“How do you know about that?” Red frowned.

Domeron grinned at him. “Allen said you were going to help him escape when we were training earlier today.”

“Why would he…” the boy trailed off. “I never agreed to anything. He just threw a note at me out of the window while I was walking past the main building yesterday.”

“I imagined it would be something like that. Still, he seemed very confident that you were going to help him.”

Red shook his head. “Going against Hector’s orders at such a juncture would be stupid. Not to mention, where does he even intend on escaping to?”

“Allen talked a lot about investigating the imperials…”

“With just the two of us? We would just get killed.”

“No one said it would need to be just you two.”

Domeron looked at Red with a smug smile on his face. The boy couldn’t discern his intentions.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“I have my reasons. Besides, Allen is not the only one in the guild who is rearing to act against Hector’s orders this time around.”

Red could imagine who the other person was.

“Either way, just keep this in mind for the future.” Domeron said. “It might be in your best interest to do it too.”

“What do you mean by that?” the boy couldn’t tell whether this was a threat or genuine advice.

“The imperial agents have been asking even more questions around town recently. Some were general questions, but a few of them made no sense without context. One of them, though, reminded me of a certain matter…”

Red had an awful premonition.

“They were asking whether any escaped slaves came to town over the past few months.” Domeron said.

‘That’s… How?’

The boy felt his breathing seize in his throat and his heartbeat speed up. Domeron didn’t seem to notice the change, though, and continued to speak.

“Now, I found that to be a weird question. Slavery is outlawed in our kingdom, mind you, and while the Empire has plenty of slaves, their lands are too far away for one of them to escape here… Besides, what interest could they possibly have in a single slave?” the swordsman shrugged.

Red didn’t respond.

“Either way, we still looked into the matter, but we couldn’t find any signs of adult slaves around town. In the end, we had no choice but to let it go… That was, until I remembered something about a certain kid that arrived in town some time ago all dirty and wearing ruined rags for clothing.”

“… What do you want from me?” the boy finally asked.

“I never said I wanted anything from you, kid.” Domeron shook his head. “You’re still a member of the sect, and we’d never turn you in. Still, there is only so much we can do to hide your presence, and at some point, people might suspect the orphaned child who appeared out of nowhere in the past month. That being the case, would you rather actively investigate and tamper with the Imperials' plans or wait until they find you out?”

Red hesitated. “Does Hector know about this?”

“Not yet. Even if he knew, he wouldn’t give you up unless the situation got dire… But the possibility it might come to that is not zero if it threatened the whole sect.”

The boy sighed. “What choice do I even have in the matter?”

“None. Well, you could just run away, but I don’t know how well that would work out for you. If it makes you feel better, though, they might have found you out eventually, anyway.”

It did not make him feel any better.

“What does Allen have to do with any of this?” Red asked.

“I want to temper him, of course. Hector seems to assume strictness is sufficient for training, but what matters most is still experience. The old man is demanding and harsh with the kid, but still refuses to put him in any kind of danger. In the long run, this will do more harm than good, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Allen ends up dying because of it.”

“You think throwing him against Imperial agents is the best way to train him?” the boy frowned.

Domeron shook his head. “If there’s no danger, then there’s no point. We don’t live in a controlled environment where we can pick and choose how to raise our disciples. Besides, he’ll have you and the others to help and guide him.”

“Hector will be angry.”

“Definitely. But he’ll be forced to recognize it’s for the sect’s own good in the long run.” Domeron didn’t look afraid.

“What if something happens to Allen?”

In any kind of dangerous undertaking, the unexpected could and often did happen. Red couldn’t guarantee the young master would return in one piece, no matter how confident in his own abilities he was.

At his words, though, Domeron closed his eyes and sighed. “Allen’s path will only get more difficult as time passes. He needs to grow if he wants to have any chance of coming out of it alive. So… If anything bad happens to him, it’s best it happens now rather than in the future.”

Red didn’t know how to respond. Even though he agreed, the fact this was coming from Domeron surprised him. The man smiled at him.

“Don’t fret too much. That’s all the worst-case scenario, after all. Of course, if something bad happens to Allen, it’s best you don’t return to the sect.”

The boy didn’t know if he was joking.

“What’s the plan then?” Red asked.

“You’ll learn of it when the time comes. Just make sure you are ready to depart at a moment’s notice in a few days.”

…

After Red finished his training, he returned to his room.

The boy sat down on his bed and reflected on the conversation he had just had with Domeron. What worried him at this point wasn’t the matter with Allen, but the information about the Imperials the swordsman had revealed.

‘How could they possibly know about me?’

Red’s hopes were that they were looking for a different slave. However, according to Domeron, the timeline matched with the boy’s arrival in town, and there were no other escaped slaves in the region. He had to assume and expect the worst in this situation.

If Red was indeed the slave they were looking for, though, this implied two other things. One was the fact the imperials were the ones behind the underground mining operation. The other was the fact they could somehow tell that the boy had escaped the mine, even if no one saw him do it.

Red, however, just couldn’t see how that was possible. Even if some slaves had lived through the insectoid’s attacks and were interrogated by the guards, this didn’t mean they could guess the boy had escaped the mine. At most, once they didn’t find signs of his body, they would just assume a monster ate him. To think Red had escaped the mines, though, was just jumping to conclusions.

This only left one reasonable explanation. Or as reasonable as was possible.

‘Magic.’

Only that made sense. Red knew this world was full of powerful beings and magics that were beyond his understanding. It was not too presumptuous to assume a force as powerful as the Empire could have been made aware of his escape through some otherworldly fashion. Perhaps they had even detected something had happened through his connection with the lunar being.

If that was the case, though, was there even anything Red could do about it?

‘No, this is not a hopeless situation yet.’

Indeed, even if the Empire was very capable, they were still limited in some ways. After all, if they knew about Red exactly, they would have been more specific about their questions in town. Their description of a slave was very vague, though, which meant they might only know someone escaped the underground, and not what that person looked like.

‘I might be jumping to conclusions, though.’

Red didn’t even know if it was him they were looking for, as likely as it was. This meant he needed more information about the situation before making a proper judgement. After all, he still wanted to get rid of his curse, and this was the best opportunity to learn more about it.

‘The diary…’

The boy looked around before fetching the page of Viran’s diary. He had almost concluded his translation efforts, and now was keen to complete it before he was forced into action against the possible perpetrators of this curse.

Red focused on deciphering the last few words over the next couple of hours. When he was done, he was finally presented with a few complete sentences.

‘The situation with the guards on the surface puzzles me. They speak with an Imperial accent, but wear no recognizable uniforms. What confuses me the most, though, is how they can be in such close contact with the mine and the moonstones and remain unharmed by the curse.’

The boy almost forgot to breathe once he read this passage. He had completely ignored such a simple matter while thinking about the curse before. Didn’t the guards come into constant contact with the moonstones traded by the slaves? How did they avoid getting cursed by the energy then?

‘Perhaps they have a special method to avoid the curse. Or maybe…’

Maybe the curse wasn’t necessarily in the moonstone energy like Red had been led to believe. The guards had indeed never once set foot inside the mine for as long as the boy was down there, so perhaps the curse came from contact with the underground more than anything. Or maybe it was a combination of both factors, or even still something entirely unrelated to them.

Red felt a headache coming to him as he thought about the complex matter. Instead of getting answers from Viran’s diary, he only had more questions after reading it. He wondered whether the man had arrived at a conclusion eventually. There was no way for the boy to know, though.

Red could only conduct his own investigations, and all of this would start with the imperial agents who were searching for him in the region. The boy would get his answer. One way or the other.

He would make sure of it.