" What….the.."
Rumius was too stunned to talk.
" What had just happened? What happened to the bear?"
Rumius laid eyes on the earth before him. There was a massive strip of barren earth in what had been a field full of grass. It was like someone had taken an exceptionally rough working lawnmower and drove it through this area in a straight line.
Lying on the line of barren earth was what looked like the tattered remains of a body. The upper half of it had what seemed to be a part of a gaping circle that punched cleanly through the entirety of the carcass. A pool of red was still oozing out from the massive wound and collecting around it in a gruesome puddle in which bits of fur and flesh floated about. But the upper body was nowhere to be seen. The surrounding area, the strip, the surrounding grass and his body were all coloured by the same colour.
Rumius took a step backwards. He must have had tripped as in the next moment, Rumius duly felt a pain in the back of his head and found himself looking up at the dusking sky. One drop by one drop, a wet feeling began to kiss his cheek. It was coming down from the sky at an increasing pace and soon enough, Rumius was drenched as it started to pour.
But the rain was weird. It smelled. And above all else, it was red. That was the last thing Rumius saw before he blacked out.
Rumius came to the smell of charring bread. It was probably the brunt by now, he thought as he looked around groggily. His vision swam like fishes the moment he tried to rise, and he was promptly forced back down as Mistress Isadora grabbed his arm.
" Mistress…" he croaked. His throat was parched.
Somehow she seemed to know that as she handed him a cup of water, which she had conveniently fetched for him. Hers was there as well. Rumius accepted the cup gratefully and raised it to his lips, trying not to spill any drops on the sheets from his precarious drinking position.
When he was done, he returned the cup and tried to rise again. He must have had touched something bad as in the next moment, his head exploded with pain as if someone had taken a club to it. Mistress Isadora grabbed his arm again and forced him down. This time, he was content to stay.
" Rest. Recovery potions have their limits as well." She said it in such a matter of fact tone that Rumius almost had a hard time believing that she was taking care of him at all. There was almost no trace of sympathy in her tone. It was plainly factual. He shouldn't move because he would get hurt. And if he got hurt any worse, she wouldn't be able to fix him. That was all there was to it.
" Mistress..I-" he began.
" You can do your chores tomorrow." Isadora said as she turned and walked away, out of sight. It was a small shack, so Rumius could still hear her moving around. But somehow it all felt so empty.
He was speechless . ' I'd just barely survived with my life! Was that all she had to say?'
' Does she not know what I've just gone through? Please just say something…'
'That couldn't have been all right? She'll comeback later right? No 'are you okays?' or at least a 'where does it hurt' or…not even questions? Wasn't she at least curious? No…..?'
Rumius was overwhelmed by a whole new kind of emotion, but he wouldn't let it show to her. He gritted his teeth in frustration.
He was a grown man!
And his eyes widened near instantly as he felt a twinge of dissonance with the word. He hadn't been acting too much of a man recently. Or perhaps since he'd arrived here in this world for that matter. But he had dignity! And even if Mistress wouldn't acknowledge him then him acknowledging himself would be enough!
Yes! He had taken down a giant bear! He had managed a chantless cast to do it too! And he was still so young! He had proven her wrong! Talentless? Bullshit! He'd managed it! He'd done it.. He'd done it.
Rumius fought back the tears desperately. He looked up at the ceiling as he lay on his back and cursed as the liquid pooled in his eyes. He understood well why everything felt so empty, even when they were supposed to feel amazing. It was because all he had done was never for himself in the first place. He had done it for her approval.
But that didn't mean he had to accept it.
Rumius buried his head in his pillow and held his breath, and squeezed his eyes shut. He wiped the tears away time after time, but they just kept coming back until he just buried himself under his blanket and, shamefully, let them come. At least he succeeded in muffling the sound.
After what seemed like an eternity, Rumius found himself staring up at the ceiling with a blank mind. His thin blanket was slightly damp in the middle, he wasn't sure how the moisture got there, but he had kept it over himself since it was cold. The shack was warmed by a fire that was still crackling away. It was the only sound in the shack right now and Rumius concluded that Mistress was probably asleep or working at something again.
' Why does she care so little?' He thought suddenly.
' Coming to think of it, the only time I've ever seen her smile was then, right?' Rumius remembered that early morning on the little hill. It was cold, and the wind had been intent on stripping away any vestige of heat which he had left. And when he'd successfully casted that spell, Rumius remembered the unadulterated smile that his master had worn.
He hadn't seen that anywhere else since he'd left home to go be her apprentice. Not when they visited new cities, nor when they'd bought or ate their meals. Not even when she had finally succeeded in making that black stone thing after so many months of experimenting. Rumius had taken the smile as a symbol of their friendship.
He had held out hope that maybe she was just bad at expressing her feelings. That although she was cold and gave him an ungodly amount of work to do all the time and that she always had unreasonable requests to ask of him, these many months of living together as master and student had made her care just a little about him.
They'd been together for every day of every waking moment after all, was it so bad to expect just that much?
But now Rumius wasn't sure.
He didn't remember what had happened after he blew that hole in that bear, but it was highly likely that his Mistress had found him on death's door, wounded in a dozen places and too exhausted to even move. The thought made Rumius gaze down at his current body. He grimaced.
Saving the large bandage that wrapped around his head, there was also a thick white bandage wrapped around his torso where, undoubtedly, more than a few ribs had been splintered and broken. Wrapped around his leg was a makeshift cast, which secured his ankle in place. All his major injuries had been treated….by his mistress.
' Who else is there?' He thought.
' And she did all this for me?'
Now all of a sudden, it didn't look like his mistress was that uncaring after-all. A wave of doubt and hope and confusion came over Rumius at once.
' Or did she simply do it to avoid getting punished by Maman? She could just be responsible for my safety and saved me only because she had to. '
And Rumisu banished the thought with ferocity the instant he thought it. He really didn't want to believe that. Because somewhere along the way, this Mistress of his had definitely come to mean something to him. He didn't know what the reason was, but he wanted to be closer to her.
Rumius tossed and turned until eventually, he fell asleep. There was always tomorrow morning to think about it. And for no reason, Rumius reflected on why he didn't feel a grown man in this new world at all.