“So what do we do now?” Brienne’s hesitant voice disturbed the long silence that was created after Dale’s rash actions.
“Find an exit from this realm of the painting.” Boe believed that since the test was already over, they would easily find a way out.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Dale to completely recover before we move? What if there will be another danger waiting us after we leave this place?” Kamys was still treating Dale’s injuries.
Boe looked at Dale lying on the ground with torn clothes and fresh blood still leaking out of his mouth, “Alright, we’ll go as soon as he’ll be able to walk by himself; we can’t afford to carry him around right now anyway.”
“Who would think that such a small creature might be so powerful, I wonder if that was its true form or was it just an illusion…” Brienne settled a few meters away from Dale and stared toward the place where the stone squirrel was before it vanished.
“My father always told me that there are far scarier creatures than demons in this world.” Just a thought of home and his family back there made Kamys’ mood plummet down. He wanted to go back and help his father in his struggles against opposing clan members, but he understood better than anyone else that he would only burden everyone there at the moment. Without a proper strength, he was nothing more than a harmless child in front of people of the main family of the clan.
“Creatures scarier than demons?” Boe immediately thought about his eldest sister’s appearance. Even though she was humanoid, the green scales all over her body and three horns sticking out of her head were definitely features of a race he never heard of. His teacher was a complete mystery as well; Boe didn’t actually know anything about him except for his ‘name’.
“Nymphs are a great example of this. There is no detailed information on them or their strength in any of our archives. All we know about them right now is that they live outside our continent and yet they can easily infiltrate our lands and kidnap people right under our noses. How can they appear in any place they wish and then vanish as if they never were there in the first place? Even my father couldn’t find their whereabouts…” Brienne sent all the information she got from Boe to her father right after they first heard of nymph kidnapping someone from the lands of Dark Elf Kingdom. And after an investigation, her father told her that there were more than fifty known accidents involving nymphs all over the Shadow Kingdom in last ten years. “But big brother Boe, don’t worry. My father promised me that he will definitely find them! They dared to attack his lands and his people so he will certainly punish them for that.”
“I’m in no rush to go after them right now. I’m far too weak to confront nymphs currently. But as soon as I’ll become strong enough, I will crush her and her family under my feet.” When Boe were saying last sentence, hatred was boiling inside of him and his eyes were already becoming red without him noticing it.
“Boe! Control yourself. We have enough problems even without your fits of anger.” Kamys immediately noticed changes in Boe’s aura and yelled to calm him down.
“Big brother Boe, I already know about your brother and I’m very sorry that it happened to you. But… Why didn’t you visit your family even once after the incident? Wasn’t your country not too far from the Fordothrond city where we received our prizes from the trials?” Brienne wanted to find out Boe’s feelings about his family for a long time now, but couldn’t find the right moment to ask a question. She thought that right now was a perfect opportunity to finally ask it, but the moment she did, she regretted it.
“It is none of your business.” Boe’s ice-cold stare pierced right through Brienne as she felt terrifying killing intent coming toward her. She was already used to Boe’s cold demeanor and even liked it, but the feeling he was giving off right now was something that she had never experienced in her entire life before. Brienne tried to say or do something, but her throat couldn’t make a sound and her entire body froze.
“Boe! What is it with you today? Enough!” Kamys jumped up from his position and quickly reached Boe. He grabbed Boe’s shoulders and looked right into Boe’s eyes. “Do you think I’m afraid of that ‘stare’ of yours?” Seeing that Boe’s eyes were almost as red as in his demonification form, Kamys slapped Boe’s left shoulder and added, “If you want to fight someone, fight me, but don’t bully our princess, alright?”
*plump*
Right when Kamys took Boe’s attention to himself, the pressure that was weighing down on Brienne disappeared and she could finally move. But right as she tried to take a step forward, she felt that there was no strength in her knees and she fell onto the ground. Even though Brienne was extremely talented and was stronger than any of three boys, she didn’t have any experience in life-or-death situations, so when Boe accidentally unleashed his killing intent toward her, her whole defenses just crumbled down. And it was at this moment that Brienne had finally understood what her father meant when he told her that being talented wouldn’t help her in times of real danger. She was like a flower that was nurtured by an experienced gardener inside of his house. She never had a chance to experience neither coldness of winter, nor floods of autumn, nor drought of summer, nor danger of being eaten by animals of spring. So even though she was indeed beautiful and grew up to be higher and healthier than other flowers, she was still extremely fragile in front of dangers that life could bring upon her. While Boe was struggling to survive and become stronger to avenge his brother, she was enjoying a carefree life of a princess. While Dale was living his whole life scheming under the shadow of his elder brother, she was doted on by an entire nation. And while Kamys was striving to prove that he was worthy to become the leader of his clan, she had everything she pleased from her father.
“Sorry.” After Kamys’ actions and Brienne’s fall, Boe had finally cleared his mind. Although he apologized for his reaction seemed far too rough, Boe never actually considered he was unreasonable since he didn't actually attack anyone and what Brienne asked definitely had nothing to do with her. The killing intent that engulfed Brienne wasn’t actually targeted at her, but rather was just a natural reaction of Boe when he got angry. He quickly freed himself from Kamys’ hands, walked away and sat himself down a few meters away from Dale.
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“Don’t mind him, Brienne. As you can see, this topic is Boe’s soft spot, so please don’t bring that up anymore. When he’ll be ready to talk about it, he’ll surely tell you everything you want to know, but right now is not the time for it.” Kamys walked over to Brienne and helped her up.
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“Mhhhmmm. Wh-what happened?” After more than three hours of silence, Dale had finally woken up. When he looked around himself, he instantly noticed the tension hanging up in the air. Boe was sitting with closed eyes a few meters away from him, Kamys was sitting next to him with eyes locked onto the sky and Brienne was sitting on the other side of him as far from Boe as she could.
“You failed the test of caution and was sent flying by that freaky squirrel.” Kamys stood up and walked away from Dale toward Boe right after he saw Dale waking up.
“If you’re able to move, we leave right away. If you need to heal yourself, do it quickly.” Boe didn’t even bother to open his eyes as he spoke.
“Alright, enough of that mood. Everyone gather here and let’s eat something before we’ll head out.” Brienne jumped up and already took out the table and food from her magic ring. She spent the whole time of awkward silence thinking and came to conclusion that there was no reason to be sad or anything like that. She decided to become stronger and not waste any of her precious time to pity herself.
“That’s better! I was starving for a long time already, but three of you ruined the mood for me this whole time.” Kamys eyes brightened up as soon as he saw that Brienne was back to her former self. He was always a cheerful fellow, so he felt a lot more comfortable in this kind of mood rather than gloomy hell that he had to go through for the last few hours.
“Wait, I failed the test?! The squirrel sent ME flying?! What the fuck are you talking about?” Dale’s pride was already stomped by Kamys recently and now he was the only one who failed some kind of test? Dale hated it the most. He hated the feeling of failure, feeling of being worse than someone else. He lived being number two prince of the kingdom his whole life after all.
“The squirrel was the test of caution. I guess we weren’t supposed to do anything to it or at least probe its strength before taking any actions. And by the way, Kamys was the one who healed you up with his potions.” Brienne didn’t miss an opportunity to pay back to this sharp-tongued prince with his haughty mockeries.
Dale looked at Kamys, but Kamys didn’t react at all, “I will compensate you with double the price of potions you used up on me.” Dale immediately pulled out some potions out of his magic ring and moved toward Kamys.
“No need.” Without even turning around, Kamys cut off Dale’s pitiful attempts to ‘thank’ him.
“Listen here, Kamys. When I’m showing my goodwill, you accept it!” Dale grabbed Kamys’ shoulder and tried to turn Kamys’ body toward himself, but Kamys was far stronger physically so he didn’t even react to it. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Alright, I will pay you five times more than you used.”
“Dale, he clearly doesn’t need your items. Thank him and move on.” Boe had finally opened his eyes, stood up and started moving toward Brienne’s table.
“Thank him? For what? He only spent a few potions on me. It’s not like he saved my life or protected me from that attack!” Dale knew that he was unreasonable and childish right now, but he simply couldn’t make himself thank Kamys. It could be anyone, but Kamys.
“Just shut up and eat then.” Kamys shrugged Dale’s hand off his shoulder and started silently eating food.
“Idiot. He actually insulted his helper instead of thanking him. Good thing that you couldn’t become the crown prince of your kingdom.” Seeing Dale’s idiotic behavior, Brienne couldn’t hold herself back as she spoke out.
Dale wanted to answer her, but he understood that Brienne was right, so he simply acted as if he didn’t hear what she said. He drank two healing potions his father gave him, took out some food of his own from his magic ring and ate it.
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Twenty silent minutes later everyone finished their preparations and the party of four finally moved out to explore the forest further. No matter where they went, they only saw grey stone trees and nothing else. After an hour of walking, they saw a soft verdant light coming from somewhere. They carefully followed the light and found a strange ‘door’ made out of verdant light right in between a pair of the largest trees they’ve seen in this forest. None of them could even see crowns of these trees, but the ‘door’ was only two meters tall and a meter wide.
Three young men and the beautiful maiden exchanged glances as they boldly stepped into the ‘door’.
*WHOOSH*
*WHOOSH*
*WHOOSH*
*WHOOSH*
Boe felt a familiar feeling of blindness due to the bright light and then found himself standing in a middle of luxuriously furnished room. The room was the same size as the previous room and it was filled with paintings too. And just like in the previous room, there was one big painting in a middle and a lot of paintings on three other walls. While this room was made out of the same grey stone as the previous one, there were four elegant brown armchairs standing right before the big painting as if alluring the visitors to rest and enjoy the painting.
Boe was the first to start walking toward the big painting and a moment later three others joined him. As he reached the armchair, Boe suddenly felt the familiar pressure coming from the painting. But this time, it was pressuring him to sit on the armchair. Boe didn’t see the reason to fight back, so he just sat down and the pressure vanished. Seeing Boe’s actions, three others followed his suit and settled themselves onto the free armchairs.
And yet again, after a moment of looking at the painting, all four members of the party felt that they were drawn inside of the painting. Looking around them, they realized that they were at the same empty place in a middle of nowhere where they were before. But then all of them looked in direction where they saw the huge lonely mountain and they could finally see the difference between this and the previous paintings.
What was used to be an enormous lonely mountain without a single star around it hanging in a middle of the darkness of silent space was now a mountain of much smaller size with countless planets, stars and other cosmic objects spinning around it. Even though Boe saw that mountain was now surrounded by all of these, he could still feel the solitude and sadness coming off the mountain.
“Sacrificed my own lifeforce in an effort to create a life, alas none of my attempts beared any fruits. Had I only known what awaited me, I would’ve stopped wasting time and lifeforce for such a useless task. Had I only known…” The thunderous voice was filled with sorrow as it spoke these words filled with meaning that none of the four members of the party could grasp.