glenn away, turned her head, braced against her knees, and began retching violently—rainbow cascading to the ground.
Only after vomiting until her stomach lay completely empty, producing nothing more, did Hermione wearily straighten up.
She felt truly dizzy and disoriented.
"How about now? Any better?"
Glenn extended another clean handkerchief while asking again.
"Of course it can't be that fast! Seeing so many people dead, so many broken corpses—quite a few killed by my own hand—how could my emotions settle so quickly!"
Hermione shot Glenn an exasperated look, irritably snatching the handkerchief to wipe her mouth, folding it neatly before pocketing it while shouting her response.
"That's good then."
Hearing Hermione's reply, Glenn nodded with evident satisfaction, appearing quite pleased.
"You're not like me."
"...You impossible man."
Hermione slowly raised her hand, delivering a light, dissatisfied punch to Glenn's shoulder.
"What are you saying, really..."
Surveying their surroundings, Hermione frowned slightly. After vomiting once, the nausea had diminished—after all, even wanting to vomit, nothing remained. The young girl now began considering their next steps.
"How should we handle these corpses? Even though they all wanted to kill us, just leaving them here like this doesn't seem appropriate."
"Burn them with Fiendfyre then. That's efficient."
Glenn shrugged, offering this solution.
"Makes sense."
However, casting magic required first disabling the anti-magic array, so the pair continued toward the device maintaining the magical suppression field.
Approaching the apparatus emitting faint red luminescence, Glenn crouched down and began hands-on examination. This device capable of replicating his mastered technique "Magic Eye" across such vast range genuinely intrigued Glenn.
If utilized properly, it might prove an extraordinarily effective tool when confronting Voldemort's forces in the future.
However, when Glenn began carefully studying the anti-magic array maintenance device, he discovered something wasn't quite right.
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