Chapter Eight
A Dim Light of Hope
Through the door, Doska shouted with an annoyed voice, then took a wide view of the place before her gaze fell on Sero.
"Hey hey? Who do we have here? The new student enjoying a meal without inviting his older sister?" Doska spoke sharply, trying to provoke Sero, but he just laughed quietly.
"Have you become my older sister now?" Sero replied, taking another bite.
"We are all siblings in the family. Perhaps you didn't know that since you fled the palace without a trace. Anyway, aren't you going to invite me to your little feast?" Doska approached with a bored expression. Even if Sero refused, she would have invited herself anyway.
"Please, help yourself. All these dishes and the wine are at your service. If you want anything extra, just ask!" Sero spoke hospitably, which only left an annoyed impression on her face.
"I doubt you have enough to cover the cost of my dinner, but if you're finally going to show me some respect, I don't mind," Doska said with a soft voice, the turned toward the inn servants.
"Hey, you! bring the most expensive dish you can provide!" Doska ordered with a sarcastic look.
"What should we do? If that mage finds out his bill is so high, he'll kill us!" some of the servants murmured.
"We'll just tell him the truth! Miss Doska is a second-path mage and even more dangerous than him! Bring the stuffed deer meat!" another servant responded.
.........
"Hmm, it seems you have good taste," Doska said sweetly after finishing a jug of star fruit wine. In front of her were six plates piled with remnants of stuffed deer meat.
Even Sero was surprised she managed to finish all the plates despite her slender build, and then he looked at the servants with a lazy eye.
"Add all the dishes to the bill, and remember what I asked!" Sero said seriously, causing one of the servants to bow respectfully.
"Bill? Oh, I completely forgot. Where would you get the money, little one? The cost of everything here is probably a hundred gold coins, a hundred, understand? Even I don't have that kind of wealth, and I'm a second path mage," Doska said in a drunken voice.
"Let's say an older brother paid for me. No need to worry, he was who bullied your servants," Sero replied, taking a sip from his own jug of wine. Suddenly, Doska burst into laughter.
"Hahah! Fate! Fate has taken revenge on him in such a ridiculous way! I can't believe how bad his luck is, or maybe my luck is good. It doesn't matter. Anyway, why haven't you returned to the family mansion?" Doska asked in a less harsh and more intimate tone.
"As an orphan without support, I don't have what it takes to enter the palace right now. I made a promise to myself not to dare take a step until I refine a fragment of the small flame," Sero replied, feigning sadness with a soft voice. Even with Doska's arrogance, she was an orphan like him and felt a bit of sympathy, even if it was only a little.
"How noble of you. Maybe your story will make some of the sisters in the family feel pity for you. Anyway, I'm leaving. Don't die young, you rascal. I have hope in you now," Doska said, gasping from the effects of alcohol, and then she slowly walked away.
As soon as she left, Sero's expression darkened.
"She has hope in me? How daring to say that. But now I have a better plan," Sero muttered with a mischievous look, then he stood up and approached the servants.
"Are there any empty rooms at the inn?" Sero asked with boredom.
"Of course! There are four empty rooms—three on the second floor and one on the fourth. The price is one gold coin per night. Would you like to put it on the bill?" the servant asked calmly.
"No, I'll pay now. Put an extra jug of wine and two boxes of stuffed deer meat in the room on the fourth floor with a bucket of hot water. I'll be going out for a while," Sero said calmly, placing a gold coin on the table and leaving without another word.
"Heee, mages are really scary," the servants sighed in relief as they watched Sero's shadow fade away, then they noted the total cost of the meals.
"Ha ha ha! The good news is that today was a profit, folks! We made in one day what we used to make in a month! Mages are scary, but they're rich too!" a servant exclaimed happily as he looked at the bill.
.......
"I drank too much, but that wine was fantastic. Who would have thought it would make me this drunk!" Doska complained, feeling her steps becoming heavy with fatigue.
After all, she was heading toward the Anira family’s mansion, meaning she had to walk the whole mountain.
"Just a few more steps and I'll get there!" Doska kept repeating this phrase as she walked very slowly. The stairs, which used to be a pleasant walk, had become a struggle.
In a moment of distraction, a rock was thrown at her ankle, hitting her hard and causing her to fall on her back and roll the entire distance she had walked. Her face was slightly bruised as she silently clutched her pain, only to have her head hit the pavement and lose consciousness.
On the side of the pavement, Sero sat calmly sipping his wine, staring at the young girl lying next to him.
She looked attractive when she wasn’t acting like a spoiled brat.
"It’s truly unfortunate that the rock I threw hit you. Maybe drinking excessively wasn’t in your favor," Sero said with a smile as he poured a little wine onto her hair, then he looked on in disdain.
"This is punishment for my earlier strike, hopefully, it will get some attention," he said, activating the Little Flame Shard.
His hand glowed with an ember heat, and with a flick, he sent a hot spark onto a dry twig he had secretly placed in the wine jug.
He then lit it and threw it onto the edge of her hair, creating a small flame that began to burn her hair.
A smell of burning hair emanated as her hair slowly ignited, and when Sero felt her hair was short enough, he threw dirt on it to extinguish the flame.
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Then he punched his own face with such force that he spat blood. Even so, his confident expression remained unchanged. Moments later, he gently carried Doska on his back.
Her soft, feminine body pressed against his muscular back, where he felt her curves rubbing against his cloak. Her thighs were heavier than he had imagined, to the point where he felt pain just thinking about carrying her all the way to the Anira mansion.
He was even repulsed by touching her as if she were a rotting rat.
"How did I end up from having thousands of attractive mistresses to carrying a rascal like this as if she were my queen? Even in my previous life, I didn’t get involved with females until I was thirty," Sero grumbled as he began walking toward the Anira mansion, his mind focused solely on having completed the first part of the plan.
........
A powerful growl echoed through the area, coming from the yawn of one of the two massive lions guarding the gate of the Anira Palace.
“I agree with you, my brother. it is indeed very late,” said the guard sympathetically, one of the four guards who remained at the gate and the same person who had thrown the small flame shard at Sero.
“Shall we take turns guarding and sleeping? Two of us will sleep now, and we’ll switch after an hour,” said one of the four guards with a tired voice.
“And why should you be the one to sleep now?” grumbled another.
Suddenly, a loud thud on the ground came from the stone stairs, as if deliberately interrupting them.
Looks of concern and annoyance appeared on their faces as the owner of the sound approached them, only for those expressions to turn into intense worry upon seeing Sero injured while carrying Doska on his back.
“What!” one of the guards shouted as his companion rushed towards Sero, grabbing his arm.
“What happened to the young lady!” the guard shouted forcefully, only for Sero to spit out one of his teeth, staring at him with tearful eyes while pretending to be in pain.
“The young lady’s hair! It’s half burned!” another guard shouted as he carefully held Doska in his arms.
“What did you do to the young lady, you scoundrel!” the guard yelled angrily, and then suddenly a thought flashed in his mind.
“No, it’s impossible for someone like you to harm the young lady like this, especially after she previously knocked him down with a single blow, but you are still a suspect,” the guard muttered calmly.
“And how would I know?! All I know is that she came to look for someone at the inn where I stayed last night and I offered her a simple meal with the gold you gave me! What’s wrong with leaving alone in a drunken state late at night? When I intended to follow her, thinking I could have her recommend me to the family, I found her lying on the ground with burned hair, and when I approached her, a stone was thrown at my face, making me lose a few teeth!” Sero shouted with a voice full of burning anger, completely expressing his hatred towards them in the form of complaints.
He could lie and say he saved her, but who would believe that? A weak talent like him saving a second-path mage? How absurd.
But he also wasn’t going to reveal the whole truth; he manipulated the information to make them create their own story.
“I sense weak mana from her hair mixed with the smell of wine. Whoever burned it must have been a mage,” one of them muttered with a strained voice.
Doska was known for her beautiful long white hair, and although only half of it was burned, it was still a severe blow.
Female mages were distinguished by their long hair due to some shards requiring it for their use, and even if they wanted to grow it back, it would take a long time.
“A shard and the smell of wine? It could be a Dragon’s Wine shard from the second path, but that would be a threat to the Anira family! Hurry and take her to the family healer,” the guard ordered with an annoyed face.
“What about this scoundrel?” muttered the guard who had grabbed Sero’s arm.
“He’s just a coward who thought he could benefit from the young lady’s generosity, and his story seems highly fabricated, but I don’t think he could cause such damage unless he had refined the Little Flame Shard,” the guard replied.
“Refined a shard in one day? Even the family’s elder daughter hasn’t refined hers yet! If you include this in the report, you’ll be accused of madness,” one of the guards laughed sarcastically.
“Anyway, we’ll conduct a thorough investigation tomorrow; we’re too tired now. At best, it will be a misunderstanding,” another said.
“But at worst, it could be a threat to the family, so we need to send the report to the elder as a precaution,” replied the guard who had carried Doska.
“Let’s postpone it for now; we’re exhausted. As for the scoundrel, we’ll investigate his story. You can leave now, coward,” the guard dismissed Sero, who bowed quietly and left in silence.
After an hour of walking, Sero reached the bottom of the mountain. He grabbed the wine jug he had left behind and took a swig, a sharp pain erupted from the alcohol mixing with the injuries in his mouth, and then he spat out a glassful of blood mixed with shards of his teeth.
“That was a minor risk, but I won’t worry about it. Among the shards of the first path were those that can easily heal injuries. Something like this will be nothing more than a trivial memory once I complete my plan,” Sero said as he drank the jug entirely, pushing himself into a state of severe drunkenness.
“I need to get used to this; my spirit is stronger than this body!” Sero muttered to himself as he tried to walk towards the inn while drunk, and after many falls and stumbles, he finally reached it.
The servants stared at him in silence, their thoughts shifting between horror and sadness at his injuries, assuming Doska had struck him due to not providing good food and thinking his drunken state was from deep-seated injustice.
But if everyone knew what he had done, his injuries would have been far worse.
“Someone guide me to my room!” Sero shouted in a drunken tone with a face drawn with exhaustion.
After all, he had to climb the mountain carrying Doska, who was not light despite her lithe form, and then descend again, all with a swollen cheek and a mouth full of blood that he needed to spit out every few minutes, and on top of that, walk drunk from the inner area to the inn in the middle of the village.
“Immediately!” one of the servants shouted as he helped Sero walk, arriving at a modest room on the fourth floor with a perfect view of most of the middle area.
“I’ll leave the young master alone; call for us if you need anything! Also, there are some medicinal herbs in the box next to your food to alleviate the pain,” the servant said nervously before leaving quietly.
The room was simple but functional, with walls of old, polished wooden panels painted a warm amber color. The window allowed a bit of the cool night air to enter and freshen the room.
In one corner was a low wooden bed with a thin mattress, covered with simple linen but neatly folded. Next to the bed was a small bamboo table, bound together with ropes, holding a ceramic jug filled halfway with the village’s famous Blood Moon Tea, alongside two cups. An old but sturdy bamboo chair was placed beside the table.
On the walls were a few popular sayings, and the floor was made of well-maintained polished wood. In the corner near the door was a bucket of hot water with a towel and powdered soap.
In short, it was a modest room for a mage, but luxurious compared to the quarters shared by the servants, who had to share a single room half its size.
“When the village is destroyed, it is rebuilt; when the books burn, they are rewritten. The best time to start is when it seems like the end, and the same goes for the human body,” Sero murmured calmly. Despite his broken body, he began to remove the upper part of his cloak, and he then tied it to his waist.
His body was pitiful for a mage; his muscles barely showed, and he looked like skin on bones. He had scarcely received any food at the orphanage.
He started positioning his body on his hands, warming his chest and arms, and then began simple push-ups.
“I’ll keep going until I feel drowsy, as I have nothing to do in the coming days since I’ve already refined the shard, and I don’t want to raise further suspicions,” Sero muttered while exercising despite his exhaustion.
He planned to work out until he fell asleep, then wake up and devour the food he had ordered, and repeat the process, even with the pain in his teeth he still pushed on.
Unlike Doska, who had eaten five plates of deer meat, Sero was skinny, and the amount of calories he needed wasn’t large.
He had accounted for that when he ordered previously, and even if he needed more, he would hunt it himself, and he kept training until he fell asleep.