Chapter 69: The city we left (First Part)

“We have to leave, now!”

Alianelle didn’t appear ready yet, but she forcefully controlled her tears and strongly nodded her head after my words. She was inside the carriage this entire time so I didn’t know if she clearly witnessed the confrontation, but the culprit clearly entered the carriage and knocked her out. I didn’t have the leisure to inquire about why someone would want to do something like that especially since she was a witness.

I spread my senses as far as possible, but no other life form could be found around us.

Moreover, now that I was this close to the carriage with my senses released, I also noticed that the object from the town that lead me there was gone. This thing let out a dense trail or mana so I should still be able to sense it but it wasn't the case.

It was completely gone without leaving any trace behind this time.

The last remnant of mana left by this thing near the carriage was still dense even now which meant that it was there not too long ago.

The battle had just ended, but I wasn’t able to detect anyone around.

I put this question to the back of my head and got down from the carriage with Alianelle.

“Don’t touch anything and follow me.” I quickly instructed with a sharp voice.

I took one last look at this strange battlefield covered with ice and blood before hurriedly leading her toward Jazor.

A few minutes were necessary, but we joined him without obstruction from anyone.

“What happened?”

Jazor immediately asked after seeing us coming back without causing any activity near the carriage.

“The Ryunno clan member and his guards are dead. We have to leave.”

“You… Did you kill them?” Asked Jazor without hiding the dread in his voice.

“Of course not. I don’t have the power to kill three powerful mages in a few minutes without making any noise.” I hurriedly explained without hiding the annoyance in my voice.

“Right.”

Jazor’s expression slightly relaxed, but we both knew there was no guarantee that we would be left alone even if we weren’t involved in this murder.

“What’s going to happen now?” Shyly asked Alianelle.

“I don’t know. The murder of a Ryunno clan member is something extremely serious, but I’m not sure what exactly will happen.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I hurriedly asked.

“It’s not as if I was already confronted with this kind of situation. I don’t know what kind of investigation there will be, but I heard some rumors and you better pray that they are wrong.”

Jazor stayed silent after this.

I didn’t ask him any other questions because we didn’t have the time to worry about rumors.

We were the only ones near the corpse of this Ryunno clan member so we had to leave fast.

Our initial plan with Jazor was to take Alianelle away and hide her in a safe place while I would have quietly returned inside the town with Jazor. This way, everyone would have been able to confirm that we came back without her.

With Jazor’s ability to move quickly and unnoticed under the ground, it would have been possible to watch over Alianelle for a period of time inside the wilderness. This way, even if there was an investigation, their suspicions wouldn’t be put on a child like me or on Jazor.

We were sure of that especially since the carriage stopped so far away from the Advanced town.

Thinking that either of us had the ability to take her away under the nose of this powerful Ryunno clan member and his guards before returning the very next day to the Advanced town several hundred miles away wasn’t very likely.

The most favorable scenario would have been to wait for my parents and hope that they could bring me along with Alianelle and her father stealthy back to the Dorell Kingdom. Alianelle et Paul would have been forced to hide for their entire lives, but honestly this was what they were already doing and it was a hundred time better than the other fate awaiting her.

It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the best we were able to establish in such a short time. Moreover, this would have been far better than the situation we were actually in.

A member of the Ryunno clan just died and, if what Jazor told me was true, then this kind of crime wouldn’t be left unpunished.

“Let’s go!”

We knew that staying here was too dangerous, therefore after a few sentences, Jazor put his muscular and hairy arms around Alianelle and me. Being hugged by him was beyond strange and uncomfortable, but I didn’t complain because I knew why he was doing that.

Alianelle seemed to be at a loss by his sudden embrace but she didn’t utter any objection either.

A strange tingling sensation quickly invaded me starting from my feet. The three of us, under the influence of Jazor’s magic, slowly began to sink into the earth until we completely disappeared when we made one with the ground.

His strange magic didn’t give me any other kind of discomfort.

Everything was dark while my mana sense was deeply perturbed by being directly into contact with the earth element in this novel way.

I didn't realize when we started to move or even if we were really moving. This strange sensation of having your entire body slightly tingling wasn't particularly pleasant but it wasn't painful either.

The total darkness and this strange sensation were the only companions I had therefore, it was difficult to know how much time had passed.

When I started to get used to this silent wait in this disturbing environment, I felt the large arm of Jazor holding me tremble.

The darkness quickly receded while the light of the moon once again bathed our bodies with its gentle light.

This light was strong enough to see that we stopped at the edge of a large but foreign forest. Alianelle by my side seemed just as lost as I was.

However, we quickly noticed why we stopped before arriving to the town.

"Jazor!"

Alianelle suddenly screamed his name when she saw him collapsed a few steps away from us. His rough looking face didn't have his usual playful smile to soften his traits. Instead, large patches of brown scars were disseminated on the skin not hidden by his large beard.

His breathing was hurried and the rest of his face completely devoid of color.

"Sorry lads, I can't go on any further…" He succeeded to explain after a few tries.

"Are we far enough?" I asked with worry in my voice.

"I think so. We started to move a couple of hours ago already. We should be safe for the time being."

I slightly relaxed after hearing his words. At the very least we were far enough from the crime scene.

"How long will you take to recover?"

"I don't know, this is the first time I used this magic until this point. However, it will probably take around a week…"

"A week!"

I didn't let out any exclamation like Alianelle, but his answer still left me baffled.

"Are you able to use magic in the meantime?"

A sigh escaped Jazor's large lips before he answered with a dispirited voice.

"Barely any. The more magic I use, the longer I will take to recover."

I furrowed my brows after his explanation. If what he said was true then he would be just as defenseless as Alianelle.

These few weeks of peace inside the Advanced town helped me to become stronger and develop new tactics to survive. However, I wasn't nearly confident enough in my abilities to declare with assurance that I would be able to protect the both of them for this long while being deep into the wilderness.

I closed my eyes for a few seconds and only managed to slightly relax when I didn't sense any threatening existence around us.

My gaze wasn't turned toward Jazor, but I was clearly able to sense his current state.

Two kinds of mana were confronting one another in his body.

One kind obviously belonged to Jazor while the other kind was thinner and present in a much lesser proportion but it was still violently rampaging. After a careful examination, I noticed that this foreign mana seemed to be able to forcefully stop Jazor's own mana. It was difficult to explain, but while they were slowing down, the particles of mana disposed themselves in a completely different fashion from what I was doing with my sacred magic of ice.

The particles of mana from Jazor gathered together to form a new cohesive whole under the influence of this foreign mana.

Just like the earth under our feet.

It was as if this foreign mana belonging to the earth element was a poison slowly corroding and influencing Jazor’s mana.

The situation of his body didn’t look good, but it didn’t appear as hopeless as I initially thought. Several ideas crossed my mind, but I wasn’t sure if any of them was truly useful. I stayed for long seconds with my eyes closed to ponder this question. Unable to give a definite answer for now, I helplessly opened my eyes again.

Jazor's deathly pale face covered with strange brown scars immediately welcomed my sight. Alianelle by the side was equally pale with a swollen lip and with her forehead still covered with blood.

Her small hands were tightly wrapped around the jacket I had given her to cover herself. She was obviously exhausted, but the way she fearfully looked around her was enough proof that she was even more afraid and lost.

"Let's rest. We will talk about our options after resting for a bit."

Neither Jazor nor Alianelle refused my proposal.

We were in such a rush to get away from the crime scene that we didn't have the time to talk about what we were going to do. However, Jazor was exhausted and needed some rest before anything else.

He immediately closed his eyes and let his entire weight rest against the trunk of the large tree behind him while Alianelle slowly walked a few meters away to sit on a flat rock.

I hesitated for a few seconds before walking toward her. She remained motionless with her head hung down looking at her clenched hands while I silently sat on the grass beside her.

Despite looking down with her long blond hair obstructing her view, she quickly sensed my presence and hurriedly raised her head to look at me. Seeing my serious face, she simply put on a forced smiled. However, she continued to remain silent, and simply clenched my jacket too small for her with her delicate hands.

I hesitated to break the silence as I wasn’t sure if she was ready to talk about what had happened. I didn't want to remind her what she just went through. However, things weren't looking good for us.

Even if I really found a solution to help Jazor move like before, what were we supposed to do?

Alianelle was safe with us, but the death of this Ryunno clan member changed everything. Our plan to hide her while waiting for things to calm down was now completely impossible. This plan rested nearly entirely on the fact that Alianelle wasn't truly important for him and that he would be reluctant to spend too much time on this matter especially in savage lands like the wilderness.

However, this murder definitely won't be left unpunished.

That's why I needed to know what had happened to her.

We couldn't hope to make the best choice if we didn't know everything that had happened.

"Alianelle."

My soft call seemed to have woken her a little. Her hollow eyes refocused on me.

"I need you to tell me what happened to you since you left the town."

Her grip on my jacket tightened and made my heart beat with guilt.

"I need to know. Even the smallest detail could be important."

Alianelle hesitated for a few more seconds before finally opening her mouth to start her tale.

As I expected, she didn't see much so only a few minutes were necessary to complete the blank parts of the story.

However, what she told still left me baffled.

I had assumed that this Ryunno clan member kidnapped her because of her looks. That's why I was so worried when I saw her naked. However, apparently this wasn't his intention. I was relieved to learn that she wasn't assaulted but I had even more questions than before.

I looked down toward Alianelle's waist.

My jacket was too small for her so her belly was almost completely revealed. Therefore, it wasn't hard to notice the discreet but strange pair of parallel scars on each side of her waist. Apparently, when he ripped her clothes apart, the Ryunno clan member expected to see something else but he was still able to confirm his suspicions about Alianelle.

Even with Alianelle's explanation, I couldn't make head or tail of his strange behavior toward her and of his strange story about a poison.

I couldn’t guess what he had in mind when he took her away but one thing was sure, he took her for a reason and didn’t regret his decision.

This part of the story left me just as baffled and lost as her explanation about the murderer.

She didn't see his face, hidden by a large purple cloak neither did she see the terrible confrontation between them. Her testimony about him only became relevant when this man broke the ice to enter the carriage.

"What happened after that? Did he tell you anything before knocking you out?"

She frowned for a few seconds as if she was trying to remember in detail what he had told her.

"He asked me if I knew any offensive magic. When I answered that I didn’t really know any useful one, he sight and said that he was sorry for me then."

"Sorry? Anything else?"

She shook her head in denial before suddenly remembering something.

"Just before hitting me, he said good luck."

"Good luck?"

She simply nodded and stayed silent this time.

Her story was short but left me with many things to ponder about.

An unknown man had broken the taboo of the Racial law, something that didn't happen for many years apparently. I couldn't be sure about his motives but the unknown object releasing a dense trail of mana that led me there before completely disappearing was obviously part of the reason.

Another thing I was pretty sure of was that this man used a magic with effects similar to Jazor’s to escape quickly. Otherwise, I would have been able to follow his trail left by the object he took with him.

I wasn’t really concerned about his reasons or about the kind of magic he used to escape so fast without leaving any trail, but something was weird in her story.

This man committed a terrible crime and still left a witness behind.

Even if Alianelle wasn’t really able to identify him, she was completely defenseless and killing her wouldn’t have taken more than a few seconds. No matter how I thought about it, the most reasonable choice was to kill her to avoid any unnecessary complication.

I kept my gaze glued on Alianelle as I tried to imagine what went through this man’s head after he saw this defenseless young girl locked inside the carriage of the man he just murdered.

Even if he judged that Alianelle was of no importance, why would he bother to knock her out.

This just didn't make any sense.

Unless he didn't knock her out for his own benefit.

I almost immediately assumed that this man was filled with malice and bad intentions as he had massacred the Ryunno clan member along with his guards without even sparring his mounts.

However, maybe he truly wanted to save this innocent young girl when he discovered her trapped inside the carriage.

Maybe the only reason he didn’t take her away with him to save her was because his magic didn’t allow him to take someone along with him.

This would explain why he asked her if she was able to use magic.

If she couldn’t come with him and couldn’t survive on her own inside the wilderness with her magic, then her only choices were to wait inside the carriage near the corpse of the Ryunno clan member or die miserably while trying to join a Human settlement.

Maybe knocking her out was a desperate attempt to save her in this impossible situation.

If this was true then he probably saved Alianelle’s life, but I couldn’t come up with any gratitude in my heart as we were in too much trouble because of him.

“Sillath?”

Alianelle’s voice brought me out of my thoughts. She didn’t seem as pale as before as if talking about what had happened had helped her to exorcise these difficult moments.

“Do you remember anything else?”

She shook her head in denial.

“No, I told you everything. Did you figure something out? Why didn’t he simply kill me?”

She tried to ask her questions as calmly as possible but a single glance at her was enough to understand that she truly cared about my opinion on this matter.

I turned my gaze away from her to look at Jazor who was leaning against a tree a dozen meters away probably asleep. Her testimony didn’t give me any useful information to escape our current predicament. Therefore, I didn’t see the point to waste any more time talking about this.

However, judging from Jazor’s pained expression as he was trying to sleep, we couldn’t expect anything from him for now. When I turned back my gaze to look at Alianelle’s eyes, all I saw was a young girl completely lost by what had happened to her.

A young girl who should be dead and who needed to know why she survived.

Therefore, even if I didn’t have any proof, I didn’t try to avoid her question and simply exposed my thoughts about this matter

“I can’t be sure but if I’m not wrong then he did it to give you a chance to survive.”

“A chance to survive…” She repeated with a dull tone, probably unable to understand my thoughts.

“If he didn’t consider you as a witness but simply as a victim that he was unable to save then maybe he knocked you out in an attempt to completely distance himself from you. This way the people responsible for the investigation of this murder wouldn’t suspect you of being an accomplish. Or maybe he simply wanted to prevent you from running away in the middle of the night while being this deep into the wilderness. Maybe it’s for another reason, but I think he tried to help you in his own way.”

I tried to voice my thoughts as clearly as possible, but without any concrete evidence, all of this was pure speculation. I wasn’t sure if any of this had helped her, but this was the only thing I could do for her in this moment.

To be there by her side.

So I stayed silently near her without moving or uttering a single word. I didn’t say anything when I saw her wipe silent tears nor did I push her away when she rested her head on my shoulder.

Her hurried breathing progressively slew down until all I could hear was long regular breaths, sign of a sleep that I was hoping without any dream.