MTM 79

The guards’s interesting conversation was no longer audible. At some point, Ser and Reina had moved far away from where the carriage was.

“This way.”

Only after they had gone far enough to feel it was safe even to talk did Ser whisper. He gestured for Reina, who was following behind him, and walked toward where the mountain ridge came into view. The mountain path was too rough to walk on barefoot, but he tore his clothes and wrapped the fabric tightly around his feet as he climbed.

They slipped on the steep slope and got scratches all over their bodies, but they didn’t stop. After climbing for a long while, they finally reached the top of the mountain before sunset. The setting sun was staining the trees red.

“Ha… you’re bolder than you look.”

Ser had planned to abandon Reina if she collapsed from exhaustion, but he spoke with genuine admiration.

“You’re better at climbing than I thought. I’m Reina.”

“I know. I’m Ser.”

It was a short and simple exchange of names.

‘As expected…’

Harto nodded from inside the glass bottle as he confirmed their identities.

“Ser, where are you going now? You can’t go back to ‘Honey’ anymore, right? As for me… I’ve always been a wandering fortune teller, so it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s not such an important problem, is it? First, we need to find somewhere to stay tonight. It looks like it’s going to rain.”

Ser was far more practical than expected.

Harto suddenly remembered how, back in ‘Honey,’ Ser had told the master they should handle the immediate matters first.

“Hey… can you see that small village at the end of the mountain ridge?”

“Village?”

Then Reina pointed with her fingertip toward the foot of the mountain, where darkness was beginning to fall. They could see a small village through the valley where fog was starting to rise.

“My aunt lives in that village. If I hand her a few valuable things… she might let us stay for a night.”

As Reina said that, she nervously fidgeted with the expensive items in her pocket.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Clatter.

“……!”

While Ser and Reina were heading to the aunt’s house, Harto, who had fallen asleep, woke up with a start as the glass bottle shook violently.

“Uh? Ah….”

He didn’t even have time to pull himself together. The bottle had left the dark pocket, and dim light was shimmering all around.

“What happened? Did we already arrive at the aunt’s house?”

If that were the case, it should’ve been noisy, and Harto found it ridiculous that he had fallen asleep before hearing their conversation.

He sat up and yawned.

“Mmm… still sleepy… and tired….”

He rubbed his eyes while looking at the blue light coming from the magic stone. For some reason, it felt like the light wasn’t suppressing his strength but rather draining it. Otherwise, there was no reason he would feel so weak.

“I just… don’t want to think about anything right now….”

Harto curled up. He remembered Zed’s warm embrace. It would be nice if he could fall asleep next to Zed as he usually did.

“Zed….”

When he spoke the name, Zed’s bloodstained figure flashed before his eyes. He wanted to cry, but he held it back.

“Did he treat his wounds? Right, Zed has divine power, so he must’ve healed quickly.”

Saying that to himself made him feel a little relieved.

Besides, Zed wasn’t alone. Leon and Allen were there too. He believed they must be in a much better situation than he thought.

But he was overcome with worry when he recalled the people wearing silver masks shaped like bird beaks. Every one of them had been horrifying and wicked. Especially the man who had turned into a giant lizard, just remembering him made Harto’s back go cold.

He couldn’t understand why they were targeting Zed. At first, he had thought it was something related to the mercenary group, but even after leaving it, they still pursued him.

‘Three years… that was quite a long wandering.’

‘How far did you plan to run?’

Recalling the cold voice of the illusionist who had appeared with the crows, Harto felt the anxiety he had barely suppressed start to rise again.

“Maybe…”

‘I have something to tell you.’

What Zed had wanted to say to him? Maybe his guess was right. If that were really true, then what should he do?

…Grrr.

“Ah!”

In the midst of a serious situation, his stomach growled loudly without any sense of timing.

“Ugh… so embarrassing….”

Harto blushed, he stretched his body, then curled up again. Grrr, grrrr. His stomach continued rumbling from his curled-up body. Of course, the hunger didn’t go away at all.

A moment later, Harto was sprawled out on the floor. His stomach kept rumbling now and then, until he eventually stopped paying attention to it.

Tap, tap, tap.

It was then that footsteps echoed from somewhere, as if someone was rushing.

“What’s that…?”

Harto straightened his body and pressed himself against the glass wall. The outside was still covered in darkness, and only the flickering light of a candle could be seen.

Tak.

“Ah…!”

At that moment, someone lifted the glass bottle. Harto quickly clung to the magic stone.

“Wow! It’s so pretty!”

It was a child’s voice. The cheerful child shouted with delight and ran off somewhere, holding the bottle.

“Ahh…!”

The bottle in the child’s hand shook. His vision spun, and the world seemed to turn upside down.

Bang!

The child harshly put the bottle down on the table. Then the child began to play with it in earnest. The bottle was shaken, tapped on the table as if to break it, and rolled around.

Harto’s head was spinning. When the child bit the bottle and started gnawing on it, he almost screamed.

After playing for a while, the child threw the bottle aside when his mother called and ran out of the room.

Peace returned.

Harto, left alone in the glass bottle, groaned.

“Ugh… I feel like… I’m gonna throw up….”

He hadn’t eaten anything for quite some time, so he could only retch dryly.

“Huh…?”

Then Harto blinked. The cork that never came off no matter what he tried had fallen out. In the dim light, the cork was rolling far away.

“What’s going on? How did it come off…?”

On the way here, Reina had tried several times to pull out the cork but couldn’t move it at all. When she had handed the bottle to Ser, asking for help, he had only said carelessly that she could try again with oil once they reached the aunt’s house.

No matter how roughly the child had played, there was no way a child that small could’ve opened it by force.

But Harto thought it was a good thing and crawled toward the mouth of the bottle.

“Fi, finally, I’m free!”

He shouted loudly in excitement. The moment he got out of the bottle, he jumped up in joy.

“Ah… it’s so dark….”

Maybe it was because of the blue light from the magic stone, but his vision didn’t adjust properly to the darkness. Candles were lit here and there around the house, but their light was so weak that he could barely see anything.

“Alright… calm down. It must be because I just came from a bright place….”

Telling himself not to be afraid, Harto crouched down and decided to wait until his sight recovered.

“…Someone’s coming again.”

Not long after, he felt a movement from somewhere. It wasn’t the same child as before. Harto fidgeted nervously, looking for somewhere safe to hide.

Tatatak!

The sound of running footsteps came closer and closer, then stopped right in front of him. Soon, he caught whiff of an earthy scent.

“W-what is that…?”

Plop, plop.

Something damp and sticky dropped right in front of his face. When he slowly lifted his head, the shape before him gradually became clear. In the blue glow of the magic stone, the face of a dog came into view.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha….”

The dog stuck out its long tongue and licked Harto’s face.

“E, Eek…!”

All the soft hairs on his body stood up. He had been licked by a cat before, but never covered in so much drool.

“Ugh… ugh….”

His entire face drenched with saliva, Harto barely kept his senses and crawled back into the bottle.

“Woof?”

When Harto slipped inside, the dog tilted its head, stared at the bottle, then opened its mouth wide and bit down.

“Ah, ahhh!”

Tak!

The dog wagged its tail like a windmill, delighted by its new toy, and ran out of the house in excitement.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

‘The Master is waiting.’

With that voice echoing in his head, Zed’s consciousness slowly emerged to the surface. His golden eyes opened fully, and he turned his head toward the direction of the fragrance.

Where his gaze landed, a window held half the desert in view. A bouquet of lilacs stood in a vase on the windowsill. When a mild breeze blew, the gentle scent of lilac spread through the room.

“Harto….”

Zed quietly murmured as he slowly raised his body.

“Ugh….”

His body screamed in pain as if it had been torn apart. He roughly threw off the blanket that covered him. Blood and traces of herbs mixed over his torn wounds, and the bed sheets were in disarray. Around him lay bloodstained cloths and signs that someone had tended to him through the night.

Even his knee throbbed painfully. He had thought it wasn’t a deep wound, but not a single injury had healed.

“……”

Zed lifted his palm and placed it over his knee. But there was no response at all.

“My power….”

Zed realized that the divine power within him has vanished.