Destruction fills the deep kaira of the mountain, where the caligo night sky is already covered with a blanket of stars.
All the people who were supposed to be resting in silence were running on their feet with fears covering their faces, turning the town into chaos. The fire swiftly spread everywhere, causing all the house's roofs and furniture to turn into piles of ashes as it destroyed everything, looking like a fire-breathing dragon that was inside the houses, puffing away vicariously while eating all the lives of people, and the acrid smell of charred wood filled the air as the fire licked the tree that caused it to devour and turn half of the town into a fiery hell, taking the lives of everyone, leaving them choking on their lungs while their flesh melted on the ground as it turned into ashes.
'Everything would be fine as long as I could protect my daughter!'
'We would be able to escape this place! '
He grits as he keeps rapidly running with his bare foot, tightly yet carefully holding the child in his arms.
He was determined to escape the forest that was covered with blazing fire and the screams of people.
"Papa is here; there is nothing to fear anymore.."
He murmured, trying to calm the whimpering child.
As they passed through trees, he didn't dare to look back as if death were chasing behind them; he even groaned every time he took a step as his foot was left a tainted red liquid on the dried fallen leaves of the trees, leaving a smell like copper everywhere his foot had landed.
"Hey, are you done with your business?! We don't have much time to import these beverages! "
The guy sitting on the wagon shouted in complaint as he waited for the man behind the trees.
"Can't you wait a damn minute?!"
"Damn it!"
He curses as he buttons up his pants and gets ready to ride in the wagon.
Watching the two busy arguing with each other, a muscular man takes it as an opportunity and climbs inside, holding a child sleeping peacefully in his arms.
"If the shortcut passages were not blocked, we could have arrived earlier! What a pain in the ass!"
He complained to a wrinkled man driving the wagon beside him.
The man frowned while gritting his lips as he tried to calm himself down.
He then looked at the peacefully sleeping child in his arms and put his lips gently on her forehead as he embraced her from the cold when suddenly his eyelid had become so heavy that he couldn't keep up with his energy and lost track of himself.
The warm red fluid that keeps flowing out of his feet makes him dizzier and drowsier without even knowing that he has fallen asleep himself.
"Garion, the afternoon will soon pass; it's time to wake up."
He blinked his eyes as he heard a sweet, soothing voice caressing his face. His expression turned blue as he looked at the child looking right straight into his face, blocking the morning sun through the hole.
"Papa, it's time to wake up, or Mama will be angry!"
The child scolded, blocking the rays of the sunlight with her small and thin body.
"P-papa, is something wrong?"
She asks, making a worried expression on her face as he looks at the man in front of him with a surprised yet sorrowful expression in his eyes.
Garion gently patted her head and sighed before he responded with a smile.
When he noticed the barrel of liquor and alcohol inside the wagon, he ripped his clothes and let them soak before he washed his wounded feet and tied them with a knot. The ticklish piercing he felt made him groan in pain, but he still smiled sweetly, looking at the child beside him as he tried to get her attention, with all the people outside negotiating with each other and busy talking like bees.
"WOAH~ This place is so pretty!"
Everywhere her eyes landed, she couldn't seem to stop being amazed at every scene and market stall they passed by as she gazed at them with a glimmering light in her eyes while holding onto a man with a tall and big masculine body walking by her side, slightly swaying with his own two feet.
'It must be luck that they didn't notice us as soon as the wagon stopped.'
He thought with a serious expression written on his face, tightly yet carefully holding the hand of the child, who was busy admiring the scenery, when suddenly her attention was caught on his swaying foot that covered his rounded pink-ish eyes in distress.
"Skewers! Everyone buys some of our freshly cooked skewers!"
He smiled watching his daughter quickly turn her head on the vendor as he yelled, not so far from them.
When he rummaged through his pocket and found only three silver coins, he suddenly felt his heart sting watching his daughter approach the vendor with only three silver coins in her hands that could only buy a total of one skewer, which wasn't enough to feed the both of them.
As the vendor handed the skewer, she looked back as she watched his father's gaze not so far from her; his complexion was not so good, and his face had become much paler, leaving him with a dreadful look.
'P-papa...'
She thought as she shook her head before she ran towards the man holding a skewer in her hand while wearing a lovely smile on her face. But when she was about to be near him, a carriage suddenly popped out of nowhere and crashed into her father, hardly making him come off flying in the air as his body hit the ground, leaving the child trembling on her two feet and staring at the scene with her eyeballs shaken on surprise as the skewer she was holding has fallen onto the ground.
"What's with all this commotion?"
A cold, blunt voice asked while people bowed and gave away, walking past them along with the two armored guys.
His eyes widened when he saw the child gripping her clothes as she trembled, looking at the body of the man in front of them lying on the ground, bathing in its blood.
Staring at the scene, he suddenly felt a needle piercing his heart as if he were losing his breath, as the memory, once buried in his mind, appeared right in front of his eyes in the blink of an eye.
It was a young little boy who was holding a certificate in his hands and staring at the bloody corpse of a lady with a pair of widened eyes while blood continued to flow out of her body. Everything popped out like a videotape in his mind as it quickly disappeared, leaving him in shock as he held his chest, hardly catching his breath.
"Milord! Are you alright?!"
Asked Reinhardt as he approached the trembling kid in front of him.
"Erwin, I leave this job to you."
He declared trying to calm himself as he took a deep breath.
"Take the injured people to the hospital. Make sure that the one at fault will be given the right punishment for his careless act!"
Khalid then walked out of the scene, leaving the job to his two speechless knights.
When he arrived at the enormous yet fancy palace that was now looking great after the war, he decided to walk straight into his office to make himself busier than ever and keep his mind occupied at work. But as he scribbled and wrote on papers, his attention was caught by the flowers outside of his window as he observed the scenery from his office.
He had noticed that it had become more peaceful and quiet, yet it was enough for the loneliness to devour the room that was eaten in silence.
"When did I ever feel this peace?"
He wanders, gazing outside the window, when he jolts up on his seat before he hurriedly runs outside as if he had forgotten something important that took him weeks to remember.
"Damn it! Don't tell me he was still hiding until this day in straight 3 weeks!"
He wondered as he remembered Dal, who was left hiding out of nowhere and had already been missing for almost a month.
"So troublesome."
Khalid then immediately rushed outside, hoping to find Dal hiding in nowhere.
In the garden of the palace, where the big oak tree was standing in the middle of the spacious area of the aita, a man with long blond hair that swayed his lower ponytail by the wind could be seen hugging himself as he was waiting under the oak tree, sitting quietly as he was murmuring all by himself with his two feet buried on the dried fallen leaves.
"It's been a week now, but I could still wait."
He stated as he looked at the dried fallen leaves on the ground. He stopped for a second as he remembered the night, walking all by himself like a lorn wolf without anyone by his side and all his people on the tribe, including his father, who was looking at him with cloying disappointment on his face.
"I didn't raise a monster like you!"
As the voice rings in his ears, he still begins to smile, trying to escape the sadness that wants to devour the whole of him.
"I had become one of his knights; he had given me a blessing, and I'm sure he would come and find me. The palace is surely big!"
Dal tried to brush off the pain he felt by believing that Khalid would find him, but another week had passed, and not even Khalid's shadow was nowhere to be seen.
"All I wanted was his trust. I thought we were getting along with each other, but every time I looked into his eyes, I knew that it was impossible! "
Dal spoke with a bleak expression and tone in his voice.
He spends a week whimpering like a dog that was abandoned by his owner as he starts doubting his leal action.
Meanwhile, Khalid sighed as he saw the sight of a man hugging himself from afar. He hurriedly ran towards him as sweat ran down his face.
"F-found you."
He gasps as he looks at him in the eyes with the same soulless expression, but Dal knows that there is a faint abrasive feeling in the tone of his voice as he hardly catches his breath.
*Sniffed!*
"You've found me, my elcid."
He responded as he tried to smile when a tear suddenly fell into his eyes making Khalid so startled that even he was left surprised.
' Ah, I think I made a terrible mistake!'
He thought as he offered his hand to him.
"Let's go home."
Khalid insisted, waiting for him to take his hand, and Dal was so sure that he approached the light as soon as he took Khalid's hand.
'I will protect you with all my heart and soul, I swear...'
He thought as he stared with his nonchalant face and tried to reach his hand, but before he could do it, he suddenly felt his legs turn noodles, and his mind had turned blank, that he wasn't aware of what had happened before he passed out.
In the end, Khalid was left in a grueling situation.
He continued working in his room, with Dal snuggling like a bug and sleeping peacefully on his lap, which made it tougher to move around.
He looks right beside him when he notices Reinhardt bursting out a porcupine red-ish orange-like aura inside the room as he is standing behind them, watching Dal in a deep sleep with a deadly glare on his eyes.
"Milord, are you alright?"
He worriedly asks without noticing how deceitful his aura has covered up the entire room.
'Ah, I give up. I couldn't care less about being in a spot, but I don't think I could go on anymore! '
He absorbtly thought as he looked at both of his knights in the eyes.
"Ha, I think I made a terrible mistake!"
He forwarded with an exhausted look on his face but still didn't make his soulless expression change; the only thing that had changed was that another person had wanted to stay by his side.
'I would not make you join at the hip of Milord, you cagey fox; I'll rip off that innocent mask on your face! '
The two of his knights had viciously thought as they both glared in front of the man who was chained inside the room with no windows nor light coming in from the hole.
"I swear, I did not know everything that had happened!"
He cried and begged as he kept repeating every word he had stated.
"It was no use."
Erwin sighed.
"What are you trying to do now?"
Reinhardt asks when he suddenly puts gloves on his hands, pulling his hair as he directly stares into his eyes.
"Tell me everything you remember."
As soon as he looked into his eyes, his left eye changed into the color of an ocean, which made the man follow everything that Erwin had asked for as if he were under a hypnotic spell.
"Now tell me everything."
"It was a man—no! It was a monster in human flesh! It was all made by him; it was him! He was the one behind everything!"
Just then, his head explodes, leaving Erwin in great shock.
"What do you think? "
"There's no doubt; there is only one person who can do such a thing! "
He paused for a second, wiping his face.
"It was surely the work of the emperor."