Auriel's eyes fluttered open, a sharp pain shooting through his arm, only to see Elise, who was wrapping his arm slowly, carefully, as if he was a delicate flower.
Elise's expression was calm and collected, opposite to her usually weak and scared expression in front of Auriel. It was evident that she hadn't realized he had woken up.
Though, Auriel could see the deep terror that was hiding behind Elise's calm exterior. Her hands were too tense for her to be calm about it, but strangely she was holding well. Or she was really calm in mind but her body wasn't and it was screaming danger signs.
Auriel watched every one of her minimal movements and analyzed it while thinking about what did happen while he was sleeping that made Elise scared like that.
There, he noticed that Elise was throwing glances somewhere, and under her blindfold was a minuscule amount of golden light, indicating that she was using her ability so little that the usual recoil wasn't hitting her.
'She didn't tell me about this, was she lying or did she learn this recently?' Auriel pondered, leaning towards the latter possibility as he knew Elise wasn't adept at deception.
Then he thought of Elise's strange behavior. 'So, she saw something frightening with her ability, but what is it?' Auriel thought and suddenly pulled Elise to himself, covering her mouth with his hand.
"What did you see that terrified you like this?" he questioned in a hushed tone, causing Elise to revert to her meek self.
"I- I don't know…" Elise stuttered as she tried to push herself, but it was futile. She couldn't move even an inch. Auriel's strings were giving him absolute control over someone within the same rank as him. Or he thought like this as no one else managed to resist it other than Gordon, who was Master.
Auriel sighed as he understood that Elise saw something but didn't know what she saw. Thus, he wordlessly left his control of the strings, causing Elise to fall onto his arm.
"Argh!" He yelped with pain and shoved Elise to the side. Then he looked at his arm and found out that he was more or less able to move it. It wasn't completely recovered but it should have been impossible to move after having his flesh burned like that.
"It is unthinkable for it to heal like this, what did you do?" Auriel asked directly.
Elise's face paled slightly after hearing this but then, a faint smile appeared on her lips. "Sir Archpaladin did something and told me to wrap your arm, Auriel. He said that you need a month's rest to properly use your arm."
Auriel blinked in momentary shock at the sight of Elise's smile. He didn't witness her smile even once when he was with her. She was always passive like a robot or gloomy, sometimes calm even, but not happy.
And seeing her smile gave him a sense that something was amiss with her. 'Did she go mad? Or did that airhead church dog do something to her?' He thought and decided to observe both of them more on the road.
"Anyway, let's continue on our way," Auriel said as he got up and got out of the tent, only to see the corpses of the bandits and their crushed heads.
Without giving the lifeless bodies a single glance, he turned his attention to the unnaturally joyful Archpaladin of the Church of Afterlife.
"Thanks for the help, you are the one who killed them, right?" Auriel asked for confirmation, he knew Elise wouldn't kill them after all.
"Yeah, I was the one who delivered them to the Afterlife. Beautiful sight isn't it?" Archpaladin Asher said with a smile on his face while pointing to the corpses.
"Yes, it is," Auriel agreed with a forced smile, though inside he cursed silently. 'Fucking lunatic, how the hell crushed heads are a beautiful sight.' He thought and pointed at their horses. "So, shall we continue our way, we shouldn't make the believers of the Afterlife suffer more than this while they are waiting for our arrival?"
Archpaladin Asher nodded in response and made his way toward his horse, leaving a trail of blood with every step of his bloodied boots.
Auriel also got on his horse and called out to Elise. "Come here, Elise! Don't try to collect the tents, they are damaged anyway."
The blind girl carefully came over to Auriel's side, throwing a glance at Asher, and got in front of Auriel.
'There is something wrong.' Auriel thought as he sensed an eagerness towards the Archpaladin from Elise. But he didn't confront this and began to ride his horse.
And so, Auriel's peculiar expedition resumed.
***********
On the way to the Wildecrest village, Auriel noticed a few strange things, mostly in Elise, slightly with Asher, and a single but the most important thing with himself.
For some reason, Elise was slightly more joyful than her old self and less rebellious. She was listening to his words without any objection and was trying to do the things even before Auriel ordered. Then she would smile slightly but the corner of her lips would always tremble. It was like she was in contradiction with herself. She was occasionally throwing glances at Asher, sometimes smiling at him and sometimes hiding behind Auriel.
Being more positive was good, amazing even, as positive emotions would reduce the chance of killing herself and improve her efficiency. But because of her sudden change, Auriel couldn't help but be doubtful of all her movements.
As for the enigmatic Archpaladin Auriel sensed that Elise's fear was directed towards him, yet she was also harboring strange feelings towards him.
He learned all of this with 4 days of observation while they were on their way to the Wildecrest village.
And after 4 days of observation, Auriel came to the conclusion that something was wrong with everyone.
Elise's unnaturally natural but at the same time forced smiles and actions, Archpaladin Asher's fake smiles and excessive fascination towards death, and his arm that was healed by the very same Asher— it all raised red flags.
Auriel felt like a horror novel protagonist or cannon fodder that was about to be killed by the most normal-looking character.
Yes, his arm healed. He could move it with little difficulty, but there was something fundamentally wrong with it.
When he first experimented with his ability, Auriel discovered that there was a network of strings within his body that enabled him to move his limbs subconsciously. Taking out those strings would make the respective limb immobile.
Yet now, after Archpaladin Asher's 'healing', Auriel could no longer sense the familiar presence of those natural strings in his healed arm.
Worry gnawed his mind that he might lose his arm, but there was nothing he could do. After all, he was just Awakened while Archpaladin Asher was Grandmaster. He felt like he was just like an ant in front of a human...