Sweat dripped onto the sand, hissing as it hit. It wasn't long before Idiot could hardly sweat anymore. Yet, he kept walking, holding the infant girl under the sun.
"Hey, that's enough." The Blood Extinguisher had been silent until now. It finally couldn't help speaking.
"Human child, you've walked for over three months. I've been quiet because I admire your will to live, wondering how long you could survive by yourself. But now, your strength has almost exhausted beyond its limit. Who is this girl to you? Is it really worthy to take such a risk so much for her, crossing the desert?"
Idiot didn't speak, just kept breathing and walking. The sky was turning dark gradually; a sandstorm was coming.
"See? This is your end, swallowed by the desert! I don't care. You'll die here, and I'll lie there, waiting for the next wielder. It's a pity, for you had potential and worthiness."
The sandstorm was close, the sky was blacked with the storm. But Idiot stood still, holding the sleeping baby girl, staring blankly at the approaching storm, seemingly considering something.
"You've paid so much for her, but what has she brought you? Honor? Wealth? Power? submission from others? No, she brought you nothing but trouble and danger. She was, useless, just nothing but a heavy burden."
When the storm came, The pityful idiot stepped forward and sank into the sand. He slid down a dune and saw a cave. He rushed inside it to wait out the storm.
His eyes, once cold, were now totally tired and weary. The cave might shield them a bit, but without water or food, how long could he last?
The beggar looked down at the baby girl sleeping in his arms, who was four months old now and was too big for her swaddle.
Even a muscular adult would struggle if holding such a weight every day. And for the ten-year-old boy, his endurance was extraordinary. The desert storm was decomposing his will bit by bit, his gaze upon the girl clouded with confusion.
"Why care for her? "
He pondered the question without any answer.
The sandstorm outside roared, and the occasional grains of sand that swept in pelted Idiot's body. That made him look even more filthy, worn out, and exhausted...
…
In the dead of night, the raging sandstorm continued its furious assault outside with terrific thuds. Yet within the confines of this small, pitch-dark cave, a sound broke the silence—a sound of footsteps.
Idiot jolted awake. Opening his eyes again, he glanced at the infant girl in his arms. The desert was cold at night, and one of her little arms was always slipping out into the chill.
After a moment's thought, he reconsidered the question that had eluded him before, but still no answer came.
Deciding not to dwell on the unanswered, he tucked the baby's arm carefully back into the warmth of the swaddling clothes, held her close, and retreated deeper into the cave.
"Snap, snap..."
The sound came again, clearer this time. These were not the sounds of the sandstorm battering the rock walls—it was unmistakably the sound of footsteps!
But how could that be? The sandstorm outside was ferocious. What kind of person could traverse such a storm?
And from the steady pace of the footsteps, the person seemed not the least bit hurried—as if the sandstorm outside was nothing more than a gentle spring rain, and they walked with a relieved pace.
"Snap,snap, snap..."
There were multiple sets of footsteps. Idiot gently patted the sleeping infant to ensure she was indeed asleep, then, with a subtle movement of his right hand, he loosened his chain slightly and held the evil dagger in his grasp.
Who were they?
Whoever it might be, vigilance is always the best means of survival.
As the footsteps drew nearer, the frost that had long been absent from his weary eyes began to form once again.
"Oops! What a terrible sandstorm. Let's stay here for the night," a yound woman's voice suggested.
The stranger lit a torch, and as its light moved through the cave, the figure finally approached the recess where Idiot was hiding.
He was momentarily shocked and hard to believe what he saw.
For what caught his eye first was not a woman, but a towering white wolf nearly two meters tall with its fur as white as snow and a golden flame emblem on its forehead.
The wolf's golden eyes scanned the cave imperiously. Upon noticing the fool, it showed no reaction and walked in as if it saw nothing out of the common.
Idiot's heart pounded, but he remained motionless, watching as the giant wolf lay down at the edge of the cave and closed its eyes.
"Oh, seems like there's already a host ?"
A petite figure followed the giant wolf, draped in a white cloak that hid her features. Judging by her voice and stature, she couldn't be more than sixteen or seventeen.
She approached Idiot gracefully, ignoring the dagger in his hand, and squatted down in front of him. A tender smile appeared from beneath her cloak.
"Sorry for disturbing, boy. But the sandstorm outside is just too strong. May we share here tonight?"
Her voice was crisp, tinged with a negotiable tone, as if a single word of refusal would leave her no choice but to leave.
Sharing a space with a stranger was dangerous—you never knew when they might turn against you. Reluctant as he was to share his shelter with a strange girl and her fearsome wolf during a sandstorm, he knew he had no choice.
"…Yes."
The smile beneath the cloak seemed understanding. The woman stood, brushed the sand off her cloak, and returned to the wolf's side.
She showed no fear of the massive beast, stretching comfortably against its belly before taking out provisions from a travel bag on the wolf's back, and enjoying her meal.
The provisions were plentiful: beef, vegetables, and compressed biscuits. Strangely, she only fed the wolf the meat, eating only the vegetables and biscuits herself. Perhaps this was one of the reasons she could coexist peacefully with such a creature.
"Do you want some?"
Suddenly, she extended her hand, offering a compressed biscuit.
Idiot's stomach had been growling for several days, but his wariness held him back from accepting. No one offers food without reason, unless they want something from you, or worse.
The girl didn't retract her hand. Instead, she took out more dehydrated vegetables, biscuits, beef slices, and a bottle of water from the wolf's bag and laid them before the fool.
"Would you rather you two starve to die in the middle of this desert, or enjoy my food?"
Idiot's lips had long been chapped to the point where pain had ceased to be a sensation for him. However, the infant cradled in his arms could not endure such discomfort, and recent malnutrition had visibly thinned her, her cries becoming weaker than before.
The fool finally bit his lip and grabbed the bottle of water, taking small sips. He nibbled bits of the biscuit, vegetables, and beef slices, washing them down with water.
"After eating, the worst is to die. But if I don't, I can't survive soon." That's what he thought.
Then came a wait of thirty minutes.
The young woman did not interfere; she simply lay back against the giant wolf, hugging her knees, head down.
It was only after thirty minutes, when Idiot realized he was not poisoned, that he confidently fed the water to the infant girl, then crumbled the biscuit into the water to soften it, feeding her until she was full. Only after the baby had her fill did he allow himself to chew the food heartily, satisfying his own hunger.
A smile appeared beneath the cloak, and the young woman waited in silence, waiting for Idiotl who was enjoying his meal.
"Are you done eating?" she asked softly after a moment.
Idiot wiped the water from the corner of his mouth, the pain in his chapped lips returning with the moisture but it was a comforting sort of pain.
He held the infant close and shifted back into the corner of the cave, his icy gaze never leaving the girl and the giant wolf.