That night, neither of them slept. Max returned to his small hut, his thoughts tearing into him without mercy for being such an idiot, for rushing things when he should have known better. He wanted to slap himself to death.
Yet at the same time, he could not forget what he had felt in that moment. They had been connected. Truly connected. And that alone kept tormenting him, making him wonder whether Rosalia had wanted it too, or whether he had acted like a complete fool and destroyed everything with one reckless decision.
Rosalia, on the other hand, burned like a furnace all the way back to the Chief's hut. Her face stayed red, her chest tight, her thoughts a tangled mess that refused to calm down. Her father was fast asleep, but William, who had been standing guard outside, saw her sneaking back in from Max's direction.
At once, his eyes narrowed. He had never seen Rosalia look so shaken, so flustered, so painfully obvious. Suspicion rose inside him, poisoning his mind. Had she really gone out to meet Max? And if she had, then for what? Jealousy twisted inside his heart so fiercely he could barely hold it down.
"You met with him, didn't you?" he called out, making Rosalia squeal in surprise.
"William!?" Her face flared even hotter under the confrontation, but she tried to hide it by turning away from him. "I don't know what you mean. I was only taking a walk because I couldn't sleep," she replied, too quickly, too stiffly.
"What does he have that I don't?" William snapped. He hated Max to the bone. He had hated him from the very beginning. He could never understand why Rosalia kept drifting toward that man, a stranger, the same man who had brought disaster upon their clan. "I have always worked hard. I protected the clan. I protected you. So why him?"
Rosalia instinctively stepped back. "Sorry, William, I can't return something I don't have." She moved past him and stepped into the house, but her heart was already in disarray.
The way she had reacted, the fact that William had seen through her, the fact that others might notice too, forced a truth into her chest that she could no longer deny. She liked Max.
She truly liked him. But that was a luxury she could not afford. She rushed into her room and shut the door behind her. That night, her fingers found her lips again and again, as if she could still feel the ghost of that kiss lingering there.
Henry's eyes were open in the dark. Something old and heavy stirred within them. He had heard every word William said, and he had heard Rosalia's reaction as well.
"Foolish daughter..." he muttered before slowly closing his eyes.
The next day, Max did not see Rosalia even once. He wanted to find her and talk things out, but she never left the house. And when she finally did after a few days, she ignored him so completely that Max became certain he had truly ruined everything.
The truth, however, was different. Rosalia simply could not face him, not with her heart in its current state. The silence between them became deafening, the kind that pressed down harder with every passing day.
Then two months slipped by like a page turning in a book. During that time, Max pushed the clan forward with his mana until every warrior had become at least three times stronger. The rich mana in the land nurtured their bodies, improved their magic souls, and expanded their mana containers.
The clan now had enough food to survive for a year even if he suddenly vanished. And his two-year promise was getting dangerously close. Only eight months remained until the day he would leave and never return.
What made it worse was that Max truly believed whatever existed between him and Rosalia had been destroyed. More than once, he swore he would corner her and force this silence to end, if only so he could hear the truth from her own mouth. But every single time, she avoided him with maddening skill, and little by little, his frustration began to boil into anger.
Today had been quiet. Max had already finished pouring mana into the land. He had redirected water from a river several kilometers away by building a canal, using knowledge from his old world to reshape the fields.
He had also changed how the clan collected seeds and stored grain, making their harvests last longer and wasting far less food.
He was still out in the fields now, speaking with villagers who had finally begun to accept him as one of their own, when the sudden ringing of a bell ripped through the calm air.
Max had never heard that sound before and had no idea what it meant, but the villagers' faces lost all color.
"The danger bell."
"Are we under attack?"
"Quickly, back to town!"
That was all Max needed to hear. He dropped everything at once and followed after them. Before long, the entire village had gathered in the center, around the freshly laid square, while unease spread through the air like a coming storm.
High above the mountain range, the sky bled gold and black, as though something monstrous had begun to stain the heavens. From a distance, it looked like a dark cloud was slowly descending upon the Ice Dragon Clan.
But the truth was far more terrifying.
"Is this the place where the paradise is rumored to lie?" a deep voice asked from the front. The one who spoke was a towering man whose form looked like a brutal union of dragon and human, yet even more draconic than Rosalia's transformed state, which already revealed the purity of her bloodline.
This man, however, was on another level entirely. Golden scales armored his body, while his horns were black as the night sky. His muscular frame looked like a walking fortress forged for war. And behind him stretched an army of warriors who did not seem overshadowed by his presence in the slightest.
"Yes, Emperor Thor. This is where we received word that the Ice Dragons had taken root. The last of their bloodline gathered in a place rich with mana, likely near a Pool of Life," one of the men beside him replied with respect.
"I see. Good. I'll turn this place into my personal training ground. After we slaughter the remnants of the Ice Dragons, we will pay Agnia a visit. I still can't believe she was foolish enough to think I could be used to clean up the mess her clan failed to erase hundreds of years ago..." He chuckled, and the sound rolled through the heavens like thunder itself.
"Glory to Emperor Thor! Glory to the Thunder Dragon Empire!" The sky shook with roaring voices.
Not far away, the entire village trembled as panic spread through the Ice Dragon Clan. Every one of them understood what this meant. If they failed to repel the Thunder Dragons today, their deaths were already decided. One by one, their eyes turned toward Max, who stood at the far back with a hardened face.
He could feel it now, that terrifying aura rushing closer with crushing weight. Even he was not fully certain he could face them all alone. But the moment his gaze locked with Rosalia's, the moment he saw the fear and worry trembling in her eyes, he understood what had to be done.
"I'm heading out..." Max said softly, then pushed through the crowd and started toward the mountains.