Chapter 181: Northbound

Chapter 181: Northbound

“Should you have killed him?” Lucia asked, glancing over her shoulder as she and Leif walked between the sandy hills and arid shrublands that lined the western coast. “He might have been lying.”Rêạd new chapters on no/v/e/lbin(.)com

“He wasn’t. I could tell.” Leif replied, stabbing a driftwood staff into the side of the dune as he scaled it. “Also, I’m concerned you would ask me that. I don’t think killing another person should be one of the first courses of action you consider.”

He reached the top, boots leaving deep trenches in the sand with every step, then turned back and extended a golden arm down to where Lucia stood, not meeting his gaze.

“He was... a bad person.” She muttered, her voice low.

“Zane made a mistake. And he recognised that. He even apologised, which is better than I would expect from most people.”

“But he attacked us! He could have killed- He might have- Ugh, it's not right. What he did was evil!”

“Evil.” Leif repeated, still holding out his hand. “Is that what you really think?”

Lucia clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. She glared up at Leif, her eyes wide, her jaw trembling. “Stop reading my emotions, it's not fair!”

“I don’t need to be an empath to know that you’re upset.”

“Upset? I’m furious! I’m so angry I could explode! Don’t tell me that I’m wrong to feel like this! He cut Roy away from me! Roy’s my responsibility, and I don’t even know where he is! I don’t know if he’s safe, if he’s scared, cold, hungry?! I need to be there for him, and that stupid white haired idiot swordsman took him away, cut him out of my life!”

Leif stood atop the dune, watching Lucia rant, her orange eyes ablaze, the very first hint of dawn just appearing in the early morning sky. He let out a breath of air, then let his golden arm dissipate, at the same time stepping forward and sliding back down the sandy hill. He walked past Lucia, who whirled around, face red and breath shaky as he did so.

“What are you doing?” She asked, her voice breaking.

“We’re taking a break. You need to rest, it’s been a long night.”

“No, we need to keep going! At this rate it will take months to find him!”

Leif sighed as he sat. “I haven't known you for very long, but I’ve noticed something interesting about you. So please, if you’re in such a rush, make it up the dune. If you can, I will follow.”

Lucia wrinkled her nose, glaring defiantly. Then she turned and marched with all the dignity and grace she could muster up the dune. She made it halfway before her legs gave out and she slipped, falling back to the bottom. Lucia angrily dusted herself off, then tried to run up the dune, but again she fell. She was shaking by the time she slid down to the bottom, a mix of impotent rage and exhaustion rendering her immobile. She yelled wordlessly at the dune, and tried again, then again.

After a minute she stopped, her shoulders heaving, fingers digging into the sand, tears streaking down her face and falling off her chin. Leif stood and slowly made his way over to her, kneeling beside her and placing a hand on her back.

“I have to find him.” She sobbed. “I need to. If I don’t... I can’t...”

“You will find him again. But for now you need to focus on yourself. You need to survive, Lucia, you need to help yourself before you can help him. Until you meet again, you’ll need to trust that Roy is capable of taking care of himself, that he’ll be safe without you.”

“But without him-” Lucia choked on her own words, the fight fleeing from her limbs like a breath being exhaled. She slumped, and Leif caught her before her face planted into the sand. “I failed. If I was stronger, smarter, more capable, I would have been able to protect him.”

“You’re too hard on yourself. This is far more my failing than it is yours. You’re just a kid, Lucia, how could you have possibly stood up to someone three times your age and a hundred levels higher?”

“You don’t understand.” She said weakly, leaning on his shoulder as he led her to where the ground was flattest, and the shrubs best protected against the wind. “This was my purpose. My whole life, everything we’ve been through. For it to have been worth it, he needs to be with me, safe and happy.”

“Lucia, you are more than just your duty to your brother.”

“Am I? Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve endured... It was all for him. All for his future.”

“It was for you as well, don’t forget that.”

“It wasn’t. It wasn’t at all. If it had just been me, if Roy wasn’t there, or if he had-” She swallowed thickly, hugging her knees and squeezing shut her eyes. “I would have given up, I wouldn’t have had the strength to continue. It was so hard, so painful. If I didn’t have Roy, I would have found a corner in the city and given up, let it all end.”

Leif didn’t know what to say, so he kept quiet, wrapping her with a gentle, reassuring blanket of his aura. He leaned back and watched as the sky turned from black to grey, and the wispy clouds drifting lazily overhead grew in definition as the sun’s light brushed against them.

“He was dying, getting to the Academy was our last choice.” Lucia said finally, her voice hollow.

“I see.” Leif said softly.

“Please help me again.”

“I already promised I would. You don’t need to ask.”

“It’s weird seeing you without a mask.” She said, sitting up and yawning.

“Ah, sorry. It must look unnerving, I’ll make a new one now.” Leif said, mentally peering inside his spatial ring for any remaining wood he could use. Most of it was gone, used up in the battle, he would need to restock and prepare his weapons before fighting any serious enemies. Or maybe [Create Gilded Wood] would solve that problem for him? He hadn’t decided yet.

“I guess it is a little.” Lucia admitted, rubbing the back of her head. “What were you doing?”

“Contemplating life.” Leif said, melting down a fraction of a compressed wooden sword, then reshaping the weapon, albeit slightly smaller than it was before, then starting on the mask. He had given Lucia her wooden daggers back, though it did feel strange giving a child weapons. Well, they lived in a violent world, it couldn’t be helped.

“Do you normally do that? Sit still and contemplate life, I mean?”

“Well, I don’t exactly sleep, so yes, it is how I spent large portions of my time. Perhaps too much, I have a bad habit of getting into my own head. Anyway, are you hungry?”

“No.” Lucia said, then her stomach rumbled. “Yes...” She amended sheepishly.

“Well, bad news, I don’t have any food.”

“Oh.” Lucia said, glancing around as if looking for something to eat. “I see.”

“My healing can nourish you, though not totally, it’s how Roy recovered physically so quickly, if you remember our initial meeting on the ship.”

She nodded, picking up the cloak she had used as a pillow, unfolding it and shaking out the sand. The morning was warm, and Leif stowed the cloak when she handed it to him.

“I prefer actual food, uh, no offence.” Lucia said after he had trickled healing energy into her hand. “This feels kind of weird.”

“We’ll get you something proper to eat. Can’t say I’m a fan of feeding you my blood, no matter how nourishing it may or may not be.”

Lucia gagged. “Why would you say it like that? Now I want to throw up.”

Leif snorted and placed his newly created mask, a plain oval of wood with three slits, two for his eyes and one for his mouth. “I believe it’s good for you. Assuming you're a small forest critter. The side effects are probably harmless, though judging by how some of the initial ‘test subjects’ turned out that might not be true.”

She rolled her eyes and started marching up the nearest dune. “I told you before, but I levelled up.”

“We both did.” Leif said, following. “You’re level four now, correct?”

“Yup.”

“What skills were you offered?” He asked, his longer strides easily allowing him to keep pace.

“Uhhh.” Lucia said, looking away.

“You picked one already, didn’t you?”

“Maybe...”

“I hope this isn’t you wanting to have an advantage the next time we spar.”

“No, no it’s not that. I just kind of knew which one to pick, so I just did it. The choice was between [Fade] and [Patient Ambush]. The second one felt like I had to stay still to use it properly, and standing in one place is a good way to get stabbed, so I picked [Fade]. Look, I can do this now.” She said, then, to demonstrate, she briefly went transparent. The effect ended almost immediately.

“I’m assuming it works better when you’re not standing out in the open?”

“Yeah... the skill description says it works better in darkness. Anyway, do you have skills to pick?”

“I do.” Leif confirmed, guiding them around a thick cluster of shrubs.

“Well?” Lucia asked after several seconds without him elaborating.

“Well what? I don’t want to give you an advantage when we spar.”

She stopped in place, staring at him as he continued to walk forwards. “That’s stupid! It makes even less sense than me hiding my skills!” She shouted.

Leif laughed.