Chapter 3 A Familiar Scene
These were the only words the mysterious female village chief spoke to him that night. Ikaris had a lot of questions on his mind, but when she saw him opening his mouth she shushed him placing her forefinger in front of her own lips.
"The danger has not yet passed." She mouthed slowly.
She then pointed a finger in a certain direction and the teenager was able to guess that it was the thatched cottage. With hushed steps, she motioned for him to follow and despite his snail's pace, she didn't bother to help him at all but escorted him all the way like a fine bodyguard.
'What a lucky guy I am...' The boy snickered to himself while huffing and puffing like an obese man who just ran his first marathon.
It was a wonder he didn't pass out a third time. Nonetheless, willpower alone had its limits and his eyes rolled back as he crossed the doorway to the cottage. His mind already gone, he didn't see how the young woman saved his head from hitting the ground by gently slowing it down with her toe as if she was bunting a soccer ball.
She remained still for several minutes after that, pricking up her ears with utmost vigilance and hardly daring to breathe. After a bit, she began to move again and slowly laid the passed-out crybaby on the floor next to him.
"Phew... I hope the commotion didn't attract any more of them." She murmured to herself, her shoulders slumping out of weariness as she let her body slide to the ground back against the wall.
Silence fell again in the village and the rest of the night went by just like that. The young woman appeared to be asleep, but her two orange eyes never stopped glowing, their color sometimes turning golden yellow, sometimes crimson red.
When the sun rose, the dark night giving way to the magenta-orange predawn sky, she turned her head toward the entrance, reflexively closing her eyes as a ray of morning sunlight shone on her face. She immediately retracted her neck back into the shadows, but evident relief soothed the taut muscles of her beautiful face. The accumulated fatigue kicked in and she closed her eyes in turn, finally drifting off to sleep.
*****
While he was comatose, Ikaris had a strange nightmare filled with strange monsters that he could not see. He could only hide under a pile of rocks, waiting to be devoured like a dumb prey.
Then, the dream shifted radically, a flashback of a hooded man stabbing him very close to the heart at the bend of a dark alley, muttering several words he couldn't understand. Then, a cold sensation overwhelmed him, freezing his brain and his bones, until his consciousness faded into nothingness.
Then, he felt an indescribable pain, but his mind failed to recognize it. The spellbinding light Spark that had been spreading its gentle radiance over him appeared again, swiftly enlarging in his field of vision. When he thought it was going to engulf him, his survival instinct kicked in and he jumped to his feet with a gasp.
"It's all right. You're safe here. For now..." A melodious but emotionless voice reached his ears.
Ikaris, who was drenched in sweat, anxiously swept his gaze around the room he was in, and upon realizing that everything that had happened the night before was not a dream, a bitter expression plastered his face.
'So, neither was this nightmare...'
With this sad realization, he came to the realization that he had no reason to want his old life back. As shitty as this world was, this would be his second and last chance for a fresh start.
With this realization, he instantly regained his composure. Malia, who hadn't missed any of his expression changes, watched him with a trace of curiosity in her eyes, but she quickly lost interest. And the reason? Ikaris discovered it very quickly.
He heard footsteps and guttural voices coming from outside the cottage. Concurrently, he noticed the fur curtain separating the thatched cottage into two rooms. A crude wooden rod had been hung up across the middle of the room, on which clothes and this foul-smelling curtain were hung.
Malia was apparently sleeping like them on the floor, except that several clean furs served as her mattress. There was a pile of folded clothes on the side, a few rolls of yellowed parchments and an antique rusty iron sword.
Just then, he heard the floor creak on the other side of the curtain and without warning, it was pulled back, revealing a traumatic image that would haunt him to the grave. He didn't think he'd ever feel grateful for it, but he was glad he hadn't swallowed anything since arriving in this world. Otherwise, with the gagging he would have vomited all the bile in his body onto the wooden floor that served as his sleeping place.
The old shaman was awake and she was as "warmly" dressed as the day before...
Her almost blind eyes frowned as she found two more naked humans in the room, and she gave the young woman a reproving look before lending her arm so that the girl could help her walk.
Acting as if nothing had happened, Malia took the old woman's arm as dry as a twig and accompanied her to the altar where the previous day's ritual had taken place.
Intrigued, Ikaris stood up with a grimace, but amazed to find that walking normally was no longer out of reach. He began to pant hard after a few steps, but at least he wasn't crawling like last night.
He took one last look at the still sleeping Swedish student, lingering fleetingly over her breasts and the dried tears on her face, then drawing a deep breath he left the cottage.
As soon as the teenager went outside, a blinding sun and a stifling heat greeted him at once, but he hardly noticed. What caught his attention, his eyes widening like saucers at the sight, was the absurdly familiar scene unfolding before his eyes.
The villagers were gathered in a circle in the village square, jeering at ten kneeling and bound prisoners in their birthday suit. They sported the same frightened and bewildered expression as the prisoners of the previous day, and Ikaris heard several of them begging in familiar languages, such as Mandarin, English and Spanish.
'What the heck is this crap? Is someone playing a large-scale prank on us? If so, it's just insane.' The boy shook his head, congratulating himself on no longer being in their shoes.
"Gari gori, goru, giri..."
Exactly as the day before, the repulsive shaman began to chant unintelligible gibberish, and then the miracle happened again. The prisoners' eyes suddenly widened, shell-shocked that they could understand the words being spoken around them.
"What is your name?" Malia asked in her trademark sweet voice, as if that question had been uttered thousands of times.
"Yvonne."
"Oliver."
"David."
"Anna."
" ... "
Ikaris had already lost interest in listening to the rest. Maybe none of them would make it through the night, and it was a waste of time to memorize the names of walking corpses.
While he was lost in his thoughts, a lice-ridden mane of white hair obstructed his view and the smell triggered another gagging fit.
"Are you going to move aside or not?!" The old hag sputtered at his face, croaking in a voice even deeper than most men.
Like a dog with its tail stepped on, he sprang out of the way, his heart thumping even faster than last night. Malia rolled her eyes at his startled reaction, but she continued to walk the old woman home wordlessly.
Ikaris stood stupidly outside for a moment, but as he saw the crowd dispersing and minding their own business, he didn't dare approach the prisoners to engage in discussion.
'Good luck. I hope to see at least one of you again tomorrow morning.'
Not knowing what to do, he returned to the cottage, waiting for the student to wake up. The curtain was back in place, and the old hag was nowhere in sight. Malia was now sitting cross-legged on the floor, a troubled expression on her face. She looked so lonely and burdened with worry that for a moment he could not reconcile this image with that of the cold, strong chief who had saved him the night before.
As he entered the cottage, the floor creaked and the brooding beauty turned her head in his direction, her sorrowful exterior replaced by a mask of ice.
"There you are again. You must have a lot of questions." She said flatly.
Having received the green light he wanted, Ikaris did not hesitate. Because ever since he arrived in this world, there was one question that had been on his lips. Full of hope, he blurted out,
"I want to learn how to use magic."