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The rest of the day flew by quickly as did the week. Den taught me things and by the end of the week I was starting to get a hang of things. At least till Den made me run double my initial runs. To say I was exhausted was an understatement. I felt just like the first day, huffing for air.
“I think we’re done for today,” I paused at every word, taking a loud breath every time.
The sky was blue today too. So pretty. So colorful.
But sadly, we had to get back. For that, I had to walk back all the way with my huffing lungs. Which proved to be a chore, so I put my hands up and stared at Den.
He sighed once, shrugged twice, and picked me up on his back without a word. The guy actually cared... somewhat. On our way back, he even gave me a weird apple shaped fruit and... uh... sweet!
This is amazing!
“Go clean up and come back in five minutes.” He dropped me off just outside the fence.
“Wh-why?”
“I’d like to introduce you to someone today. You wanted to look around the village, remember?”
“Oh yeah...” My head spun but I managed to stand up straight.
I did want to see the village and stuff, but he wanted me to meet someone? Oh well, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Don’t tell Lin. Tell her, we’re just going out for a walk.”
“You got it!”
I ran back, wiped my body with a wet towel, grabbed a clean shirt and ran out. But then I went back in. “Mom, I’m going on a walk with Den!” I screamed and then I ran out.
As long as I said something loud enough, no matter how far Mom was, she could hear me. She probably couldn’t reply and even if she did, I wouldn’t hear her but if she knew, where I was, that was good enough for her to not worry.
Ever since the tiger incident, she was really reluctant to let me go anywhere alone. The incident was pretty much in the past but, even now, we didn’t know how the Two Headed Tiger made it this close to our house. Monsters were scarce in the woods, and they were never supposed to be near our hut.
Granted, me and Lia went out, but, those piglets. It was almost as though those Piglets worked together with the Tiger to lure us out but the Tiger betrayed them and then shit happened. But again, how did the Tiger get there? Mid rank and above fiends were not supposed to be in the forest. Yet...
So yeah, she never let me go out on my own. And I could understand why. But my curiosity couldn’t be sated. Hence, I had to get Den’s help.
And yeah, today, after a long wait. Finally, I could see the rest of the village.
“So, who’re we meeting?” I asked.
Den picked me up. Jumping around the trees was apparently a way faster way to travel. Mom traveled faster on foot though, as far I could tell.
“Oh, you’ll like him,” he said.
***
Den took me out to the forest for a walk. That was our cover. I wasn’t sure if Mom bought it or not but it was worth a shot.
Den swung on the tree branches like Mom had before but unlike her, he was sweating and looked quite tired. Was I heavy? He was even panting now!
“Should we walk?” I said.
He stopped, and tried catching his breath. “Yeah, good idea.”
We went down and he let me go, but he didn’t let go of my hand. Den was tall, really tall, yet his hand reached me, or rather, I had to reach up to him but his hand was warm and... yeah, made me feel warm inside.
When I was five, my father had picked me up for the first time in my life. I’d fallen off my bed, and broke an arm. So, he picked me up and took me to the hospital. It wasn’t a loving embrace, but rather a cold one. After we were done at the hospital, he’d slapped me a couple of times and installed guardrails on my bed and window. The whole room looked like that of a prisoner’s.
I didn’t feel that annoyance in Den’s vision. I had a feeling he might not have liked me. But he liked Mom enough to just roll with this. I didn’t find this situation to be amazing but... but I didn’t mind it.
“You look happy...” Den murmured.
“Always wanted to see more of this place.”
He snorted once. “Well, there’s so much we probably can’t finish in a single day, but maybe I’ll take you out again if you promise to do your training diligently.”
“I’d try hard, even if you didn’t make me promise.”
“Trying hard and trying diligently isn’t the same. You can try hard all the time, but unless you know what you’re doing and how to make progress, your hard work is wasted.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And watch out,” he lifted me up gently, so I didn’t trip over some vines. I suppose I needed to pay more attention to my surroundings.
We were in that vine infested zone again. “How come I don’t see any monsters like that?”
There was hardly anything here that wasn’t normal. Just typical foliage and typical animals... maybe a bit larger than usual but that was about it. The foresty smell was enticing but given how I’d lived virtually all my life here, I more or less got used to it. Even the random weird sounds.
“Monsters? Fiends?”
“Yeah?”
Crap, I’d slipped. These people called everything horrible- fiends! Really need to work on the terms...
“Well, most fiends are too afraid to come near us. The mid rank ones are intelligent enough to know if they attacked adults, they’d end up dead. But they could easily just lure and eat children and then run fast.”
“Like the last time.”
“Yes.”
“The pigs... small pigs,” I said. “Those caught our attention.”
“Could have been from a different pig,” He sat me down on his shoulder and we kept on walking.
I didn’t say anything, he didn’t either. We just kept on walking, or rather he did. Panting the whole time.
After nearly half an hour, the trees and vines spaced out, and eventually just disappeared. Instead, they were replaced by huts, lots of huts by a lakeside. Not really big enough to be called a village. Roughly a kilometer in all directions, I guess?
There were twelve-ish huts. The rest was mostly just grass. A paved muddy road stretched across the land, to a mansion.
Actually, there were proper houses on the other side of the lake. A good fifty or so; and a big fancy white church! I guess that’s where the more well-off people lived.
“That’s where the village elder lives,” Den said, pointing at the mansion. He didn’t bother explaining the church and other stuff. I wasn’t expecting him to either.
“I’m guessing that’s not where we’re going.”
I mostly saw Southerners, but there were also humans here. Humans were called Westerners, since they lived in the west. Despite that, I still attracted attention. No one shot any slurs or whatever, but they shot dirty glares. I was not welcome here, no.
I didn’t know the names of places or countries or if we even had countries here. But that was kind of why I wanted to come here. If there was a village, here had to be a library or at least some books. I could always just brag to Den about how Mom had taught me to read and write and hopefully he’d pick up on the hints. If I was lucky, I could have also found a map or something.
“Of course not,” he shook his head, turned my head and pointed at a shabby house, that was on the verge of breaking down in the west corner of the lake; there was only one house nearby and that was exactly the opposite, too nice. “That’s where our man is.” But our destination was definitely the shabby one.
My face contorted to a grimace as I conjured up the possibility of Den secretly holding a grudge against me, at least a grudge strong enough to sell me off to shady people. But yeah, I was probably just being a little too paranoid.
Den wouldn’t do that, right?
Right!?
Paranoia aside, we walked for the shabby hut, reached the place and Den knocked. Took a minute but we were welcomed in by a blond elf. Chiseled jawline, perfect eyes, perfect nose... basically the most handsome man I’d ever seen in either of my lives. However, the dude was in rags and so was his hut.
Suspicious as fuck.
“Now what do I owe this pleasure, Denkar?” he said. He gave my arm and ears a small glance but proceeded to not give a shit.
“Just taking a stroll with the kid,” he said. We went in.
Small hut, way smaller than ours. We had two rooms. One for mom and me to sleep in and the other for everything else. But this hut was just a single room, and this man was even more disorganized than me, and I used to throw everything on the floor, even plates! Anyway, it smelled like ass in here.
“I didn’t know you had kids,” the man shrugged.
“Me neither,” Den shrugged.
Is this dude playing me off as his kid? I gave a confused look at Den and he winked. Better play along for now.
And by play along, I mean keep quiet.
This place was shabby, dirty but not a kidnapper’s den.
“This is Sol,” Den said. “Sol, this is James. He’s the best Spirit Master I know,” Den smiled proudly.
Spirit master?
Hearing the praise, James also cracked a smile, it wasn’t working though. His lips lifted up, his eyes drooped but something about that... something just felt awkward and I could feel my face cringe up.
“He’s also got a terrible smile. What a waste of potential,” Den sighed.
Duly noted.
