Found (Part Two)

I'm running. Sprinting through the forest.

My chest is pounding, my lungs and legs burn ragged as I sprint through this underbrush.

The only thing keeping me going is the healing magic cycling through my body, keeping the physical pain of my muscles to a minimum. However, healing magic can't make up for my lung capacity, or my weak muscles, or my slow, stumpy body.

But I can't stop moving.

I can't stop running.

I can hear the wolves barking and the sounds of a struggle.

I can make it.

I can do it.

As I continue to sprint, I reach an edge, a rough face on the side of this mountain, with natural paths down the sides.

Pressed up against this earthen face, appears to be two people. A young man and a young woman. A man is holding a sword, glistening with blood, whilst his right-hand lay limp. The young woman seems to be passed out and injured behind him.

Not good.

I'm too small and too tired to make it down there the normal way. But there's no way I'd be able to jump down this forty-foot drop.

During my brief deliberations, my legs give out. Leaning over the edge, my legs give out, and the ground begins to get closer, rapidly.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK" I scream, placing my plans forward and dumping as much mana as humanly possible into them. I want a cushion. A cushion of air to land on.

Thankfully, for once, it worked. A huge bubble of air appeared and simultaneously disappeared as I slammed forcefully into it. The wind barrier broke most of my fall, and thankfully my ribs broke the rest instead of my face.

With no time to think and the pack still around, I stick my palms out toward the wolves.

"Oh, great wind. Blowback." I say, coughing out blood. Whatever, I don't remember. Thankfully, it seems like all I need to do is say the spell name and it'll activate, as long as I know the effects of course.

Shooting out of my palms comes two orbs of air, smashing through around four wolves on either side of me, yet with people behind me and a pack of over forty in front of me, I need something more than air.

Right, that one water spell. I was trying to decipher that one as well, but I couldn't find out what line three was trying to say. It's supposed to basically cover everything in a layer of ice, and then when you cast it a second time, it shatters them. Super mana heavy probably.

It was the tier above Dominus I think. Dutch? Dunce? Duece?

Whatever.

Here goes nothing.

What was the name again?

"Ice Age." That's the one.

Suddenly, I can feel an insane amount of my mana being drained. Easily over a fourth of my total pool. But, in that same moment, everything around me, in a radius of about thirty feet, is covered with a thick layer of ice. One more time.

"Ice Age." I cast again, as, in a gruesome scene, the now frozen wolves shatter into pieces.

I did it.

The pack is dead.

I lived, I survived.

In my joy, I try to circulate healing mana in my body, only to realize I'm shivering cold. Not good, I only have about ten percent mana left.

Pressing my hand against my chest, I recite Restore under my breath and feel my ribs beginning to heal.

That's when I remember them.

The reason I jumped and ran here for so long. The reason I was fighting this wolf pack.

The injured man and woman, who I was trying to save.

The battle, the fear, and the pain made me forget about them.

Turning around, there are only frozen chunks left.

I wasn't too late.

I didn't indirectly kill them by being too slow.

Frozen on the frozen man's face isn't the brave one I saw before, but one of sheer terror.

I didn't help these people.

I killed them.

I killed these people, with my magic, which I used out of panic. I didn't save them, I didn't heal them, there was even a chance that they could have gotten out of this.

As the ice and snow from Ice Age melted, the forest fell to an eerie silence around me. No more wolves were coming, but the two people who I killed are still dead.

I killed people. Two people. Innocent people.

I could feel the heat in my throat, as I collapsed into a ball, and cried.

I haven't cried this hard except for one time in this world, and that was when I thought about my last one.

But that was something in the past.

Something I couldn't have done differently.

I could have if I was there, but I'm in a new body in a new world. I could be different in this world. I could live better, be happier, try harder.

But no. I haven't changed. I haven't gotten any better, I'm still a useless asshole who does nothing but hurt people.

Even in my last life I never killed anyone.

Now there's innocent tangible blood on my hands.

Screaming, crying, as I nearly passed out.

I heard them.

Footsteps.

Deep, heavy, footsteps.

A group, made up of about six members, running towards me, with nothing but looks of sympathy and worry.

I'd been found. I'm finally safe.

But after looking in the surroundings, they have to know right?

They have to have realized what I've done.

Regardless, the leader runs up to me and gives me a deep hug.

"It's okay little one, you're safe now." The strong, calm voice says.

Finally looking up, I meet the eyes of a strong, strange-looking man.

His skin a tinge of red, and his ears long and pointed, showing decadent jewelry.

"He's just a toddler, no older than my daughter. Whoever saved these people must have thought he was dead. Powerful mages tend to be a little crazy." It's almost funny, the man talking to the person holding me sounds like an NPC.

Do they really not realize?

Am I really safe?