Pov – The girl

I woke up to find myself on a soft surface covered in a blanket looking up into the sky, it was currently night and the stars were out in all its glory. It was truly beautiful however my star gazing was disrupted by the sudden influx of my memories.

I bolted up to my feet, where am I? What happened? The last thing I remember is being in that awful place with that scary and demented old man. My legs were broken and I was infected with whatever that thing was, all I know is that it caused me incredible amount of pain. Wait! My legs!

Looking down I found my eyes widening as I couldn’t believe what had happened, my legs and all my injuries were all healed without any scars and more importantly I felt stronger than I ever had. I didn’t even have time to care about the fact that I was naked. Digging through my memories I tried to find out what had happened.

I remember being in the cage trying to fight whatever that old man had infected me with when I saw that man! He came in and looked around in shock, well I guess anyone would be if they saw what was going on. After that the two of them fought or more like the old man got his ass kicked, I don’t understand how the magic attack had no effect on him. Well after that, the man spoke something that I was simply too exhausted to even understand and killed that hateful bastard, afterwards I simply blacked out and woke up here…… where is here?

Looking around I saw a small lake and surrounding it in every direction were trees, I assume we are still in the forest. Observing the surroundings, I came to a stop when I saw the same man sitting by a fire that had fish roasting on sticks surrounding it. He turned around as he seemed to have noticed me.

He looked to be around 18 – 20 years of age, I haven’t seen many males but from the few I have he is the most handsome one. He had white hair on the shorter side but still able to cover his forehead which swayed in the night wind, the feature that stood out most was his eyes, they were white too but with a golden tint, it was something new to me and it was strangely mesmerizing. He was wearing a white traditional robe which was tied up in the middle with a black belt, even more strange as I have not seen many wearing such clothing, on his side was a sword and a small bag.

He reached into his bag and brought out what looked like a man’s shirt and threw it at me which effectively broke me out of my stupor.

“Put it on” he said while looking away and that’s when I came to the realization that I was naked in front of a man. I felt my face go red as I hurriedly put the shirt on which was large enough to reach my knee and just stood there unaware of how to proceed.

POV – MC

I looked up at the girl who was standing there looking at the ground with a red face. She was only about 4.8 ft. tall which is normal for a girl her age, she had brown hair that fell her back and brown eyes, although she was young she was already quite beautiful and will become even more so in the future.

*Rumble*

I was brought out of my thoughts when I heard a rumbling, looking around to find the source I found nothing but when I looked at the girl again I saw her face turn even more red and embarrassment clear on her face.

“You must be hungry, come here, these fish are for you” I said trying to express the most warm and welcoming smile I could. She hesitated only for a few seconds then made her way over without saying anything and grabbed a fish and started to devour it in hurried manner like someone who hasn’t eaten for years.

She must have been very hungry, that old fucker must have not given her anything to eat. Still, I expected her to be crying and afraid yet she seems to be fine, must be due to her race, the same which gave her the ability to fight back against the corrupt mana.

After she devoured all of the fish that I had prepared she seemed to be satisfied and she had a smile on her face. Now was probably the best time to get her to know her.

“What’s your name?” my voice itself made her stiffen up as she must have forgotten that I was here while she ate. I could see that she was hesitated, deciding if she could trust me enough to talk, after a while though she finally spoke up.

“Nissa ….. who…. are… you?” she replied albeit timidly.  I could tell she was frightened of me.

“Ah! How rude of me, my name is Matzal. Sorry for not introducing myself first” I said sounding as friendly as I could be.

Silence ensured as neither she or I knew how to continue, however she was silently repeating my name over and over getting the feel of it. The awkwardness continued for a couple of minutes after which she gathered her courage to speak.

“Where are we and how did we get here and why…why was I naked?” she practically whispered the last question, however I could hear it.

“Well we are at a lake not too far from where I found you, I brought you here after I took care of all the things at the cave. As to why you’re naked, well I had to clean you up in the river to see if you had any injuries left and because you were very dirty” as I explained I was able to witness a range of expressions ranging from gratitude for the first part and anger and embarrassment at the last.

“You…You….You..saw me naked and YOU TO…TOUCHED ME TOO?!!” I was surprised as she got louder and louder until at the end she was standing up. Her face returned to being red due to the mixture of emotions. As I was confused and was about to say something to calm her down, she took the chance to give me a punch on the face which ended up resulting in a few bones being broken.

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“AHHHHHHHH!” she fell down grabbing her hand screaming and on the verge of tears, hurriedly I grabbed out the same vial I used before to heal her and fed her another drop which did its job healing her instantly and making her stop screaming. Without saying anything but still panting lightly she got up and sat next to me again, the silence was a little creepy but it was broken when she started sobbing which soon turned into crying and bawling.

“ARE YOU ALRIGHT?! That should have healed you, are you still hurt? Here have some more” panicking I brought out the vial preparing to give her another drop, hoping it would make her stop but it didn’t, she kept continuing to cry while I sat there without knowing what to do.

“*Sob*…..than…*Sob*…Thank..ah…you….*Sob*” Eh? Did she just thank me? Did the corrupt mana mess with her head? I waited for her to quiet down a bit to ask her.

“What did you say?”

“*Sob*….Thank you….thank you for saving me…thank you for healing me… thank you for everything…*sob*” she said still sobbing but still looking at me in the eyes.  Looks like I heard correctly.

Guess she had hidden the need to cry and she just let everything out now, good to know that she is still a normal 12 year old or as normal as she can be, mortals are very fragile after all. It was a surprise that she could survive for so long.

Having little to no knowledge what to do in these situations I thought the best idea would be to hug the crying girl, which apparently wasn’t such a good idea as she started crying again. NOW WHAT DID I DO WRONG?! I tried releasing the girl but surprisingly she had her hands around me and held me with strength a human her age wouldn’t have. After waiting for almost 10 minutes she finally let go of me, eyes still red and face wet but she had stopped crying.

“You should go to sleep Nissa, you didn’t sleep for long, I know how you Mor-…. girls need your sleep” I suggested, almost fucking up in the process, the girl really did look tired though. She simply nodded and returned to the bed I had set up for her with the items from my bag. She fell asleep pretty much as soon as she laid down.

In the morning, I decided to it would be best to cook food, knowing how mortals need to eat to survive I found a rabbit nearby with my mana, froze it and then brought it to me. I don’t know too much about skinning and cooking but I have seen others do it before so I am not completely clueless. Things like this really do make me jealous of the Gods, simply because they have a plethora of abilities where they would not have to worry about skinning a rabbit if they were in my position. Stopping my complaining before it gets out of hand I started cooking.

Nissa must have smelled the roasting rabbit as she shyly poked her head out of her blanket and looked up to see where the smell was coming from. I saw her almost drooling and beckoned her over, to which she complied although slowly, I assumed she was still a bit taken back by all the recent happenings. However, this didn’t stop her from once again devouring her food, thankfully the rabbit was quite large otherwise it might not have been enough.

Satisfied with her food she sat rubbing her stomach in an unladylike manner again forgetting that I was there at all. My cough caught her attention as her face once again went red.

“You sure eat a lot, but I guess that’s reasonable considering you’re an Amazonian”

The colour drained off her face and she went extremely pale, shock and fear were plainly written on her face. She hurriedly started backing away from me all the while looking at me in fear, I was extremely confused as to why she was acting this way.

“How…di..dddii…did ..you…know” she asked in the same afraid way as she spoke last night.

Still confused I asked “Know what?”

“YOU’RE NOT GOING TO FOOL ME, ARE YOU HERE TO TAKE ME AWAY TOO, LIKE THE OTHERS DID? ARE YOU?!!!” she was panting heavily from all that screaming while I was trying to make sense of her outburst.

Was she taken away from her tribe, wait did that man know she was an Amazonian, is that why she was there. Amazonians are very protective of each other yet this one was here being subjected to what I believe were tests using corrupt mana. Amazonians are known for their strength and regenerative capabilities, they are like monsters as they can absorb mana to give them abnormal strength however this power comes at a cost of never being able to have any elemental affinities. They are even better than monsters in absorbing mana, that’s the only way I found out she was different than normal mortals.

“Wait Nissa, I never came to take you away. I have a special power that allows me to see things normal people can’t that’s why I knew you were what you are” I urged but she was still apprehensive.

“If I wanted to harm you, why would I have saved you and healed you up, calm down Nissa and think” this got her to calm down a little and she did start thinking, thankfully unlike normal 12 year old’s she is quite smart so she started to understand and her anger cooled. However she was still on guard as she did not trust me completely.

“Come sit down, I will personally take you back to your home so don’t worry” I smiled at her.

She approached me carefully and sat further away than she did before while facing me. “Why would you do that for someone you don’t even know?” she asked sceptically, she truly was smart for her age.

“Hmmm, because I am new here, I want to go on an adventure through the entirety of this planet and enjoy all that it has to offer. Your home should be on the way and I’ll just drop you off” I replied smiling at her like an idiot.

She remained quiet after that answer, I am not an expert on judging emotions but I am not bad at it either and right now I could tell she was trying to make a hard decision. After a long time she finally spoke.

“Will you take me with you?”

“Of course, I didn’t I say that I would drop yo – ”

“NO, no I mean I don’t want to go home, I want to travel the world with you”

“You don’t want to go home? Why?”

“Because…..because if I go back now I would just cause more trouble” Nissa said with a sad, teary look.

Seems like there’s more to the story but I shouldn’t push her, I’ll ask some other time. Should I take her with me? It could get boring if I was alone and she might be interesting to have around, also there’s the abnormality in her which was caused by the corrupt mana, I will have to monitor that too.

“Are you sure you want to come with me, it will be dangerous, and whatever problem you have with your tribe, I am sure I could fix it. So, what will it be?” I don’t want to force her into coming with me and I will definitely take her home and solve whatever problems she has simply because I saved her which kind of makes me responsible.

Surprisingly she answered without much hesitation “I want to go with you. About my tribe, even if I do believe you can do what you say I still feel like they must have moved on and I’ll just make them uncomfortable”. Corrupt mana is quite chaotic and causes a lot of abnormalities, did it cause her to become smarter or is it because of her race.

“Alright then you can come with me, of course I will protect you but you must become stronger so that I don’t always have to babysit you, do you understand?” I asked trying to be as stern as possible. It was unnecessary for her to get stronger because she’s with me but it is best for her to not become dependent on me and of course I will help her.

“Yes, I understand, I will definitely become stronger!” it was a cute site seeing her try to be serious.

“Good, we will leave soon so get ready”. I need to make sure to get her some clothes, luckily that old bastard was filthy rich.

“Yes!” she cheerily replied.