-Chapter Thirty-Eight-
The Death Fields
Saki’s head perked up as, for the second time that day, Aelius returned to the room. This time, he was alone like he had said he would be before he left with Aria.
“She’s gone?” Saki asked and Aelius nodded. Unsure of what to really think, Saki turned her head to Lia, who was quietly sitting on her bed. Speaking of which, Lia had been acting somewhat dejectedly over the course of the last few days. As for Aelius, he was different, somehow. Calmer, more relaxed, but there was also the hint of a sharp undertone in his demeanor. Whatever happened between him and Aria has refreshed his mind and restored his resolve. The mentally acute Aelius had returned.
“We’re leaving right now,” Aelius told the two girls. “Pack your things.”
Within a few minutes the group, now reduced to three, came to the Northern Border entry of Sepha. Just like Dawnbreak, and all other major cities, city Knights managed the entry and exit in and out of the city. Aelius couldn’t be bothered waiting in line, nor taking the risk of whether the guards were out looking for him or not, after the fiasco of the previous night. Additionally, he didn’t want to leave a public alibi that he had headed off into the desert. He wanted his whereabouts to be completely unknown. They immediately veered away from the patrol guard, taking a side path that led into a road running alongside the large city walls. Standing thirty to forty metres tall, the Northern wall of Sepha was designed to withstand sieges. It was essentially a fortress attached to a city. In such a tall wall, there were only four entrances. Otherwise, flight was the only way to get over the wall, but anything in the air was likely to get shot down with magic. Not that he cared though. Reaching down, Aelius cast Sixth Tier Anemo magic at their feet. The wind propelled them, like a slingshot or a cannon ball from a cannon, into the air. Saki let out a squeal as Aelius grabbed onto her and the quiet Lia’s hand and they went sailing out of Sepha. He heard the city behind him sound its alarm horn as no doubt, some of the guard patrols would have seen them. But the Anemo propelling them was so far, that even though they ended up landing in the complete open on top of endless sand, they were well far away from the city walls. The gates quickly opened to allow a group on horses to chasing them down, but the sand was not good terrain for mounts like horses.
“Let’s go!” Aelius called as he gathered Mana at his feet. Saki used her Awakening Arts to lift herself into the air and she followed Aelius along while flying. As for Lia, she mimicked Aelius’ use of Mana and was soon following along without any problems as well.
“Well done, Lia!” Aelius told her and she embarrassedly nodded back to him, flinching as sand hit her eye in the harsh wind. Reaching up and rubbing it out, Lia turned her gaze of wonder to the endless ocean of sand before her, gasping in awe beneath the sun. The desert was vast and boundless, but beautiful.
Farrien was a remote nation with very little contact to the outside world. The main reason was because, though the Kingdom of Farrien was inhabitable, it was a peninsula off the Southern Coast of the Sacred Continent. The majority of land that separated the Kingdom of Farrien from the rest of the Continent was not only uninhabitable to humans, it was home to carnivorous plants, man-eating insects, and mythical beats that could devour entire villages. Aside from the the wildlife and plants, there was also the fact that half of that land was desert, and the other half a tropical forest. The further closer to the centre of the Sacred Continent one gets, the hotter the land becomes. This uninhabitable land was referred to as the Death Fields, for close to no one would even dare to set foot into it. Over the course of decades, Nations have begun constructing roads and paths through the Death Fields, but if one were to stray off that path, they were said to never come back. While most civilised societies developed themselves far, far away from the Death Fields, there were also nationless nomads that wandered the Fields. Save for some sightings of an entire jungle city that was hidden somewhere, yet to be discovered, there were also groups of villages dotted around the Fields.
“The Death Fields span double the length of Farrien, and triple the width of Farrien,” Aelius explained to Saki and Lia as they followed along, and Saki nervously looked off the path to the desert.
“Is it really that dangerous? I don’t see anything at all-” Saki jumped in fright as a gigantic sandwarm, the size of a tower, erupted out of the ground and then tunneled its way back into the sand again, just a hundred metres away, frighteningly close.
“Ahhhhh!” Saki screamed, looking down at her feet and the flimsy pebblestone path they were walking on. “How are we safe on this thing!?” The worm could eat an entire building, and their path was only large enough to fit two carriages. She dashed across the stone and lunged forward, grappling onto Aelius’ arm. Beside him, Lia did the same, fearfully looking out over the sand for any signs of movement. She flinched when just a few metres away, a gigantic scorpion crawled its way out of the sand together with a dozen baby scorpions. The small group of predators however, turned away from the path and scuttled off further into the desert.
“It’s enchanted with magic, to ward off beasts as long as we don’t attract them over,” Aelius explained to them with a small smile. “Anyway, the place we’re headed off to is in the middle of the desert. It’s very far away from this path, so be prepared,” Aelius smiled to them without any guilt in his voice.
“No wayyy!” Saki cried.
By the time night had arrived, they had traveled as far as they could into the desert. The temperature rapidly dropped from scorching hot to ice cold and Aelius was forced to turn his Cryo spell into a Pyro spell instead.
“Aelius… can we find somewhere to sleep?” Lia asked from behind him with a weak, shaky voice.
“Of course, sweetheart,” he told her without glancing back at her, instead scanning the horizon with his eyes. They then lit up as he saw fiery, orange lights off in the distance, over a large dune of sand.
“Come, follow me,” he reassuring spoke over his shoulder, gesturing ahead of him and the girls eagerly began to trudge towards it. As they drew closer, they found a campfire, a very luxurious carriage with au unknown house crest on it, and a dozen tents set up over the sand. Several armed guards patrolled the perimetre until one of them spotted Aelius and his small group.
“Halt!” the guard called and Aelius came to a stop a dozen metres away, giving the guard a friendly smile. The guard quickly alerted his other squad mates and they joined him, raising their weapons cautiously at him. As Aelius patiently waited without approaching, finally, a buff man wearing the same uniform and a large buster blade appeared from behind them, stepping forward.
“Hoh…” Aelius smirked. Look at this guy… The man opposite him returned a charismatic, warrior-like smile.
“Hello, friends. State your business,” he called out as beside him, a grey-haired man dressed in a black butler’s uniform joined him, giving a distinguished look at Aelius. Wearing an impeccable smile, Aelius put his hand to his collar and bowed slightly forward, exemplifying perfect Noble etiquette.
“I am Aelius Kanaria, the only son of the Kanaria Archduchy. These are my companions. We’re currently travelling through and was wondering if we could spend the night here with you, and borrow some facilities.”
“You are headed North?” the guards captain answered and Aelius nodded with a friendly smile, but the butler stepped forward.
“Hello, Sir Kanaria,” he bowed with perfect etiquette as well, though his was that of a butler’s and so went far lower than Aelius’ one did.
“Why are these guys out in the desert?” Saki asked in a low whisper behind Aelius, but he didn’t answer, though he gave her an amused look.
“If you are willing to wait for but a moment, I will inform my master of your arrival.” The butler turned away and approached the carriage, opening the door and quietly conversing with someone out of sight. Aelius was left exchanging smiles with the guard captain.
“Someone at your age having reached the Sixth Tier,” the guard captain began to say. “It looks like Farrien is not all talk,” he smiled and Aelius gave a chuckle.
“Thanks for the praise, but can I ask why you are headed South towards Farrien currently?” he asked.
“Well… I’m not at liberty to disclose,” the captain uncomfortably answered, scratching the back of his head.
“Ah, well. No concern,” Aelius turned his head back to the carriage where the butler continued to converse with the unseen Noble, and then placed his eyes onto the campfire. “Speaking of which, I’d recommend putting that fire out. You don’t know what sort of beasts you’d attract at night,” he suggested and the captain looked over to the fire.
“Are you familiar with the desert?” he asked and Aelius nodded.
“Probably more than you guys are.” At his answer, the man sighed before walking over and kicking a pile of sand into the campfire. In almost an instant, from the sheer volume of how much the captain kicked up, the fire died and he returned back to stand off against Aelius, who simply remained smiling.
“Another Noble travelling? Who would believe that!?” Aelius heard a young girl’s voice shout and looked to the carriage to see the butler wincing. “Chase them away!” The guard captain who heard the conversation, helplessly turned to Aelius and dipped his head.
“My sincere apology, but I cannot go against the wishes of my master.”
“Well, I understand where she’s coming from,” Aelius shrugged with a sigh. How would you expect to meet another Noble on a trail like this, and they don’t even have a carriage or their escorts, he thought nonchalantly and looked around him.
“Sir!” another voice cut-in, and the group turned their head to see a younger Knight return on a horse.
“Barison! You’ve returned!” the guard captain exclaimed with a merry smile.
“Sir! Our scouts have found a village twelve-hundred metres east! It appears to have suitable accommodation for the night,” he called.
“Did you hear that, Frank?” the guard captain asked the butler, who turned back to the carriage and relayed the news to the Noble lady.
“Well…” Aelius looked off to the east, but unable to see anything. “You guys are ballsy for going a wholeass kilometre off track, but if there’s another village, let’s just head there. All good, guys?” he asked Saki and Lia over his shoulder and they nodded.
“Alrighty.” Aelius turned back to the captain and gave him a nod. “Regardless, it was nice meeting you.”
“It was an honour, young sir,” the guard captain dipped his head and Aelius gave him a small smile and a wave, before he took his group of three and stepped out over the sand.
As Aelius led Aria and Saki along, he noticed the other Noble family had also begun moving with their horses and carriage. But as they strayed further from the path, Aelius raised his brow in perplexion.
That’s odd, he thought as they finally came over a dune and found themselves overlooking a large pit with a decently sized village hidden away in it. I don’t remember there ever being a village like this in this region. For a moment, he pondered he mystery, but decided to shrug it off in the end. Well, it’s not like I could memorise every single village, after all.
“Let’s go,” he smiled to the two girls and they began to descend the sand. The village had small street lamps of light, which would’ve attracted monsters, but they evidently had not only a lot of warriors guarding the village, but also some sort of enchanted barrier to repel monsters. Upon looking down the hill, Aelius found some of the uniformed knights belonging to the other Noble family were gathered at the village entrance. Across from them on the other side, dozens of villagers had gathered, including normal folk and other armed warriors. Aelius quickly arrived and cleared his throat. Turning around, the Noble Knights gave him a perplexed look but stepped aside and Aelius stepped forward, approaching the first deserter blocking entry into the village. It was a tall and muscly, tanned man with another, frail old grandpa next to him. Heh, I know just what to do for this.
“Hello!” Aelius greeted them in a friendly tone. “My name is Aelius, I’m not with these people,” he gestured to the Knights. “I also happened to be travelling past.” Raising his hand, Aelius summoned his subspace storage dimension portal and the two deserters stumbled backward as a large box of bottled water hit the ground before them.
“I was wondering if we could borrow a spare corner to sleep until morning before we depart again,” he asked politely, and the young man and the grandpa exchanged uncertain gazes between each other. Suddenly, a pair of hands clasped onto their shoulders from behind and pulled them aside, revealing a tanned, desert woman in her thirties, wearing sandy and dirtied glasses with a once-white coat on her shoulders.
“Move aside, you two muscle brains!” She pulled them aside, revealing her scrawny and messy black hair, before she examined the water.
“It’s Greyalla!” some of the villagers behind her whispered in excitement as she inspected the box. Aelius narrowed his eyes as he looked at her, making note of the magic power flowing out of her body.
“Was that storage magic!?” she suddenly exclaimed as she lunged forward, grabbing Aelius by the hands.
“Ah, yes. That was a dimensional subspace,” he told her without breaking his smile.
“Incredible! I’ve been trying to figure out how to use it, I never imagined his Lordship Nos would send such a blessing to me!” Aelius stumbled as she suddenly pulled him into the village and gestured for Saki and Lia to follow.
“Please, please, this way,” she turned away to escort them and Aelius was about to follow when he felt a sudden vibration and stopped in his tracks. Looking behind him, he saw the carriage belonging to the other Noble they met, coming down the hill. A few dozen metres away, he saw the sand shift and the tip of some form of predator reveal its fins for but a moment. It was quick and easy to miss, sudden and bizarre, but that was exactly how the predators of the desert operated. Aelius knew it all too well.
“Shit!” He turned around and instantly sprung into the air. Beside him, Saki sensed the threat as well, flying up into the sky beside him. Aelius saw a gigantic sandworm come plowing out of the sand in an attempt to eat the carriage and its guards whole, opening its mouth wide into a disgusting mound of flesh and sharp teeth.
“Barrier!” The teenage mage shouted with his hand raised toward the carriage and a wall of ice manifested out of thin air in front of the worm. Being the direct opposite element of the desert, the worm plunged into the rock solid ice and then roared out in pain as its outer skin rapidly began to freeze. Before the worm disappeared, from beneath them on the ground, Lia raised her hand at the worm and swiftly fired out a gigantic ice boulder. It was triple the size of a normal carriage, and a masterful example of a perfect spell, shooting up the hill and plunging into the worm. THe impact was profound enough to knock it over onto its side but was not enough to kill it. As the worm straightened up again in but a few seconds, the Noble’s carriage was quickly rolling down the hill and the worm went in for another attack. But this time, it was pulled back by dozens of conjured threads it had failed to see, having no eyes, and Saki revealed lines of glowing pink energy attached to her fingers. With impressive strength, she pulled the threads until they were so tightened, the worm was strewn upward straight, completely immobilised. Aelius saw the opening coming a mile away and was conjuring magic in his hands for the final blow, but before he could make a move, he saw a figure dash out from the village and instantly slash it in half. With impressive speed all the way from atop one of the village building rooftops, the shadow shot through the air straight to the worm in a matter of seconds. A gigantic slash followed the next moment, spanning the size of an entire sailing ship and the worm immediately fell limp as its seperated body flopped over onto the sand. By the time it was all over, Aelius had lost his momentum in the air and was falling back to the sand. As soon as he hit the ground, he heard the crowd cheering, but he noticed they weren’t looking at him. Instead, as he turned around, he saw a dark skinned deserter emerge from the worm’s corpse. Wielding a halberd with ease, her flesh covered in red blood, wearing the eyes of a fierce warrioress, Aelius saw a young woman return to the village entrance, giving him a pair of cold eyes, and he felt heartbeat stutter at her glare.
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“Raphie! Raphie!” the crowd cheered and she whipped her hair aside, slamming her halberd into the sand and putting a hand on her hip, looking into Aelius’ brown eyes. He found himself gazing back at her, surprised at her prowess, as the crowd around them cheered.
After a moment of wordlessly gazing at each other, Aelius put on his best smile and raised his hand. With impressive discpline, he supressed the sensation of his cheeks flushing, immediately regaining his composure. I never expected to meet a Master out here. She must be at the Seventh Rank, at least.
“Cleanse.” With Arcane magic, he wiped all of the blood on her away, revealing her unblemished skin, barely hidden behind her desert-styled flax-woven bra and skirt. She can’t have been much older than Alea, at eighteen years old, standing slightly taller than Aelius. As he was so young, his body had yet to bulk out, so even though the girl called Raphie was extremely lean and cardio-fit, she still stood with a body that could smother him and strangle him. Blinking in surprise, the girl looked down at her now cleansed body and then back to him. She was about to say something as she opened her mouth, but was interrupted by sudden hysterical screaming behind her. With an annoyed look, Raphie turned around to see the carriage door get thrown open and a teenage girl in a frilly, pink and white dress stumble out of the carriage.
“Oh my Goddess!” she screamed, looking at the worm’s remains and then covering her eyes. “What are you people doing!? Guard captain!!” The mid-teen, blue-eyed blonde shouted and the guard captain from earlier appeared before her.
“M’lady, it was all under control,” he quickly tried to console her but she reached up and slapped him across the cheek.
“I’m disappointed with your service! How could you let that thing get so close?” she hissed at him.
“With all due respect,” he tried to explain to her carefully, as though speaking to an angry child. “There is no way to kill a worm like that unless it comes out of the sand. We killed it at the first opportune moment.”
“I am not asking for excuses!” she angrily stamped her feet before spinning away and storming to the village. “Get me my room!” she ordered as she tried to enter and some of the villagers stepped forward, putting their hands out to block her. As she stepped past and one of them grabbed her arm, she freaked out and pulled back, screaming.
“How dare you!? How dare you touch me!? This dress costs more than your entire village! Guards!” she shouted at the old grandpa who had reached out to stop her. “Guards! Cut off this fool’s hands! And hurry up and get me to my room!” she demanded. Aelius noticed the girl named Raphie pull out her halberd, her glare darkened and she began to approach the Noble lady.
“You see, Lia,” Aelius sighed. “This is what most of them are like,” he told the black-haired beauty over his shoulder before he stepped forward.
“Uh huh…” Lia watched on, hiding behind Saki at the domineering girl, the complete opposite of Lia’s quiet nature.
“M’lady, we can’t enter their village as we please, nor can we cut off his hand just for touching you,” the butler staunchly told the Noble, who gave him a glare.
“Really!? Then should I call the main guards to come and wipe this village out, since its existence is a disgrace?” she asked and some of the villagers nervously exchanged glances.
“M’lady, I doubt the guards would be willing to follow such an order,” the butler sighed.
“If they are not willing to follow an order, then they have no purpose serving me!” the girl shouted back.
“They very well might all resign, m’lady,” the older man regretfully informed her and her face flushed.
“Then I’ll tell my fiance of this!” she angrily yelled back. “And he’ll come here and wipe out this village!” Aelius saw the girl named Raphie about to lash out when he quickly jumped in the way and slapped the girl across the face.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, reaching up to her cheek, and then returning a fierce glare. “Surely you guards will do something now! A commoner just slapped me across my cheek! Now his hand must be cut off! How dare he harm a Noble! Captain, I swear to the Goddess if you do not bring his hand to me, I will excumminate you and your entire family from our region!” she screeched and the guard gave her a pitiful look.
“That is a Noble, m’lady,” he shook his head. “As a commoner, I cannot harm a Noble, even if it is at your orders.”
“What?” the girl answered in shock, and turned her head back to Aelius. The teenager reached into his jacket pocket and fetched a golden insignia, raising it in front of her face to reveal the crest of the Kanaria Archduchy.
“Prince of the Kanarian Archduchy stands before you,” he smiled at her with a smug look. “I don’t know which insignificant household you are from, but do you mind not causing trouble for the locals here? As a fellow Noble, you lower my household’s prestige.” He put his sigil away and brushed the dust off his shoulder, giving her a scoff. “Country wannabe Nobles that try to act too hard to be one of us. What an embarrassment,” he remarked loudly as he turned away and returned to the deserter named Greyalla. Behind him, he heard the Noble girl scream and storm off back into her carriage, slam her door shut before a muffled wail began to cry out from behind the walls.
“Hah…” he sighed as he paid her no further mind. “Let’s head in, shall we?” he suggested to the deserter named Greyalla, whose eyes darted between him and the carriage, until she nodded.
“This here is one of the guest rooms,” Grayalla excitedly showed Aelius to one of the rooms tucked away in the corner of the main building in the centre of the village. Stepping aside, she allowed Aelius to enter with his two girls in tow, and they stepped into a modest room with a bed and rudamentory furniture.
“How long were you thinking of staying?” Grayalla asked from the doorway as Aelius took off his outer jacket and slung it over the bed.
“I was originally going to leave first thing in the morning,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to travel, after all.” Grayalla’s eyes lit up.
“Then please! Before you head off to sleep, teach me of the storage magic?” she asked as he returned to her, giving her a warm smile.
“Of course,” he answered as he stepped up to her. “To help a fellow mage in learning how to improve their quality of ife is one of the principles of magic.”
“Thank you so much!” she grabbed his hand, sincerely giving him a dip of her head. “Then, let’s get a move on, as I’m sure you’d love to sleep sooner rather than later.”
Greyalla immediately led Aelius across the moderately sized village to what appeared to be her own laboratory. As they walked along the cold pathway towards it, she looked over her shoulder to speak to him. “Thank you for stepping in to help us with that Noble as well. It is not often, but we have had cases of harassment from the Empire’s stuck up Nobles. They have a different culture there where they treat any aristocracy as Royalty. We have no such thing here in the desert,” she said.
“Oh, of course,” Aelius answered as he followed her. “I really dislike Nobles like her,” he said when they arrived at the tallest buiding in the village, a multistory tower. Grayalla entered right in with no need for a lock and led him in, where they eventually arrived to a large room.
“I assume you’re the one who set up the barrier to repel monsters away from the village?” he asked Grayalla and she nodded.
“We have many warriors who are strong with the sword, but I am the only one in the village capable of using high Tier spells for the sake of defence,” she answered.
“You’re the only conjurer,” Aelius responded and she gave him an interested look.
“Is that what the people of the Empire call us?” she asked and Aelius shook his head, wearing a wry smile.
“I’m not from the Empire, Grayalla,” he told her with a chuckle and her face flushed.
“I see. I’m not familiar with many aspects of the outside world,” she said, looking away.
“That’s alright,” Aelius assured her with a soft laugh. “It’s totally alright. But yes, you and I are called conjureres. We expel Mana outside of our bodies. The warriors of your village will use Mana internally within their bodies.”
“Ohhh,” Grayalla nodded in realisation. “Yes, yes. I am aware of that difference between myself and the others. To think it was called ‘conjuring’,” she put a hand to her chin as she quickly fetched a notebook that was sitting nearby and began to scribble on it. Aelius noticed her diligence and passion towards learning, with magic, and found himself admiring it.
“You say you’ve been trying to learn the subspace spell some time now. What difficutly have you been encountering with it?” he wondered with a raised brow as she spun around to give him her full attention.
“I simply have no idea,” she answered as she began to form a magic circle at the tips of her fingers. “I believe I have everything correct in the theory, but it just doesn’t execute properly.” Aelius watched with narrowed eyes as she carried out the set up procedure, but at the end, the circle simply dissipated without achieving any result.
“Oh- hahahha!” Aelius broke into laughter at what he just witnessed, and Grayalla’s face quickly turned red.
“What is it!?” She stomped forward and put two hands on his shoulders. “You know what I’m doing wrong, don’t you!?” He wiped a tear from his eye as he calmed himself down, and gave her a nod as his laughter died away.
“Yes, and it’s a very simple problem, actually.” Grayalla stared him in silence, ready for him to continue. “Do you know that magic spells are seperated into Tiers?” he asked her and she slowly nodded.
“Yes. Some are high tier, some are low tier. Some people can cast high tier spells, but others can only cast low tier spells. It relates to their talent and affinity for magic,” she said and Aelius tilted his head.
“Well, you’re not entirely wrong. But there’s a reason behind why that’s the case.” He raised a finger to get her attention as he began his explanation. “Anybody can cast a Fifth Tier spell so long as they have refined to the Fifth Mana Ring. Same for the Fourth, the Sixth, and so on.” Grayalla nodded as she listened, giving him a look of absolute seriousness. “If you have more Mana Rings, you can channel more Mana into spells, allowing you to use spells that require more Mana. A Sixth Tier spell requires more Mana than a Fifth Tier spell. As such, a mage at the Fifth Tier cannot input enough Mana to support a Sixth Tier spell, and it’ll just fizzle out, like yours just did.” Aelius gave her a small smile. “Grayalla, subspace magic is a Sixth Tier spell, and you’re still only at the Fifth Ring.” Her eyes widened as she understood his meaning.
“Then that must mean that you are at the Sixth Tier!?” she exclaimed in bewilderment, and he nodded.
“Incredible! I was already told by my master that I had surpassed her, but to think there was more magic out there!” Grayalla exclaimed. She was not disheartened at all. In fact, she was excited.
“Yes, so to fix your problem, all you have to do is refine your Sixth Ring.” Aelius looked around the room, taking in the countless charts and evidence of experiments she had conducted. “I think you may have acculumated enough Mana to condense your Sixth Ring, you just never actually sat down to do it.” Grayalla nodded frantically.
“I believe I can recall when I gained these new Rings, as you call them,” she said as she sat down. “If you believe I am able to ‘condense my Sixth Ring’, then I will give it a go.” She took a deep breath and Aelius felt the Mana around him get pulled toward her core. Crossing his arms, he leaned back against a nearby wall, watching on in satisfaction as she gradually began to condense her Mana Ring.
After only two hours, Aelius felt the mana die down and Grayalla opened her glowing eyes again. Most mages would take an entire day to finish contructing their new Ring, yet she was able to do it in less than a quarter of that time. Could she have been a rare talent? Aelius found himself wondering as she rose to her feet again. Just how did she reach this level of magic prowess, without any proper understanding of the fundamentals of Mana? He wondered. As a Sixth Ring, she would already be rare as a member of Farrien, or the Empire.
“Congralutations, Grayalla!” he told her, pushing aside the thought and stepping forward. “Welcome to the Sixth Tier,” he gave her a bright smile and she returned one.
“It was all thanks to your guidance, Aelius!” She gave him a bow.
“No, no,” he reached forward to gently pull her upright again. “It was all thanks to your own efforts, Grayalla. I honestly didn’t do anything special at all.”
“But who knows how long I would’ve been stuck without your explanation!” the older woman responded with her eyes lit up. “Before you leave tomorrow, I will definitely find a way to repay you for this kindness!”
“I don’t need repayment, Grayalla. I just said it because I wanted to see you succeed,” he answered to her insistence uncomfortably. “And you did succeed, so that’s all the repayment I would want.” She gave him a touched look.
“Wow… you truly are a noble soul, Aelius!” she gave him a whack on the shoulder, making him give her a wry chuckle. “For now, you should return to your wives and take a night’s sleep. Let’s discuss this again in the morning!” She insisted and he sheepishly laughed.
“Ahaha… alright then.” Grayalla outstretched her hands, and to her delight, she successfully activated the subspace storage portal without a hitch.
“Incredible.”
After exhanging a few more words, Grayalla was guiding Aelius back to the centre building through the village paths. It was long since the dead of the night, and many of the villagers were no doubt sleeping. But as they drew closer ot the centre of the village, they suddenly noticed people ahead of them running around in a panic.
“What’s going on…?” Grayalla seemed just as confused as he was, and they heard some of the villagers exchange words as they ran past.
“Raphie’s injured!” Aelius’ eyes widened as he recalled the beautiful, strong and indominable warrioress. She’s injured? He wondered with a perplexed look, when Grayalla broke off into a run without him.
“Hold on- wait!” He also broke into a run after her, but while she disappeared around a corner, he noticed in the corner of his eye another crowd gathered just nearby. Half of them were locals and the other half were guards belonging to the Noble, and he noticed the guard captain and butler wearing looks of grievousness. Aelius came skidding to a stop and spun around to run up beside them instead. “What’s going on?” he asked in concern when they stepped aside for him and he gasped. The Noble mistress, no older than he was, lay on the ground deceased with a gaping wound in her stomach. The blue-eyed blonde now lay peacefully asleep like a sleeping beauty. Without her mouth to spout obscenities, she was a true doll worthy of Noble lineage, but alas, she was dead. Aelius’ eyes widened as he inspected the wound, seeing that traces of black venom had travelled through her veins. They said Raphie was injured, Aelius turned away without a word and broke into a run, following the path Grayalla had taken. Eventually, he reached a building with another large crowd of villagers blocking off the entrance, arriving just in time to see the crowd part way for Grayalla to enter. Aelius followed her and saw they were entering what was some sort of makeshift infirmary building. With rows of beds, he found Raphie on one of them with a gruesome wound on her shoulder blade .
“Raphie!” Grayalla called out with a shaking voice as she fell to her knees beside the younger girl, taking hold of her hands. Struggling with all her strength, Raphie struggled to open one eye and saw Grayalla kneeling beside her.
“S-sister,” she softly uttered before her eyes fell shut again, clearly in pain. Aelius regarded the wound grimly, noticing the same black venom, as Grayalla spun to a nearby old woman.
“Granny! What’s wrong with her!?” she asked and the grandmother shook her head with a saddened look.
“She was struck by a poisoned blade. I’m afraid I have no antidote to this venom, and it’s already spread all over her body. If she fights, I can keep her alive for up to three days, but I don’t know what else I can do to save her.”
“No way…” A tear formed at the corner of Grayalla’s eye as she turned back to Raphie. “Who could have done this…?” She sniffled with heartache, tightly clutching onto the hand of her younger sister. Behind them, Aelius noticed a commotion and looked over his shoulder to see the captain arrive with the Noble’s body in his carry. Grimly, the older man laid her down onto one of the other empty beds and turned around to approach the old woman.
“Is there no way to trace the poison or find any clues to the culprit?” he asked, gritting his teeth and the woman shook her head.
“The poison is foreign. I’m afraid nothing in our humble village can do anything about it.” The captain clenched his fists, turning away again to return to the side of his Noble lady. Aelius could see the anger in the captain’s gaze.
“I will find the one who did this… and I will make them pay,” he vowed with a low growl, and Aelius looked back to Raphie with a pitiful expression. One of them was killed on the spot. The other was attacked elsewhere and brought to the infirmary. There’s someone making these attacks, but what for? One was a Noble guest who had just arrived today, and the other is one of the strong protectors of the village… He felt something was amiss with the entire situation, gazing at Raphie and Grayalla who was still tightly clutching her hand. A few minutes of silence passed, save for the whispers of the villagers gossiping among each other outside the building, when suddenly Aelius heard the marching of armour behind him and turned to see a large squad of desert warriors enter the room and point their spears at him.
“Outsider! Come with us! You have been accused of attacking an important member of our village, as well as our Noble guest! Do not resist!” One of them commanded him and Aelius looked to Grayalla in surprise. Oh, something’s definitely going on here, he thought as he narrowed his eyes.
“Come along, right now!” They shoved a spear in his face menacingly, and he sighed. Did I just get caught up in this ploy?