PARALLEL STORY NEW BEGINNING CHAPTER 3: THE ONLY THING HE COULD DO
Turay’s expression changed every moment as he flew, guided by a young girl.
The young girl’s gaze was still cold, and her movements seemed mechanical... She was just trying to fly so as not to think.
Even so, the pain and suffering were still more evident in her eyes than before.
How long had she been with them?
A week, maybe more.
It was hard to tell when he had too much work due to them changing everything.
They helped his people to hunt creatures; they cleared the surroundings of the small town of monsters, and they cleared temporary dungeons and natural dungeons.
That young girl and her friend, who was sometimes seen, were powerful individuals, but Turay knew it.
The help she was giving him was a way to drown out her thoughts... To try not to think and cope with the pain.
He knew because he had done it, too.
After all, he had lost so much over so many years on this drifting ship known as Africa.
That was the same today.
The young woman heard a distress call over the radio from a group of nearby refugees, and the first thing she said was that she was going to help.
And now they were here, flying west, beyond the former borders of Chad, heading for the former borders of the Republic of Niger.
Turay hesitated as he watched her fly silently, though, in the end, he decided to speak.
“How about going back to school?” He asked, wanting to sound as calm as possible.
The young girl stopped her flight and Turay, against his more pragmatic side, continued.
“You must not have finished high school yet, right? I think it’s time for you to go back. Your parents must be worried, too,” Turay said with the best smile he could give.
Since the arrival of the two, the young lass had become the pillar of the village and to many, she was seen as a savior... And she was.
Without her, they would surely be suffering from the attacks of the creatures, the hardship, and danger of the hunt.
The fear that a high-ranking magical beast would approach and turn their village into ruins or worse that militiamen would come and do worse.
The best they could do was hold on to them using everything they could to bind it, but Turay was just a sailor on a ship... Who wouldn’t hesitate to push others into a healthy boat to save themselves, while he slowly sank.
She had many people in her village who depended on her, but if his life depended on a young lass whose mental state was unstable... Then, Turay would rather sink in his boat.
That was why, knowing the cruelty and uncertainty of his fate, he gave a hearty smile, as if he could handle it all.
“We’ll be all right. You’d better go home and rest,” Turay said, and with a half-joking smile, he remarked. “Education is important.”
He couldn’t make a young lass suffer their fate... He couldn’t make a young girl carry the burdens they themselves represented.
Yes, that’s what they were, burdens.
They weren’t ability users; they were just normal people trying to survive in this chaotic place... Like many people in other parts of the world.
He didn’t know if the young lady had parents and it was hard to tell when she was present in other chaotic places like the middle east was, years before.
Perhaps her parents gave her freedom, or maybe they didn’t care about their daughter, or they simply had confidence in the overwhelming strength of both young girls to protect themselves... The latter was the norm when someone watched her swing the sword.
Regardless of the reason, he knew she could live alone or with company anywhere in the world, that was better than this.
With her strength, she could earn enough money in the cities and live a quiet, comfortable life without having to suffer and without having to carry burdens she shouldn’t have to carry.
The young lady stopped and looked at him, acknowledging his emotions, then gave a sigh, taking in all the emotions inside her.
“I’m still studying, just not in the traditional way,” the young lady said, and giving an involuntary smile, she revealed. “Besides... I need this.”
She paused for a moment as if she was having a hard time processing all her emotions and continued.
“Doing this makes me unable to think... Or maybe my problems are drowned out.” She added in a tired, pained voice.
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Turay knew those words were not only for him but for the person who stood in the young lady’s shadow.
He was a grown man, but now all he could say was...
“I understand.”
Those were the only words that could come out of his mouth.
He didn’t comfort her; he didn’t try to convince her, he just understood.
As someone who had lost many acquaintances, friends, and family, he had tried many forms of mourning and had also tried not to think.
They both flew away again, while the young lady directed her gaze back forward with only her target in sight.
Moving quickly forward, Turay guided her, remembering what little he knew of this area, trying to direct her to the destination they both had.
A group of refugees was normal in these desolate times.
Many people were escaping the waves of creatures or the beast hordes, let alone how they escaped the constant wars between warlords and their dirty dealings.
And it didn’t take long flying to find this group.
A refugee group of about fifty people was outside their tents, kneeling before a group of militiamen.
Male corpses were scattered on the ground and in front of them was only one man still standing upright, wanting to put up a fight.
He had wounds all over his body that were still bleeding, but his muscles revealed his veins, showing anger and rancor.
His eyes were like flames, while his combat aura twisted around him.
In front of him were the militiamen giving mocking smiles.
They were two Rank A swordsmen and several low-ranking militiamen, including normal people with old weapons.
“Surrender to the Great Khan and join us. If you do, we will let those people go free,” said one of the A-Ranks.
“Unless you want us to kill them all and then take you to the Great Khan to make him serve you directly,” said the other A-Rank, giving a dangerous smile.
He spoke loudly, wanting to scare the refugees kneeling behind the fighter, who shivered as he realized what could happen.
They were not only after him.
When the young woman was about to take her sword, Turay stopped her while they still remained hidden.
“They are troops at the command of the ‘Great Khan’. A warlord who claims to be a descendant of Genghis Khan. Regardless of whether it is true, he is a very dangerous lunatic,” Turay warned earnestly, and clenching his fist at his helplessness, he muttered. “If you help them... Maybe we’ll be put in the crosshairs. I hear that dude wants to be a great conqueror.”
Yes, this was them.
Normal people in these no-man’s-lands were at the bottom of the class pyramid and, in the eyes of these warlords, they were just trash, or at best less than that.
The worst thing was that there were all kinds of lunatics among the warlords and the craziest ones were those who always rose to power.
Like now.
A warlord who was supposedly a descendant of Genghis Khan, a great Mongol recognized in history and tried to replicate not only his achievements, but his actions.
The worst thing was that wanting to be a conqueror, he had to start in one area and now Turay realized that he wanted to start in the nearby area of Chad, where they were located.
It made sense for them to go through this area.
After all, in the western area, in the lands of former countries like Mali, there were quite a few warlords facing off against each other.
Facing such a lunatic... It could be a problem.
The young woman hesitated and then turned her gaze to the fighter who was wounded but was still standing, trying to cover only with his body the people at his back.
Turay could see pain in that look and, unlike what he expected, there was no fear.
It wasn’t the ignorance of a young girl who didn’t know the big picture; it was someone who had probably seen more dangerous situations than one would expect from a girl at that age.
Turay only cursed himself for having to force a girl at that crossroads between her values and the big picture.
What would he do at this point?
What was a sailor on a slowly sinking ship to do?
Yes, as a sailor, he would throw himself into the sea to try to save others, even though the cost could be his life.
“Ugh...” The two swordsmen slashed at the weakened fighter’s body and the young woman’s gaze was filled with coldness as she saw a slash land near a refugee.
She grabbed the handle of her sword and while her hand subtly trembled; she tightened her grip, putting on a cold expression.
However, before she could draw her sword, her shadow rose and the other young girl appeared.
Turay had seen that young girl who had hidden in the shadow.
Both were the same age and had the same hair color, but unlike Aurora, who was thin and looked weak, with a slight pallor as if she couldn’t sleep at night, the other young lass wore a cold, indifferent look, which was now tinged with worry.
“I’ll take care of it,” said the young lady, putting her hand on the handle of the sword to stop Aurora.
“Alice...” Aurora muttered, but the young lady named Alice shook her head determinedly.
“I want to help you. As your friend, I want to help you and if you don’t want me to carry the burdens for you, at least let me share it,” replied the young woman named Alice.
Just as Turay guessed, they were both different.
Aurora took on responsibilities and ‘burdens’ without anyone asking her to do so and carried it on her own independently.
She tried to do everything on her own without asking for help.
And then there was her, Alice, who in her eyes there were only very few valuable things and, like anyone else, wanted to protect it.
Even if that meant that she had to completely carry the burdens of her loved ones which, for her, were perhaps not at all heavy.
Still, they were different.
Aurora didn’t need someone to carry her ‘burdens’ and her ‘responsibilities’, she just needed a companion... A friend.
The one who finally surrendered was Aurora, who lowered her hand without hiding the anger and murderous intent towards the moving militiamen.
They could observe, as they were both using artifacts to hide from strong individuals and could observe what was happening unnoticed.
Trying to surround the fighter, the militiamen pointed their weapons at the people at the fighter’s back, while others wore mischievous smiles.
Surely they were imagining what they would do to the defenseless women and girls.
“I’ll leave it to you,” Aurora replied in a flat tone.
That was enough for Alice.
Turay opened his eyes wide as he saw black arms begin to emerge from Alice’s back.
Without his eyes being able to catch the young girl’s movements, Alice used her black arms to push her body, and she jumped towards the group of militiamen.
“What... Ughh...”
At a speed barely perceptible to someone like him, that woman acted.
A black arm pierced through the stomach of one A-Rank and when the other A-Rank tried to raise his sword, another black arm in the shape of a blade slashed his neck.
Falling in the middle with an indifferent expression from her back, dozens of black spears shot out piercing through all the militiamen, impaling them against the ground or trees.
All the while, she watched the actions of her arms with complete indifference to life... As if she was running a simple errand.
Both were not normal in multiple ways.
Turay knew this, but he didn’t care, and coming up beside her, he walked through the corpses of militiamen and refugees, approaching the group that was fearful.
He was not strong, just a sailor on a drifting ship trying to cover his holes.
However, something he could do among so many things and that was...
“Don’t worry, everything will be all right. Help has arrived,” Turay said with a smile that tried to calm the fear and dread.
The only thing he could do was to get in front to talk, trying to help those two young girls who were already carrying too much weight on their backs.