Chapter 43:
A Bonfire's First Flicker

When I woke up, I felt a constricting sensation all over my body.

My head was still groggy from being struck so fiercely, so I couldn't get my thoughts straight. It was all I could do to sit up and rub my eyes.

I was inside a moving carriage that was riding along anything but smoothly. The sunlight from the roof windows lit up the otherwise dark interior. It was a miracle that I so much as managed to stay passed out for this long—not that I knew how long 'this long' was. Unlike the other carriages that I'd ridden on once upon a time, this one wasn't nearly as big nor as clean. And most notable of all, there was an unlit hanging lantern on the ceiling that seemed to serve no purpose other than to just be there.

I quickly inspected myself, just in case anything had happened while I was knocked out. A wave of relief washed over me as I concluded that the only thing that was off about me was the ropes around my hands. They were tied too loose to keep me from wriggling out of them. Whoever it was that had tied them was terrible at their job.

But, what's going on…? Was this just another ploy by Mister Man-God? I had a feeling it was, but there was a small part of me that wanted to believe it was just an unlucky coincidence. After all, Mister Man-God hadn't told me exactly when I should've gone to the shop. Maybe it was my fault for being reckless.

But even though this happened, I had a lead on what was going on with my father. Whatever he was doing, and whoever he was now acquainted with, the man who'd approached me—Gallus Cleaner, or so he says—is undoubtedly connected with my father. While it would be useful if he did make good on his promise to bring me to Paul, the problem became contacting and meeting back up with the rest of the Dragon King's Odyssey.

But there was no reason to trust Gallus. He was sketchier than sketch—one look at the way he responded when I didn't want to comply told you that instantly. Plus, there was that detour he mentioned. All of these things only added up.

So then, how am I going to get myself out of this mess? Even if I did manage to escape, I had a bad feeling that I wasn't anywhere near Zant Port now; I was practically praying that I wasn't in the Great Forest. But maybe I could tough it out somehow. I wasn't weak by any means, so there was a chance that I would be able to make it back to Zant Port in one piece, as long as the rainy season didn't just start right on top of me.

So, I had to at least try.

There was one obvious entrance to the carriage, where they'd probably thrown me in. So, I stood up to try to kick the door down. And lo and behold….

Wham!

It did nothing. Of course, I wasn't expecting to get anywhere with brute force, considering that I was still pretty dainty in terms of physical strength, as much as I hated to admit. Yet, I hadn't actually kicked the door. Rather, I'd made contact with something like an invisible force field beforehand.

"Hmm?" I hummed to myself. Moments after that, a brilliant shine of purple emerged from the ground, forming into wisps and curves around a defined center point, all converging to make a circular shape with contours and intricacies. I knew what this was all too well.

"A magic circle, huh?" And, judging from the obvious effects, created a magical barrier around me. In that case, maybe I just needed a bigger impact. While I could've just tried out regular magic, the first thing that came to mind was creating a makeshift bomb.

That's just about the most absurd thing I've ever thought. But it makes sense, trust me. The caveat was that I would go through the steps of creating a pressure cooker with no opening for the air to escape from once it got sufficiently hot inside, creating a practical bomb with little effort needed.

Woah, I'm scaring myself. The implications of this are not good. But I had no plans on becoming a terrorist at all, so as long as I told myself I probably wouldn't need such a technique (Pressure Cooker Detonation!) aside from this specific circumstance, I was probably in the clear.

Of course, it was a stupid idea. For one, I'd be caught in the blast radius, and two, how would I stabilize a fire inside a wooden carriage? Thankfully, it's not like it mattered in the end anyway. The moment I tried shaping the outside of the pressure cooker, my magic was whisked away as if the wind had taken it from my hands.

"What the…" I tried again, to no avail. "...hell…?"

Just what's going on?

…

What felt like a few hours went by as my attempts made no progress in the slightest. I couldn't even take a peek outside because the windows were out of my reach.

It's like the bastard who designed this thing knew just how to bore me out of my mind.

"Damn it," I muttered, resting my head against the same wall I'd tried and painfully failed to punch.

"If you don't get your scrawny ass into that thing, I'll fucking lob your head off!" A gravelly voice roared from the outside.

I was startled and instantly sat up, being completely unable to do anything but listen. What the hell's going on out there?!

"I'm going, I'm going! I'm not going to make a run for it, I swear. Not like I could with you all surrounding me," a soft, resigned voice responded. Whoever it was, they were a woman. Their voice was past the intensity of puberty, and well into its maturity.

One thing stuck out to me immediately, though. Her dialect and manner of speech were eerily similar to mine. The differences between the dialects inside Asura were negligible, but the Asuran dialect as a whole was instantly distinguishable from the other kingdoms like Milis. I'd have to ask her where her hometown was when I got the chance. Whenever that was.

"Get to it!" a clearly hotheaded man commanded. After a few moments passed with a symphony of footsteps and slams, the girl was put in a compartment somewhere behind me. The layout really only made sense in my head if the carriage that was pulling me was more like a caravan, with compartments both in front of and behind me all seemingly attached. That'd probably explain why it felt like there were different voices on the sides of my compartment even when we were moving.

"Gallus!" another man called out, whistling.

"What is it?" the man of the hour responded, almost causing me to yell out several choice words to him and demand my release. Somehow, though, some rational part of me stopped me. Not yet. Maybe I can overhear something about Paul.

"This girl, does she need a… what were they called? That weird symbol thing."

"A Magic Circle? Does it look like we have the funds for another? Either way, she's harmless. Couldn't claw her way out of the carriage if she tried. Picked her up in Wind Port a few weeks ago and thought we could trick some sucker into paying a fortune for her."
"No disrespect meant, man, but who's gonna pay a fortune for some random grown woman? Am I missing something?"

A rumble of protest shook the container that held the prisoner. "I am not some random woman!"

A slam. "Shut it up! The captain's talking!"

The girl grumbled and quieted down.

"Did I not tell you? Redhead chicks are rare in general. Just so it happens, a bunch of nobles are looking for some redhead in the Asura Kingdom. The Boreas Greyrats, or whatever. You know them. They used to make those wild aphrodisiacs before the whole calamity happened."

The Boreas Greyrats?! My mind shot to my extended family. I hadn't even thought of them in so long. I had no way of knowing if they were okay, and the way that he said 'used to' didn't exactly paint the brightest picture. My mind caught on the aphrodisiacs he mentioned for a moment before I realized there were bigger things at stake.

"Ohh, I get it. But nobles aren't dumb, you know?"

"Who said anything about selling her to nobles? I don't have the time or the energy to go to Asura. I'm just gonna try finding some guy in Milishion who knows about the missing redhead. Easy money, no effort."

I had a hunch well before this, but it was abundantly clear that Gallus and the whole group that accompanied him were a bunch of traffickers. Even smugglers, if what he said about the woman was true. And it was clear that he wasn't some pushover, either. The moment he saw an opportunity, he'd snatch it up.

Dread crept up my spine as I wondered just what exactly my father had done to make someone like this owe him a favor.

As their conversation wound down, I tried to work up the courage to try to talk to Gallus. If I missed this chance, I'd have to wait for the next time he was around—and even that was a gamble. Good thing I've sworn off Gacha in this new life.

I slammed on the cold edge of the magic circle. It didn't make much noise, but the reverberations caused by it were audible at the very least.

"Gallus! Let me out of this thing!" I yelled.

He clicked his tongue. "Was wondering when you'd decide to pitch in, Missus Sorceress. How's the ride been so far?"
What are you talking about?! This isn't some Yelp page! I'm a hostage, for crying out loud!

I groaned. "Ride to where, exactly?"

"Like I said, we're taking a detour. For the record, we're already here, but I've got a little more to do before we can get moving."

"Where the hell are we?!" I yelled. I was getting tired of the way he was dancing around his words.

He sighed audibly as if taunting me. "The Great Forest. That the answer you're looking for?"

My voice caught in my throat. The… Great Forest? It was the worst-case scenario. Not only would this suck for my party in looking for me, but it was going to be so much harder for me to try escaping once the rains started. Panic rose in my throat.

Before I could respond, he cut me off with, "It is? Great. Now, if you don't mind, take care of yourself. I need you to hold on just a while longer, alright? Don't bite your tongue off or something. We'll reattach it if we need to."

A flicker of ice prickled at my throat as I digested the fact that I had no options here. In any other situation, maybe I could've weaseled my way out with words alone. But it was obvious that I was too important, too necessary to Gallus that he'd keep me trapped in here at all costs.

His voice wasn't of a man who was simply doing his job. Not of a man repaying his debt to a friend. It was bitter, laden with animosity and drowned in distaste.

As I listened to his footsteps in the grass of the exterior, I crumpled to the ground, the cold magic circle the only thing propping me up.

You've got to be kidding me.

As I stared up at the only rays of sunlight that wiggled their way into my compartment, a curious emotion curled around my heart. My jaw tightened and I grit my teeth in bitterness.

"Damn it…!" I held my face. I couldn't give up this easily. I got up on my feet and banged on the circle's borders with both of my fists.

"Gallus! My party will find me! And when they do, you'll come to wish you'd have let me out!" I belted out, my voice grating against my throat and frustration seeping deep into it.

"..." Even as I hurled my fists over and over against the wall, I was met with silence. Nothing but the empty ambiance of the forest and the wind.

…

I was spent after that outburst. It had accomplished nothing, and I was right back where I'd started. I went through a few hours after that trying to get somewhere. Since my magic was just whisked away, I couldn't do much as a matter of rule. If I had my staff, I could at least poke at the ceiling or something. But almost comically, it was lying well out of reach, stuffed in a bag in the corner of the room. Guess they'd thrown it in here with my unconscious body. If only they were more incompetent.

I tried going through my arsenal of spells, from Burn in Place to going as far as attempting Tornado. But, none of them ended up working past the momentary flicker of mana that would invariably be whisked away from me. I did try thinking like a shounen protagonist, reasoning that if this barrier acted as a mana sponge, unleashing as much power as I could muster would obliterate it.

But it didn't have any effect. It was like trying to cup water using your hands and watching it spill through your fingers. If anything, my mana was released, it just couldn't go through the motions of taking the shape of a spell.

Interestingly, though, I could still use my Demon Eye. But, seeing as how I hadn't a clue of how magic circles worked, that was a dead end there. Not that I faulted Roxas for it, but I wished I had learned. The one idea I had was that there was a physical component to the magic circle, like a mana crystal that powered it, but I could not find something like it for the life of me.

I'm at the point where a lightning strike breaking through the roof would be better than any of this. I sighed.

The other prisoner wasn't much of a help, either. Whoever she was, she gave up trying to escape way faster than I did. She seemed headstrong, but I guess it made sense for someone who had no magic to struggle to get out of what was essentially an entirely wooden cage.

Still, though, I wouldn't mind some company.

"I wonder if she can even hear me," I grumbled out loud. Then, I heard rummaging in the next room as if someone was getting up from off the ground.

"Loud and clear," a voice said. It gave me a start, but I realized I didn't have to compose myself as quickly as I could as I normally did. It was… nonvisual communication, for lack of a better term. And I settled into old habits fast once I realized that. I didn't have to meet anyone's eyes to talk to her, so I could probably just mumble out a response if I wanted to and blame the bad quality on the wooden walls. But if she was going to be my company, I saw no harm in talking to her normally.

"You don't talk a lot, do you? It's like you were waiting for me to acknowledge your presence before talking," I observed.

"No, it's just, erm, you seemed a bit busy."

"Oh…" Call me oblivious, but I had kind of been groaning to myself in frustration every single time something didn't work. If I were in her position, I'd think I was some sort of lunatic.

"Don't you worry, I get that feeling of being trapped. Regardless, I imagine we won't be much of anything until we get to where we're supposed to be heading to." Whoever she was, she sure seemed optimistic for a prisoner. I sighed internally. I couldn't just keep referring to her as the other prisoner in my head.

"Say, what's your name?" I asked, trying to continue as if we were two strangers who casually met on the street and not people who'd been mercilessly thrown into wooden cells and ported off to god knows where.

"Athena, Athena's my name." She spoke as if the words were still new to her lips. I doubted she'd gotten the chance to introduce herself like this much.

"What about you, kiddo?" she asked me, much in the way someone would answer some kid's innocent question. Of course, since I'm so generous, I let it pass me by.

"Lumina Greyrat, at your service." I hadn't introduced myself much at all, but I'd thought this introduction up one particularly long night back in the Demon Continent. But enough of that. I had a little something else on my mind.

"You know, isn't it strange that we share a dialect? Is your hometown somewhere in Asura?"

A beat of silence. "You're quite observant, you know? I hadn't given it a second's thought myself."

I snorted. "Hardly. Besides, I know a redhead who lived in that area. For as much as it's worth, I don't see redheads that often, so I probably inferred from there."

It was an entirely wayward train of thought of mine. The only redheads I'd ever met were Hilda Boreas Greyrat and Ares, and the two of them were from the Asura Kingdom. It only made sense that another redhead would come from the same region. Of course, it'd be weird to assume something like that, but I had seen absolutely no redheads, even in Zant Port where there were more humans than I could count.

"You sure are lively for someone who's gotten wrapped up in all of this. Most of the people I get stuck with aren't exactly in the mood to talk, for good reason."

"Well, I have faith in my party. Besides, I have a feeling I'll figure some way out of here anyway. I can't say I'll leave you behind, of course. …That is if you want to run back to Zant Port with the rains going on."

She snickered. "How generous. Either rot in a cell somewhere or get positively soaked by the rain I haven't felt in ages. I'd have to be crazy to want to stay cooped up in here."

"I might just be going crazy as we speak," I quipped. She laughed and didn't respond for a few moments afterward. It was hard to tell if she was just thinking, but eventually, she did speak up.

"You know, that whole thing with what that Gallus guy said sounded personal. You know him, or what?"

"I wish I hadn't met him if that's what you mean. I haven't the slightest clue who he is, and I'd like to know. I think my father knows him…" I trailed off. I hadn't realized just how lost I was. On the surface, he was just some guy carting me to my dad out of nowhere. But it was probably deeper than that. Maybe.

"Just what type of people has your father been hanging around?" Athena asked, incredulous.

"Wish I could ask him."

Silence filled the walls between the two of us as I digested what was going on. I sighed and ruffled my hair out of pure boredom. A few minutes later, though, she spoke back up.

"I have a question. You said you had a party who you know is going to help you out, right?"

"Bingo."

"Is that redhead you mentioned part of that party, by any chance?"

I sat up, my curiosity piqued. Just where is she going with this? "That's right. He's a real athletic guy with the sharpest red eyes you'll ever see. Like I said, he's from the Asura Kingdom just like you. Still don't know where exactly, though…"

"…Surely not."

What's she on about?

"What do you mean?"

"I don't mean to spring this up out of nowhere or anything, but is your friend… named Ares, by any chance?"

Eh?

12 Hours Earlier - Ares's Perspective

What a mess.

I gingerly stared at the quivering beast girls who were in rugged clothes, their napes exposed and one growling in aggression. It was honestly hard to look at. They looked nothing like the beast-race maid I'd had in Ars, that sweet lady who, might I add, was blazingly attractive. The Boreas Greyrats were notorious for being entranced by the beast race, which I was mildly concerned about considering I had a certain someone around that I didn't want thinking I was some spineless chaser.

Not that she was here, of course, but what was the point of acting for another person if I was going to be half-assed about it?

Maybe, on some other occasion, that part of my blood could've flared up. But with the smell of iron in the air and the flinchingly repulsive sounds of Alek cleaving through bodies, I wasn't surprised that only my jaw tightened in response.

Besides, I wasn't one of the Boreas anymore. Even if I couldn't change my blood, I could at least act as if I could. Their titillating bodies only served as a reminder of the person I used to be. The person I ran away from. And it felt immensely satisfying to see a clear divide between the me of today and the me of the past.

"Shaa!" the girl who stood defending the others hissed at us, growing more agitated by the second.

There was a clear dilemma in front of Roxas and I. We both couldn't speak the Beast God tongue, and we somehow had to convince them to let Roxas, the only person who knew healing magic here, make physical contact with them. They were trembling at the mere sight of us; by the looks of the unmoving body on the floor, they knew well how cautious they should be around people here.

"Roxas!" I whisper-shouted, as not to alarm them. "Just how are we going to help them?"

He met my eyes and glanced back at them. There were four girls and three boys, seven in total. All of them were around Lumina's age, with beast or elf ears. Their eyes were all clearly swollen from crying, with several having purplish-black bruises around their eyes. Three of the girls were sobbing, with two of the boys staring at us with horrified looks in their eyes.

I glared back at Roxas, who seemed to be deliberating instead of taking action.

This guy… my eyes narrowed as I clenched my jaw, deciding it would be a waste of effort to get upset here instead of following Alek's orders.

My eyes shot to the kids in front of me. The girl who was protecting the others began to pant, her eyes shot and her expression dropping. She dropped to one knee and swayed.

She's…! I bolted forward, not waiting a moment for any reaction from Roxas, and caught the girl in my arms. She was as light as a feather, with her unconscious body quickly burning up.

I opened my mouth to bark at Roxas, but he arrived moments after I did and set a hand on her forehead before I could say a word.

"Oh, merciful mother of gods, please heal this one's wounds, and let them recover with a healthy body. X-Healing."

Roxas's hand lit up with the pulse of healing magic, his panicked expression shifting to one of relief. The beast girl's complexity cleared up, her harsh expression softening as her breathing slowed.

"Nice reflexes," he shot me a nod. I huffed graciously in response.

"Of course. Who d'ya think taught me?" I grinned.

The other beast children looked on with intrigue as Roxas healed the other parts of her body. She had a bruised back that looked just like blunt force impact wounds that hardly had time to heal. With how much she had to go through, it was a miracle that she'd had enough strength to still protect her companions.

It's admirable… I just wish these circumstances hadn't come to pass for her to have to show this type of resilience.

The others were still hesitant, but one girl steeled herself and stepped forward, offering her bruised wrist—a mark left by a too-tight manacle. Roxas gave her a reassuring smile and held her wrist, muttering the incantations under his breath.

At this point, there wasn't much I could do but watch, considering I didn't know much magic at all. I figured my eyes had better use elsewhere. I crept out of the cell and poked my head outside.

My eyes laid on a lone figure cast in shadow, looking like a black blotch on a canvas of red. I was the only one who was left alive to see him, with the scattered remains of what used to be people littering the ground.

Utterly bone-chilling. I'd let it slip my mind that his power could be put to use like this.

He sensed my presence, shifting slightly and meeting my eyes. For a moment, my ribs felt like they were about to crush my heart. My mouth hung slightly open as my mind struggled to remember that this was my mentor.

My breath rasped. "H-hey, Alek. You done there…?"

"Course I am. What about you two?" Alek's careless tone caught me off-guard.

Jeez. He's not gonna do anything to me. Just gotta… ignore the bloody, well, everything. I swallowed my heart down.

"Ah, yeah, Roxas's on it. Might need you to translate, though," I asked. Oh, wait. "Hold on, do you know how to speak Beast God?"

"I'm rusty, but yeah. Haven't had much use for it at all, as you can imagine," Alek flicked his sword against the ground, removing some excess gore from it. I shuddered.

"You might be a little scary to them, don't you think?" For goodness sake, you're a little scary to me!

"Right. But I'm sure they've seen worse." Alek's face darkened as he walked past me and into the cell holding the beast children. I followed suit.

Their initial panic upon seeing Alek quickly faded as I appeared next to him. The girl who had offered his hand to Roxas, now completely healed, tried to speak. Or, rather, she spoke in a jumble of unintelligible nonsense that I'm sure was perfectly understandable to their race.

For some dumb reason, Alek only translated what he said into the human language, which left Roxas and me at a loss.

"Some dog?" Alek repeated. The boy moved his hands emphatically around, his tone growing more serious.

"Right, not a dog. Your Sacred Beast. I swear, wasn't it a phoenix?" she asked. The girl responded with a puzzled look and shook her head as if to shut Alek down. He continued speaking. Alek's eyes widened as he talked.

"And… the rest of your companions? Further down?" The girl nodded. Alek closed his eyes and breathed out. He got up and turned to Roxas and me, the latter of whom had just finished patching up the last child.

"I'll go find the rest of the children here. Turns out this was a lot bigger of a find than I thought. If I find Lumina, I'll make sure to keep her safe. As for anyone else I come across who tries to fight me… I'll kill them." he addressed us, his voice harsh as the gravel we stood on.

"Roxas, you get these kids out of this place and make sure they don't go anywhere. As for you, Ares," he turned to me, "find the Sacred Beast. He should be pretty hard to miss."

I almost scowled. Some dog? What's so special about him?

As if on cue, an echoing howl loomed from the outside of the cell. Alek hitched a thumb outside and looked at me expectantly.

"Got it." I nodded. If Alek wanted me to retrieve him, no way was it going to be for a stupid reason. I took pride in the fact that I was getting better at shutting down my bratty thoughts. I'm not some kid anymore… I can rescue a dog without complaining.

But…

"Are you sure my efforts wouldn't be used better with you?" I was the only other close-combat fighter here since Roxas was a mage. Magicians tended to excel with distance, and we didn't have that luxury here.

"There's too much going on. We all have our roles here, and I can more than handle myself. You should probably know that by now," Alek said. The way he said that last part tripped me up a little, but I began to really think about it.

I recalled the mound of corpses that were piled up around Alek, all marked with a single wound through the neck or the chest. If I wanted to keep up, I'd have to be able to land strikes like that at speeds I couldn't dream of. The biggest hurdle, of course, would be taking a life—but I hesitantly tried to convince myself that I would be able to do it in the heat of the moment.

I couldn't argue here. Lumina's life was at risk and I had a place to be. We all did.

Roxas straightened his hat and began to lead the children out of the place, with some help from Alek on the communication side. I ran out, not wanting to hold anyone up.

As I ran, a string of words flitted through the front of my mind.

Please, Lumina. Be okay.

…

I struggled to find the Sacred Beast, despite Alek's words. But when I found it, I was met with a bizarre sight.

"...It's a dog, alright."

There was a massive puppy stuck motionless within a massive magic circle. It was difficult to call it a puppy, with it being probably as tall as I was if it decided to get up. Despite that, it looked distinctly like a puppy. I remembered seeing full-grown pups around my manor, but they were just as big as this puppy. I was wondering how big this dog would get when it whined at me.

"Ah, right. Let me help you–oouuch!"

The second I approached the magic circle, it repelled me. It wasn't absolutely like a physical wall, but it still felt solid. Cold, as if made of thousands of little metal edges.

"The hell am I supposed to do about this…"

It was a head-scratcher. I figured magic was going to be a waste of my time if I stayed cooped up in my family's britches, so I opted instead to slack off in the magic lessons. That went for almost every other lesson, as well. Only now was it finally kicking me in the ass.

"Ugh…" I couldn't brute force my way out of this one. If Lumina was here, surely…

I dismissed the thought. If I relied so much on the girl I was trying to protect, somewhere down the line I'd regret it. I looked around the area for some clues.

The circle was producing a faint bluish-white glow, lighting up the room. Surely that had to mean something. I'd seen inert magic circles on the scrolls Lumina had brought down to the labyrinth. Only then, Lumina had quickly activated them by, er, holding it?

No, that's not right. She went on a whole tangent about the scrolls before we entered to explain it to all of us. C'mon, Ares, use your head for once!

The words she used rushed to my head again. She activated it using a pulse of mana, which was probably the stuff that made up spells. That meant that she had to fuel the inert circles using mana… surely that extended to something as big as this?

Maybe it was more complicated, but the basics had to be universal, right? With that in mind, I started looking for a physical fuel source, since there was clearly no mage here to maintain it. There was nothing on the ground, and the dog looked at me as if wiped out. It looked almost sad, its tail completely still. I wanted nothing more than to give it the pats it deserved.

That's when I noticed it. There was a hanging lantern that I'd dismissed, that, after a second inspection, wasn't a lantern at all. It was a cage that held a magic crystal not unlike the one we carried out of the labyrinth, only much smaller in size.

That's it.

I took in a breath of air while unsheathing my sword, the crystal in my gaze. Then, I ran forward, kicked off the wall, and slashed right through the flimsy metalworking. The crystal tumbled to the ground and shattered on impact.

The dog immediately shook its head, opening and closing its mouth. It got up from its nestled position and stretched itself out. Then, it turned to me. That's right! I'm your savior! Don't look at me like that!

It looked curious and strode towards me startlingly quickly. It sniffed my hair fervently and gave me an unconventional hairdo with its massive tongue.

"Yuck!" I exclaimed, a smile painted on my face as I tried to pat the dog on its head. The dog hooked its paws with both of my shoulders, its weight sending me crashing to the ground.

"Woah! Calm down a little! You're gonna smother… me… to death!" I said, in between laughs. Its fur, comparable to my mother's fur blanket, enveloped me.

"Woof!" it barked, pulling back to do so right in my face. I tried to push the giant furball off of me, but it was far too difficult with its entire body weight on top of me. It was so unbelievably soft, but having it where it was made my bones cry out in objection. After a while, I gave up trying to move it and accepted my fate of having my face licked to death.

…

"...!"

A jumble of words I couldn't understand rang out. I looked up from where I was, the thought of a stray trafficker running through my head.

But, instead of that, I was met with cocoa-colored skin, beast ears, and a striped orange tail. Normally, that'd bring to mind my old maid, but this person only sent warning bells through my head. He had a nearly furious look in his eyes, as if ready to kill.

He pressed a hand to his mouth as if he were about to shout. Shit! He's gotta be doing something!
"Get outta the way, puppy!" I belted out, finding just enough release to shove it off of me, and got to my feet. I flipped up my eyepatch and tried to focus on activating my Demon Eye as Lumina had taught me.

The man stays motionless, his hand pressed to his mouth.

Just as I thought I was in the clear, he roared.

"Graaaah!" The volume was overpowering. It was a voice so shrill my thought process completely collapsed halfway through trying to find something to compare it to. The sound felt like it had physical weight to it, and it hit me like a boulder. My ears drove an endless drone of ringing directly into my head, digging deeper and deeper the longer I stood.

By the time I thought I had regained some semblance of thought, I had collapsed. I couldn't stand, couldn't get up and fight back. I was paralyzed, just like the monsters Lumina would halt. It was only then that I realized how oppressive it felt to be in this situation. Unblinking. Unmoving.

The man seized my collar, bringing up my body as easily as one would a sack of feathers. I was brought level with the harshly contorted face of a man, his eyebrows knitted together. I was utterly defeated. If the man wanted to kill me, he could do it right here.

It only drove in a sense of frustration. But before I could begin to grieve my entire life, I was suddenly let go. The man had a change of heart, it seemed. My mind was overwhelmed by a rush of relief.

Another man, older this time appeared. The two began to converse, undoubtedly about me. But I still had no clue as to what I had done to deserve being paralyzed and intimidated like that.

"Woof!" When the dog barked, cutting off their conversation, they both kneeled before it. That's… something.

The exchange that unfolded was entirely alien to me. It was as if they were speaking to the dog, and practiced some level of deference to it. The only guess I had to explain it was that the name 'Sacred Beast' sure had some weight to it.

If the dog was defending me, I had no clue. From the looks of it, the men were just as furious as when the conversation had started.

Eventually, they reached some consensus, nodding. The first man returned to me and tied my hands behind my back, lifting me on his shoulder. He spat a few choice words that felt like they were blatant insults and trotted out of the cell. The Sacred Beast toddled along behind him, glancing at me a few times.

Help me, dammit! I shouted internally, but it frustratingly couldn't read my mind.

I was fully expecting to be saved by Roxas when we left the building, but the men decided to split up. The older man headed in the direction of Roxas, and the first man carried me to a second exit that opened up to the forest.

He sighed and spoke to the Sacred Beast, ultimately hopping atop it. Where I was being carted to, I had no idea. At this point, the only thing I could do was pray that Alek would come rescue me.

It was humbling, I thought as I grit my teeth together. I'd gotten everyone else up with such bravado, and look at where I was now. I had to accept this as a result of my carelessness.

And so, draped over some half-naked man's shoulder, I was carried off deeper and deeper into the forest.

Aleksander

I was beginning to wonder whether sending off Ares alone was a good idea or not.

I had already arrived at Roxas' location at the cabin above the dungeon and had been trying to reassure the children there as we waited for Ares to return. Was he lost? The thought crossed my mind more than I'd like to admit. Mistakes happened, and I was keenly aware of that. In the case of trouble, there was a chance Ares could've been caught up in something unexpected. Maybe I ought to check…

No. Ares was my disciple, and if I ran in to find him perfectly unharmed it would only screw up the trust he had in me. Even if an enemy appeared, Ares wasn't a defenseless boy. He had tools at his disposal that I knew he was capable of using with all his might. His defenses could easily be weak, maybe thanks to the whole environment, but I strongly believed that he wouldn't drop his guard regardless. He was a smart kid. He had it in him to survive.

Still… it nagged at me.

"Mew, isn't your friend still inside of there…?"

While I was worrying about the situation, one of the beast children came up and patted my leg. We had fashioned new clothes for them using curtains, so they had some protection from the chilly air. I still wasn't entirely sure how the race's practice of intermixing sounds with their sentences worked, but I rolled with it anyway. Not like I had to say it.

"Yes, but I'm sure he's okay. He's strong."

It'd been one hell of a minute since I'd properly used Beast God. I only decided to learn it after Dad started training those rookies. I'd been so upset over Grandma Atofe's sword style being cast aside the way it had that I'd begun traveling the world over to try to find some semblance of recognition. I hadn't used it much in the past decade, ever since I decided to start roaming the Demon Continent. It was the second to last destination of mine, second to the Begaritt Continent.

But enough reminiscing. My mind was drifting off to what exactly Elinalise and Talhand were up to when the little girl piped up.

"I'm sorry about earlier, mew. I know you chose your friend to leave 'cause of me, but the Sacred Beast is a symbol of our tribe, mew, so we couldn't leave it behind, mew."

"I know, silly," I pat her head. I'd spent a few months in the Beastfolk territory of the Great Forest, but that was ages ago. I doubted anyone still even recognized me. It was a long enough stay that I knew the basics of the culture.

Roxas addressed me. "I know we're on the lookout for Lumina, but surely we can't just leave these kids here. Got any idea?"

"Course I do. I, um…" I blanked for a moment. Roxas looked up from his seat at me with an awfully judgy look in his eye.

In all honesty, I hadn't considered it. The extent of my plans just ended with dropping the kids off in some unspecified location and calling it a night. But that was kind of lacking. But where exactly were we supposed to take them?

At first, I thought about setting up some sort of guild task that read something along the lines of "We have children separated from their parents, somebody help us get them back where they belong," and give them to somebody else to worry about.

However, it probably wasn't a good idea to take a trafficking organization's 'possessions' and advertise the fact that we had them out to the world. If we moved too openly, we'd be caught in a heartbeat. Of course, nobody could really harm us, but organizations like this used dirty tricks to get what they wanted. If they wanted to get back at us, who's to say they wouldn't stoop to having someone stalk us until our guard was down and stab one of us while asleep?

Then… What if we left them with the city garrison and booked it? No, that wouldn't work either. If any of the kids decided to speak up about literally anything, we'd be caught. And by extension, the traffickers would know too. Plus, the rainy season was just about to hit us. If we did decide to leave, where exactly were we supposed to go?

Roxas seemed to give up on that venture and sighed. "It's alright. We can discuss it as a group later."

"You're right. Got nothing yourself?" I asked him, leaning my head back against the wall.

"I've got a few ideas, but nothing substantial. My head's pretty scattered, anyway," he said.

He had been filling up cups that were left abandoned in the cabin with water and giving it to the kids, so he'd been pretty occupied. But still, we were kind of at a loss here. He stole a few glances at me, as if anxious about something. Whatever his deal was, he sure wasn't subtle about it. Eventually, though, I guess he got the courage to speak up.

"Do… Do you think he's alright? Ares, I mean," he asked, twiddling with one of the longer strands of his azure hair.

"I'd be surprised if he wasn't," I shook my head. It came to my surprise that Roxas seemed so hesitant to ask the question. Sure, he'd had seen Ares training and in action inside of the labyrinth, but seeing him outside of combat was a different story. Then it hit me.

"You know, it'd do him a lot of good to take some time to talk to you. He could use some of the stuff you taught Lumina all that time ago," I advised. Besides… there's definitely something going on between the three of them that's been left unspoken. I doubt it'll just be brushed aside.

"That's an interesting idea, Aleksander… but just where did that come—"
I abruptly stood up and cut Roxas off when I sensed an outside presence. It was coming directly from the trapdoor we had come from. But this person, their Touki, was completely different from Ares's. Whoever this was, they weren't weak. But it wasn't frightening in the slightest. All it meant was that they'd put up a more interesting fight.

"Get back." I had the children take cover as I readied my daggers in my hands. The King Dragon Sword was infinitely better, sure, but not with children around. It was excusable if the cabin was damaged, but the children were much more important.

I wouldn't even give the person a second to react. Since they were climbing up the ladder, they had to be exposed for entire seconds. Seconds they wouldn't live through if they were smugglers.

At least that was my train of thought, but I was taken off-guard by one of the children dashing forward and exclaiming in joy.

"Ah, grandpa, mew!" The girl hugged his arm as he climbed up the ladder and moved away to let him stand up.

It was a male beast person, holding a thick hatchet in his hand. The man was clearly wary as he took a stance of his own once he was on his feet. He was certainly well into his later years, but he had a calm air about him. The air of a warrior. But if he was the grandpa of these kids, he'd better have a good explanation as to why they're so far from the Great Forest.

"Tona! You're alright!" the old warrior dropped his gaze to the girl and welcomed her into his arms. His face grew relieved instead of tense, and he rubbed her head. Hm. I guess he had come to save them or something, so that meant he couldn't be all that bad.

Another girl, a dog-eared one this time, similarly approached and hugged him.

"Tersena, you're safe too. I'm glad."

"Those men over there saved us."

The old warrior put his sword away. Roxas initially seemed wary, but seeing the reaction of the children had significantly helped with that. He was still taken aback when the man approached us and bowed, but I was more than willing to bask in that glory.

"Thank you for saving my granddaughter," the man said, his head still down.

"Of course. It's the duty of a hero, after all!" I proclaimed.

"If you would tell me, what is your name?" the man asked me, his head now level with mine.

"Aleksander Ryback, or Kalmann the Third. Some people know me as the third-generation North God," I said tersely, batting away an urge to let a smug grin creep onto my face.

"The North God? What an honor," he said, bowing his head again in deference. "My name is Gustav Dedoldia. I will repay this debt to you with absolute certainty. But if you can excuse me, I first must return these children to their parents."

I gave him a cheery smile and left it at that. Internally, though, I was relieved to know a solution to the problem with the children had fallen neatly onto my lap.

As the elder was about to leave the building, I called out to him. "Hold on."

"What is it?" he turned back, his painted face faintly glowing in the moonlight.

"Did you see anyone inside the building?" I asked, silently hoping that he'd have some clue as to where Ares was.

"Mostly none. Just a depressing place that reeked of blood." Gustav seemed content at leaving it at that, not questioning who was behind the sight. But still, he'd said mostly. The beastfolk were particular about these kinds of things. It struck me as odd that something like that was what I remembered about them, but I didn't dwell on it.

"So was there nobody there, definitively?" I pressed.

"No, there was just one straggler. A male in the form of a crimson-headed human child. He was fondling the Sacred Beast's fur like it was some streetdog," his face turned to one of annoyance.

I see. We all have setbacks, don't we? Let the kid be a kid. "Oh, well, that's my disciple."

"Oh dear!" His mildly discontented face while describing Ares quickly shifted to one of utter alarm.

My jaw tightened. Venom dripped into my voice as I spoke. "I'm correct in assuming that you didn't kill my only disciple?"

Not only had I promised him to bring him to the Sword Sanctuary all that time ago, but he was my student. My only ever. I wasn't just going to stand idly by and let the murderer of a boy with potential that only I could see run free.

"I had him taken to our village so we could interrogate him about the location of his co-conspirators. But I will have him released as soon as I can," the man promised, his voice apologetic and embarrassed.

Good. The temporary loss of Ares to our party was certainly not the greatest turn of events, but things could have ended up significantly worse had things gone wrong.

I beckoned Roxas over and we made a start back to Zant Port.

Now… just where do we go from here?

Author's Notes:
Thank you for being patient! I'm a little late on the whole one-chapter per three weeks schedule I'd kind of settled into, but hopefully the length of the chapter will make up for it! School is going swimmingly so far, and I've recently gotten a bout of inspiration for a certain subplot that I have started the set-up for in this chapter. Some readers might recognize this character I've introduced, Athena, from the side story chapter all the way back in the beginning of Volume 3 of Lumina Greyrat. She's a lot more important than she might seem at first glance-but enough spoilers.

I hope you like her addition and how the story's playing out! I'm a little unsure of how long it'll take for this arc to finish, but I know that there is at the very minimum four chapters left. Please let me know if the pacing isn't exactly to your liking, and I'll take it into account. I value you all very much.

Stay tuned for the next chapter! I doubt it'll take me longer than this chapter did, so expect it around the middle-end of September. Of course, I might surprise you with an early chapter, but it really depends. But as always, thanks for reading!
The next chapter is titled... Chapter 44: Smoldering Embers