The sounds of silver bells and clashing steel had finally faded into a haunting silence.
We had been running for over an hour, pushing through the dense, suffocating undergrowth of the Northern woods until my lungs felt like they were lined with broken glass.
Eventually, the adrenaline began to ebb away, leaving only the cold, damp reality of the forest.
I slowed to a brisk walk, my boots sinking into the rotting mulch. Beside me, Liora was struggling.
Her breath came in short, jagged hitches, and her small legs were visibly trembling so hard I could hear the fabric of her cloak rustling.
Honestly, I felt like a complete idiot. I had been so focused on escaping Kael and that nightmare in the clearing that I completely forgot the person walking right next to me.
I had been pushing forward like a machine, forgetting that she was just an eight-year-old girl pushed far beyond her breaking point.
I stopped and turned toward her, my chest tightening with a sudden, sharp anxiety. I watched the way her shoulders slumped and how pale her face had become in the moonlight.
She looked fragile, like she might actually collapse if I asked her to take one more step. Liora noticed me staring and froze instantly. She began nervously twisting the fabric of her cloak, her eyes darting toward the dark shadows of the trees as if she expected me to snap at her.
The silence between us grew heavy, thick with her fear and my own guilt.
"Uhh... hmm~..." she whispered, her voice barely audible over the rustle of the leaves. Then, suddenly, she shouted nervously,
"Is there something wrong!?"
"Hm?" I blinked, snapped out of my internal menu-scrolling.
My flat reaction only seemed to make her more frantic. To her, I probably looked like a cold-blooded killer who had just watched his mentor execute a monster without blinking.
She couldn't see the guilt eating at me; she only saw my silence and the blood on my clothes. She didn't realize I was actually paralyzed, trying to figure out how to apologize for being so blind to her pain without sounding like a total freak.
"I-I mean, why are you staring at me like that!?" she stammered, her face turning red
"It is so uncomfortable, you know? And... d-don't get any weird ideas! Just because we are alone doesn't mean... you can do everything you want to me! Okay!?"
She stopped walking entirely, looking like a cornered kitten trying to hiss at a wolf. I stared at her, genuinely baffled. My brain, currently fried from mana-burn, couldn't keep up with whatever she was implying.
"What are you even talking about?" I asked, tilting my head.
"And why is your face turning into a tomato?"
Liora's mind was clearly spiraling. In her original life—the one before she was thrust into this small, fragile body—she was thirteen.
Her mother had drilled a single, terrifying rule into her head: avoid men at all costs, especially when alone in the wilderness.
To her, the forest wasn't just a place of monsters; it was a place where "bad things" happened to girls who weren't careful.
She was currently imagining every horror story her mother had ever told her, and in her head, I was the villain.
"Hey! I am much older than you in my original body, alright!?" she shouted, trying to reclaim some shred of authority.
"So... be more polite! I have much more experience in the way of magic than a peasant like you!"
In her heat, she accidentally lifted her hand to point a finger at me. That was when I saw it.
A jagged, oily black mark was etched across the pale skin of her wrist. It looked like a vein of liquid coal pulse-racing toward her heart. I recognized that texture. It was a Stagnation Stagnation Curse high-level Curse-type spell used by the Inquisition to silence "rogue" mages. It acted like a magical cancer; if the victim tried to cast a spell, the stigma would eat their mana and replace it with agonizing pain until the user's heart stopped.
I moved closer, my expression turning sharp. Liora flinched, her eyes wide with terror.
"W-w-what are you..." she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the "weird idea" she thought was coming.
I didn't say a word. I simply reached out and caught her hand, holding it firmly but gently so I could get a closer look at the corruption.
"I don't know what you are talking about, but don't worry, Liora," I said, my voice softening as I looked at the mark.
"I am not going to do anything. I promised I would protect you, haven't I?"
I forced a small, tired smile, trying to warm her down. She opened one eye, looking at my hand holding hers, then up at my face. The sheer sincerity in my expression seemed to short-circuit her panic.
"Don't worry," I muttered. "I will help you. Hold still."
I didn't have much mana left, and what I did have was "dirty" with Entropic rot.
But the high lvl Stagnation Curse was a lock, and my mana was a universal skeleton key. I funneled a precise needle of energy into her wrist, manually "shattering" the curse's foundation.
Crack.
The black mark evaporated into a faint mist. Liora let out a gasp as the heavy, cold pressure on her soul vanished.
She could feel her magic again. But the cost was immediate for me. The "feedback" from the curse slammed into my chest. My insides felt like they were being charred by lightning.
I slumped forward, a heavy glob of blood hitting the dirt from my mouth.
"Leo!" Liora caught me before I hit the ground, her small hands surprisingly strong as she held my shoulders.
"You didn't have to do that! You are already dying!"
"I am fine," I wheezed, wiped the copper-tasting mess from my lip.
"Anyway, you can cast now. If we get jumped, you're our only healer."
Liora's face went pale.
"I'll help you, wait—" She began to gather a soft, silver light in her palms.
"Wait, don't," I grunted, catching her wrist before the silver glow could touch my skin. I winced as the movement pulled at the raw burns on my chest.
Liora looked at me, her eyes shimmering with frustrated tears. "You are bleeding from your mouth, Leo! Just let me—"
"Actually, think for a second,
I interrupted, my voice strained. "If you put Holy mana into me, it doesn't just disappear. It lingers. It leaves a mark on the soul. We are heading back to the heart of the Duke's capital... to Alisa. If she or the Duke's advisors feel even a flicker of the Church's magic sitting on my heart, what do you think happens then? They won't ask questions. They will just see a spy or something."
Liora's hands trembled, the light in her palms flickering out. She looked at my blood-stained shirt, then back at my face, realizing the trap I was in.
"You are such a fool," she whispered, her voice cracking.
"You are prioritizing a secret over your own life. You would really rather die of internal bleeding than risk Alisa finding out I healed you?"
"Honestly? Yeah," I muttered, wiping the copper-tasting mess from my lip.
"Because if she finds out, it isn't just me who dies. It is you, too. So just... let it go for now. I have survived worse than a cracked mana core."
Eventually, I managed to sit up against a tree. The silence returned, but it was lighter now. The "weird ideas" seemed to have evaporated along with the curse.
"You know," I said, trying to make her comfortable again.
"I don't actually have a 'dirty mind' for a child. I was just thinking about how slow you were walking."
"Hey! I told you, I am not a child!" she snapped, though her face was still a bit pink.
"But you are still in a child's body," I countered with a smirk.
She huffed, crossing her arms. "So why did you stare at me that long? If it wasn't... that... then what was it? It was so obvious you were thinking something!"
"I told you," I muttered, looking at the ground. "You looked tired. I was being a jerk and didn't realize how much you were struggling."
I turned around and patted my shoulders, gesturing for her to climb on.
"So, I am going to carry you on my back. Don't worry about me, really. Your mind might be older than your body, but your body is more important for our survival right now. I won't hurt what is important in your life."
I stared forward at the dark path, thinking to myself: God, that was so cringe. I sound like a protagonist from a bad dating sim.
Suddenly, I felt a small weight jump onto my back. Two thin arms wrapped around my neck, and her head rested against my shoulder. My comfort-move actually worked.
"Now, go then," she whispered into my ear, her voice small and tired. "And don't get any ideas... whatsoever."
"Right," I said, adjusting my grip on her legs. "I wouldn't."
I began to walk again, the extra weight making my burned muscles ache, but I didn't mind. It felt better than the silence.
"Leo?" Liora's voice was a dry rasp against my ear.
"Yeah?"
"Why? From Kael, I mean." I felt her fingers tighten around my shoulders.
"He was right about my family. They are the ones who turned the North into a graveyard for people like Alisa. If I go back... I might just become one of them. It would have been easier to just let him finish it."
I adjusted my grip on her legs, my boots crunching through the frozen leaves.
"I don't care about what's easy, Liora. If I start deciding who lives and dies based on who their parents are, then I am no better than the monsters we just ran from. I'd rather be a fool than a murderer."
She went silent for a long time, the only sound between us being our synchronized breathing.
"How old are you, really?" I asked, trying to break the heavy mood.
"I know your mind isn't eight. What's the real number?"
"Thirteen..," she whispered.
"I was a student at the Cathedral... before the 'Purge' happened. My family... we were the ones who managed the tithes for the Inquisition. We weren't warriors, just... the people who made sure the fires kept burning."
She bit her lip, her voice trembling. "It was a life of gold and blood. That is why I was so scared when you looked at me. I thought you saw the mark of my house on my soul."
"I don't see houses, Liora. I just see a girl who's tired of running,"
I muttered.
"But what about you?" she asked, her tone shifting, becoming sharper, more curious. "How did a 'peasant' like you end up in the Duke's inner circle? You don't talk like a servant. You don't even look at the Duke with the fear everyone else has. How did you get there?"
I nearly tripped over a root. My mind raced. I couldn't exactly tell her I was a guy from another world who played this as a video game.
"The Duke... he found me," I lied, the words feeling heavy on my tongue.
"I was an orphan from the borderlands. He saw something in me—some kind of potential for his 'experiments.' He basically adopted me into his service to be a shadow for the Lady. It isn't a glamorous life, but it beats starving in the mud."
"Adopted?" Liora sounded skeptical. "The Duke of the North doesn't have a heart, Leo. He doesn't 'adopt' people unless they are tools."
"Exactly," I said, my voice dropping.
"I am a tool that learned how to talk back. Honestly, I'm probably the most expensive mistake he ever made."
She didn't push further. I think she could tell I was hiding something, but in this world, everyone has a secret buried in the frost. Eventually, her grip loosened as her head slumped against my back.
"Don't fall asleep yet," I said softly. "The woods are still crawling with things that like the taste of humans."
There was no reply. Her breathing had leveled out into a deep, heavy rhythm. She was finally safe enough to let go.
"Right," I sighed, the cold air stinging my lungs. "Sleep well. I'll carry the weight for a while."
Still... it feel like something or someone watching somewhere...