Arthur's eyes widened visibly as he looked at the prostrating man in front of him. This was by far the last thing he expected to see from Miro. The seemingly prideful and stoic man was now on his knees asking for help.
It took him a few seconds to realize what just happened before he quickly snapped out of it. "Huh? Stand up. Why are you doing this?" Arthur asked hurriedly. "Please stand up. I don't know how to deal with such a situation."
Hearing that, Miro shook his head. "What I'm about to say is something too heavy. I am requesting something really hard from you."
"What is it? Do you know anything about this, Nina?" Arthur turned to the woman. However, Nina simply averted her eyes as if she were ashamed.
'What the hell is going on here?' The boy felt even more lost when he saw their expression.
"Sigh, what I'm going to tell you now is a secret. It's something that nobody should know and we kept it hidden for a long time now." Miro replied as he slowly stood up. "But, I believe you are the person that was mentioned to us. So, you should know."
"..."
"Child, when you look at both of us, what do you see?" Miro asked.
"... What am I supposed to see? Just two normal people?" Arthur raised an eyebrow. He didn't understand why Miro was asking him such a question out of nowhere and what it had to do with their current topic.
"Well, I wouldn't say we are normal people," Miro said as he turned to look at Nina as if he was giving her a signal to do something.
The woman pursed her lips as if she was hesitant but she sighed before she put her hand slowly on her face. Her fingers tapped her forehead very gently but the result of that was not so simple.
Upon contact, a weird shiny engraving appeared on her forehead. It looked like some kind of rune or shape that Arthur couldn't recognize.
Then, that blue light slowly grew in brightness till it almost blinded Arthur completely. When he was able to open his eyes again, he saw something completely different standing in front of him.
In Nina's position, he saw a creature that was a mix between a human and what seemed to be some kind of fox species. She stood on her legs like a human but had long pointy ears, a long furry red tail, and tattoo-like engravings across her entire body.
The aura emitting from her yet, was so mesmerizing that it took his breath away. It felt like he was witnessing the birth of a divine creature right in front of his eyes.
"... N-Nina?" He muttered in a daze. "Is that you?"
"Then, how did you escape? Didn't you say that nobody can escape it?"
"That's what we thought. But, that changed one night. Although we tried to escape countless times before, we never succeeded. However, that particular night, our people took a different approach. Instead of trying to escape secretly, we decided to do a sacrifice. We decided to simply fight our way through the doors and run away.
Our goal was for a few of us to find the way out and run away."
"Wait, fight your way through? That sounds like..."
"Suicide? It was. We knew that doing this was going to cost us countless lives and would make the lives of the rest even more miserable. But, we knew that this was better than staying there forever. We chose our freedom over our lives." Miro said. "We had a belief that if we can get even one single person out, we can have a chance."
"... How?"
Arthur didn't understand how making one escape was going to save the rest. This sounded like something impossible to pull off.
"Because we were taught from when we were children that one day, one individual was going to reach us in the depths of that hell and pull us all out of it. An individual who was chosen by the Supreme Entity to be our hero. We knew that if we can find that individual, we can get our people out and save them." Nina explained. "It's a prophecy to our people.
We knew that the time of their arrival wasn't that far away either which is also the time when you 'Gifted' were bound to arrive. Which meant that our chosen one is one of you."
Then, she pointed at Arthur as if she was trying to prove her point. The boy blinked slowly as he tried to take everything in. "So, you two were able to escape and you ended up here because you knew the Gifted would arrive?"
"Yes."
"But, how are you going to know which one is the one you're looking for?" Arthur asked. Read more tales on NovelFire-l-em,py-r
"We didn't know," Nina replied. "We simply had to find them with our guts. We didn't even know if they would be in this particular village. But, as my grandpa said, we had to believe that fate would bring us to that person."
Miro and Nina then silently looked at Arthur without adding anything else. He felt confused for a second but then it slowly dawned on him.
"Don't tell me..."
"Yes, we believe we have found the person we're looking for," Miro said. "Arthur, I'm asking you to help our people. It's a very dangerous and almost impossible task to infiltrate the Abyssal Bastion and leave it. But, if it is you, then it can happen. No, it will happen. So... We ask you for our freedom and we will give you anything you wish for."