Chapter 80: New journey

I only spent a few years with my family in this world before being abducted.

I would like to say that the education I received from Amanda for several years included many different subjects but it would be a lie. Everything I learned, with days and nights of tireless efforts, was related to magic. If I wasn’t reincarnated, I would probably be completely clueless about the ways of the world which was in insight probably my grandfather’s objective to make me more malleable.

However, even if I didn’t receive proper education in this life, I did not doubt that no matter the world, slave trader wasn’t an honorable profession.

Therefore, I was at a loss about how to react to this situation and how to act toward the man who led us safely out of the swamp.

The Vrapy that traveled with us rejoined its brethren at the head of a dark, worn-down carriage with a flat roof probably barely able to prevent the rain from entering. Opposed to that, it was equipped with giant wheels of steel that I knew were even sturdier than they appeared thanks to the magic circle drawn on them. This precaution made even this shabby-looking carriage incredibly valuable and was an indispensable precaution to ensure that these wheels wouldn’t break under the strain produced by the unnatural speed of the Vrapy pulling it.

Hanging at the back of this small convoy was another carriage without a roof, made of simple wooden planks to accommodate of few wooden crates. The same impressive wheels were present, but this wasn’t what immediately attracted my gaze and completely destroyed all the goodwill I had toward the man that led us out of the swamp.

A sinister black cage was standing with two young children huddled in a corner inside.

A single look at Paul’s horror-stricken face was enough to understand that I wasn’t the only one with severe reservations about our current situation. On the other hand, Jazor’s face stayed straighter than I thought it would.

Unable to avoid my emotions and distrust to show on my face, I took a couple of steps back and let Jazor do the talking.

The man that led us here exchanged a couple of words with his acolyte sitting on the elevated coachman seat. With surprising agility for his corpulence, the driver and probably owner of this carriage jumped down from his seat and walked toward us swiftly with an amiable smile on his face.

This paunchy man with a round face had a double chin covered with a coal-black beard far less impressive than his friend and appeared to be at least two decades older than him judging by the numerous wrinkles at the corner of his amber-colored eyes. He wore ordinary clothes with solid brown boots and pants but with a strange, and certainly not discreet, orange travel cape that gave me a strange impression especially as it had its hood down despite the lack of rain or wind to justify it. The sword sheath on his left side was of the same color as the cape and was difficult to notice at first glance.

Apparently, without any intention of taking his hood off, he continued to approach until he was close enough for me to notice that he was missing his left arm and smartly dissimulated it with the undulation of his cape.

“My name is Walmir and you already met the chief of my guards Ilan.”

I stayed silent while Jazor simply nodded his head in acknowledgment. Only Paul, with Alianelle on his back, was still glaring at him with eyes that could kill alone.

I sidestepped and softly elbowed him in the ribs to get his attention. A single glance into my eyes was fortunately enough for him to get the message.

This wasn’t the time nor the place to start a fight.

“I’m quite well-versed in the healing aspect of the water element so I can take a look at this young girl if you want,” suddenly softly added Walmir with the same amiable and tranquil smile on his face.

“No thanks, she is alright.” I quickly added while taking a step forward to gather their focus on me and cover for Paul’s strong reaction of aversion.

The man didn’t dwell on the question and turned his attention back to Jazor while his guard, with his arms crossed, continued to stubbornly look at me. I tried to ignore him and focused on what Jazor was currently discussing with the owner of this carriage, but even after several minutes, his pitch-black eyes were still stubbornly fixed on me.

Everyone with a bit of experience could tell that Paul was harmless, especially because he was carrying an unconscious young girl on his back. However, as a child, I should also appear just as defenseless as him, or at least much less important to look at than a dwarf armed with an axe almost as big as his entire body.

So why was he so stubbornly looking at me?

Did he see more than I thought inside the swamp?

I missed most of what was being discussed between Jazor and Walmir but I had the most important information.

They were slavers.

A group with two children and apparently a single wounded fighter was on its own inside the wilderness without any support. Anyone could tell that we were a pretty interesting prey to fill up the cage on their carriage.

In our situation, I had no choice but to stay wary against strangers and, even more so, against slave dealers.

That’s why I tried to be as low-key as possible since the start of Jazor’s conversation.

If you can't look threatening then stay hidden.

So why was he still looking at me?

I didn’t know how he did it, but this man probably realized that I was more than what I was pretending to be. I put an end to my act and completely turned my head to directly look into this man's deep eyes.

A stiff smile formed on his lips almost hidden by his dense beard while his weapons at his hips started to glow and his mana slowly gathered in his hands. Even something so imperceptible didn’t escape my senses just like it probably didn’t escape him that I was doing the exact same thing.

This man was too dangerous to ignore.

I could feel it.

If he tried anything, then I would have to immediately freeze him to death.

For what appeared like an eternity we stayed motionless a few steps away from one another. Nothing existed except for this man and I was sure, it was the same for him.

The subtle movements of mana slowly became stronger and more evident to see. Even Paul felt the change in the air and took a few hurried steps backward while casting me a frightened glance.

“What do you think, sissy?”

Jazor’s booming voice near my ear and his heavy hand that landed on my shoulder put an immediate end to our silent confrontation. I blinked a few times and slowly turned my eyes away from the guard to cast a glance at Jazor.

“What?” I breathed.

The owner of the carriage was the one who answered me. He appeared just as harmless and good-natured as before when his soft voice took over.

“I would like to hire your friend as a guard for the rest of our journey.”

“What?” I repeated quizzically.

The man continued to smile and turned his head to his right-hand man who simply nodded with a knowing smile on his face.

“Apparently, this offer also applies to you, my young friend. We are going to the first Advanced town and, as you can see, we are a little short-handed. I suppose you all want to get the hell out of this cursed land as fast as possible and we need more capable fighters to stay safe along the rest of the journey. So what do you think?”

“Like hell, we will!” boomed Paul with a reddening face before I had the time to ponder his offer.

“Shut your trap!” snarled Jazor in response.

Paul didn’t seem ready to be convinced until Jazor took a few threatening steps toward him. Paul was towering above Jazor but none of the people present mistook who was truly intimidated.

With pulsing temples, Paul stepped down and stayed silent.

It was the first time I saw Jazor truly lose his cool like that. I could understand Paul’s reticence. I wasn’t a personal fan of this idea but this proposition certainly had its advantages. Not to mention that Paul was apparently underestimating the true danger of our current situation.

We were walking a thin line between life and death and each day spent on our own in this territory was making this line thinner.

How long do we need to reach our destination while traveling on foot?

I already discussed this with Jazor, and his answer was just as hopeless as I thought it would be.

Probably more than half a year.

And that was the most optimistic estimate since he was counting on walking in a straight line to the kingdom which would certainly be impossible.

With the growing number of deviants, it was just a matter of time before something went terribly wrong.

“We shouldn’t spend too much time here,” Walmir added with a cough to disperse the awkward atmosphere. “If you’re not interested then we will simply go our separate way but think about it. We were all lucky and strong enough to survive this disaster but none of our separated group can probably make the rest of the journey safely, so...”

“If it’s to be attacked in our sleep, then no thanks,” interrupted Paul despite Jazor’s exasperated glare.

“You can’t be that blind.” suddenly berated Ilan after staying silent ever since his employer started to speak. “Either we die on our own or we survive together.” he simply added directly.

“Certainly if put it like that, our choice is more than obvious,” I sighed after a few seconds of silence. ‘However, trust is still an issue.”

“So what do you want?” shrewdly asked Walmir who immediately understood my point.

“Simple, just release these two children.”

“Release them?” he asked as a dry laugh escaped his lips.

“Now isn’t the time to do business. We should use our time and energy to survive and rejoin the Dorell kingdom.” I tried to convince him but he quickly interrupted me with an authoritative voice very different from the one he was using until now.

“You’re right, now isn’t the time for that,” he said while clutching the dangling piece where his left arm should be.

“I lost almost everything in this disaster,” he explained, much less calm than before. “Do you think I do this job for pleasure? Do you think this is what I dreamt to do when I was young? Of course not, but I have a family to feed and more responsibilities than you could possibly imagine. These two are the last chance I have not to lose everything so I’d rather continue this journey on our own than free them.” he declared, obviously determined to stand his ground.

I didn’t expect him to react so strongly.

A single glance at the lifeless eyes of the children looking at us curiously and probably only a few years older than me was enough to convince me.

This Slave trade was fundamentally wrong.

Of that, I was sure.

However, I wasn’t strong enough to change their fate.

The idea to fight and overpower them to free these children and continue the journey with this carriage crossed my mind, but it was too risky. Ilan was probably too much for me to handle in a direct confrontation and strangely his employer didn’t seem to be a pushover either.

Moreover, even if I could, I had the disturbing feeling that I shouldn’t do something like that. Up until now, they simply made a proposition to us. Ilan even helped us get safely out of the swamp.

Even for a good reason, killing and robbing them wasn’t something I was willing to live with.

Life was always more complicated than good or bad after all.

It always depends on the viewpoint.

I killed to survive and chose to save Paul instead of a young innocent child when we escaped from the devastated Advanced town.

Was what I did right or wrong?

Probably a bit of both.

It would be easier if this man, standing a few feet away with a stubborn face, was just greedy and evil. But maybe he was simply what he claimed to be. A man trying to survive.

Even if he wasn’t, now wasn’t the time to act yet.

“We are in the middle of the wilderness. There is no way for them to survive if they run away. Can you at least let them out of the cage?” I finally asked with a deadpan voice.

“If I let them with their hands chained together, then I can do that. As a proof of my good faith,” he replied with a calm face.

I simply nodded while Jazor shook this man’s hand with a satisfied smile on his lips. Paul stubbornly refused to shake his hand and continued to look at me as if I had betrayed him.

The children were let out of their cage with a shackle tying the boy’s left hand and the girl’s right hand. Everyone else agreed that they were armless and not stupid enough to run away on their own while being this deep into the wilderness. A single glare from Ilan was enough to dampen and probably completely burn out every rebellious idea from their minds.

With mixed emotion, our journey resumed and only the impressive speed of the Vrapy across this savage land was enough to soothe my heart.

------------------------------------------

“Careful!” screamed a now-familiar voice amidst the deafening roars all around.

“I know,” I yelled back without turning my head to properly look at the attack coming from behind.

With a twist of my body, I avoided the horned beast and, propelled by my wind magic, jumped several meters into the sky. A single well-aimed earth bullet wasn’t enough to defeat this armored beast or any of the other animals and deviants encircling us.

Therefore, I changed my strategy.

With a violent wave of my arm, several fireballs left my hand and headed toward the numerous crazed animals that ambushed us.

A dozen of them were incinerated in an instant with heartbreaking howls of pain.

I didn’t let the gruesome sight perturb me and formed a long lance of earth that I powered with my wind magic. It took me several long seconds to properly prepare this attack, but Ilan was making sure that the rest of our enemies were busy enough with him to attack me from afar.

Finally, the lance was launched and impaled the green bipedal animal that nearly took my head off a few minutes ago.

Although it felt like it happened a lifetime ago, this animal had disturbing similarities with the first intelligent magic beast I encountered in the wilderness. Fortunately, it didn’t possess the same magical abilities or the same intelligence. It didn’t notice the danger thanks to my partner distracting it long enough with a flurry of distant wind and water magic for my improvised spear to do its gruesome work.

A few more deviants ignored the death of their comrades and headed toward me with bloodthirst clear in their respective gazes. None of them reached me thanks to the violent burst of slicing water magic Ilan produced. The high-pressure blades left his sword, and powered with the lost magic engraved on it, crossed the distance separating them in an instant.

Their deaths were immediate and the calm finally returned around us.

I didn’t bother to wipe away the blood that splattered my face and focused on the not so swallow cut on the right side of my neck. Fresh blood had flown throughout our fight and drenched the upper side of my slightly oversized black leather jacket gifted by Walmir. Without any potion left, I had no other choice but to find other ways to heal my wounds. Fortunately, Walmir was skilled enough in this aspect of the water element and taught me the basics.

Although the result was a far cry from what a single drop of potion would have achieved, it was still enough for this annoying and dangerously placed wound to finally stop bleeding.

I looked around me for a few seconds and finally noticed the leather bags filled with water I let go when the fight started. I crossed the small battlefield to check whether they were still intact while Ilan was quickly cutting a few pieces of edible meat from the few cadavers not burned to a crisp.

The smell of blood and burnt flesh was overwhelming, but it strangely didn’t really bother me.

I wonder when did it start?

When did I start ignoring the sight of blood and corpses I was leaving behind?

Maybe around a month after our encounter with Walmir and Ilan.

Too many bloody fights and victories snatched from the jaw of death to care for this kind of thing anymore. I didn’t wonder for long if we made the right choice when we decided to join this group. A week after this, the situation started to progressively turn for the worse. As I had anticipated, the number of deviants skyrocketed while stronger animals started to also ambush us. Even the suppressing effect the Vrapy had against other animals lost part of its effect.

Without their intimidation, the carriage’s journey became slower, more difficult, and bloodier.

Sleepless nights spent with the fear that it would be our last.

Days spent either fighting or desperately running away from hordes ready to tear us apart as soon as we showed them weakness or from monstrous magic beasts strong enough to change the topography of the region. The mere memory of these powers of nature was humbling, to say the least.

I couldn’t remember how many times I thought we were going to die.

However, we survived.

Walmir was more than experienced enough with his carriage inside the wilderness and was able to make us take the shortest path possible. However, it would still probably take a few more months to finally reach our destination: the first Advanced town ever established and also the closest to the Dorell kingdom.

The chances for this fortified city, situated at the edge of the wilderness, to have fallen were minimal. Once there, we will be safe. The rest of my journey to reach the eastern part of the kingdom, where Tegralle was located, would be a formality.

I could only hope that my parents wouldn’t risk their lives to reach the now devastated Advanced town where I said I was staying in my letter. A part of me wanted them to simply grieve my death inside the safety of their house with their daughters close to them. However, the short few years I spent with them were more than enough to see the true nature of their hearts.

Neither Seledia nor Millodas was the kind of person to give up.

I didn’t know how they spent these last years with my disappearance weighing on their minds or even if they were truly safe from my grandfather’s schemes but hoping and believing was the only thing I could do besides fighting with all my heart to rejoin them one day.

“Let’s hurry!”

Ilan’s anxious voice brought me back from my thoughts. I secured the leather bags I could carry on my shoulders, gave the rest to Ilan, and followed him back toward the carriage where everyone else was waiting.

As usual, I had to jog to follow the wide strides of my companion and as always, he splendidly ignored my struggle to keep up with him.

Nearly two months of cooperation and more fights to the death beside him than I could remember had turned him from a threat to a reliable ally. For weeks, I dissimulated as many of my abilities as possible while closely monitoring him and Walmir. I couldn’t bring myself to truly trust either of them, but fighting dangerous battles while hiding my powers and watching over them had almost cost me my life during a particularly dangerous fight against a horde that had encircled us. Ilan saved me and Walmir nursed me back to health.

After this episode that left me with a wide and still painful scar on my back, I decided to give them my trust for now.

A decision approved by Jazor who had heard about Ilan before and with much less reservation about trusting slavers than I thought he would.

On the contrary, Paul didn’t truly accept my decision even if he probably understood its necessity in our precarious situation. He never spoke with either of them and constantly kept his distance while watching over Alianelle and the two children destined to become slaves. These two didn’t have a chain binding them together anymore and could even get out of the carriage when we had to stop to resupply on food and water like today.

I was able to secure this new kind of freedom after many talks with Walmir to understand what he had in store for them. After that, a promise and a show of trust were enough for him to seal our fragile deal.

It didn’t take us more than ten minutes to rejoin the rest of our group, hidden under the shade of a dense canopy of trees. Jazor was on the lookout together with Walmir while Paul was playing with the two beastmen children on the other side of the carriage. Their relaxed demeanor immediately changed when they noticed Ilan coming toward them.

With a stiff smile, Ilan kept his distance and simply walked toward Walmir and Jazor.

“Are you alright?”

I intended to first head into the carriage to put another set of specially shortened clothes belonging to the previous and now regretted guards of this caravan, but a silvery voice too soft to belong to anyone else stopped me in my tracks and made me turn my head to look at its owner.

The young girl that spoke these now familiar words while flashing her pointy white teeth had a small round face making her appear even younger than she truly was along with bright brown eyes devoid of any kind of falsehood.

She was taller than me, which made me believe at first that she was older than I was, but it turned out that she and her twin brother were only eight years old. The double tail I knew she was hiding in her tattered black pants explained why I had to look up to meet her eyes.

If she was able to easily hide this proof of her belonging to a beast tribe, she couldn't do the same with her other most distinctive feature.

Her chestnut hair that nearly reached her bottom was disheveled like a mane and could be controlled like one of her limbs.

This ability could probably be useful if trained correctly, but it had several major drawbacks.

First, it needed clear command to move and couldn’t react on instinct.

Second, this ability was quite taxing and couldn’t be maintained for a long period of time. This would be alright if her hair didn’t turn hard like steel as soon as she stopped thinking about it. This made them completely impervious to even the strongest gales and protected her defenseless back, but it also prevented any kind of movement which quickly becomes obvious outdoors.

Finally, the strange silvery glow that emanated from the tip of her hair when the sun's rays weren't directly on them made hiding in the shadows nearly impossible and was one of the reasons she and her brother were captured.

The tinge of apprehension evident in her voice made me put on my brightest exaggerated smile to compensate for my clothes drenched in fresh blood.

“Of course, I’m invincible!” I bragged while carefully hiding the fresh wound on the right side of my neck.

The young girl named Himara forced a smile and made me regret not spending more time cleaning myself.

Her skin was still pale and her body as frail as when I met her, but her attitude was much warmer. She avoided me or hid behind her brother’s back for weeks before finally progressively opening up to me. I didn’t know if my repeated attempts to talk to her and her brother or simply the fact that I protected them so many times along our journey were responsible for her change of heart but I didn’t complain.

Her brother, named Seth, always stayed near her when either I or Paul were close, but not anymore. Tall and solid for his age, the dark-haired boy had the same brown eyes as his sister, but they strangely always gave me a much colder feeling every time I looked into them.

I couldn’t blame him. Although I was responsible for Walmir’s decision to lessen their surveillance, something I was sure they both quickly realized, it was also true that their inevitable fate once we reached the first Advanced town was still the same.

I didn't tell anyone, especially them, about my intentions to free them when we reach the first and final city of the wilderness.

I couldn’t be sure that everything would work out the way I wanted. It would be too cruel to give them hope of freedom only to finally take it back from their outstretched hands.

So I silently endured Seth’s hidden anger and contempt.

Paul was the only one Seth truly relaxed around. Every time anyone other than him or his sister was around, he always put back his mask of cold distant apathy in the best cases or simply plain hostility when Jazor was also there.

This particular point didn’t truly change ever since we started our journey with this carriage and even tended to become worse.

I always thought that Jazor was good with children, but this boy seemed determined to prove me wrong and stubbornly refused to trust or even slightly relax near my dwarven friend. Sure, Jazor was noisy, kind of rude on a daily basis, and maybe even annoying, but his other qualities more than made up for this.

However, no matter how hard I tried, his attitude with Jazor was still as cold as the first day.

If there was one thing you could never force, it was affection and, even if this particular treatment without any apparent reason left me with many questions, I simply decided to let things take their course.

I had other things weighing on my mind anyway.

After discussing for a bit with Himara, and pretending that I wanted to lie down, I entered the black carriage specially designed to allow a few people to sleep inside. The comfortable seats I found in the luxurious carriage of the Ryunno clan member were replaced by two long removable beds that I knew were not as comfortable as they looked.

The old dark curtains of the door were drawn, but far from enough to prevent the rays of the sun from entering. Unfortunately, the young girl lying on one of these beds under a white blanket with long and strangely well-combed hair wasn’t bothered by it.

Neither the noise I made while entering nor the sudden increase of the light in this narrow place when the door was pulled open was enough to make her react in any way.

Her face stayed the same with her eyes still closed, a sign that her sleep was just as absolute as ever.

When her mana suddenly started to surge and rampage inside the swamp, it was terrifying and couldn’t have come at a worse timing, but in the end, change was a good thing. It made us believe that she would soon wake up. For several days, she continued to fidget, her sleep obviously lighter than before while her mana, although not rampaging anymore, continued to rise.

Everything indicated that she was about to wake up.

However, we were wrong and all bitterly realized that there was nothing worse than false hope.

After a few days, her mana settled like a tidal wave that simply refused to come back anymore while her increasing movements decreased before completely disappearing.

I spent more time sensing her mana than I could remember and, after convincing Paul, examined her along with Walmir but none of us could make head or tail of this situation.

While she couldn’t be awoken and needed her father for her daily care, she didn’t seem weaker than before despite spending more than two months completely immobile without any solid food. Her complexion was rosy and her breathing steady. It kept the flame of hope alight and was probably the reason why Paul was able to stay calm and perform his duties as a father.

I stared at her peaceful face for longer than I initially wanted with a turmoil of emotions and questions I had trouble controlling. I stayed motionless until I noticed something at the corner of her lips barely visible in this dim light.

I used a clean handkerchief near her bed to wipe it and had to squint my eyes to confirm that this strange liquid was blue.

She wasn’t able to eat anything and only Paul was keeping her hydrated.

So what was it?

Fortunately, it only took me a few seconds to remember the usual infusion Paul used to make her inside their farm with its distinguished blue color. I was surprised that he was able to find the same plant along our rushed journey. It shouldn't have been easy, but Paul didn’t ask us for any help.

Once again, I was afraid that my choice to ignore his fears and join forces with slavers had put a definite rift in our relationship. Paul was certainly more distant than before and we never truly had the time or the leisure to talk alone.

With a barely repressed sigh, I folded the handkerchief and put it back near her bed before finally changing my clothes and exiting the carriage. Paul made it clear that he wanted to be the only one watching over Alianelle.

As this was the only thing I could do to appease his frustration and fears, I couldn’t stay too long alone with her.

I had other duties to attend anyway.

The night would soon be upon us.