The group of soldiers and agents that were in pursuit of Tomar and Riala had been separated when they encountered three beasts fighting over a dead deer. It was exceedingly rare to walk into a situation where you would have to fight multiple beasts at once, and it was one of the worst things that could happen out here. Similar to humans, beasts put aside their differences when they were attacked, and worked together to eliminate any danger to them. Unless they were weak, there was only one way you would get out alive. You had to separate them. Unfortunately, the group that had started out with ten members was now down to six, leaving only two per beast. Everyone knew that their chances for surviving this mission had just plummeted, but they still acted swiftly and split up into three groups, luring their enemies in three different directions.

The two agents Berla and Pari continued on the path the group had been on and fought valiantly, but Pari fell just minutes into the battle against the category five beast. They were known for being incredibly strong and tough. More often than not, they managed to kill even strong Fighters in a single strike. When Pari was hit, Berla immediately distracted the beast and lured it away again, on the off chance that he might’ve survived the hit. She kept up the fight, and thanks to her agility she was doing a good job avoiding the beast’s attacks. However, in a moment of carelessness she tripped over a root. The beast used that chance to grab her by the leg, biting down hard on it. She was shaken side to side until the leg ripped off and the woman was tossed several meters through the air, before landing hard on the ground and falling unconscious.

One of the other groups did not fare any better. Two soldiers had tried to reach open ground to the north, where they could fight without getting hindered by the forest’s trees, but they never made it that far. The beast picked them off one after the other and then made its way deeper into the forest, content with the prey it was carrying back in its mouth.

Only the last group, made up of another soldier and Captain Lera, survived the encounter on their own. Thanks to the captain’s prowess, they barely managed to defeat the beast, though they had both been wounded. Their foe had only just been confirmed dead, when the captain looked westwards, in the direction where the group had split off.

“Captain... I implore you, we need to retreat,” the soldier said, his right arm hanging limply at his side. “We will die in this forest!”

“You would abandon your companions?” the captain said.

“We barely survived, sir! The others are either dead or on their way back to town, running for their lives!” the soldier shot back.

The captain fell into thought. He was enjoying the fight and was determined to catch the criminals, but he was also reaching a point where he couldn’t be sure about his chances for survival anymore. If they were to run into another category five, they would struggle. However, he couldn’t in good conscience leave people behind like this. If they fell in the line of duty, that would be one thing, but he wouldn’t let someone die through his own inaction.

“We’re going back to the meeting point,” the captain said decisively. “After meeting up with whoever else made it there, we’ll retreat and gather new troops.”

Based on the movement of the targets, he assumed that they were most likely heading towards Cerus. It would be difficult to intercept them, but as long as he knew where they were going, he would still have a chance to catch them.

Captain Lera walked off without looking back at his subordinate. The soldier was angry, but he knew what would happen if he refused to follow orders. Begrudgingly, he walked after the captain.

***

“You’re Tomar, right? I’m Berla,” the woman said after she had calmed down a little.

“Uhm, nice to meet you,” I said awkwardly.

We had successfully rescued her from the beast, but I was at a loss for what to do now. If we just left her here like this, the next beast that came along would definitely kill her. On the other hand, helping her any more would be a risk to us.

Riala glanced at Berla from behind me and the woman waved at the young girl. “Hello, Riala.”

I was perplexed at how casual she was acting. She had just been fighting for her life and had lost a leg. Yet it felt as if she would jump back to her legs any moment and just walk over to us. Well, to her one leg.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Riala asked her carefully.

“Oh, it does. A lot. But Fighters are tough,” the woman said.

“Tough enough to follow us in that state?” I asked.

“Maybe not quite that tough...” Berla said with an awkward laugh. She sat up and pointed east with her hand. “Could you do me a favor? A friend of mine is lying about fifty meters from here in that direction. I don’t know if he survived. Would you check on him?”

The situation didn’t feel right. Toughness or not, she was acting like nothing had happened at all, and if her friend was injured, I would expect her to be more concerned.

‘Might be a trap,’ Miles said.

When the guard captain arrested us, he told me that he was ready to kill me if necessary. Assuming these orders hadn’t changed, it could be dangerous to get too close or to turn our backs at her. However, just standing here wouldn’t get us anywhere either.

“I’m sorry, we can’t do that. Was there anyone else with you?” I asked, trying to determine how much danger we were in.

“There was, but we were attacked and split up.”

“Will they come looking for you?”

“Probably not,” she said with a sad smile. “If anyone is still alive, they will head back to town after this. You aren’t planning to go back by any chance?”

“No, we aren’t.”

Even if she wasn’t trying to trick us, we couldn’t risk going anywhere near Alarna right now. Since she wasn’t alone, staying here would be dangerous as well, however.

Her eyes wandered to the beast once more. “You killed it with the scripture sigils, right? Can you do that anytime?”

We were both trying to get information out of the other. She probably wasn’t actually as calm as she was acting. If I told her that I could only execute that script one more time before I would fall to my knees in pain, what would she do?

“I can,” I said, trying to act confident.

“What about you, Riala?” she asked the girl by my side.

Riala looked up at me and I answered for her. “She can too, but her attack would be a little weaker.”

A sliver of truth. Believable.

Berla looked us up and down for a moment before her expression changed from a friendly, careless one to a grimace. “Ugh, I’m not good at this,” she said. “You can go if you want. No games. Bringing you two back would be difficult, even with two legs.”

Her facade was gone. She sounded genuine, and she was giving us permission to go. However, as much as I wanted to, we couldn’t just leave. Rescuing her would’ve been entirely pointless if we abandoned her now. The next beast would be sure to finish the job.

We took a few more steps backwards, as she nodded in understanding. Her look quickly changed to one of confusion when I sat down on the ground, several meters away from her.

“I don’t know what to do. We can’t just leave you, but we can’t really help you either,” I said as I was trying to come up with some kind of solution.

Her eyes went wide and she started laughing again. “You really are a child. No offense.”

I looked away awkwardly. “Help me out then, what would you do?”

‘Leave her.’

“Leave me.”

Berla and Miles said simultaneously.

“You saved me, you treated my wound, you’ve done more than you should have already,” she said. ”Sitting here, waiting for some kind of divine inspiration on what to do isn’t going to help you.”

If she was expecting someone to come for her, she should be trying to keep us here. Instead she was mocking me. “Are they really not going to look for you?” I asked with a frown.

“Don’t worry about me and just get going,” she said as she tried to stand up.

“What are you doing!?” I said in surprise, getting up as well.

“My friend really is lying back there. I need to check on him. Good luck to you two,” she said, hopping in the direction she had pointed in before, but she only made it a few meters before she toppled over and fell to the ground, groaning in pain.

‘Don’t...’ Miles said, still worried about her intentions.

I hurried towards her as she got up again and helped her stand.

She looked at me in exasperation, but didn’t say anything. I motioned for Riala to come along and we made our way through the forest for just a minute before we came across a person lying on the ground that was dressed just like Berla. He was bigger, however, and had a masculine body.

As we got closer, Berla let go of me and hopped over to him, sitting down by his side. He wasn’t moving and the look on Berla’s face when she listened for a heartbeat told me that he was gone.

When she pulled off his mask, I could see that he was much older than us, with a gray beard covering half of his face. She touched his cheek and looked at him with sad eyes, but she didn’t cry.

Berla stayed in that position for a little while, until she turned to me. “Would you help me bury him?”

I didn’t know who the man was to her, but I was sure she only sought our help at this moment. She wasn’t trying to trick us. “Of course,” I said.

Per her instruction, Riala and I started looking for rocks to bury him under and carried them over, to gently place on him. In town, all people would get cremated, because there wasn’t enough space for graves. I learned that, out here, it was custom to bury people like this if getting them back to town wasn’t feasible.

There were more than enough rocks lying around, which I hadn’t really paid attention to before. What surprised me was when we found a curious-looking stone under one of the rocks. It looked just like a blue stone, but it was as black as a water source.

“Is that a black stone...?” I said with wide eyes.

‘Looks like it could be, let’s take it with us.’

I would’ve never thought to search for stones under random rocks in the forest. They weren’t supposed to appear just anywhere, but only in special places, where they would then get mined. If this really was a black stone, however, I certainly wouldn’t leave it here. I slipped it into my pocket before going back to carrying rocks over to the man.

It took us about half an hour to cover him from head to toe. After helping Berla up, we stood at the grave for a moment longer, until she finally spoke up again. “Have you made a decision yet?”

I wish...