Chapter 539: Blood Remembers

Sitting on a rock, Aether cooked one of his last pieces of meat. It had been two weeks since he had been on his own; he liked to say he was doing well. After all, he had made progress already, finding the forest where Elpis had originally been trapped. Though it was nowhere close to what it was in Frozen Crown, there was no danger inside. Well, outside, some weak monster he easily handled.

But do those really count as danger?

He’d also come across a part of the outskirts he had been in, the one where he and Avrie had stolen some stuff from that creep, well, he had. She had her own targets, but anyway, he did feel slightly nostalgic about it.

Which just went to show just how wicked nostalgia was, since at that moment, he was definitely not having fun, and yet now looking at it, the only thing he could think about was that it wasn’t that bad.

It made him wonder if, in the future, he was going to also look back on this memory and say how fun it was exploring such an unknown area.

Since he was not having fun now.

Wiping his mouth as he finished eating, Aether grabbed his maps to look at them. Most of them just didn’t help him at all, since he was far away from those stops, but some had small parts that were still good for him, and he did need to get some more supplies, so he did need to look for a spot to stop at.

Biting his nail, he brought one of his legs up on the rock as he rested his head on it. Looking at one of the maps, the one he was closest to, there seemed to be a very small village there, one that Keres probably didn’t bother to look at, since he had looted another, close to it, but much bigger.

He knew this because it had a huge X drawn over it. The only problem was that he was not really good with directions...

Scratching his head, he sighed. He could ask a shadow, but it was better to ask those at night, since if he just asked the shadow of a tree, he was never going to know, since it doesn’t move.

Until then, he could try to find it on his own... though it might also be a mistake.

’A compass would have been nice, really nice, actually.’

Looking around, he chose a direction, one that looked the most plausible in his mind.

...

...

And he was very wrong; he learned at night, when he spoke and discussed with a shadow. He was a bit annoyed, but not that mad.

It was hard for someone without any experience; the maps didn’t have a dot to show him where he was, so even if the place he had been in before was on the map already, he didn’t know what direction he was facing.

’Honestly, I expected to be a bit better at navigating; after all, I traveled a lot in my trial. The only difference was that then I just went wherever, and the times I did follow maps, I started from cities, and it was easy to see what direction I should go to reach the next location.’

He also missed his tent a lot; after all, now he didn’t have anything to rest in. He just slept on the ground, which was definitely not nice; good thing he had slowly gotten back to his schedule from inside his trial, so he slept a lot less.

It wasn’t the nicest experience.

As the sun rose, marking a new morning, and the fresh wind blew against his skin, he finally reached his location after a whole night of just walking around. He had reached the small village... and when he said small, it was like six houses.

He doubted that there was anyone powerful inside this place, so he could just kill everyone... but at the same time, was it really something he wanted to do? What did he gain out of it? ’This place is massive. I doubt these guys will ever see me again; there’s a reason why this... I don’t think I can even call it a village anymore; it’s this small.’

Walking into the village, Aether noticed the kids playing around as their parents watched over them... It was nice to see. He wondered what would happen if they were to get transported into the real world.

How much would they lifes change? After all, everything there was different; they weren’t the ones hunting, which, in this case, they probably weren’t hunting anyone, but still, in the real world they would be the ones getting killed.

Going towards the biggest house, Aether walked to the door, knocking on it.

He tapped his foot against the wooden floor as he waited for it to open; once it did, he saw an old woman, whose hair had long since gone white, but her blue eyes still looked beautiful, and ironically... quite similar to his.

Aether smiled. "Hello there, I’m a traveler. I wanted to ask if you have any spare supplies for my road ahead?" He made a small puppy face, not enough to be obvious, but maybe big enough to have an effect.

"A traveler, eh?" The woman said. Aether was a bit relieved the woman didn’t recognize his mantle from one of the many bounty posters. "Maybe I do, though I can’t give them to a stranger I don’t know the name of, or haven’t seen the face of."

Aether sighed, slightly annoyed, but the old woman wasn’t doing anything wrong.

He took off his hood. "My name is Aether Moirai."

The woman’s face fell, which made Aether’s eyes widen. Was he wrong, and had she in fact seen his poster and did recognize him, just not his mantle? ’Well, that’s dumb luck.’

...

"Aether... my grandchild..."

...

...

"What?" Aether said, his eyes wider than ever.