A week prior to King of Peasants and Allen's group leaving Merlin City to hunt for the Merlin Crapper. Allen was riding in the back of a wagon with Wick. Wick had decided to not take Allen directly to Merlin City as the Queen no longer wanted to have an audience with Allen before the Dragon Hunt was completed. Wick decided that Allen's energy was so intriguing that he simply had to observe him.
So he did. He performed a teleportation spell to teleport the wagon and Allen to an unknown location within the forest that surrounded the City of Merlin. He intentionally calculated the teleport to be slightly above the trees, leading to the wagon crashing into the trees and breaking apart. As the smell of rain and wildlife consumed the air around the crash site, Allen laid on his back on top of the uncomfortable chair he sat in. The pieces were all over the place, which somehow made it comfortable.
"Oops! My energy was off for a bit, apologies I messed up the calculations of the spell." Wick said as he teleported himself to a branch on the tree the wagon crashed through. Allen cracked his neck and stretched his arms behind himself, as he used his legs, hands, and core to get up. While he was in the motion of propelling himself onto his feet, he ignited his hands and burned off the restraints on him. "You move fabulously. Once again, I apologize for my casting," Wick said, "My mother always taught me to be focused and observ-"
"I don't care."
"Oh. Why is that."
"I felt like not caring. Where are we?"
"I'm not sure," Wick said lowering his witch's hat to cover his eyes from Allen who was looking up at him. "I'll go look around, the rain is going to pick up sooner or later. Go find shelter, prioritize houses or some kind of cave."
"Why would I?"
"Huh. It's raining."
"Never stopped me before. My master taught me to be focused and absorbed into my work. No outside distractions should stop the work of a slave," Allen took a moment of silence, lowering his head as he reflected on the teachings of his master. "Wick. Before you go, can you tell me ways to distract myself or engage in distractions. Before I go hunt the last dragon, I want to get distracted."
*BLIP*
Wick teleported right in front of Allen, his eyes that sang a requiem cried out to him, or was it the rain running down Allen's face as he stared at another set of special eyes that waited in anticipation. "There are plenty of ways to be distracted; drugs, religion, sex, pleasure, singing, relationships, spending money, playing games, celebrations," Wick paused, then continued, "Us witches aren't allowed to participate in distractions. The work of a witch isn't over until we die."
"So which distraction is the easiest to do."
Wick smiled, "Now that is a hard question. Every distraction we engage ourselves in has been overcomplicated to the point where they've evolved into regular activities. There are no such thing as coincidences, you might become addicted to your distractions Allen. You shouldn't engage in them for too long."
"I will do whatever I want to do. Please tell me the easiest distraction."
Silence rose between them as the pitter patter of the rain began speeding up.
Now at Present time, 12 days remain until the Dragon Hunt begins. Night steadily approaches the group, King of Peasants, Brick, Richard, and Lily all walk back towards the group's camel dogs. In the front lead Richard, who pranced forward with a wide but grateful grin. Behind him was King who was humming and walking with swagger. Behind him was Lily, who seemed to have a neutral face, she walked with an increased pace than she normally would have. As right behind her was Brick, who carried both of the zebears on his back, with his backpack on the front of his body.
When they were about a few minutes away from the camel dogs, Lily turned around. "Do you need help," Lily said with concern beaming from the pitch of her voice. "No need princess!" Brick yelled back, he grunted shortly after as a drop of sweat escaped his body from the stress of the beasts on him. Lily turned back then raced over to King's side.
"Why aren't you helping him."
"He art not need it," King replied turning around and smiling, "If you want him to get help so badly, grab a zebear."
"You know I can't carry that! We should have only gotten one anyway."
"Huh? Rookie mistakes, rookie mistakes," King said wagging his finger at Lily as his fur jacket wagged in the air, "Hunters with a code for what they turn in will never be a good hunter."
"It was dying! We should have buried it at least," Lily said with her voice peaking.
"Lily... We're hunters."
"That wasn't our hunt."
"Yet we hunted the hunter. Their prey automatically becomes ours."
Lily's face flushed with red, 'By the Gods, I'm sounding like Allen.' She clutched her fist, as her ears started heating up, she began shaking uncontrollably. She raised her fist, pointing with a single finger at King, while King turned around to look at Richard. He laughed as Lily began yelling, "You-"
"OOOOOHHH! Why would you... forsake me! I came from here, and I'm lost my dear!" Brick suddenly began singing, interrupting everyone's stride, they all looked back mortified at the low octaves that erupted from the grunting giant. The following sound from Brick was indescribable in the human sense, but could be similar to a sound made by the very zebears he carried on his back. A soft, but loud growl as though he was exhaling out of frustration and stress; topped with a floating sense of beauty from a skilled vocalist.
"Alright, Brick! I love that song," the King of Peasants began singing, "My dear,"
"My dear," Brick adlibbed.
"Won't you," King continued as he slowly rolled his shoulders. "Help me find a map that leads to your heart. Oh baby, whisper down the lane, the location of your" King began walking forward again, as Brick began to pick up the pace. Richard danced along to the uncoordinated and off beat singing of King and Brick, as all three of them walked forward singing in unison. Richard, with a spring in his step, led the group as he joined in, "Oh baby, the location of my good deeds. Please forgive me, all my misdeeds. I'm just simply."
As they all walked and sang, Lily stood frozen, watching every one of them pass her by. When they all passed her, and were so far ahead of her that she could only see a few bits of white fur from the zebears that Brick carried. She thought to herself, 'What is wrong with these people.' With those thoughts came the smell of burning skin, that seemed to push Lily forward, "Wait up guys!"
She infused mana into her legs to run up and catch up to them. She had enough rest while Brick was busy getting the zebear out of the ice. Yet she felt overwhelmingly tired when she started running, she was surrounded by trees and running down the only direct path to the camel dogs. There were no obstructions on her way, even if there were, King or Brick had cleared them. Perhaps it was the familiarity of trees that were akin to the trees on the Truman Farm. Perhaps it was the occasional burnt body part she would see as she frantically scoured the area around her whenever she stopped to take a breather for a few seconds.
'Why do you keep showing up,' she thought every time she stopped, which was frequently. 'Stop! Stop! Stop! You're dead! Don't come back!' She stopped a total of 26 times, by the 19th time she began to stray from the path in a burst of fear. By the 26th time she was completely lost. "Where am I?" She surveyed her area, noticing smoke in the distance and unfamiliar trees. She still had mana infused in her legs when she decided to go towards the smoke the closer she got to the source of the smoke, the fainter the putrid smell of burning flesh became to her.
As she maneuvered around the trees that separated her from the source of the smoke, she felt as though a weight was lifted from her shoulders. Like pieces of her mind that weighed her down was being lifted away by God. She burst passed the trees to see the source of the smoke to be a house in the middle of the forest. She took away the mana from her legs as memories of the Truman Farm disappeared from her mind. "Hello? Is anyone here," she yelled out toward the small cottage house that seemed to have plants overgrown on it.
There were no replies, but she stared at the house awaiting a reaction. After a minute of waiting, she looked around the little cottage and saw a small farm outside of it, the crops ruined and destroyed. She walked closer toward the cottage, "I see your crops are in poor shape, do you need any help? Money wise, material wise..."
She heard a creak come from the front door of the cottage house. "Who goes there," a raspy female voice yells out to Lily. The female voice had opened the door slightly. Only leaving a crack for her to talk and listen through.
"I mean you no harm, I'm Princess Lily Merlin of the Merlin Kingdom," she raised her hands up as she walked past the front gate of the cottage. She stood only a few feet away from the door, but could not see the female voice at all.
"King send you here to collect taxes?"
"No, I'm here on my duties as a hunter."
"A hunter? What kind of hunter?"
"A hunter that hunts things," she raised her brow as she dropped her hands.
The woman rolled her eyes and opened the door slightly more, to shout back, "Which things bitch!"
"Bitch?"
"Sorry, I, my goodness. I don't know what came over me. I'm a little stressed out as you can see. I've been requesting the Trumans for the past week. There's been insects eating away at my farmland and crops. I just don't know what else to do anymore."
Lily froze again, as her memories flooded back in, the raspy female voice continued talking, though her words did not reach the ears of Lily. "This is my parent's house, and I've been taking care of it since they passed away so many years ago. Those crops were my only real source of food, and now I'm even running out of what I stored up. I know what you might be thinking, but I'm not good at magic, never could be. I don't want to spend so much time in those cities either, it's all so toxic. Do you understand Princess?"
"Um, uh, the head- you know. Him the guy that runs," she cleared her throat and smacked her lips, "The master, u-u-uh, HAIRy. Um, I'm sorry. H-Harry Truman is dead. B-b-but whatever help you need. I will try my best to help you."
"Really? Were you a part of that group of hunters that came by earlier. I also saw two of you playing some type of game. A pretty messed up game!"
Lily tilted her head, "What are you talking about?"