Chapter 33 – Falling Petals (1)

“Quite a few of us come from the Laus Mountains, but we had never heard of an elf village being there. We’ve only seen impoverished and miserable elves in the city, so we were shocked to see such a beautiful and elegant race. But our mission had to be carried out. We…conducted a night raid as we always do and killed the ones we can’t sell as slaves, while abducting the rest of them. That was the order from our sponsor,” the captain admitted.

“There was an odd fella out of us. He wasn’t exactly built for war, but everyone liked him because he was pretty talented; he even killed three of the armed elves that night. He then went by himself to ransack empty houses and to look for elves that were still left behind, but I didn’t say much to him because I knew he would be safe on his own. Then I heard a loud scream from the house he entered.”

“…”

“When I ran into the house, through the curtains, I saw an elf woman holding a dead baby, with his knife stabbing it. It wasn’t hard for me to figure out what had happened based on his pale face. She wouldn’t stop screaming, so we quickly pulled her out of the house and left the baby’s body in there. We told him we would’ve killed the baby anyway since we couldn’t sell him as a slave. That’s how it had always been done and it would be better for the baby anyway, but he didn’t seem too consoled.” The captain remained silent for a second, then continued on.

“That night, he released all the elves. Most of them managed to escape, but he got caught while he was trying to take the screaming woman who had turned mad after losing her baby. He was eventually sold as a slave to pay for the loss of all those elves. Who knows what happened to him after. I’d like to know if I could.”

The captain tried to read Juan’s face to figure out why he was asking such a question, while Juan exhaled a deep breath.

Juan then came to realize why the captain was so hesitant to tell him the story. Security of the empire may not be any of his concern, given that the empire treated them like guard dogs, but at the very least, the captain understood that the incident of expelling a fellow soldier was something to be embarrassed by.

“Who sponsors the Laus Mountain Scouts?” asked Juan.

“Ilde. Ilde family from the capital,” answered the captain.

“What was the name of the expelled soldier? Do you know the elf woman’s name?”

“His name was Luca, but I don’t know the name of the elf.”

Juan then took out a dagger and stabbed the captain’s fingers. In a blink of an eye, two fingers were cut off of the captain’s hand and he started rolling around, screaming.

“A-argh….! W-What have you done!? I told you everything you asked!” cried the captain.

“I said I’ll spare your life; I didn’t say anything about keeping your fingers intact,” Juan said as he beckoned to the captain. “Get back here. I have more fingers to chop.”

“W-What… you are crazy! G-get away from me!”

The captain tried to squirm away from Juan, but Juan quickly jumped onto his back to suppress him and started to cut off his fingers one by one. Frustrated at their captain’s desperate screams, the soldiers tried to look for a way to escape, but it was impossible under Anya’s watch.

“I’ll have no choice but to cut the tendons in your knees if anyone tries to run,” Anya threatened, leaving the soldiers no choice but to put their faces back in the mud.

After cutting off all the fingers, Juan looked down at the captain in satisfaction.

“That’ll stop you from wielding a weapon ever again.”

“A-aughh…,” the captain groaned in pain.

Juan turned his head around to see the other soldiers who were frozen in fear.

The cold air from the long rain whitened Juan’s breath as he let out a deep exhale; autumn was approaching faster than expected.

“Anya,” said Juan.

“What is it, boy?”

“My name is Juan.”

Anya’s eyes widened. Juan had unexpectedly told her his name.

“I want you to tell me your real name once you can eventually trust me… I’m done struggling to search for names again,” uttered Juan as he looked at Anya with wet eyes.

“Sure, Juan,” Anya barely managed to reply.

“Also, we need to make changes to the plan we made back at the tavern. I will postpone meeting your master for several days.”

Juan spoke to the soldiers that still remained lying flat on the ground. “I will spare all your lives.”

Quizzical glances spread among the soldiers while the captain was the only one feeling mortified. Juan then ordered the villagers that were frozen in fear.

“Go spread these words to those that are looking for me,” said the boy soaked in rain and blood.

“The apostate they are looking for is in this village.”

***

“What were you thinking, Juan?!”

Juan occupied the empty tavern all to himself as no one would remain in the village after hearing Juan’s declaration. Thanks to that, Juan was able to dry his wet clothes in front of the tavern’s fireplace carefree.

“I told them to spread my words, not to leave the village. Why did they all leave?”

“Because they know nothing will be left in this village after you battle against the Order of the White Crow and the Order of the Blue Rose! Who knows what will happen next? The outer walls already crumbled down just because of one small boy! What made you think that declaration was a good idea? That was different from our initial plan, was it not?”

Juan and Anya’s initial plan was to fight if they were guaranteed a victory or run after checking the Templars’ strength, under the assumption they were low in numbers. Either way, the fact they would be leaving the village as soon as possible wouldn’t change. It would be sensible since they were being chased.

“It’s not too late, Juan. There’s no one left in the village so no one will notice us leaving.”

“Be quiet,” Juan snapped at Anya as he glared.

Anya stopped talking, then startled Juan with her next action; she had lifted her top to expose her stomach with her eyes shut tight.

“What are you doing?”

“Aren’t you going to hit me?” asked Anya.

As Juan put his hand on his forehead, he recalled when he’d hit Anya in the stomach before.

“I’m not going to hit you. Now pull your top down, I don’t want to see it.”

“But you either hit or kill someone every time you get mad.”

“I wasn’t planning to for now, but I might if you continue talking.”

However, Anya didn’t stay quiet. She was upset, but at the same time seemed agitated and even a little excited. Juan had no idea why she would be excited, but he couldn’t stand her being rowdier than usual.

“Have you got a plan to face both the Order of the White Crow and the Order of the Blue Rose at the same time?”

“No.”

“Then what gives you the confidence to wait for them here? We are not even on the mountain!” scolded Anya.

“It would be difficult to find me in the mountains. The whole point of staying here is to let them easily find me.”

“What?”

“I don’t like how they’re setting every village on fire just to look for me. They’ll stop burning off innocent villages if I let them know I’m here,” said Juan as he threw a piece of dry wood into the fireplace.

“…”

Juan figured Arwain and the Order of the Blue Rose couldn’t be the only ones looking for him. It was likely that many more along with the Order of the White Crow and Laus Mountain Scouts had joined the search, which meant even more villages were being raided. Juan intended to ignore such facts, but things were different now. Villages in flame were no longer just someone else’s matter, but also his.

“Anya, I am not going to continue hiding anymore. Those chasing after me can come find me as much as they’d like. I was willing to have mercy on them, but I guess I’ll have to kill them if they decide to get in my way. We all have places to be.”

“But the Order of the White Crow…”

“Well, we are going to suffer a little since we are getting tougher enemies this time,-” Juan shrugged.

“I’ll stay.”

“What?” questioned Juan.

“You should get going on your way. I’ll stay here as bait to catch their attention. That way, you’ll be safe and we can also avoid creating innocent victims,” Anya said firmly.

Juan looked at Anya with a stunned expression.

“Maybe there is one out of a hundred chances that your plan works, but I don’t think you’ll last longer than me when facing the knights’ attack. Most importantly, you and I look completely different.”

“What if I dyed my hair and cut it short?”

“I’m sure they’ll fall for it. Why don’t you try cutting off your legs while you’re at it?” Juan replied snarkily.

“Those who don’t know too much about us might fall for it. I’m not that tall anyway.”

As Juan completely ignored her, Anya twiddled her fingers and mumbled. “Then, I will part with you here.”

“...What?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think I would be much help to you if I stayed. If anything, I’d be lucky to not drag you down with me. But maybe I can help you if I meet up with my acquaintances living on the Laus Mountains,” Anya elaborated.

Juan tilted his head at the word ‘acquaintance,’ but was convinced; It wouldn’t be bad to have someone on his side to serve as reinforcements. Juan would normally refuse to accept any help from others, but now wasn’t the time for him to refuse.

“Alright, do as you wish. I’ll try to figure something out as well,” said Juan as he fiddled with Arwain’s Templar helmet.

***

“What did you say?”

When the rain began to subside and the sky started to clear, Sina heard a piece of unexpected news from a soldier of the Laus Mountain Scouts. While being treated for his broken shoulder, he announced his third report to Sina.

“The wanted heretic was sighted in the Veras village in the middle of the Laus Mountains. Templar Arwain attempted to eliminate him immediately but failed and was killed on the site. We, the Laus Mountain Scouts, also fought hard but had to stop the operation and retreat as our soldiers were seriously injured.”

“Nonsense! What do you mean ‘wanted heretic?’ Are you sure you are talking about this black-haired boy?” Sina asked as she held out a wanted poster of Juan made based on the description of her own report.

The soldier’s eyes were filled with fear just by looking at the poster. “Y-Yes, that’s him. He was absolutely ruthless.”

“Juan won against a templar…? How…-?”

Sina inferred that Juan was around the same level as her the last time they parted, but Juan had grown exponentially over just a few weeks. She couldn’t even imagine what happened for him to grow so fast to be able to beat a Templar.

“Wait. Why was there a Templar in the Veras Village? The nearest Knight Order would be the Order of the White Crow, but isn’t it still quite a distance from Veras village to the Order of the Huginn’s territory? Especially when considering the heavy rain, why was he in the village?”

“U-Um…because they were in the middle of carrying out a special operation…,” admitted the soldier.

“What do you mean special operation?!” Sina questioned.

The soldier tried to avoid answering Sina’s question, but he didn’t last long and eventually succumbed to her interrogation. Sina fell in shock upon hearing his answer.

“...A cleansing operation was conducted? Under the orders of Inquisitor Kato?”

“Y-yes.”

“But how? None of us sent out a telepathic message,” Sina questioned in suspicion, but soon her face distorted.

Sending out a telepathic message was one of the abilities given by Grace bestowed by His Majesty. Although Kato never admitted having such an ability, it made sense why he kept it a secret now that his intentions became clear.

Sina turned around and immediately ran to where Kato was.