I guess I couldn’t even count on my tamed beasts to understand my side of things… or maybe they just had a better moral compass, and that was saying something.
In any case, I wanted Glacien to deal with the problem that she wanted to force on me, but she wouldn’t be able to carry Ayla that well. Her arm was still hurt and due to the blood loss, letting her risk losing more was dangerous.
For starters, I let her use my rings that increase health regeneration. After that, I decided to pull the arrows from her arm and cover her arm with bandages. The smell of flesh and blood made my heart race and the hunger and the thirst got more powerful, but I focused my mind on the game and endured it.
“Come or think of it, she is something like an assassin, right? Carrying her in my back is quite scary. She can wake up and try to kill me at the very same moment.”
“Awooo! Awooo!”
“You say that, but what are the risks for you? At least watch my back and bite her if she does something suspicious.”
“Chi, chi, chi!”
Glacien was scolding me for overthinking and for being spineless. At least that was my impression based on my interactions with her. It also could be just my mind making me think like that.
In any case, after I was done with the wounds, I began to carry Ayla on my back to the labyrinth where her group was hiding.
I was going to lose around two days since we couldn’t move that fast… for situations like this, I realized that the wagon was truly a necessity as well. Not like situations like this happen or would happen often. In any case, Glacien could recover her stamina faster now, so not using all that extra energy when it could be so useful would be a waste.
‘Putting that aside, it looks like she was ambushed and the smell of blood was coming from the West… She said that she had to confirm something, but why would she head to the dwarves’ territory?’
My initial guess was that the people in the town were planning to cause a dungeon break and then had the chaos to achieve something. Ayla probably went to confirm that, but she messed up and then ended up like this. Most likely, she was on the right track, but she was discovered and was forced to flee.
I wanted to say that this isn’t my problem, but this might involve the guy that I am looking for, so I can’t say that with certainty. Revenge is a lot more troublesome than I expected… villains make it sound so easy.
One day later, I was back at the entrance of the Insectoids labyrinth. The trip was a bit longer since Glacien informed me of the presence of troublesome people around… they were large groups of elves moving in the area, so we had to take some roundabout ways to avoid them.
That was annoying, but at least it gave me a lot of time to think. I already had the idea of making an invisible tent, but what about making an invisible wagon as well? I just had to cover the parts with the parts of the invisible tent, but it wouldn’t hide the traces of the wheels of the vehicle.
What about a flying wagon? I probably shouldn’t give myself that much time to think about those things… I also need some time to rest since I only took half an hour naps lately.
“... It looks like they don’t have any guards at the entrance once again. Their security system is seriously lacking. Do you smell anyone nearby, girl?”
“Awooo, awooo!”
“Showing up inside with her wounded and unconscious will only make things dangerous for us. I use a bow too, so they might blame me. Perhaps I should have left the arrows in her arms…”
“Grrrrr…”
I was being unreasonable. Even Glacien was ready to scold me again. Without any other choice, we got inside the labyrinth, hoping that these guys wouldn’t make me waste too much more of my time.
Glacien cleared the path inside the labyrinth with ease while I carried Ayla on my back. She wasn’t poisoned. I could smell that her blood before was free of such things, so she must be just exhausted from overwork and the blood loss. Still, she was really causing me a lot of trouble.
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Controlling my thirst for blood was already hard enough and now, with my half vampire puberty getting in the way as well, I could tell that soon enough, that would be a recipe for disaster.
When I reached half way through the first section of the labyrinth, I felt the atmosphere changing and then Glacien alerted me of trouble approaching.
“What have you done to her?”
I heard a guy’s voice shouting and then I saw some blurry movements in the air. The next moment, I caught a punch a few centimeters away from my face. The first dark elf that I saw appeared… sudden movements and attacks make the camouflage skill become almost useless and he should know that.
“I knew that this would happen, but…”
The guy tried to punch me with his other hand, but since I was supporting Ayla with the other, I couldn’t block it, so I just kicked his legs and made him fall. His endurance was really low since I didn’t feel any resistance.
“Take care of her now. She already caused me enough trouble and I don’t want to waste any more time.”
I was ready to pass Ayla to him, but he got up while showing a pained expression on his face… his purple leg for purple where I kicked him, so it looked like I broke his bone. For him to carry Ayla would already be difficult enough. With the monsters and the distance to cross, it would make things even harder.
“... Go bring someone who has healing skills or potions. I don’t have all day, so move.”
The dark elf’s face tightened, his brows knitting together as his lips pressed into a thin line of disapproval. His annoyance was hard to miss, his piercing gaze darting between me and Ayla as if assessing the risk. His sharp features and stiff posture spoke volumes. Leaving me alone with Ayla wasn’t something he was willing to consider.
For a tense moment, he seemed ready to challenge me, perhaps to demand an explanation or flat-out reject my presence. Yet, as his gaze lingered on the unconscious figure I had brought with me, his expression faltered. His calculating eyes narrowed, and I could almost see the gears turning in his mind.
With a heavy sigh, he finally straightened, the frustration on his face giving way to reluctant understanding. While the situation clearly didn’t sit well with him, he seemed to acknowledge the logic of my actions. No one would endanger themselves or others like this without a good reason. After a long, assessing look, he gave a curt nod, his expression still tinged with wariness but no longer openly hostile. It was clear he didn’t fully trust me, but for now, he was willing to let the situation play out.
“My life is anything but boring, huh?”
I set up my tent and then let Ayla rest inside while Glacien watched our surroundings. I decided to take a nap as well, to clear my mind and kill time too. It didn’t take long for me to wake up when I sensed the presence of people approaching.
Eventually, that guy and the older dark elf were in the area where I was resting alongside another dark elf woman. I wanted to pack my things and leave, but they decided to treat her inside my tent.
“Thank you for bringing her here… can you tell me what happened?”
The older dark elf was willing to listen to me, but I could tell that he was on guard. He left her with me, after all. Now she was back, wounded and unconscious. His suspicion wasn’t weird at all.
“After we reached the third section of the other labyrinth, we found the place crowded with lesser chimeras, that made her question the intentions of the elder of the area and soon left to investigate it, when I left the labyrinth a few days later, she showed up in front of me heavily injured. Then I brought her here.”
The dark elf, whose name I still didn’t know, considered my words. After a while, the woman that brought it had finished treating Ayla and her expression looked a lot better. It looked like she also knew magic to restore one person’s vitality instead of just health points.
“She had wounds caused by Elven arrows.”
“That would explain why she was so exhausted…”
The dark elf healer assessment was accurate, but I wondered how that would explain a lot about Ayla’s condition. Unless the arrows that the regular elves drain their stamina or something, or maybe seal it? It was quite something if they produced arrows like that in the past and decided to keep the same method, even though they didn’t know where the dark elves went into hiding.
“Once again… thank you for bringing her-”
“I don’t need your thanks. I just want my tent and then leave.”
Just as they were reluctant to interact with me without a good reason, I felt the same about them. Their caution was mirrored by my own. To them, I was someone troublesome. an unpredictable variable they’d rather avoid getting entangled with. And to me, they represented the same: a group whose involvement was likely to come with complications and risks I wasn’t eager to embrace.
There was an unspoken understanding in our mutual wariness, like two predators circling each other, neither willing to make the first move unless absolutely necessary. It wasn’t animosity, exactly, but a shared recognition that our respective priorities didn’t naturally align. The dark elf’s sharp gaze carried the weight of suspicion, and my guarded demeanor answered in kind.
“Sorry, leader… I messed up.”
Ayla woke up and then tried to get up, but she was too hurt to pull it off that easily, so she was forced to rely on the support of the dark elf healer and on the guy that tried to punch me.
“It is fine, rest easy… I know that you wouldn’t have done anything risky that wasn’t good for our clan.”
The situation was getting melodramatic here, so I kind of wanted to leave…
“I followed someone that seemed suspicious and confirmed that the guys in the north are working with the dwarves… they are part of the group that ambushed you and Clarice the other day.”