The woman runs. Through what seems like woods to her eyes she's running as fast as she can.
What is she running from? Why is she running from it? Where is she running to? She herself doesn't know.
All that she wants to do right now is escape, escape from the horrible reality she had created.
Her breath feels heavy, her hair feels lengthy, her height feels like a hindrance, her sword feels burdensome, and to top it all her cloth felt suffocating.
She remembered. The note that was left for her. Live it said, Live.
But what gave her the right? What gave her the right to take another person's will to live? Mere moments ago they were talking about their ambitions, and now they've been reduced to a thing of the past. While some might mourn her, many are going to mourn him.
What is living? What is living to the woman who had been killing for a living?
The woman from the note wished for her to live, but can this really be called living?
her eyes were bloodshot, her body was trembling, and she was moments away from throwing up.
She immediately stopped and held her mouth shut with both her regular hand and the hand carrying the burdensome gauntlet.
She forcefully swallowed what had reached her mouth, and Her legs gave up as she fell to the ground.
She was gasping at air.
Her hands were a dark dreadful red, cloths were stained with the liquid of the living.
Is this really what the woman had wanted? Was this what she had meant when she said to live with no regret? Lena had already failed the woman once, so another time would be unforgivable.
As she rammed her empty arm into her head multiple times she thought, who else? Who else would've done what she had done?
Trestina? Never
Toto? Never.
Kouko? Even she hadn't gone that far.
O-Octan...? no... Not even Octan would've been selfish, not the Octan in Lena's vision at least.
She laid her body on the muddy ground and screamed as loud as she could as she cursed herself.
Her eyes open. How long has it been? The sun has already climbed quite the height.
She raises her right arm still clad in the gauntlet to cover her eyes from the harming sunlight.
She looks around as she raises her torso, As she had already been used to the place is unfamiliar.
She got up and brushed what she could of the mud off of her cloth and then went on her way. her end goal is non-existent, but her current goal is to find him.
A couple of minutes later Lena finally reaches the outskirts of the kingdom's capital. She had followed the multiple smoke cloud emerging from the multiple chimneys.
She hadn't want to go back to such a place, It was merely her way of knowing the next direction of her "adventure".
She looked at the capital for one last time as she turned to head towards the place she had spent her happiest year.
Moving she did question the well being of her acquaintances, but realized not approaching them would make them be even better.
Abandoning all she had gained in the last 3 years, she went forward keeping only her body which was slowly growing weaker.
A couple of months later. What took her a week or two on a delivery cart before now took her a good 2 months of walking. She had taken many rest stops on the way, many of turning badly as her bounty was quite infamous.
They had a terrible illustration of her, but with the description she was unmistakable.
(A tall, well built woman, with brown hair and hazel eyes, often seen wearing a huge gauntlet on her right, with a patch covering her right eye. Needed Dead Or Alive. 10,000,000$)
The amount it self was quite surreal, but nothing less to be expected from a royal family as the prince himself had issued that bounty.
Going anywhere now has become quite the hassle for Lena. Gladly her 3 years of adventuring didn't betray her, but her body sure did. While she knew what she was doing, her body wasn't giving.
It's as if her body was constantly getting more and more tired without regaining any of it's stamina.
And while she was hunter on her way she had also been gathering whatever information she could about a certain inconspicuous man who doesn't stand out which didn't make her hunt very easy.
While asking about such details was only a secondary way of gaining information, her main way was following random monster slayings. From time to time the corpse of either a dragon, leviathan, griffin, or even a high ranking monster in the demon lord's army randomly somewhere. Adventurers have tried to claim the glory for themselves, but they were all easily seen through. While to others it seemed like there was absolutely no pattern to it, Lena had found one, it's randomity.
This was exactly what was happening almost 10 years ago as she was traveling with Octan.
So All she had to do was somehow predict his next move.
As she reached what used to be jawf village, she was met with what now has become nothing, but a green plain. The ruins had been cleaned up.
The man, not to her surprise, was nowhere to be seen.
Seeing that Lena turned around to once again continue moving.