After Loki escaped from his grasp, Auriel didn't pull him over like the last time, just watched him fly away with desperate wing flaps.
He didn't know what was the thing that made Loki fear so much, but there was one thing he knew, that was that all animals had great instinct against danger and Loki wasn't an exception. On the contrary, as an Awakened animal, his senses were better than its kind, likewise, his instinct too was superior.
That is why he trusted Loki's instinct of self-preservation and decided to carefully search around his room, or maybe even call Archpaladin Asher. Being killed was the worst outcome for Auriel and if it can prevent his demise he would gladly ask for help from the man he was suspicious of. He didn't have much pride after being under the damned gods.
Auriel quietly searched the room and hit some areas of the floor to find a secret door, if there was any, but he didn't discover something like that.
After searching a little bit more, he sighed and let himself to the bed.
"Meow!" The white cat, Mia, hopped on Auriel's chest and curled up on him while directly looking into his eyes.
A ridiculous but believable thought came to Auriel's mind as he looked at the white cat's eyes that shone with wisdom that even Loki didn't have that much.
'Was Loki terrified by Mia? Is she stronger than I thought that even cheeky Loki flew away in terror?' Auriel thought as he lost himself in the cat's slitted blue eyes. 'Nope, she isn't that strong but I guess it was enough to scare Loki. If she was that strong, I would feel it while she is on me' Auriel concluded and put Mia to the side.
Then he took out his shirt, revealing his naked upper body with bandages over his shoulder. With great care, he removed the wrappings and took a proper look at his arm that was burned by something and 'healed' by Archpaladin Asher.
To his shock, his arm was looking perfectly fine, even better than before. It looked healthy and slightly bulkier, indicating that there was something in his arm, maybe a few extra muscles or something entirely different that he didn't want to think about. Auriel hoped for the former but was somewhat convinced it was the latter.
'Whatever happens to my arm, it seems it isn't spreading to the rest of my body. I should quickly solve the problem, get out of here, and see a Weaver family healer…' Auriel thought and wrapped his arm like how it was before.
He didn't want Asher to know his suspicions about him, because if his suspicions were true, it might make Asher more aggressive towards him instead of a sneaky one and Auriel didn't want that. An aggressive approach from a Grandmaster was going to kill him for sure, while the sneaky one was most likely going to cost an arm.
"Ah! Damn it, I will just sleep and leave this to future me…" Auriel grumbled and lay on the bed, closing his eyes and slowly sinking into the dark corners of his mind. He wasn't used to thinking about these kinds of things and this gave him headaches. So, as a lazy being, he merely decided to follow his instinct and sleep, temporarily escaping from his worries.
***********
Sun was in the sky, illuminating the hopeless village, and giving its pleasant ray of warmth.
Even though the sun was indicating that morning came, there were still 2 people sleeping on their uncomfortable beds without any signs of waking up. These people were Auriel and Elise.
Because of their long and minimum rest journey, they needed that amount of sleep. But like every good thing else, this sleep needed to end, which was caused by the loud knocking sound that came from the door.
Knock! knock!
"Sir! Villagers gathered, they wanted an explanation!"
The village head's panicked noise caused Auriel to grumble and open his eyes only to see darkness.
"What?" Auriel mumbled and brought his hand over his eyes, only to find something furry was covering his eyes. He grabbed the furry culprit from her nape and lifted it from his eyes.
"What were you trying to do?" Auriel scolded with an irritated tone, though a slight smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
Mia just looked at him with a dissatisfied face and escaped from his grasp, and ran away to who knows where.
"Respectable clergy members! Please, you need to wake up! I can't hold them any longer!"
Auriel's smile faded, replaced by a frown.
"Fucking… They don't even let their last hopes get some sleep," he complained and opened the door.
"Lead the way, if they want some explanation, they will get it," Auriel said harshly without hiding the frown on his face, making the village head sweat bullets with fear that they made a clergy member angry.
But as a village head, this middle-aged man needed to calm Auriel to save his village! This was their last hope, or else they were going to die before new forces from the church or nobles came again.
*Please don't be angry, sir. Most of them lost their family members and feared that they would disappear too. Please, all I want is a small understanding, respectable sir." The village head pleaded and bowed his head deeply in front of Auriel.
This sudden action made Auriel scoff. "What? Did you think I was going to kill some villagers just because they interrupted my sleep? I am a man of faith, I won't touch any believer of the Afterlife as long as they are not sinners." He said with ridicule and added. "Just get up and tell them to be respectful, I won't deal with villagers but the culprit behind these disappearances. While at it, count the villagers and find out if someone disappeared yesterday night."