Kelly had to blink a few times as she watched Sophie casually sitting there in the center of the room, licking her paw. It was at times that she found it hard to believe the cat was human, but then again, what kind of cat could produce such a strong magical spell?
'I don't know those spells, and I'm not sure Harvey knows them either, and he has a lot of knowledge on Dark magic,' Kelly thought. 'Could it be that Sophie's knowledge of Dark Magic is even greater than Harvey's?'
'It's too bad that even with her Wind magic, she can only pick up a pen for a limited amount of time. Otherwise, there are so many questions I want to ask her.'
Harvey had a smile on his face as he stood up, still looking exhausted from the fight.
"It looks like the plan worked well, right?" Harvey said, reaching out his hand, and Sophie gave him a paw, slapping it as if to give a high five.
"Wait, you planned this? As in, you knew she was going to come?" Kelly asked. "I thought you said she was doing something important, so she couldn't be here."
"Yes, she was doing something important—she was sitting by and waiting for the perfect moment to attack," Harvey answered. "I was pretty sure that Bronk had a breakthrough, so we needed to push him into using it. After that, it was just buying time, then Sophie could deal the unexpected final attack. Even if Bronk saw a cat from the corner of his eye, he would never expect it to know magic."
Kelly had to admit that it was a good plan, and she would have never thought of using Sophie this way, but she was more upset about something else.
"Why didn't you tell me about the plan? Am I not part of the Dark Guild as well, or do you really see me as so useless?" Kelly asked.
Harvey walked over to Bronk, who was still lying in the destroyed kitchen. He reached out his hand, and Sophie didn't hesitate to jump up and go on his shoulder.
All of it was annoying Kelly quite a bit. She was the one who had found Sophie, she was also the one currently looking after her and feeding her, yet the two of them didn't need to say anything, and they knew each other's actions and even made secret plans behind her back.
"If he moves, then give him a small zap for me," Harvey said, to which Sophie replied with a meow.
"It's not that," Harvey said as he used his hand to open Bronk's eyelids and then started to check his pulse. "I wanted you to try your hardest, and I was worried you wouldn't pull through. If you knew that we were relying on Sophie here, then maybe you wouldn't have fought like your life was on the line or waited for the right moment."
"We both needed to push ourselves to the limit, and there was more risk in telling you the actual plan."
Harvey breathed a sigh of relief when he could feel a pulse, and then with his hand, he waved Kelly over, but she refused to move.
"Look, I know you're special, very special for the Dark Guild," Harvey stated. "Think about it, how many members, how many people have we been through, tried to recruit, and all of them are no longer here, yet you are here. You were here near the beginning, and you're still here now, which means you're definitely special if you've survived this long."
"If it wasn't for my job, I don't think I would have survived so long either, so there's that."
The compliment had stopped Kelly's pouting for now, and so she decided to come over.
"You don't have to worry so much. This lump won't be able to use magic, even if he wakes up, and with how he's been thrown around, his body's going to be extremely sore," Harvey explained. "Do you still have some mana left?"
"Yeah, a bit," Kelly answered, and it was then that she could see Bronk's eyes were starting to flutter open. They were closing and opening again, and his body was slowly moving.
"I saw you use some flames earlier. Sophie, use Dark Pulse right on his leg like a laser—cut it off—and then I need you to sear it with your flames so he doesn't bleed to death," Harvey ordered.
"What the… are you crazy?" Kelly said.
Before she could even argue her case, Sophie had already acted, as dark beams came out from her eyes like a laser and went right through the leg. This had woken Bronk right up as he screamed in pain.
As the leg was sliced off, blood was pouring out.
"You need to be quicker, otherwise he's going to bleed to death," Harvey said.
With no choice, squinting, Kelly started to use her Fire magic and began to sear the leg. She continued to burn it, and the man screamed in pain, passing out and waking up a few times on the spot again and again.
Finally, it looked like the bleeding had stopped.
"Oi!" Harvey said as he slapped Bronk right across the face. "Don't pass out, don't die on me, I need you—I need you awake so you can't pass out." Harvey continued to slap Bronk across the face a few times, and his eyes finally opened again.
Soon, he could see him looking at his leg.
"My leg… my leg, I can't move my leg."
"It's because you don't have a f*cking leg!" Harvey stated, and looked at Kelly, as if the guy was an idiot. "Did you lose brain cells when you got knocked back? Look, you need to start talking fast. With no leg, you can use your ice powers to still be a half-decent mage."
"But if you don't answer, it will be your next leg, then your arms, and then we're going to go for the third, shortest leg of the lot," Harvey said, pointing right at Bronk's groin area.