Chapter 127: The Stranger
Watching Evan’s peaceful sleeping face, a strange emotion passed through Seraphine’s eyes.
She was crouched in the snow, one arm gently supporting his body.
She had witnessed the entire process from beginning to end without missing a single detail, quietly helping Evan remain stable throughout so he’d have the best possible chance of assimilating the Law of Space.
And he had managed it.
Things had gone as they should have, up to a point. But in the middle of it all, something unexpected had happened, the moment he developed an affinity with the Space element, she felt a strange sensation stir inside her. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it lingered.
’He resembles him,’ She thought back to that individual, who had once given her a similar feeling when he used the Laws of Space and Time.
The similarities between the two were many, and their souls shared several traits as well. Under normal circumstances, she might have assumed they were the same person, but his soul was different in too many ways for her to reach any conclusion.
The thought left a quiet bitterness in her chest.
That individual had done the impossible to give this world a chance at survival, and in doing so had erased his own existence in the process.
Back then, she had been helping him without knowing how it would end. By the time she realized, it was already too late to stop what they had set in motion. All she could do was press forward and make sure his sacrifice didn’t go to waste.
It was an opportunity that would never come again, one she couldn’t afford to squander. She knew this world wouldn’t last much longer, and that this was their final chance to set things right. And the boy she was holding in her arms was the key to all of it.
She stared at his peaceful face for a little longer.
Then, unintentionally, that face seemed to overlap with the face of that individual, something that shook something deep inside her before she forced it away.
She set her thoughts aside.
Her gaze swept across the surrounding area, taking it all in at once. For just an instant, she analyzed everything around them, and immediately found a more suitable location. The moment she did, she and Evan vanished from the spot without a sound, as though they had never been there at all.
While Evan was enjoying a nice sleep, inside one of NY’s buildings, the instructor’s small group found themselves facing an unexpected situation.
"Is this any way to treat a person? Let me go right now," a male voice rang out, one that didn’t belong to any of the three.
It came from a tall, thin man whose appearance was somewhat lacking, both in looks and physique. He looked like someone who hadn’t eaten properly in days.
Yet despite that, he had no shortage of energy when it came to complaining, his eyes burning with frustration as he glared at the three people who had tied him up.
He wanted to shout at them.
Curse them and their ancestors.
But he quickly realized that wasn’t the smartest thing to do right now.
So he held himself back, trying to calm down as he said,
"I understand you’re on edge given everything that’s going on, but we’re civilized people. We can talk. There’s no need to resort to this."
He got no sympathy from the three in front of him.
Lirien looked at him with mild indifference. Percival watched with a faintly superior expression, clearly enjoying the moment. And the instructor, the one who had actually captured him, studied him with a steady, measured gaze, trying to determine whether the person in front of him was a threat worth eliminating.
"Tell me again everything you know about this place," he said after a few more seconds of silence.
"Why do you keep asking me the same question? I already told you, I fell into one of those damned cracks, and out of nowhere I found myself in this godforsaken place a couple of days ago," the man said.
"You say you’ve been here a couple of days. Then tell me, how have you survived until now? You’re aware this place is crawling with strange creatures, aren’t you? You want me to believe that you not only managed to escape them with the little strength you have, but that you haven’t starved either?" the instructor said, cutting straight to the point.
The man’s story had seemed believable at first, but one detail had made him doubt it.
He claimed to have been here for several days, but that didn’t add up. They themselves had only been here for less than a day, and he was certain they hadn’t been unconscious for more than a few hours at most.
On top of that, despite being thin, the man looked relatively fine. No wounds, no serious signs of malnutrition, not even a trace of that strange snow on his body. It was clear he wasn’t telling the whole story, and for all the instructor knew, the man in front of him might not even be human.
"Look, I avoided using mana this entire time to stay off those creatures’ radar. Obviously I’m fine. As for food, I’ve been getting it from the forest nearby," the man said with the expression of someone stating the obvious.
The instructor didn’t register most of that.
Only the last part.
"Wait. Did you just say there’s a forest nearby? And that there’s food there?" the instructor asked, unsure if he had heard correctly.
They had been in this strange city for a while now, and while he hadn’t ventured far, he’d had enough time to scout the area. The city was dead, no food sources of any kind. Especially in this cold. There was no way the plants here were producing fruit, assuming there were any plants at all.
And now he was hearing about a nearby forest and a possible food source. Naturally, he wanted to know more.
If it was true, it solved one of the biggest problems they currently had.
Lirien and Percival reacted to those words as well, a certain expectation lighting up in their eyes.
"Of course I’m sure, why would I lie about that? There’s a small forest a couple of blocks east of here. That’s where I’ve been staying these past few days. If I weren’t trying to find a way out of this damned place, I never would’ve come this far," the man said, frustration evident in his voice.
Hearing that, the instructor couldn’t help but wonder how much of it was true.
They had come from the west, so they hadn’t encountered anything like a forest. And with the blizzard limiting visibility, even if it was only a few blocks away, there was a real chance they simply hadn’t seen it.
He thought it over for a moment, weighing his options. The tied-up man was rapidly losing patience again, but just as he was about to say something, the instructor spoke first.
"Fine. You’ll take us there."
The man raised an eyebrow.
"So you finally believe me?"
"Not yet," the instructor replied calmly. "But I’m willing to verify your story."