Lili could sense that Alex was happy and healing quite well. It would not be long, maybe a month or so and he would be fully healed and back up in a fighting condition again.
The light of protection, with its defensive properties and passive healing abilities was truly quite amazing. And combining it with her healing him occasionally throughout the stone and the stone healing him passively all the time a little. Alex was sure to make a full and easy recovery.
But Lili was not feeling happy. No, she felt sad, for it had already been two days and Alex had not yet come to see her. He merely stayed within his home, doing who knows what. She could feel him moving around, he could clearly walk but why wasn't he walking to her or school for that matter? What was going on, she did not know.
All she did know was that she most definitely hadn't gotten her hot chocolate like Alex had promised her. Hopefully he wasn't mad at her, as she had after all tried her best to help him win the fight. Sure it didn't go great, but with so little time for her to teach him, what else was she to do? How else could she have gotten him to win?
Well it was fine. She didn't need him, right. She had other things to do after all. So for the past few days she had gone around the mountains of heaven in search of resources.
All she had was but a few stone tools in hand to harvest everything. Tools that she had simply made by using the plant fibres for rope, and then simply tying everything together and it was good, but it also broke easily and was quite weak. Which were not good things as she tried to harvest resources like iron and clay. But not only this, she also had some trouble finding those resources as well.
Firstly there was clay, clay that was luckily easy to find next to a stream that traveled next to the road and under it, before it then began going further down the mountain.
But easy though it was to find, it was really hard to carry back. With only a simple demon leather sack in hand, and her being as weak and small as she was, she could only carry small bits of clay to her small base camp at a time.
Although after a lot of walking and sweating she did eventually manage to get enough to start making a basic furnace for herself. After that she just needed some tools, maybe some pottery and other things made of clay, and lastly metal or just iron.
But with nothing else than a weak stone shovel and a stone hammer in hand this was not easy. So for most of her second day she had merely went around the mountains digging holes, breaking her tools as she did so, making new tools, digging more holes and failing to find the right resources. And so her second day had quickly gone by in a flash it seemed. And at the end of the day she had been totally covered from head to toe in dirt, she was sweaty, smelly and sore all over.
While she could just heal most of the pain, splinters and wounds she got. There was still a limit to her healing. If she healed too much, then she would tire out faster, but heal too little and she would be hurting a lot. And so there was a constant fight within her as she tried to maintain this balance.
Although she did find great relief in laying naked at the shallow shore waters of the lake, even if Alex wasn't there with her. The water was so warm, even during the nights as her body was naturally quite warm-blooded and she did hide a few light stones around to make the place even more warmer and full of life.
Speaking of life, she sadly didn't yet have a baby, but she did have many strawberries. And thanks to her light stones the strawberries tasted so good, so sweet, so juicy, they were also quite big and grew real fast.
Whenever she picked one strawberry and ate it, another one would start growing there almost immediately. In fact they grew so fast that maybe a few weeks or so and she would be eating the same bushes strawberries again.
Although the strawberries were not the only thing that grew real fast thanks to her light stones. Many other plants and even trees around the strawberry field had also begun to grow real fast. Seeing it she had begun to also make it one of her missions to plant her stones all around the mountain to see heaven truly prosper into something even better and more fruitful and delicious.
And so despite being without Alex for two days and starting out her third day with him nowhere to be seen, she didn't feel sad, no she felt quite good in fact. For she held the power to make everything grow faster and better. So she didn't anymore feel the need to worry too much about the little fluffy demons eating the plants and pooping around. For they could not eat them all, right.
With this in mind she had managed for a whole hour after waking up to keep herself feeling happy and positive. But then she was startled to see something scary leaving Alex's house. She had just been gathering some clay in the small stream next to the road when she felt him heading to the forest.
He was so huge, quite handsome as well, a bit hairy looking due to his beard, but more than anything he was really scary. She could just see him visibly fuming in rage at something as he went over the road and headed into the forest.
She could hear him cursing and see him gritting his teeth. He seemed so mad and worried about something. If she had to guess he was probably heading into the woods to go vent off his anger.
Although this she couldn't be sure of and so she decided to just hide. This man she did not want to disturb. He looked so powerful, so strong and heavy. Tyler she could fight, but not him.
So with this in mind she merely waited for the threat to pass. And after a while she could not hear or feel his scary presence no more and so she went on with her day and didn't think further on any of it.
Although she did stop and look at Alex's house and the two other smaller buildings next to it. On the outside of one of the buildings she could see tools, fine looking tools of metal and technology, but no. These tools were not for a commoner like her to use, so she headed home to continue trying to make her own.
To do this she once again headed up the mountain to search for resources. This she did for hours upon hours again and as the sun began to set she finally found it there. Having dug a deep hole up into the forest covered mountain, having tossed out many worthless stones from the now deep hole, there she found it, a good stone, a stone with lots of iron within it.
Using her magical eyes she could see the different minerals within it and it was glorious. It made her feel excited and all tingly inside, truly success was a great feeling.
But as quickly as this feeling had come, it also left. For she then heard a faint scream of pain coming from somewhere further up the mountain. It sounded like a man, like that scary man screaming for help.
She was scared, she didn't want to see such a scary man, but she couldn't just leave a fellow human being to suffer, if he was truly suffering that is. And so she quickly rushed up the mountain to help the man, not caring of her dirty and smelly appearance at all.
Coming in close to the pained yells, she then noticed him. The man was crawling down a small forest mountain trail. There were multiple small sharpened sticks embedded into the mans feet. He seemed unable to walk, his legs were not working and he could merely crawl. She could see that he was in extreme pain and suffering from blood loss by the looks of his pale face and the trail of blood behind him.
Seeing it Lili felt bad. Especially as the man spotted her and yelled. "Hey, you over there! Help me damnit, I need a fucking ambulance and fast. Please just head straight down the mountain and there you will find my house! There you should be able to get a signal that you can use to call the ambulance. Fuck please hurry, ahhh! Or just knock on the door at my house and my wife can do it for you, but please hurry. And stay off the fucking path, some fucking psychopath has boobie trapped the whole fucking thing! I managed to avoid a few of them, but this fucking psycho has even placed these fucking traps under the fucking bushes next to the path. Its as if he was anticipating someone avoiding the first obvious ones. Ahhhhh, fuck it hurts! Please just go, and hurry! Ahhh!"
Seeing the pained expression of the man, Lili could just feel her heart sink into sorrow and despair. What had she done? She had been so blinded by her hunt for the little furry demons that she had totally neglected to put any warning signs anywhere. She had hurt this man, due to her own foolishness.
Although she was in luck as the man had only been caught in one of her smaller traps. If he had gone further to the left side of the mountain he would have probably been caught in one of her trip wires, and been instantly killed with twenty sharpened sticks slamming into his upper body and face. Oh god, that she could never have forgiven herself for, as she couldn't bring people back from the dead. Although she could luckily still heal him now.
Feeling worried for him, Lili quickly rushed over to the man's legs. The man seemed angered by this as he yelled to her. "No, no no no, what the fuck are you doing! Just go down the mountain and get help! I didn't tell you to help me personally, you stupid kid!"
Lili merely shook her head in denial, said nothing and just began to pull out the sticks. Instantly as she began to pull, the man stiffened and began to yell. "Ahhhhh! What the fuck are you doing? You fucking idiot, leave them! Ahhhhh, your gonna kill me if you pull them out!"
Once more she didn't listen and merely started to harshly pull the sticks out. The man continued to curse and scream, but quickly went silent as he began to fade in and out of consciousness.
Lili felt bad doing this, but it was important. If she just started to heal the wound without taking the sticks out first then the sticks would just get infused within his feet. And if that happened then they would really be hard to get out. Her magic could clean most small things and bacteria easily away and time would do the rest, but these kinds of things she couldn't. Especially with the low level of power that she now possessed.
Then with one snap and a quick pull, she finally got the last stick out, letting her breathe a small sigh of relief and then lastly proceed to heal his feet. With everything done she then looked curiously to the now passed out man.
Looking at him laying there, face down on the ground, Lili couldn't help but be curious, as she carefully sneaked close to his head and started poking at him.
For a moment the man lay completely still, breathing quietly as if in a deep sleep. But then he suddenly let out a low grunt that almost sounded like a growl. It sounded quite scary to her, enough to cause her heart to jump a little, as she let out a small girlish yell. "Kya!" But quickly she managed to stop herself, by covering her mouth.
Oh no, what was she doing? Screaming like this, being scared, intimidated by this man, this hairy, strong and handsome looking tall muscular man. Damn, this was not her. This was not how she usually reacted to things.
But looking at the sleeping man, she couldn't help but push back his loose hair to have a better look at his face. His hair was long, like a girls, although not as long as hers, and his hair was blonde and dirty, while hers was an icy white, although it too was dirty at the moment as well.
But his mustache and medium length beard did feel funny to the touch. Feeling it she couldn't help but pull at it lightly and run her fingers through it. It felt nice and overall the long hair and hairyness did make him look quite good as well, in a manly type of way.
But still he didn't wake up and so she climbed atop his wide muscular back and began massaging him. After all she did feel like she owed a massive apology to him. Plus she just couldn't help, but be a bit curious as she carefully began to study the handsome man with her magical eyes.
Touching him, feeling his sweaty shirt and the muscles beneath it, and seeing his healthy and strong body with her magical eyes. Lili couldn't help but feel impressed and a bit bothered by it all. He felt so powerful, like an immovable boulder that she could never move no matter how much she trained her little body, he was just too big. To her it felt like he had to at least weigh a hundred kilos, which was like three to four times more than that what she weighed.
Pouring her magic within him, she cleaned all the minor poisons from him as she had done to Alex as well. Then she stopped, the man let out a satisfied grunt and then his eyes opened. Lili froze and then he looked at her and spoke in a deep voice that shook her to her very core saying. "Hmm, what are you doing?"
Hearing him speak to her, to see him look at her with those strong, beautiful blue eyes, she felt her heart immediately skip a beat and she screamed. "Kyaahh!" As she then jumped off of him and ran away from him, up the mountain and into the darkness.
"Hey kid, where are you going! It's dangerous up there! Come back, I didn't mean to scare you!" He called out to her, but she didn't stop and listen. No, she couldn't, she couldn't listen to him and look at him. There was just no way, it was so embarrassing, he looked like Alex except he was hot and not cute looking at all. Oh god her little heart could not take it.
So she ran and ran, up the mountain, and amidst her scrambled up thoughts, she Got lost. Stumbling around the dark forest with only her magic eyes to guide her, and only after a long while did she manage to find her way back to her little home.
Opening up her small wooden door, she crawled quickly into her home, and wrapped herself in her many demon fur blankets that she now had. And only once the sun began to rise again did she finally manage to fall asleep.
For only a few hours did she manage to sleep, it was hot in there, her thoughts were all over the place as were her dreams. Oh god, those dreams and that handsome bearded face. She just couldn't help it, these nobles, every one of them just looked so good.
Sure the Sargent had his own charm as did his friends, but they always smelled horrible and were covered in mud and dirt all the time. They're skin was oily and just bad, eyes not bright at all and many times quite lifeless and full of misery and hopelessness.
Unable to shake these thoughts away she ran naked into the lake the first thing in the morning. Although she made sure not to go too far as she didn't still know how to swim.
After this she went back up the mountain to gather her stones of iron that she had found yesterday. And indeed there they still were just like she remembered them to be, but there was again that man's voice in the distance.
It sounded like he was calling out to someone, at the same spot as yesterday. Curious of this, she decided to sneak in closer to hear him better and that's when she heard him yell. "Girl where are you! If your here then just come on out! I'm sorry for scaring you yesterday, but please let me help you! Let me take you to the police, I'm sure they are already looking for you as it is!"
Lili gasped as she heard this. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Why did he want to take her to those bad men? Did he hate her that much?
Thinking of it, tiers quickly came to her big deep blue eyes, and her little heart began shattering into little pieces, she felt so betrayed. Why would he do this to her? She thought that her healing him would have made it all better between them, but no. Why did he want to send her to those bad police men?
Tiers came to her eyes as she gritted her teeth in a tierful anger and ran away. She didn't feel like harvesting iron anyway. Especially not after finding out just how mean these nobles were towards her.
Running down the forest covered hill with tiers in her eyes, she ran and ran, untill suddenly she stopped as she heard someone call out to her from the distance. "Lili, where are you? I brought you hot chocolate!"
It was Alex, it was actually him, she couldn't believe it. But she did, and so a smile came to her tierful face and she ran to him. Running out of the bushes she saw him there at the lake shore, he noticed her and opened his arms to her which she immediately accepted as she jumped into his arms and gave him a big hug.
For a moment they spun around, Alex held one hand on her bottom and one warmly on her back supporting her as she cried out to him in despair saying. "Oh, Alex please help me. Some bad man wants to take me to the police. Sniff, sniff, I'm scared, I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you Alex. Please don't leave me."
Hearing this Alex stopped for a moment, his hand moved from her back to gently hold her head that was pushed into his fat chest. He seemed to be thinking of something as he then asked.
"You wouldn't happen to be speaking of a big bearded man right now in the forest?"
Nodding her head lightly, Lili said. "Yes, the scary and mean hairy man. Snif sniff."
Hearing this Alex Immediately said. "Ah, Ok, well I'm pretty sure you just met my Dad. It's true he can be quite scary at times, but you shouldn't worry about him too much. His just feeling concerned thinking that he just found some lost girl in the woods last night. I did try to explain to him that it was most likely just my friend, meaning you, just running around the forest as all. But the guy can be quite stubborn at times and despite me and mother disagreeing with his story, he still just couldn't help and go looking for you. But you know at first I did honestly think he was actually talking of someone else as he kept on saying something about a white haired, dirty, homeless girl in rags saving him from dying due to some trap. But seeing you I can see that it was you just going through some magical change and not some homeless girl after all. But seriously Lili, don't worry, your not a homeless person, there's literally no reason for him to call the police on you, ok. So just take it easy, it's totally ok for you to be here, you have my permission. However now that I see the new good-looking you, I can see that my father was not totally wrong in saying that the girl he did see was the most adorable girl he had ever seen before. I mean, you are the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen, your white icy hair is a real beautiful sight to be seen, and I honestly cannot help but feel that I'm the world's luckiest guy to have you here with me, to have you be mine."
Hearing this relief immediately came to her, Alex's words were so sweet, and looking at Alex now she could see the similarities in Alex and that man who was apparently his father. And being a father it also meant that he was Alex's guardian, and Alex was a clone of him, right. So that meant that Alex would eventually grow to be just as handsome as he was, right?
Feeling happy she snuggled her head against his chest, as Alex then continued by asking her. "Mmm, Lili please don't be offended by this. But I just have to ask, its something that has been bothering me for a while now. And since my father seemed so certain of it being so, I just have to ask. Lili your not actually lost right. I mean you never seem to go to school or leave this valley, you do have a home somewhere here, don't you?"
Hearing this Lili felt confused for a moment and then realised something as she pointed behind herself and said. "No, I'm not lost. I live there."
Now Alex seemed confused as he asked. "Behind the mountain somewhere?"
Raising an eyebrow at his stupid sounding question, Lili pushed herself off of Alex and grabbed his hand as she led him to her home just ten or so meters from where they stood.
Coming to it Alex seemed stunned as he looked upon her clay furnace, pottery, stone tools and then she showed him her little home where she slept, as she then said. "Here, I live here. I'm not lost."
Still seemingly not understanding, Alex scratched his head, crossed his arms and put one hand on his chin as he then slowly seemed to start to realise something. His face suddenly turned to sorrow, he looked like he was about to cry as he suddenly came to give her a warm hug as he said. "I'm sorry Lili. I'm so sorry for not understanding your situation sooner. Hah, I'm such an idiot. I always complain about my life being bad and I even dared to come to you for help, not understanding at all what you were going through all along yourself. But don't worry Lili, I won't tell anyone. Your secrets safe with me. I will never let them touch you again, parents or not. I cannot even imagine what they must have done to you to drive you to this point, to make you run away from home. But never again will they touch you, never. I'll make sure of that. And when we are old enough I'll marry you so that you'll never need to leave this place or see either of them ever again. And seeing as your looks have changed, I think it should be doable, so just trust me ok. I will keep you safe, after all I'm your man, and that's what men are supposed to do."
What was he talking about, she wasn't sure, but it made her heart feel so warm. She could feel no deceit within him, he was speaking fully from the heart and with such honest love and passion towards her. They were hugging so tightly now, she felt so warm, so safe there in his arms, as she muttered out a tierful but happy response. "Thank you Alex. snif sniff."
For a long time they stayed like that. She slowly started to calm down, and then as they broke away from the hug, Alex looked to her with a hopeful smile and said. "Oh, man were gonna have so much fun together. I bet your parents are gonna be so pissed, if they ever found out about this. I'll just have to ask for my parents permission and then you'll get to see my gaming set up and the magical world of videogames. You just wait, oh I bet your gonna absolutely love it. Maybe we could even become gaming buddies, like professionals together you know. How's that sound, wouldn't that just be awesome? Just you and me together against the world."
Seeing Alex's smile and hearing the excitement within his words, Lili couldn't help but smile back at him and feel excited as well as she said. "Yes." Although she didn't really understand what it was that he was speaking of.
Then Alex stopped, went into thought and then as if realising something again he said. "Oh but, we'd need another pc for that then. And mine also could use an upgrade, hmm. Well I guess will just have to make some money first, which shouldn't be too hard. I mean despite my pictures of us not being up for that long and not getting a whole lot of views. It still did manage to gain me a few hundred subscribers on my channel. Plus the post did get like a thousand likes on my FB profile. Oh man were gonna be famous and rich soon, just have to make sure no one recognises you, ok."
Nodding her head Lili just said. "Oo,k." She felt so excited, there were so many things here she knew nothing of, but Alex seemed willing to help her learn, and what an honour it was to her, to be of use to him and to have him like her. She was happy.