I crept close to the ground, around the trees and rubble of rocks until I heard voices. Or rather, growls and screams. I looked around the corner and saw at least 8 people, heavily armed, and one young man, 20 at most, being cornered by the others. Now, that's not fair. Do they want to kill him?

The growl came back to my mind and I looked at the young man more closely. He was wearing scant clothes. Just enough to hide the most important things and... Dog ears? Um, ok... Is that one of those Things?! …maybe I should have asked Lilo more about what he meant with “things”. I sighed.

"Now don't act like that!", a gruff voice tutted.

"Oh, you don't have to do that, it doesn't understand you anyway."

"Exactly. It's going to die either way."

"That's already right again, you are really trying to suck up to me now, aren’t you?"

They all laughed out loud. All except the Thing, which now had his back to the wall. If I had to guess, these soldiers must have blown up a cave nearby, but how? Doesn’t matter now, they managed to do it. That was probably the bang.

I looked at the makeshift knife in my hand. It's been a few days since I last jumped into a pulp of guys like this. Would I stand a chance against 8 soldiers?

I studied what I could see. They do have metal to protect their important internal organs on the chest and abdomen, but the neck is free. I've also got the element of surprise on my side. What the heck, I can give it a try, right? I licked my lips in anticipation.

Just as I was about to step forward, the Thing's eyes turned deep yellow and a loud growl came from his throat. The aura around him turned deep black, but the men in front of him were still laughing.

What is going on now?! I halted and ducked back down. That's the aura of a murderous beast and I should know my stuff... even if they didn't pay attention to his now yellow eyes, at least this black fog should frighten these frogs.

"Growling won't help you now eith-", his sentence was cut off, or rather, his vocal cords were cut off along with his throat. As if in slow motion, his head, eyes still open, flopped onto the floor like a watermelon rolling down the stairs of a high tower.

All was quiet.

No one dared to move a muscle.

The Thing, who had stood with his back to the wall until a moment ago, now stood over the body of his tormentor. A furry hand frozen in its movement and dripping blood. Holy shit. Animals that are cornered really are the most dangerous! I chuckled to myself, though slightly disappointed.

The dogears twitched and his yellow eyes slithered into my direction.

The wild beast’s movement broke the image of one of the scarecrows that they all seemed frozen into and the beast turned the bloodthirsty gaze to the tall, blond soldier. Before that one could even raise his sword, the thing rushed towards him. His sharp-looking teeth pierced the unprotected throat and everything that could be heard of him, the cracking of his neck and the sound of his lifeless body hitting the ground. The other soldiers seemed to have finally also gotten over the initial shock that had paralyzed them and now, without hesitation, pointed their weapons at the thing with black hair all over his body and his mouth dyed red.

"YOU UNGRATEFUL DEMON!"

"YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT!"

The remaining 6 rushed forward. Screams could be heard. From both sides. Of course. Even though the beast was strong, it was still outnumbered and without proper protection to his skin and flesh.

Mhh, how am I going to get out of this? By now, two more were on the ground, but one had managed to sneak behind the wild beast and give his back a good blow with his sword, only to be thrown so hard against the wall by him shortly afterwards that blood shot out of his mouth. He certainly wasn't dead yet, but he was well on his way there.

The Thing sure is a good fighter, at least at the moment, but you can see that he doesn't do stuff like that very often. I mean... Who does that often? Fighting 8 armed people at once. Definitely impressive. But he leaves too many openings for his opponents.

A loud howl brought my attention back to the fight. One of the soldiers had managed to pierce his sword through the black-haired man's shoulder while the Thing had lifted him up by his neck to take his breath away... So, to strangle him.

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, he let go of the soldier and snatched the sword from his battered shoulder. He swung and slew the gasping man with his own sword, only to ram the hilt of the sword into the chin of another approaching from behind in the same motion. The sound and whimper that followed led me to conclude that the jaw of the one who was stumbling back was definitely broken now.

What a strong man that thing was.

Blood flowed from his mouth, and with another slash of the sword, the monster decapitated that soldier as well. There are only one left! This is better than any boxing match I've ever seen. And even my old partners in the real world hadn't managed to captivate me so much with a simple fight.

Ahhh, that's beautiful! If only it weren't for the injuries that were now causing the animal to slow down.

Should I get involved?

But what if he starts attacking me? That would be counterproductive... I rolled my eyes, how annoying. I kept watching. There’s only one left after all. He doesn’t need a white knight…or black knight?

The Thing had probably already noticed that his own condition didn't necessarily work to his advantage. It began to move less, but more effectively.

During the fight, the participants walked further and further away from the rock face and closer and closer to my hiding place, and I could see the sweat that formed on the foreheads of each and every one of the remainers. Quite a beautiful face. In addition, I had a better view of the Thing's injuries. Looks bad. He was breathing very heavily and his eyes were very unfocused.

Come on, only one left!

I cheered on the side like a football fan. If only I had some popcorn. I pouted while my fingernails squeezed into a surpisingly soft rock.

“GET HIM!”

Reinforcement?!

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

This was getting more and more interesting by the second!

Though…ahhhhh I covered my eyes for a second to focus. Be silent my pride.

I had never seen a thing before, so I'm interested in it. I've always been interested in things I've never seen before and always wanted to have those. I'm not going to let those soldiers take the thing away from me, was I?

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I watched attentively when the thing got hit again. He was so distracted now because of the new people. But he still tried to push through with blind rage.

To finally help me decide, one of the soldiers practically stumbled right in front of me after being pushed backwards. I grab the ‘knife’ and ram it down his throat without warning. Blood splashes on the dirty clothes I've been wearing for far too long now anyway and also on my face. The well-known adrenaline shot through my body again. Hahhh, took long enough too.

The monster turned its gaze to me in dizzy shock, opening up an opportunity for the opponent he had just wrestled to the ground to slash another blow to his hip.

"Don't get distracted!”, I winked at him.

An idea came to me. I'm sure I can kill someone with the flames, right? If I concentrate, it should work, right? And even if not, it should still be fun.

Right?

I smiled widely, so far that I was sure that all my teeth could be seen.

The new four were visibly confused. But they only stopped for a moment in their movement until two of them rushed towards me. I closed my eyes and steadied my breath. The spark again. No, the sparks. There were an infinite number of them and I tried to catch as many as I could. I'm glad it didn't take long to reach this state this time. Only heaven knows why this is suddenly so much easier than I had anticipated.

Maybe Lilith had a natural affinity to this.

Soon enough I heard screams of pain, bloodcurdling.

I opened my eyes and saw two of them, those that had been closest to me, rolling wildly on the ground just a few inches in front of me. They were completely enveloped in my deep red flames and I could practically see the skin melting off their flesh. The air reeked of shit and weirdly like plastic. I covered my nose.

The other two were pale, the Thing was already on the ground, one or two more blows and he would be dead. One of the soldiers raised his finger and said in a thin, shaky voice, "U-Uralchemist...!". Unfortunately, those were his last words before I set him on fire as well. I would like to know what an Uralchemist is... Ahhh, I should have asked him. I shook my head

Unfortunately, all that remains of the soldiers is burnt flesh and bones. I looked up, and my eyes met the thing's yellow ones. He opened his mouth exhausted, but suddenly his eyes turned to something behind me. I turned around and the soldier I had marked as good as dead after being thrown against the wall by the thing was just reaching out at me with a sharp stone. It hit my shoulder before he too burst into flames.

Hey, look at me, I'm already way better with fire control!

I looked at the spot he had hit.

Only my clothes were slashed, but I didn't have a wound and it didn't hurt either. Weird… with that angle and from what I had felt- no, he must have simply missed. I’m not that good at math anyway.

I looked at the thing again and took a step towards it. He flinched, but immediately fell into himself at his injuries and hissed.

"You've come to bring me back, haven't you?", he lulled in a surprisingly soft voice.

"Mhh?", I tilted my head. "Where do you think I should take you?"

"Back to the dungeon."

"Mhh, do you want to go back there?", I showed a Sherlock Holmes pose, at least that's what I was aiming for.

"NO-", I guess he wanted to scream, but he broke off with a pained face.

He tried again, "No. Please."

"Well, I have no idea where this dungeon is or why I should take you there anyway."

He showed a facial expression I knew all too well from Lilo. Confused. Thank goodness no glazed, teary eyes, I couldn't cope with another one like that, as fond as I am of Lilo.

I took another step towards him. He slipped away again! I shook my head and sighed.

"Listen, if you don't want to lose more blood, you should stop running away from me... to slip away you should at least pretend to go along with me."

Even I couldn't take my last sentence seriously. He however remained silent.

"Hahh, ey! Thing. Do you want to live?"

He tilted his head but suddenly listened to me carefully.

"I don't really know that much about what these men wanted from you. I don't know where you're from, why you're here, shit, I don't even know exactly why I'm here. All I know is that you need my help. So, either you use your pretty vocal cords to say yes or you’ll never say anything ever again."

I wouldn't exactly blame him for turning down my offer. From his perspective, a red-haired girl has intervened in his fight, burning her opponents without hesitation.

Realistically, I'm sure he'd survive without me. After all, he's not a real person, he's stronger. And I’m sure this isn’t the first time this happened to him. However, I had learned from an early age not to show such things. It should be presented as if the other person has no choice but to accept your offer. Works almost always and it also seems to work now.

He hesitated before nodding slowly and whispering a meek yes.

Yay! More guides for me! I could barely contain a satisfied smile.

"Great! Can you stand up? The cave we're in right now is almost around the corner."

I held out my hand, he reached for it slowly. Obviously, every little movement was pure hell for him, but he has to do what he has to do. I supported him with my shoulder, against which he leaned limply.

"What's your name?"

"Ezra... Yours?"

"Ni- just call me Lilith.", at an incredibly slow pace we finally arrived at the cave, where Lilo was still standing stiff, as if listening attentively.

"I'm back!"

He spun around and opened his eyes.

"L-Lilith! What-what happened? Are you hurt?...",he wanted to run towards me, but the limp body against my shoulder seemed to catch his eye suddenly.

"W-hat is that? Did that hurt you? Is that why you are full of blood???"

God, he looks like a little Pomeranian. I laughed.

"I can say yes to the last point, you can relax about the rest. I saved him."

He narrowed his eyes.

"Why couldn't it save itself? Instead, it let you put yourself in danger!"

"Come back down to reality, how was he supposed to keep fighting? And now help me put him on the floor."

"Y-yes!" he ran to the other side of Ezra, trying to prop him up on his own shoulder as well. He wanted to anyway. But as soon as I shifted the weight of the thing to his side, he began to sway, almost dropping him. The sudden movement made Ezra groan in pain.

"I'm sorry!", Lilo swiftly removed his body in shock and I had to act quickly, otherwise the half-wolf and I would both have landed on the ground.

"God Lilo, don't ever do that again! Sorry, Ezra. Be careful.", I managed to get him as undamaged as possible... ok, at least I managed to put him on the floor without breaking a bone of his I guess. Undamaged would definitely not be the right word. I think a tear ran from the corner of his eye...

"Hahh, so Lilo. This is Ezra. Ezra Lilo, Lilo Ezra. He will come with us."

"But-"

"Um, she..., if you're talking about me that is."

"Sorry. She'll come with us.", oops, embarrassing.

I shushed Lilo in his further attempts to argue and turned back to the now silently resigning Thing.

"You don't have any questions?"

Ezra blinked in confusion until she finally opened her mouth again.

“Quite a few. Where do you want to go?"

"First of all, to the next big city, I guess. We need gold, and there aren't really any opportunities to make gold in the forest."

"Ah, to Lumiya? Why is an alchemist like you and his slave on their way to a village under the control of the royal family of the North?", the elaborate sentence caused her to wheeze towards the end.

"Lilo isn't really a slave... I think so. At least not mine."

"Lilith…!", Lilo's voice sounded far too touched.

"And secondly, that is a village? I thought this was a city? And what about the royal family of the North?"

"The northern king has sent his people to kill or capture alchemists and Things. The nearest city would actually be Tarrarin, it’s under the protection of the magic tower. If I may ask, where are you from? "

"We are- Lilo?"

Lilo nodded and dug the card out of the bag lying on the floor. He rolled it out right in front of the blood-dripping half-wolf, held it right in front of her face, and pointed to a spot in the woods. "There."

"If you're just looking for jobs, why didn't you go to Dekova? Equidistant but with no mountains in between and in the kingdom of the south. It's also a big city. Or even Tarrarin. It may be on the smaller side but-"

"Mhh? Dekova? Where is that?"

"Well, it's not on the map but..., if you live in the forest you should know that the city is not far away..."

“Lilo, did you know about the city?"

"N-no. I would have said something if I had known that! Please forgive me!", the little boy trembled as he threw himself towards my feet. I lifted him back up at the neck of his dress like a stray kitten.

"No! Now don't start crying on me again! It’s annoying."

"Why did you intervene?", Ezra interrupted my scolding.

"Oh, well, it’s really simple. You piqued my interest. I like strong people like you."

Ezra wanted to sit up, but then slumped back on her back. She gave a dry chuckle.

"I can't even sit up... I'm not going to help you with anything anymore."

"Just get some rest. I'm sure I'll get you back by tomorrow and when you can move again, you can think about how to return the favor.",I winked.

"?"

"What?"

"You're talking really funny..."

"Hey! Don't insult Lilith!", Lilo puffed out his cheeks in insult.

"Lilo, behave. It was just a statement. Sleep first, Ezra," she closed her eyes and a few minutes later her breathing became steady and heavy. She must have been pretty exhausted. God, of course, she was exhausted!

"Lilo, get me the alchemy book, yes?", I seem to remember that there was a chapter on medicine or something...

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