The wind rushed against his face with a few leaves painlessly slapping against his face as a discord of fracturing trees and monstrous roars raced after them. Topaz full-send it through Harmony Grove's sea of trees, not allowing Zalto the slimmest chance to see the monster smashing through the forest to get to them. Zalto pouted, although not showing it, as his disappointment faintly bubbled to the surface.
"Is this really necessary?" Zalto asked, remaining still like a wooden board so he wouldn't unintentionally hurt Topaz or slip out of her grasp. Topaz swung Zalto in front of her, holding him by his shoulders and leaving him to dangle like a suspended house cat, before giving him a serious stare with a glint of disbelief in her eyes.
"Obviously, with my high healing CC out of charges, another run-in with Ravenger would be a death sentence for us," Topaz explained, her voice both firm and compassionate. Zalto tilted his head, casting a puzzled stare upon Topaz with intrigue filling his eyes as he drifted his gaze downwards.
"Is it wise to use me to obscure your view of your path?" Zalto asked unamusedly whilst staring at the broken necklace sticking out of Topaz's pocket. Topaz was about to respond, slightly offended by the implication she would crash, but snagged her foot on a protruding tree root and swung forward towards the ground. Moving on instinct, Topaz swung her arms behind her head to keep Zalto away from injury before she belly-flopped on the ground keeping her face elevated enough to avoid making contact with the ground.
"Phew... that was... close," Topaz uttered before she felt her hands come together with a light clap. She perplexedly blinked, wondering if the clap was actually from her, and lowered her empty hands to her face. After a moment of contemplation, she swung her head back in a frenzy, terror evident in her shaking eyes, and let out a hoarse scream as she watched Zalto spinning through the air back the way they came from.
She scrambled to her feet, keeping her eyes locked on the flying Zalto, and rushed after him. While he rocketed through the air, Zalto crossed his arm and huffed, musing over how someone could be so precise and, in equal parts, clumsy. Zalto's trajectory perfectly threaded him between a cluster of trees before disappearing behind them, obscuring him from Topaz's view. The deafening howl of the trailing monster, sounding closer than ever, sent a shivering chill down Topaz's spine and made her freeze up on instinct as memories of her getting rag-dolled into a tree flashed in her mind.
She darted her head back towards the way she was originally running; the temptation to simply flee and not risk an attempt to save Zalto but as she was close to succumbing to temptation, her fearful eyes sharpened as she realised forsaking Zalto would make her no better than her party members who abandoned her. She stomped her foot into the ground running directly in the direction of the howling, in direct opposition to her brain's orders.
Zalto popped out from between the trees, managing to land on his feet before a heavy stomp knocked him off balance and fall on his butt. A large hind leg covered in dark grey fur slammed into the ground, splittering and disturbing the ground, as Zalto hopped to his feet. A shadow crept over him as a second stomp shook the ground, and he glanced up at the thing casting the large shadow.
Towering even above the trees, the burly dark grey bear loomed over Zalto as rainbow flames spewed from its back and its eight extra flame arms on its back carried multiple deer-like creatures along with a dead adventurer. Zalto and the bear stared at each other, silently sizing each other up before Zalto watched as the bear's glowing red eyes turned a pale tea green.
Topaz bursted out from the trees, a blazing determination in her eyes as she steeled herself for the ensuing battle; however, her determination quickly fizzled out as she watched the towering bear sitting on the ground with its legs crossed like a human whilst Zalto poked and prodded the bear. Topaz silently took in the scene, covering her eyes and rubbing them before doing a double take in disbelief. Zalto turned around, noticing Topaz before he jogged over to her.
"You good?" Zalto asked with an undertone of glee in his voice. Topaz couldn't help but sigh as she couldn't comprehend the turn of events. She mildly sighed while choosing to count her blessings.
"It's nothing... honestly, I don't know if you being able to tame the Ravenger is more shocking than if you had killed it," Topaz remarked meekly.
"But that would've been wasteful," Zalto explained with a straight face. Topaz gave Zalto a blank look, Zalto's explanation hitting her like a bucket of ice water from the bizzarity of it, before meekly giggling.
"That so?" Topaz uttered weakly. Zalto nodded before he pointed at Topaz, causing her to jump at how fast his hand moved.
"Now that the danger has passed, I wanna see it.". Topaz raised an eyebrow before following the line of Zalto's pointing and realising he was pointing at her healing necklace.
"You mean, my crystallo circuit?" Topaz asked bewilderedly, pulling her broken necklace out of her pocket and handing it to Zalto for him to check out. Zalto brought the necklace to his face, moving it back and forth from himself as he checked it out at different angles. At seeing Zalto's odd way of inspection, Topaz struggled to stifle a cheerful snicker.
"Pretty snazzy, right? It cost me a few gold Yueo to get a strong healing one with only three components~," Topaz said in a mild boast, feeling a sense of accomplishment for her rare trinket.
"Hyroka... Keo... Neucorou," Zalto mumbled aloud, reading the glyphs etched alongside the lines of the crystal's triangle etching. Topaz raised an eyebrow, finding the words Zalto said very bizarre and out of the blue while wondering what he even meant.
"Pardon?".
"These are Hirutao Glyphs correct?" Zalto asked as he handed back the necklace. Taking back her necklace, Topaz nodded, stopping halfway, with a hollow smile from her brain buffering before she grabbed Zalto by his shoulders and tightly squeezed them.
"You can read Hirutao Glyphs!" Topaz blurted out in a frenzy while shaking Zalto, diluting his words into incoherent sounds as he struggled to respond, and she only stopped the second Ravenger growled at her. She snapped her hands off Zalto, removing Ravenger's aggression towards her, before turning her attention to the dead adventurer.
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"Friend of yours?" Zalto asked. Topaz adamantly shook her head, mentally denouncing even a hint of Zalto's question being the case.
"Wouldn't dream of it, but I suppose I can't just leave them here," Topaz replied, her voice laced with spite. Zalto nodded before turning to Ravenger and scaling up her arm. He reached her head and sat atop it, crossing his legs for balance as he glanced down at Topaz.
"Shall we get you out of here then?" Zalto asked while holding out a hand to Topaz and gesturing to her to climb on, giving Topaz the vaguest sense that Zalto was casting authority upon her with how he moved his hand. She lightly rubbed her fingertips against her cheek and pessimistically sighed, feeling her soul leaving her body at having to ride Ravenger like a horse.
"You, morons!" a muscular adult human male exclaimed in pure rage, reeling his fist back before hurling his metal gauntlet-clad fist and striking a male party leader adventurer. Clocking the guy in the face, the young adult adventurer donning a full-plated armour right arm and steel-studded armour sent the party leader flying across the normal-looking forest. The guy crashed into the ground with his head slightly dangling over the edge of the drop leading to Harmony Grove.
"I should revoke all of your guild cards this instant for even taking this request! What were any of you thinking, this place is off-limit to even S-rank adventurers and you even had the audacity to take the-". the guild master halted his verbal assault on the cowering adventurers and their dazed party leader, turning to inspect the approaching footsteps and being surprised at seeing Topaz return while carrying the dead adventurer in her arms. Overwhelmed with relief, the guild master marched towards Topaz and kneeled before her with the utmost diligence while bowing his head.
"Lady Vermillia, I am relieved to see you unharmed," the guild master stated, bowing his head even lower as a sign of his sincerity. The adventurers turned pale at hearing Topaz's surname, with some of them blacking out from the shock coursing through them, and Topaz froze up at being referred to by her surname.
"Wha- but I thought I hid my identity pretty well...," Topaz grumbled as the guild master took the dead adventurer off her hands. The guild master turned to the other adventurers, casting a deadly glare upon them and making them cower back in shame, and ordered them to stand which they did with the utmost speed, picking up their party leader to avoid any further ire from their guildmaster.
"You lot should be counting your blessings, that the daughter of the duke survived, so you most likely won't get the death sentence now," the guildmaster said callously as the adventuers lowered their heads in resignation. He sighed, dreading the ensuing paperwork he'd have to do, before turning his attention to Topaz.
"But I must say, what were you thinking coming to Harmony Grove, Lady Vermillia?". Topaz averted her eyes, faintly whistling while pretending she didn't hear the guildmaster's question before eventually relenting as she deflatedly exhaled.
"Who can say... I'd just feel guilty if I ignored that missing child request...," Topaz mumbled embarrassedly, making the guildmaster sigh in amusement and bewilderment.
"Lady Vermillia, as much as I can understand the sentiment, that personal request was posted over ten years ago so I highly doubt there'd be anything, let alone someone, to find," the guildmaster mentioned. Everyone turned to the guildmaster in shock, finding it hard to believe a quest from ten years ago was still active.
"Wha?" Topaz uttered in surprise. Rising to his feet, the guildmaster passed Topaz an apologetic bow along with an apology.
"Despite how much time has passed, the nature of the quest being one posted by a member of the royal family means we are legally required to keep it active until any evidence is found.".
"I see... so that means Zalto isn't the kid mentioned in the quest... probably," Topaz remarked, speaking soft enough that only the guildmaster heard it.
"Zalto?". Topaz briefly jumped from the guildmaster's question, shivering slightly before cooling her nerves.
"Yeah... he was the kid that saved me from dying," Topaz mentioned nonchalantly. However, the worried look on the guildmaster's face slowly chipped away at her nonchalantness before ultimately making her nervously chuckle on instinct.
"So, which part are you concerned about?" Topaz asked meekly.
"Do I even need to say it?". Topaz scratched the back of her neck, grumbling with mild frustration that she had to explain the entire story while heeding Zalto's request to exclude any mention of anything a normal person would consider abnormal.
"So, I got battered to the point of death, got separated from my crystallo circuit but then Zalto returned it to me so I could heal myself," Topaz explained. She constantly averted her eyes as she spoke, and the guildmaster attributed her eye movements to noble pride.
"And where is he now?".
"Erm... hard to say, one minute he was there then the next he ran off after a butterfly slime," Topaz said, lying through her teeth. The guildmaster nodded his head as he mulled over Topaz's explanation.
"I see, I believe it would be best to set up a search party to try and find them, could you give us a description?" the guildmaster requested. Topaz mentally groaned, imagining herself pulling at her hair while keeping a poker face for the guildmaster.
"Erm... let's see..., he has long curly silver greeny hair, pale sapphire eyes with swirly-looking black parts, super pale, and around ten.". The guildmaster nodded as he listened, trying to visualize Zalto and thinking Zalto must have been extremely malnourished or trapped inside a cave.
"Anything else of note?". Topaz placed a hand on her chin, quietly contemplating before she remembered Zalto's elf ears bouncing up and down as the two rode on Ravenger.
"I guess he had really pointy ears, kinda similar to those on pixies or faes," Topaz added. The guildmaster raised an eyebrow at the weird addition but couldn't dismiss it since Topaz appeared to be telling the truth while he also felt like he recognised that kind of appearance.
"That description... it sort of resembles those of a full-blooded elf, but aren't they one of the extinct races?" the mage member of the adventurer party remarked to her teammate which everyone else heard. An awkward silence filled the air, its intensity only growing with the continued silence. Topaz felt her jaw drop, not fully getting the picture but knew it was a big deal, and lightly pushed her jaw closed before putting on a business face.
"Alright, as soon to be duchess of the Vermillia Duchy, I declare no one shall enter Harmony Grove without a direct seal of approval from me, understood," Topaz stated sternly, in stark contrast to her usual carefree attitude. The guildmaster nodded, stated he'd let the other branches of the adventurer's guild know, and marched off with the adventurers in tow. Topaz let out a heavy exhale, dropping her shoulder from the growing weight of embarrassment, from having to act professional for even a second. She glanced down the massive crater containing Harmony Grove, spotting Zalto making Ravenger carry multiple felled trees. With a content smirk, she turned away and lightly jogged after the guild master, knowing no one would be disturbing Zalto for the foreseeable future.