Chapter 26: The touch

Soon, the heavy thuds of wooden crates and tightly bound leather sacks echoed across the dirt staging plaza as they began mounting their supplies onto the reinforced carriage.

At the back of the transport, the older merchant grunted under the weight of a massive iron-bound trunk, his face flushing red from the exertion before two slender, pale hands effortlessly slid beneath the base.

Dori lifted the heavy cargo straight out of his grip as if it weighed no more than a bundle of dry twigs, shoving it neatly into the rear storage compartment without breaking a single sweat.

Inside the spacious, velvet-lined cabin of the carriage, the atmosphere was far quieter. Lucious sat comfortably on the plush bench with one leg crossed over the other, his newly acquired steel blade resting flat across his knees.

A small, concentrated flicker of crimson fire danced across his pale fingertips, emitting a low, rhythmic hiss as he dragged the living flames along the flat edge of the metal.

The intense heat superheated the steel just enough to burn away microscopic imperfections and hone the edge to a lethal, razor-sharp finish, filling the enclosed cabin with the sharp, metallic tang of hot iron and ozone.

On the opposite seat, Guinevere sat with her back straight, her bright, intelligent eyes tracking every pass of his flaming fingers with unhidden fascination.

At first, a thick, suffocating silence settled between them for a long while, broken only by the creaking of the carriage springs as Dori loaded the final crates outside.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the purple-haired noblewoman leaned forward slightly and spoke.

"So, what class are you?" she asked, her tone carrying an inquisitive, haughty edge.

Lucious kept entirely silent, his glowing crimson gaze fixed strictly on the mesmerizing dance of fire along his blade.

Guinevere’s brow twitched at the blatant disregard, her fingers tapping impatiently against the soft leather of her shorts.

"What? Can’t answer a simple question? What about your adventurer rank? Seeing as you are sitting here casually sharpening a sword with bare magic, it must have something to do with a specialized warrior class."

"..."

The silence stretched on, heavy and unyielding. Lucious slid his thumb from the hilt to the tip, extinguishing the flames for a brief second to inspect the gleaming silver edge before reigniting the spark.

Refusing to be brushed aside like a common servant, Guinevere glanced briefly out the small side window toward the rear of the transport before looking back at him.

"And what about your quiet friend out there? The two of you have the exact same unnatural red eyes. Are you siblings? And how come a slender girl like her can lift supply trunks that usually take two grown men to carry? Is she also a high-ranking fighter class like yourself?"

Eventually, Lucious realized the girl was not going to shut her mouth until she got a reaction.

He extinguished the flames on his fingertips with a soft snap, the sudden lack of flickering light plunging his pale face into the cool shadows of the cabin as he finally gave her the attention she had been desperately seeking.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice flat, cold, and devoid of any warmth.

Guinevere blinked, momentarily caught off guard by the sheer apathy in his crimson eyes, before puffing her chest out and offering a confident smirk.

"Is it really that surprising that a lady is asking you about yourself? With a face like yours, I am sure you get approached by women a lot in the capital."

"I am not obligated to answer any of your personal questions," Lucious replied smoothly, sliding his warm blade back into the dark leather scabbard resting at his hip. "Just sit tight, keep quiet, and let me protect you and your father until we reach the city."

Once again, his blunt, dismissive response visibly upset her. The confident smirk vanished from her painted lips, replaced by a deep, frustrated frown.

She crossed her arms tightly beneath her chest and leaned back aggressively against the velvet cushions, turning her head toward the window.

"Tsk!"

The sharp sound echoed clearly in the quiet cabin.

’Did she just click her tongue at me?’ Lucious uttered internally, staring at the side of her head with a somewhat deadpan, disbelief-ridden look on his pale face.

He had dealt with arrogant royals and feral monsters since arriving in this world, yet a spoiled merchant’s daughter clicking her tongue at him after he agreed to save her life felt uniquely irritating.

After a short while, the final heavy latches at the back of the transport clicked shut. With all the packages and valuable goods securely packed away, the driver snapped the leather reins, and the massive land dragons hitched to the front let out a low rumble, pulling the heavy carriage forward as they finally set out for the city as planned.

Their ultimate destination along this treacherous route was known as the city of Balgar, widely considered one of the biggest and most heavily fortified metropolises in the entire Kingdom of Eldia.

According to the rumors circulating through the guild halls, it was the primary hub where the kingdom’s finest legendary weapons were forged and where the greatest, highest-ranking mages usually spent their time researching arcane arts.

Not to mention, the sheer number of wealthy nobles residing within Balgar’s inner walls alone was so enormous that it seemed their ranks increased every single given day, drawn by the luxury and the illusion of absolute safety from the encroaching demon lord’s forces.

The carriage rolled steadily past the fortified stone outskirts of the capital city of Uranik, treading safely along the wide dirt highway for the first few hours as they slowly got closer to the dense, suffocating boundary of the outer forest.

In this lawless territory, a massive population of wild monsters was constantly present.

During this tense stretch of the journey, Lucious had vacated the cramped cabin entirely.

He was now seated comfortably at the very top of the moving carriage, the cool afternoon wind whipping through his dark hair and leather coat.

He sat with his legs crossed and his pale hands folded neatly in his lap, his posture relaxed while he watched everything that was happening for miles around him through the glowing red eyes of his undead minions.

The moment they had neared the tree line, he had silently summoned his twenty-seven Mindless Bloods from his shadow and scattered them across the sprawling forest.

Utilizing his Advanced Directives, he allowed the undead goblins and towering eight-foot lizards to run freely through the dense foliage, hiding in the deep brush and actively scanning the entire perimeter for any potential threat to the caravan.

So far, the strategy was working with terrifying perfection.

Any wandering forest monster his scouts found along the way that looked to be heading toward the carriage’s path was immediately swarmed from the shadows.

The beasts were covered in a tide of rotting bodies and bitten to death in complete silence, the cursed venom of his thralls turning the monsters’ flesh into fine grey dust in a matter of minutes.

And every single time a monster died beneath the fangs of his army, a warm, intoxicating current of raw energy surged directly into Lucious’s chest from a distance, allowing him to feel himself growing steadily stronger as his baseline stats ticked upward without him ever having to lift a finger.

"Sigh."

A heavy, exhausted breath escaped Lucious’s pale lips. He broke his Shared Sight link and looked up at the expansive sky above the canopy, seeing that the bright afternoon sun was finally dipping low on the horizon, painting the clouds in deep shades of bruising purple as it began getting dark.

His Mindless Bloods were only able to survive out in the daylight for this long because the ancient, towering trees of the outer forest gave enough thick shade to block the direct rays.

More importantly, to prevent any stray beams of sunlight from incinerating his hard-earned army into ash, Lucious had been indirectly channeling his own Vampire God blessing over them through their system link.

Maintaining that protective umbrella over twenty-seven separate bodies for hours on end left a rather heavy physical and mental toll on his core.

His throat felt dry, like he had been swallowing hot sand, and a dull, rhythmic ache pulsed behind his glowing red eyes.

His undead body was running low on fuel, which called for only one thing.

’I need blood,’ Lucious thought, his tongue grazing the sharp tip of his canine fang as a dark, predatory hunger began to uncoil in his gut.

Meanwhile, directly below him inside the swaying carriage, Dori was sitting with her head tilted completely back against the velvet seat, looking intently up at the small ventilation space in the wooden ceiling to watch over her master.

Even though Lucious hadn’t bothered to tell her what he was up to before climbing onto the roof, her senses allowed her to clearly feel the dense, familiar signatures of the Mindless Bloods moving rapidly through the trees all around them.

Despite the fact that she knew her master still left a few of his undead servants stationed back in the capital’s forest to farm weak beasts, she was genuinely surprised to sense just how many more he had brought along to follow them as they moved.

"You... what is your name?" Guinevere suddenly asked, breaking the quiet hum of the rolling wheels. She sat across from the wild girl, her long, bare legs crossed elegantly at the knee.

Dori slowly lowered her chin, turning her head to look at the noblewoman with an expression that was entirely blank and unreadable.

"Dori?" she answered, her raspy voice tilting upward in confusion as to why the human was speaking to her.

"That is your name?" Guinevere raised a sculpted purple brow, looking the girl up and down. "Such an odd, simple name. It is nothing like the family names I have heard in the capital. Are you a foreigner from across the sea of some sort?"

"Uhm... no? I have always just been with my master," Dori replied hesitantly, shifting slightly in her midnight-blue tunic as she tried her absolute best to hide the embarrassing fact that she had no idea what the word foreigner even meant.

However, her simple response immediately ignited another spark of intense curiosity for Guinevere.

"Master?" Guinevere repeated, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Why do you keep calling a man your own age by a title like that? Are you his contracted slave or something?"

Dori raised a pale red brow at the strange question, tilting her head to the side like a confused predator.

"What is a slave?" she asked genuinely.

For a fleeting moment, Guinevere simply stared at her in complete awe, quite shocked to hear a grown girl ask something so fundamentally basic in Eldia.

Then, piecing together Dori’s strange mannerisms and fierce loyalty, a knowing, slightly pitying smile formed on the noblewoman’s face.

"I see. So it is one of those sheltered upbringing situations. Very well," Guinevere said, uncrossing her legs and smoothing down her shorts. "You can at least tell me what you know about your master, can you not? He certainly does not seem to be the friendly type."

"Oh, yeah. Master is really not good around other people," Dori agreed easily, nodding her head with a hint of pride in her voice as if his hostility were an admirable trait. "That is probably why many humans do not like him too much."

Guinevere leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "Do you know why he acts like that?"

"No," Dori said, shrugging her shoulders casually. "Only that the powerful people in the capital banished him or something like that when we first met. Master does not really like to talk about it."

"Banished from the capital?" Guinevere murmured, her bright eyes widening slightly as her mind raced through the recent political scandals of the royal court. "I see..."

Before she could press the naive girl for more incriminating details, the heavy carriage suddenly lurched forward with violent, bone-rattling force.

The brakes screeched against the iron wheels, bringing the transport to a dead stop so fast that the entire cabin tilted forward, throwing both girls completely off their cushioned seats and sending them crashing down onto the hard wooden floorboards.

"Ow! What is going on out there?!" Guinevere was the first to speak, groaning as she rubbed her bruised knee and scrambled to push herself up.

Dori did not make a sound as she effortlessly rolled to her feet, her hand instantly dropping to the pommel of the steel blade at her hip.

She already knew why they had stopped; after all, her enhanced senses could hear the heavy, chaotic breathing and smell the foul stench of the ambush waiting outside.

Standing a short distance away from the front of the carriage, completely blocking the narrow forest road, was a rough, thuggish-looking group of men.

They were dressed in mismatched leather and iron armor, carrying heavy, bloodstained weapons with arrogant grins plastered across their scarred faces.

Off to the side of the dirt path, tethered to the thick trunk of an ancient oak tree by heavy iron chains, was a rather large, monstrous beast with matted black fur and drooling jaws.

However, the one who clearly seemed to be the leader of the ambush was not one of the burly men.

It was a striking woman dressed in a flowing, pitch-black dress that trailed in the dirt, with a dark lace veil covering her hair and obscuring the upper half of her face.

She sat casually on a fallen log right next to the chained beast, gently stroking its massive, lethal paw as if it were a house cat.

Up on the roof of the carriage, Lucious looked down at the roadblock with cold, glowing crimson eyes.

He could see every single one of them clearly, including the hidden archers crouched in the bushes, yet he chose not to move an inch, keeping his arms folded across his chest to see how the humans would play their hand.

Down in the cabin, the older merchant quickly unlatched the small front window, his face pale and sweating as he looked back atGuinevere.

"Stay inside the carriage, and do not come out no matter what happens," the man uttered urgently to his daughter, his voice trembling slightly with fear before he pushed the side door open, stepping forward onto the dirt road to speak to the dangerous strangers blocking his path.

....

[Please do not unlock the next Chapter until a new update, i have not fixed the erros but will be done today.]