On the floor of the crater sat a young man in a a fetal position with his head tucked to his knees. The night was getting late and he needed to decide on his next actions. Looking at the two heavily wounded men plastered in blood and grime, Ansel was debating what to do.
"Surely the House of Phoenix will come for these two." Ansel tried to convince himself to leave the two men behind. It was rather heartless leaving the two injured in the perilous forest, but sometimes doing good deeds lead to bad or even terrible consequences.
Though the two were knights, the younger knight with a shaved head didn't have a star engraved on his chest plate like the other knight. The second knight was probably a bit older but Ansel could not tell as they were too dirty to see any features clearly. That second knight had two stars engraved next to the emblem of the Phoenix.
"He has to be someone with higher status. The noble house wouldn't just leave them." Ansel didn't want to deal with people, much less with nobles. He was still trying to convince himself to leave them here.
"But what if these two somehow died before the two were found? Would the nobles pin the blame me? After searching the area, there's no other signs of evidence, but what if they have a clairvoyant capable of deducing what happened."
Ansel was meticulously cautious, but even then he couldn't prepare for every scenario.
"They'd come after me. No doubt about it. I could be a main suspect. If I run away though, then I'd become a fugitive for doing nothing wrong! I'm not taking the fall for this!" Thinking some more, Ansel tried to find other alternatives that didn't require him taking them to him home. Ansel debated bringing them back to the city, but there was no way he could carry even one let alone two of them back all the way and safely at that.
Rubbing his temples from the headache the starry sky led him to, Ansel stood up and shook his fist angrily at the heavens.
"Look at the mess you guys got me into! Ugh! I'll get punished if I don't do anything, but even if I did, I still might get punished! Nobles are unreasonable!" Ansel was mentally exhausted from today's events. The rain, Gin, and now the two knights. His future was at risk, and there were no good options to the current problem.
"I just want to go home and sleep." Ansel complained.
"I should have decided to live a nice simple life, but noooo…"
His reckless comment reminded him why he couldn't live simply just yet. He needed preparation as he was not fully ready yet. "No. I will live simply, but not yet. I'm working towards that life. I need to make sure all loose ends are tied before I can forget all my worries of my last life so I can enjoy this life comfortably."
With a big long sigh, Ansel made the commitment and pulled out the last three of his talismans. "First thing tomorrow I'll have to make sure I make some more talismans. I need to rearrange my to-do list." A look of unwillingness was plastered on Ansel's face as he looked back and forth at his talismans and the two knights. Doing this went against all his principles.
He was going to bring the two strangers into his sacred space. To make it worse he was taking in two people from a noble's house. Because they were so dirty and wounded he would have to go out of his way to even clean and care for them. The spiraling thoughts made Ansel dizzy thinking of them. These actions would bring about more uncertainty and create risk. Ansel was uncomfortable with that, but worst case he could really run away. With the experience from his past life, he was confident in escaping pursuers.
"Who knows if in their waking state they decide to attack me though? What a messy spot to be in!" Ansel fumed in frustration. In an unprecedented move, Ansel lightly kicked the side of the knight with the stars on his chest plate. A clear thud rung out even though it was a light kick.
With difficulty, the knight let out a short agonized moan. That short release of tormented pain made Ansel feel deeply ashamed. He recalled being beaten and worse in his previous life, but now here he was, kicking a badly-injured unconscious man. "Did I fall so low as to kick someone out of my anger?" Ansel was riddled in guilt.
"Damn it. I'm so messed up in the head right now. I can't believe I just hit a man who was already down and unable to defend himself." With his head bowed in remorse, he apologized honestly.
Ansel moved over and sat beside the two men. He had trouble wrapping the thick and strong arms of the two knights around his skinny but still muscular arm. Eventually was able to secure one arm from each knight under his armpit. It wasn't the best place or the most hygienic to hold them, but he needed physical contact before shredding the three talismans.
"Alright, time to go home." Using the hand of the arm that wrapped around the the knights to hold the paper talismans, Ansel imparted some of his mana into the knights. With his free hand imbued with his mana into the talismans before he tore them in half. The paper halves floated mid-air encircling the three. With a flash of blinding light, the three vanished from the spot.