Mr. Death in the Steam World

The temperature at the fire site was much higher than Phils had imagined.

The heat wave hit like a wall, and the thick smoke made it impossible to open one's eyes.

Phils raised her hand to create a barrier in front of her, filtering out the thickest smoke and dust, her eyes searching through the firelight for anyone else trapped.

"Over here! There are people over here!"

A man's voice came from the left.

Phils rushed over and saw a middle-aged woman slumped at the entrance of a collapsing shack, her legs pinned under a burning wooden beam, unable to move.

Phils crouched down, gripped the wooden beam with both hands, gritted her teeth, and lifted it upwards with all her might.

The flames on the wooden beams licked at her arms, the burning pain excruciating.

She didn't, and refused to, give up.

The wooden beam was lifted a crack, and the middle-aged woman struggled to pull her leg out. Phils let go and helped her run outside.

I had only run a few steps when a loud crash came from behind me—the shack had completely collapsed.

The woman, tears streaming down her face, knelt down to thank Phils.

Phils smiled shyly, and without stopping, continued running deeper into the fire.

"Thank God, what a kind girl..."

The woman sat slumped on the ground, watching Phils's retreating figure, muttering to herself.

......

As Sai grabbed Moen's trouser leg, crying and shouting "Grandma's still inside," Moen had already rushed into the thick smoke.

"Death Eye" pinpointed the old man's location precisely through the smoke, rushed over, and hoisted the old man onto his shoulder.

The wooden frame overhead creaked under the strain, and flames leaped out from the cracks, licking his back.

Although "Vibrant Fragrance"'s restorative power prevented him from getting burned, the burning sensation still made his whole body tense.

The moment he rushed out of the shack, the roof behind him collapsed with a deafening roar.

"It's out! It's out!" Sai cried as she rushed over, hugged her grandmother's waist, and buried her face in the old woman's arms.

Without stopping, Moen turned around and rushed back into the fire.

Emily followed behind him, her magical perception fully activated, searching every corner where someone might still be hiding.

"There's someone in that room to the left!"

Moen turned around and kicked open the wooden door, which was already burning and on the verge of collapse.

......

Arthur was organizing the evacuation outside; his priest's robes were stained grayish-black with cigarette ash.

He directed the escaped people to run towards the open space to the east, and occasionally, if someone was injured, he would step forward and cast a simple healing spell.

"Is anyone still inside?" he shouted to Emily, who had just rushed out of the fire.

"There are still a few houses on the west side that we haven't found!" Emily coughed twice, her voice already hoarse from shouting.

She has always acted as a hub for intelligence transmission, and now...

"Where are Moen and Phils!?"

"I don't know! They haven't come out yet!"

Arthur made the sign of the cross in his mind, intending to rush into the fire to find his teammates, but with a constant stream of refugees right in front of him, he couldn't leave.

He took a deep breath and decided to trust their abilities.

......

Phils continued searching through the fire; her magic was almost exhausted.

Since entering the fire, she has been using a magical barrier to resist the heat wave and using spells to clear collapsed obstacles.

Each spell was drawing magic from her magical circuits, and the excruciating pain within those circuits was a warning to her.

Not enough, still not enough.

She gritted her teeth and continued walking inside.

"Help--!"

A scream came from ahead.

Phils rushed over and saw a child huddled in a corner of a shack that had been burned down to its frame.

Half of the roof beams have burned through and could collapse at any moment.

The child was too young, only four or five years old, and was coughing constantly from the thick smoke, unable to run at all.

Phils rushed in and scooped the child into her arms.

Just as she turned to run away, a loud crash came from above—the beam had broken.

She instinctively crouched down, held the child in her arms, and closed her eyes.

A wave of scorching heat hit her face. She heard the sound of flames devouring wood, the sound of the wooden frame collapsing, and the sound of her own heartbeat.

"Perhaps, dying like this wouldn't be so bad."

She quietly awaited her death.

"...?"

When she opened her eyes, she found herself enveloped in a golden-red light.

The light emanated from the flame flower mark on the back of her hand, covering her and her child like a thin veil.

When the flames encountered this layer of light, it was as if they had encountered some insurmountable barrier, and they automatically parted to both sides.

The light was gentle and soft, exuding a tenderness, like the warmth of a mother's embrace.

She looked down at the mark on the back of her hand.

The flame flower was blooming, its petals unfolding layer by layer, each petal shimmering with golden-red light.

The candidate's mark responded to her will—the will to protect.

Just then, Moen, on the other side of the fire, suddenly stopped.

He felt the "Guardian Flame" magic within his body activating on its own.

A warm energy surged from the depths of the magic circuit, forming a faint golden-red halo around him.

Intuition led her to look in Phils's direction, where they were connected by a golden-red chain of light.

The chain of light was like an invisible umbilical cord, connecting the magical pathways of the two into a loop.

He felt the magic within him flowing to Phils through the light chains, while Phils's pain and exhaustion flowed to him through the light chains.

The effect of "Guardian Flame" is to share the harm and pain of others.

But it has never resonated spontaneously with another person's will to protect as it does now.

"This is..." Moen looked at the golden-red chain of light and understood.

This is a mutual resonance of shared protective hearts.

Phils also saw the chain of light connecting the two of them.

She could feel Moen's magic flowing into her magic circuits, replenishing her nearly depleted magic reserves.

Half of her own exhaustion and pain was diverted to Moen.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but something seemed to be stuck in her throat, so she could only continue carrying the child and walking out.

Moen didn't say much, but turned around and continued searching for the next trapped person.

There was more than one chain of light in the fire.

Each person who was rescued had a faint golden-red glow remaining on them.

Even after Fils's protective flame left her body, it continued to work—warming the wounded and sharing their pain.

Arthur stood outside the fire, watching the streaks of golden-red light shimmer in the night.

"This is..." he murmured.

Emily stood beside him, a smile on her soot-covered face.

"That's what she wanted to do."