The very thought made me shudder, but at this point all I could do was clench my fists in frustration. Against a fighter, I had a chance, but against an adult augmenter? I didn’t have confidence in my chances of winning. It pained me to stay protected while everyone else risked their lives. I tried to think of ways to help, but none came to mind. I could only grit my teeth and endure.

Surveying the battle, I saw that the earth wall was holding strong, none of the arrows able to penetrate it. I watched Durden’s left hand, which was directed toward the earth wall as he maintained a constant flow of mana to keep it from collapsing. He formed a narrow slit in the middle of the wall, allowing us to see my father chasing after the fleeing archers as they scattered about.

“Take heed, Mother Earth, and answer my call. Pierce my enemies. Let none of them live. Rupture Spike.”

In moments, a dozen spikes burst forth from the ground beneath the bandit archers. A few managed to dodge, but many of the bandits were impaled, their screams lasting only moments before they died.

Casting the spell had visibly drained Durden; his jaw clenched as beads of sweat ran down his pale face. It was at this moment that I noticed my mother had taken out a wand. Her trembling fingers fumbled with it, but then she shook her head and stuffed it back into her robe. In place of the wand, she held onto me, even tighter than before.

No one from our side was injured other than Helen, who had managed to tie a strip of cloth around her calf to minimize the bleeding from her wound. Fortunately, the arrow hadn’t lodged too deeply, thanks to Helen’s mana reinforcement; the bleeding was quickly under control. But throughout all of this, my mother had a constant look of anxiety, her face pale with worry. I couldn’t help but notice that she kept reaching for the wand in her robe, only to draw her hand back at the last minute each time. Her eyes darted left and right, constantly looking out for anything that might harm us.

Her behavior confused me a bit, but I dismissed it, assuming that since she hadn’t been an adventurer for as long as my father had, she was simply not used to situations like this.

The battle was coming to its peak. The bandit group had not anticipated that every member of our group would be a capable mage. Because of that error in calculation, all the melee fighters were dead. The only ones left alive were the mages and a couple of scattered archers on the run.

Jasmine was still having trouble with the chain-wielding slaver, but the arrogance was wiped from his expression by this time, and his body was dripping blood from various nicks and cuts.

Adam was engaged with an augmenter who held a sword in each hand. Adam’s flexible maneuvers and the sudden attacks of his fighting style reminded me of a snake. He clearly had the potential to be one of the rare elemental augmenters with a water-attribute style.

Reinforcing the shaft of his spear for flexibility, Adam attacked with a storm of quick thrusts and fluid swipes. The battle seemed to be going in his favor; his opponent’s wounds were bleeding profusely, and he desperately tried to parry the onslaught of Adam’s blows.

A thundering crash shifted my attention away from their battle. My father was struggling to pick himself up from where his opponent had knocked him against the debris of what was left of the earth wall. Blood dribbled from the side of his mouth.

“Dad!” I shouted, and heard my mother cry in the same moment, “Honey!”

I rushed out of the protective curtain of wind to kneel in front of Father, my mother following immediately behind. The remaining bandits were struggling with the other Twin Horns members, so we were as safe as possible given the circumstances. I could see the panic written on her face as she nervously contemplated what to do. I didn’t know why she wasn’t healing him—maybe she was too startled to think of it. But just when I was about to suggest it, my father cut me off.

“Alice,” he said with a ragged cough, “listen to me. Don’t worry about me. If you use a healing spell right now, they’ll realize what you are and try that much harder to capture you. They’ll be willing to sacrifice a lot more if they know,” he stressed, his voice a low whisper.

After a brief, trembling hesitation, my mother took out her wand and began chanting. Perhaps her stammering words were from distress at seeing her husband injured, or perhaps his warning had frightened her, but she seemed almost afraid of using her magic.

Father turned to me, after realizing he could not persuade his wife.

“Art, listen carefully. After the healing spell activates, they’re going to do everything they can to capture your mother. Once I’m healed enough, I’m going to engage the leader and try to buy more time. I think I can beat him, but not if I have to worry about protecting the two of you. Take your mother back down the road and don’t stop. Adam will open up a path for you.”

“No, dad! I’m staying with you. I can fight! You saw me! I can help!” Any consideration for being mature eluded me. In this moment, I was acting exactly like the four-year-old I appeared to be, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to leave behind the family I had grown to love and the friends I had bonded with.

“Listen to me, Arthur Leywin!” Father roared in agony. This was the first time I had heard him use this voice—the kind of voice one would use only for desperate measures. “I know you can fight! That’s why I’m entrusting your mother to you. Protect her, and protect the baby inside her. I’ll catch up to you after this is over.”

His words shook my mind like thunder.

Protect her, and protect the baby inside her…

Suddenly, everything clicked: why she was acting so fearful; why she was clutching me and making sure nothing even got close to us; why Durden and Angela were both guarding us with defensive spells, instead of just one of them.

My mother was pregnant.