Wesley stood up and tried to orientate himself, but try as he might, he still couldn’t see anything.

“Brrrrrrrr.” Wesley’s teeth chattered as he reached around him to feel his surroundings.

“Why is it so cold?”

Suddenly, a scene appeared in his head, disorienting him. He was no longer surrounded by darkness, but was instead standing on a mountain peak, far above the clouds.

The sky stretched on far beyond what he could see, and the landscape below was filled with rivers snaking between the mountain ranges in the distance and luscious green valleys spread beneath him.

Just below the horizon, a few temples were scattered across the land, but other than that, the surrounding area had no signs of human life. It was… peaceful. Wesley took in the view for a few moments, then sighed and raised his hand.

He drew some symbols in the air, then some circles around them. Why did he do that? How could he do that? He wasn’t sure. He felt elated, freed from the confines of his body, as if some other mysterious force was controlling his movement.

Then, he swiped his index finger across the seal he’d just drawn, and calmly uttered a single word.

“Cast.”

Then, after a few seconds, the world in front of his eyes began to blur, and everything went dark again.

The ground below him was icy and slippery again, although the air around him started to heat up, melting the ice into slush.

Slowly, Wesley stumbled his way forward. He didn’t know where he was going, but knew he had to go somewhere. Anywhere.

Wesley clumsily navigated the forest for hours, until his entire body had been covered in scratches from branches, trees, and vines.

Although Wesley walked cautiously, he was unable to notice that time and time again, he had been approached by various dangerous beasts that even proficient magicians would have run from.

However, for whatever reason, none of these creatures attacked him. Instead, they simply watched as he slowly crawled past, then crept away as unnoticed as they had arrived.

After what seemed like an eternity, Wesley, tired and hungry, felt soft, dewy grass beneath his feet, instead of the tree branches and rough dirt that he had become accustomed to.

“Where am I?” Wesley muttered, then started. He hadn’t heard anyone speak during his painful crawl through the woods, and after remaining silent so or long, he’d been frightened by the sound of his own voice.

He shakily straightened up, then fell down to his knees. After a few seconds of not moving, his stomach growled.

“Urgh… I’m so hungry.”

As a spoiled noble who had never needed to even consider how food would appear on his plate, Wesley would have had a hard time scrounging food for himself in the wild, even in the best of circumstances. Anything short of a rabbit running up to him, then gutting, skinning, and cooking itself, and he would have gone hungry even if he still had his sight.

By sheer luck, he had exited the forest near a road, close to a small village, where he was spotted by the local bard.

“Eh? Why’s there a boy crawling out of the forest? Whose stupid, idiotic, daft child is that?” The bard grumbled to himself.

“Aiiish. Fine, I’ll go see whose child it is. I’ll make sure that they’re properly disciplined. Can’t have the kids sneaking in and out of the forest all the time. Someday, they’ll provoke the monsters inside by stealing their precious baby eggs or something.”

He paused.

“Although, if I were to live through that calamity, I guess I’d be able to spin a story out of it. Heh heh.”

He smiled to himself, slightly lost in his thoughts. However, after walking within a few feet of Wesley, he started, then blinked a few times.

He’s hurt! His eyes narrowed as he stepped forward once more to get a better view of the kid.

He raised his hand to address the child and prepared to speak, when he suddenly noticed that the kid wasn’t looking at him and seemed almost dazed. Curious, he reached forward with his right hand and waved it in front of the child’s face.

No response.

He lifted his leg to step closer. As he lowered his leg, he accidentally stepped on a twig and snapped it.

Crack!

Hearing this, Wesley quickly raised his fists, his senses tingling. Was there something close to him?

At the same time, the bard sucked in a quick breath. When Wesley moved, the bard had caught a glance of Wesley eyes. They were wide with fear but strangely, his pupils were missing.

‘It looks like the boy is blind… furthermore, I don’t recognize him. Where is he from?’

The bard’s name was Gust. Those in the village knew him as quite a capable storyteller, even if he had a rather “unique” personality.

Despite his strange disposition, Gust was still a kind person at heart. He sighed to himself and pulled a bag stuffed with rations and story props off of his back.. He grabbed a piece of bread and tapped the child on the head with it.

“Here, kid. I have some bread. You want it?”

“...” Wesley was a bit scared. He’d never accepted food from a stranger before, so he hesitated, unsure of what to do. However, just the thought of having food in front of him made his stomach growl again.

He shyly extended his right hand.

Gust blinked a few times in surprise, then placed the bread gently into the scared little boy’s hand.

“Damn kid, if you want to get far in life, you’re going to have to be more assertive. Next time someone offers you bread, you gotta take it yourself then demand more, yeah?”

Clearly pleased with himself, Gust laughed and shook his head, then observed Wesley more closely.

Are those… blood stains on his clothes?

Had he been attacked in the forest?!

Gust lunged forward, lifting Wesley up and slinging him over his own shoulder. Then, he started running toward the nearby village.

Wesley yelped in surprise, then started punching Gust with his meager strength.

“Alright, lad. No eating for you right now. I'm gonna find someone to check you for cuts and crap, and then I'll bring you to eat some good stuff okay? I promise it'll be much better than my shitty bread.”

He looked down at the kid in his arms for a sign that his words had been acknowledged, but all he got was Wesley staring forward with his mouth open with drool starting to spill out.

“Hey! Kid! No drooling on me. Shut your damn mouth unless you got something to say. Speaking of, what's your name? I can't just refer to you as the… kid who drools on his savior.”

Wesley stirred. “My name is Wesley. What's yours?”

“Name is Gust.”

“…” Wesley’s mind had been stretched far too much today, rendering him unable to respond with sufficient poise. “…Cool name…”

After a brief but rushed hike through the forest, Gust reached the edge of the village and began charging through the streets with Wesley in his arms, leading some people to look at him in curiosity.

“Hey, look! Where did Gust get a kid from? He wouldn't have kidnapped the kid, right?”

“I mean… it’s Gust. Probably did.”

It didn’t take them long to arrive at a house that was much larger than most others in the village. It was one of the two buildings in the village with two stories, the other being the tavern.

Gust ran up to the door of the building and rushed inside. “Where's the damn witch? This kid’s hurt! And starving too!”