Chapter 131: Plea

The flight through the night sky was truly an exhilarating feeling. Shielding himself from the cold with his fires, Fen was quite sure that if not for the urging matter of reporting the scam quest, he would rather remain in the skies for the next few days.

Soaring through the skies gave the young man a strange feeling of freedom. Leaving all the mundane and bothersome matters far below allowed the young arcanist to finally have some time to himself. With just the right amount of cold air splashing against his face while his wings continued to push against the atmosphere, Fen couldn't help but wonder over the sights below.

'Magnificient…'

Unable to even voice those thoughts out, the young man felt as if this was the natural state that he was supposed to born with. Instead of crawling on the earth like humans and some lowly monsters, his entire self was designed to conquer the skies, to feel the fresh air caressing his cheeks, to dive down so deeply that his hands could almost touch the ground…

This was what he was made for. To be the king of the skies.

But all those thoughts had to quickly disappear when another great advantage of having wings proved that sometimes it could be quite a problem. He appeared in the vincity of Gauna, after just a few hours spent in the skies.

'There is no way they will allow me to just fly into the city like that…'

Suddenly bothered by the motion of actually walking on the ground, Fen realised that there was another disadvantage to this solution. While the road to the target took everyone two days on foot, the young man had no doubts that given enough pressure, between the time that he wasted on escorting Orsha back to her academy and actually returning to Gauna, a group of veteran mercenaries could force march this distance with just a moderate amount of luck!

The question stood, was the stake of this race worth risking the loyalty and sympathy of his unit, or would the former landlord of Fen simply give up on this place and move elsewhere?

Now that he had the petal that he required, there was no way to tell whether his objective was more important overall than preserving his assets.

'I guess I don't have a choice…'

Fen was as far from being negligent as he could be. Even before he lowered his flight to the point where attacks originating from the ground would reach him, his wings were already coating his entire body tightly, turning into an armour of sorts. 

'Woopsie…'

Getting accustomed to walking on the ground once again wasn't an easy task. With hours upon hours spent within the freedom of the skies, the challenge of carrying his weight around on his own two legs instead of using the currents of the air was actually quite tough.

Recovering from his stumble, Fen looked forward. Given the risk of approaching the city from the skies, he decided to land relatively far away from the settlement. Barely capable of discerning the wall in the distance, Fen shook his head while realising the advantages of observing the ground from above.

"I guess I need to get moving."

Raising his attention to the maximum, Fen clicked his tongue at the thought of any enemy appearing. Landing so far away only made it more likely that he would either be too late or would stumble into the group of hardened mercenaries on his way.

And this particular young man wasn't as naive as to believe that even after his sudden growth, he would be easily capable of taking that group on!

This wasn't the world where being an arcanist was rare. This wasn't a world where an arcanist was at the absolute apex of the food chain. While those with the right bloodlines and talent surely had it easier to achieve something, that didn't mean that a normal mortal would be unable to achieve feats just as great.

"It would be nice if you would rather decide to wait for a moment."

As if the heavens were playing some kind of unfunny prank on him, as soon as Fen made his first unstable step towards the city, the familiar face emerged from between the trees on the side of the road.

"The heck do you want?"

Praising his own thoughtfulness for coming here as prepared as he could, Fen taxed his former landlord with a clearly hostile gaze. His burrows furrowed, his knees slightly bent, his sight focused.

"First, I would like to apologise."

While this kind of development was indeed surprising, it didn't make Fen lower his guard at all. Expecting some kind of trickery behind the man's words, his eyes quickly scanned the entire area in wait for the rest of his group.

"There is no point in looking for others. I came here alone. Those brothers of mine… They are long past the time when they could force march like that for such a silly reason."

Shaking his head, this burly man for the first time allowed his face to dress an expression that looked genuine. With his sight lowered, his arms freely hanging parallel to his waist, he didn't look like someone asking for a fight. Yet, just that alone would be far from being enough to make Fen lower his guard.

"What the heck do you want?"

Repeating his words from before, Fen judged the distance that separated him away from the city. Now that he was so close, if the matters would take the turn for worse, he could always madly dash towards the safety of the academy. 

Using his wings would obviously make the town's guards consider him a threat, but as long as he would time everything more or less properly, the same guards that he was worried about before, could serve as his last line of defence. 

"I shouldn't attack you back then. Your aura… It made me certain that you wouldn't listen to anything that I have to say. And I have absolutely no choice but to make you withhold your report… Or at least some parts of it."

With his voice suddenly breaking, Fen was prepared for the worst. From the sudden attack from all sides - skies above included - to a sudden appearance of the enemy reinforcements all the way to some kind of trap springing up behind his feet. But what he didn't expect, was the man, this veteran mercenary suddenly falling to his knees and prostrating himself directly on the dirt of the road.

"I have nothing against paying you fairly for your efforts. I don't mind buying you a house worth as much as the one you live in currently. I don't mind you reporting the existence of the fake garden, although I don't really think it will change anything. But there are two things that I can't compromise on, and as stupid as it is to say that, I will do everything to guarantee."

Showing his face into the ground, the burly man looked like someone completely defeated. Utterly conquered and defeated without a pardon. And that's why Fen's focus shoot through the roof. This was the moment when the enemy was most likely to attack. With his attention focused on the enemy that was exposing his belly in an act of surrender, his back was exposed the most.

Yet, nothing of that sort happened.

The man continued to remain nearly motionless on the ground, with his body only shaken by occasional spasms. Right now, the image of this former landlord of his started to slowly change in Fen's mind. While he still kept his defences at his maximum, a sudden curiosity about the reasons that man had exploded in his mind. 

After all, if he were to judge whether this was all nothing but a trap or not, the best way to do so was to find potential flaws in that man's story!

"Why?"

Speaking up always resulted in a slight lapse of one's attention. That's why Fen kept the moments he spoke as short as possible.

"I had to obtain that flower… to save my daughter. She has a rare illness that makes her body… unable to contain the energy flowing through it. I knew that the place we were heading was fake… but that was the only way for me to obtain a petal strong enough to save her life. Please… Understand, she is all that's left after my wife died!"

Suddenly starting to sob, the landlord somehow managed to push the strings of Fen's soul. While this kind of story was as cliched and as expected as possible, there was no denying it that stories like this would sometimes occur. Given how far Fen was willing to go for the people that helped him, he could vaguely understand how little limits a despairing father would have when it would come to achieving his goals.

"And what about the house?"

Slowly allowing the doubts to appear in his mind, Fen held on to his guard only thanks to his sheer pure will. 

"Its the house Freia grew up in. It would break her heart if she were to think that I sold the place where I lived with Asla to pay for the medicine for her. I just can't allow this to happen. I can buy you any house you want, I can pay you any amount I will be able to fork out both now and in the future. I'm willing to do anything, but please, just let me save my daughter!"