In a flash of green light, Harita appeared, the rune under his right eye glowing brightly, a bleeding scrawny boy was in his arms, unconscious but still alive. Barely.
Tension grew instantly at the man's sudden presence, prompting everybody present to draw their weapons and begin casting spells, their honed instincts setting them on edge at the drop of a pin.
The moment they saw the bleeding boy, however, they relaxed, lowering their weapons... all except for one.
Lin ran forward, shouting: "What the hell happened?!"
She pulled out a vial containing red sizzling liquid and uncorked it with her mouth, pushing it to the boy.
Harita flinched and reeled Lieren back, eyeing the vial and its contents skeptically.
Lin gave him an incredulous look and said: "Relax, Mr. Skeptical. It's just a mild healing potion. You don't have to act so dubiously all the time. Brad's the only one fully against you, anyways. We trust him, but not so much that we'll kill an innocent kid for it. Give us a little more credit."
Harita gazed at the adventurers gathered around a larger-than-normal campfire listening surreptitiously to their conversation.
They all, for better or worse, looked as if they couldn't care less about the bleeding boy, except for a few. Two of them being Brad and the girl in front of him.
Frowning, Harita handed the boy to Lin, watching her and everybody else intently.
Without skipping a beat, Lin unwrapped the handkerchief on the boy's leg.
Her face paled immediately.
"How…" She scanned the boy's leg quickly, immediately noticing the gaping bite-marks that reached grievously all the way to his bones, allowing visibility of the tibia.
Swallowing, she urgently got to work, a soft golden light emanating from her hands.
◇◆◇◆◇
"Well, that was pathetic."
Lieren looked up with begrudging eyes at King, giving him an annoyed look.
"Shut up." He barked out, laying on the ground with arms spread out.
The darkness somehow felt cooler than before.
From the corner of his eye, Lieren could just about make out King's casual shrug and indifferent face.
'Does my suffering really mean that little to him? At least TRY to look sympathetic!'
"You heartless monster." Lieren muttered in a low voice. Despite his seething anger, he still felt reluctant to antagonize King.
There was just something to his presence that put Lieren on edge, like the boy's mysterious aura or his Aegis' enigmatic powers, and even the rude adventurer's rough treatment.
In the end, though, King really was the one that put him the most on edge. Everything about the man was just so cryptic and clandestinely calculated. Though whether that was true or the boy's imagination—Lieren really could not tell.
"Fwah~ So tireeeeed~" Lieren yawned in the darkness.
'I should focus more on refining my magic. Maybe next time, I won't have to get bitten so much. Ah…wait…did that Silver Wolf have some kind of contagious disease? The kind that can be transmitted through bites or blood, like lycanthropy. Oh no. What if I turn into a werewolf? …That might actually be pretty cool, to…be…ho…nesttttt….'
The boy, feeling the fatigue of keeping his Fortification active, ultimately decided to sleep, entrusting the rest to his recovery to the people outside.
King flipped a page on his book, completely indifferent to Lieren's throes.
◇◆◇◆◇
There was a deafening silence as the boy woke up, along with the familiar image of interweaving branches and leaves, higher and farther, a testament to the boy's place in the vast expanse of earth and sea known as the world.
From where he lay, the boy could hear the sound of small, steady breathing of a familiar girl by his side.
Lieren turned to see Red, the handmaiden of Viscount Bravefeather dressed in her usual red maid's outfit, sleeping serenely by his side with a subtle frown on her milky white face. Dark circles hang under her eyes, a testament to the countless nights spent—most likely—watching over him.
In a way, Lieren was glad nobody greeted him upon waking from his slumber.
Red, as she liked to be called, was the handmaiden of Viscount Bryne Bravefeather, the girl that wicked man casually maltreated beyond the boy's current wisdom.
Over their travels, the two have gotten along together, sharing various stories, playing jovially, and even talking about the most simple problems to matters that went beyond themselves.
From what Lieren had gathered, Red lived… well, used to—in Mesuhi, south of Hamaha and their closest country geographically. It was a city of ports and seas, home of one of the greatest Warcasters that have ever lived, the renowned Kozui of Flowing Currents, one of the great leaders that led the recovery of the land of the Indrath after the resulting events of King's Oblivion.
Red, however—very much like Lieren—was born in the outskirts, having lived their her entire life. For as long as she has known, she has spent most of her days helping her parents with their daily chores and errands, typically managing their store and such. On weekends, she would visit her grandmother in the nearby forest, delivering her goods and the occasional medicine.
One day, however, it all changed.
A Shifter: horrid formless creatures without a sense of self or ego attacked her on one of her weekly visits, injuring her severely and sending her entire village asunder. It was, apparently, a stroke of luck that Viscount Bravefeather had even found her, taking her in for the time being—just until she finds her bearings, she always said afterward, making Lieren all the more uneasy.
There was more than met the eye.
Lieren could tell that, like himself, the girl had gone through something painful, traumatic, and life-changing. There was a deep, empty hole in her heart, hindering her from moving forward, keeping her lost and alone without any way of getting back on the right track…of there even was one. She had a hollow persona.
Lieren smiled bitterly and poked the girl's rosy cheeks.
They were really soft.
She groaned in response, but otherwise stayed soundly asleep.
'So much for watching over me. Then again, that's just my speculations.'
Lieren stifled a yawn.
He tried to get up, only to fall back down again abruptly as an abrupt shock ran from his leg to his brain, putting in his proper place.
The boy glanced down, face paling ghostly white as he took in the sight of his bandaged leg, wrapped in white cloth along with a flat stick, supporting his injured leg.
With a heavy breath and somehow aching back, the boy lay back down again, feeling the overwhelming tide of fatigue wash over him like a cold shower.
"I really am too tired for this…" The boy shut his eyes, letting the realm of unconsciousness envelop him once more.
◇◆◇◆◇
Hours, maybe even days passed by since them. When Lieren awoke, Red was gone, replaced by a tall lean man—his Aegis.
"Please, bring the cute girl back." He teased mockingly, inciting a light chuckle from the man, busy peeling a fruit with a battle dagger, the one Lieren had used to stab (and hopefully kill) the Star Wolf.
Harita stayed focused and resolute as he peeled the apple's skin.
Failing to notice this, Lieren innocently asked: "Be honest… Did I kill it? It would be really annoying if I didn't."
There was urgent positivity in his voice, as if he had been stowing some away for a rainy day, expecting a day such as this to come day.
Harita set the naked apple down next to him, on top of one of the carriage seats.
Looking up, Lieren finally noticed that, much like how he first woke up, he was resting in the middle of the carriage on top of some passenger's sheets as a makeshift bed.
"Ah, crap. Now they're REALLY gonna be mad at me. Especially that old lady. I'm pretty sure she has it in for me personally. I don't know how or why, but I'm positive of i—" Without another word, Harita grabbed Lieren by the shoulders, squeezing hard.
There was subtle madness in the man's feline green eyes.
"You almost died, Lieren!" Harita yelled at him point-blank, spitting saliva on the young man's face.
"H..hey, you're hurting me. Please, stop." Lieren winced in pain.
The young man's grip was humiliatingly painful, like the talons of a Mimic Vale or Mistcrown, his nails practically digging into Lieren's arms. A couple more seconds, and his arm would probably suffer the same fate as his legs.
Lieren tried to lift his arms to rip Harita's arms away from him, only to result in a pathetic flail, failing to force heat into his appendages. It would seem that, within the brief encounter with the Silver Wolves, his muscles had already given up on him, leaving him with only the aching and restrictive pain of muscle cramps. It felt like lifting a giant pillar, a divine force bearing its weight on Lieren, weakening him devastatingly.
He was in no condition to fight, let alone go on any dangerous escapades into the depths of the perilous forest.
Harita lowered his head. "I should have known better… Dammit! I should have known better!"
The man cursed aloud, berating not the stubborn child, but the man who let him.
Harita, eyes cold and serious, looked directly into Lieren's.
"From now on, you're banned from leaving the camp."
There was faint clamor of chains as he said that.