He reached out to push the door open, only to have the door shove him to the ground instead. Who could have expected that?
Clearly, it meant something—like the fact that someone had just kicked that door in with brute force.
And so, the old dark elf—An Alek—caught on immediately. In the very instant he fell, his sharp, seasoned instincts kicked in.
Their hideout had been discovered. He had to warn the others to run, and fast.
After all, they weren’t exactly upstanding citizens, especially not here in Feltro.
“Run!” Alek shouted with all his strength, and thankfully, his warning reached them.
They stood at the end of the hallway, staring blankly at him. Alek wanted to yell at them to move faster, but the old wound on his back was suddenly stomped on by someone’s foot. Still, he saw that they’d finally heard him—they turned and fled toward the back door.
He had to hold them off. Buy the girls some time.
Alek’s mind raced. Ignoring the pain in his injured abdomen, he twisted around to cast a wind blade at the intruder.
But all he saw was a familiar emerald-green barrier, and his wind blade fizzled weakly against it, dissipating into nothing.
Alek knew exactly who that shield belonged to. He just couldn’t bring himself to believe it—or maybe he didn’t want to believe it.
He covered his eyes with his hand, refusing to look, refusing to accept reality. That is, until he heard the words—
“You lot, take him away. I’ll go after the two that slipped through.”
Only then did he finally let the truth sink in.
It really was her. The same one who had been chatting and laughing just moments ago before suddenly bursting out the door. The same one from the past few days…
But Alek held onto one conviction: the “her” standing before him now wasn’t her. The real her would never strike down her companions. Everything that had just happened must have been some kind of accident.
“Why…?”
Alek asked, desperate for even the slightest shred of information.
“Why? Because it’s his orders.”
She replied, then dashed off. The last thing Alek caught in his fading vision was the wide-open back door…
…
“Talk! Where is that elf?!”
“I told you, this old man doesn’t know a thing—ghk!”
“Keep clamming up, and you’ll regret it!”
“Youngsters these days… they just don’t appreciate the value of the elderly. And you call yourselves civilized humans—!”
“Shut your mouth, you washed-up fossil!”
…
What would become of him? The hourglass of his life might just run out here. But still, he hoped they’d manage to escape.
Shackled and battered, Alek’s body was covered in wounds. His ragged breathing was the only rhythm in this cell. All hope of survival had faded—now all he wanted was to see them one last time…
“Hah… cough… hah…”
Everything before him began to blur…
But then, he heard something. Strange sounds howled past his ears—war cries, clashing blades, desperate screams, and the sharp ring of steel…
Finally, footsteps approached the door. He let out a bitter, humorless laugh. It must have been another hallucination playing tricks on him.
The door creaked open. Alek closed his eyes. He didn’t even bother to look—he already knew it would just be those hideous, sneering faces who refused to listen to a word he said.
“Who’s there?! You’re not supposed to be here!” a voice barked. But instead of the usual lazy, smug retort, what followed was the sharp hiss of a longsword cutting through the air.
And then—a faint crackling of flames… no, it was more like a sudden eruption of fire. If any fire mage could pull off something like that, just how powerful would they have to be?
Curiosity tugged at Alek, stirring his thirst for understanding. He forced his wrinkled eyelids open, slowly, painfully, and took in the scene before him.
Flames as black as the abyss spread from the doorway in both directions. The guard was already a corpse, consumed by the black fire, vanishing in an instant. It could only be described as a catastrophe—and the one responsible stood right there on that “stage.”
A girl. A remarkably gifted girl. A girl who had come to pull him out of an endless abyss.
“Is it you… Shiling?”
Though Alek was overjoyed, he still harbored doubts about what had happened that morning.
“Shiling” didn’t answer. She walked toward him until she stopped in front of his “cage”—a simple gallows fitted with restraints specifically designed to keep him immobilized. The device and the frame itself were unusually tough, hard to break with ordinary force…
But to “Shiling,” it was child’s play.
A few swift motions, a flash of her blade, and Alek was free in no time.
“Shiling… so you really are Shiling. Which means that other one was the fake.” After catching his breath and stretching a little—nearly throwing out his back in the process—Alek felt a bit more like himself.
He noticed that Shiling’s expression was a little off, so he naturally reached up and patted her head, just like he used to do back in Malettes. To anyone watching, it must have looked like such a warm scene—if only Shiling’s face had shown a proper response.
“Grandpa Alek… I missed you. I missed Elfe too…”
Shiling suddenly said those words, though her flat expression made it seem like she was just going through the motions.
“This old man understands. And I missed you too. I’m sure little Elfe misses you just as much… Cheer up, alright? Show her the new you.”
Shiling didn’t respond. Seeing that, Alek seemed to understand something, so he stopped pressing and quietly tended to his wounds.
After a while, when Shiling still hadn’t moved from where she stood, Alek finally couldn’t hold back anymore. He spoke up.
“What’s wrong, Shiling? What exactly happened today? Can you tell me?”
Still no answer. Instead, Shiling looked him up and down, as if checking that he was recovering well enough, then turned and headed for the exit.
“Wait! Shiling, you haven’t answered me yet—hold on!”
Seeing that she had no intention of waiting, Alek hurriedly dragged his old, frail body after her.
Along the way, black flames dotted the halls everywhere—nameless, heatless, carrying an eerie chill that made the deepest shadows of one’s heart swell and throb along with their pulse.
Alek had never seen such flames before, just as he had never seen Shiling so cold and detached—like a machine that cared only about efficiency, nothing more.
He hesitated, wanting to speak but holding back, until they finally emerged from the basement. Only then did he speak with grave concern.
“Shiling… you don’t seem like yourself.” And combined with what had happened this morning, it was even harder to make sense of it all.
At his words, Shiling flinched slightly, shook her head, and started to move on. But Alek reached out and held her back, hoping—no, pleading—for an answer.
In Shiling’s eyes, Alek’s body seemed so large yet so fragile, so aged yet so unyielding. She could have easily pushed him aside and laid him flat, but she didn’t—because even in her efficiency-driven state, she would never raise a hand against a companion.
Shiling stood frozen for a long moment—until a well-aimed cannonball came flying straight down their alley.
A blaze like a crimson lotus engulfed the alley, lighting it up for a brief instant before plunging it into darkness, leaving only the debris of sulfur and gunpowder. And in that split second between light and shadow, an emerald-green shield enveloped them both, unyielding.
The smoke in the air wasn’t as pleasant as one might imagine. Alek started coughing from the sting, while Shiling covered her nose and mouth, grabbing Alek’s withered hand and pulling him forward as they ran.
It all felt so absurd and meaningless—because in Shiling’s eyes, this had all become routine. And Alek, too, seemed to have grown accustomed to being protected by her.
But no matter what, Shiling was still just a child. There was only so much she could take in, only so much she could bear—certainly no more than Alek, a full-grown adult, and an elf who had weathered the passage of centuries at that.
“I’m fine. You’ll all be fine. And when that happens, I’ll be fine too.”
Leaving those words behind, Shiling continued ahead. Alek savored them quietly, then fell into step behind her.
In Alek’s eyes, Shiling was so small, so frail—and yet here she stood before him, doing everything he should have been doing himself…
No, how could he take this for granted?
But Alek also didn’t know what secret this so-called child—this saint who had pulled him from the brink of despair—truly held.
So all he could do was stay by her side, watch over her, protect her in his own way… And that would be enough. Enough to put a bright mark on his own past.
“Cough, cough! Now’s the perfect time for some small talk—helps ease the tension, don’t you think? Right, Shiling?”
“Maybe.”
