"REN!!!"
Alternating my gazes from the fainted to Renard. I was shocked. What did he do? Suddenly as I was confused I noticed one of an injection near the fainted soldier.
"Did you use one of those injection?"
Looking at me he showed a toothy grin and said, "Oi, all this time you had such a serious expression, yet now look at you."
It took me around a minute to figure out what exactly is going on. Just as I touched my cheeks a realization dawned upon me. I was crying. Noticing Renard toothy grin I felt very frustrated.
"What did you did to that soldier."
"OOH, now you are changing the topic huh, well whatever, did you forgot who I am."
Seeing my questionable gazes the old man sighed and said-
"Brat, I am an alchemist. Creating potions and poisons is my work, I inspected those injection from your cloth bag. One of those injection from that cloth bag was a tranquilizer shot."
What really, this guy is one heck of a deal. But what's with the sudden tone shift. He was calling me lad till now, but now suddenly he is calling me a brat.
"WOOW, what's with that smug look. And whom are you even calling a brat you geezer."
"OOH, now even you are showing your true nature huh brat. And here I thought you were different from the others."
We both were so engrossed in fighting with each other that we didn't even realize that the sun was rising.
...........................
"So this injection with purple liquid is the tranquilizer while this with transparent liquid is a truth serum."
"Yep my guess is that the soldiers were given this in order to incapacitate any prisoner that can't be controlled and to extract any vital information from them."
"I see."
But before those poor soldiers could even use the monster came out of nowhere and suddenly everything went awry.
"By the way old man I have a question."
"What is it, punk?"
"Ooh, aren't you getting good with you words, huh geezer first lad then brat and now this, punk. Impressive."
"Yeah, yeah whatever ask the damn question now."
"Why did you save me?"
"And here I was thinking you would ask something very important."
"I am serious old man."
"Look young lad, that soldier had gone insane. And I don't plan to go on the rest of my journey with a mentally disturbed man. Understood. I felt that staying around you was more preferable than that mentally retarded soldier."
"I see."
For some reason I felt a complex mixture of emotions. As I was busy in my own world, I noticed that the prisoners and the last remaining soldier woke up.
Both of us looked at each other and nodded and before all of them could come out of the cave, we both threw the fainted soldier body off the cliff. And got rid of anything that could be counted as an evidence.
I you ask me why doing this, I think this is much better as compared to the other option of letting the others see that fainted body of the soldier, getting rid of him is more better.
Besides he had gone insane and just like the old man said sticking around with some mentally retarded person is much worse than being alone. Because you yourself don't know what will happen.
As everyone woke up they obviously noticed the missing soldier. And both of us decided to keep quiet as that was the best option that we had. Naturally everyone has mixed reaction.
"Maybe he ran away."
"Maybe he went insane and jumped off the cliff."
Suddenly the soldier looked at me and the old man and asked-
"What about you both. When we all woke up you guys were here outside the cave. Guess that mean you both woke up earlier than us. Did you saw him?"
'Huuuuuuuuuuuuh great'
Just as I thought that I was safe from any danger, reality had to shatter all my hopes.