Chapter 15

Returning to Zena's home with the help of Azkar, they met Zena's little sister standing at the doorway with folded arms over her chest with foot tapping on the floor.

As soon as she saw Fares holding her sister's limp body, she ran over to them screaming "Let go of my sister you damned dirty beast."

Not even waiting for his response, she hit him in the groin. Even though he was a soul right now, he felt a soul-rending pain spread all over his body in an instant, for some reason.

He fell to one knee tightening his hold on Zena's body preventing her from hitting the hard ground.

With a few tears in his eyes, he collected himself and stood back up slowly.

When Mona saw that he didn't even let her sister fall with all of this pain, she felt something was wrong.

Right then, Azkar appeared from behind Fares with a slightly amused smile on his face.

"Hello to you Mona." He said.

"U-uncle Azkar? What are you doing with 'him' ?" She said, pointing at Fares with her index finger, her face showing clear disgust.

He noticed a presence standing at a distance from them with clear hostility on his face.

His face turned cold again, then he said "Let's talk about it inside shall we?"

He didn't give her a chance to respond, and speed-walked inside, followed closely by the confused Mona. Fares didn't know what was going on, but he followed after them anyway.

As soon as Fares stepped inside, he felt energy enclosing the space behind him. It was his first time actually 'feeling' the Dark energy like this, it felt… strangely familiar to him, even though he knew he never felt anything like this before.

Turning his head back to take a look, Fares saw a transparent yellowish dome-shaped structure erected around the house.

'Did they trap us here?' Fares' thoughts started to turn dark.

Before he fell deeper into his thoughts a voice came in front of him "Relax, I was the one who did that."

It was Azkar assuring him as he sat on a stone block, clearly used to visiting this place.

Another weird thing for Fares was that it was only now that he noticed this house has a strong wooden door, though he didn't know what's the use when the windows didn't have any.

He closed it behind him and placed Zena on the bed he was sleeping on earlier, before sitting on an available stone block beside Azkar.

"Mona is a dear and boils us these Butan herbs, please," Azkar said smiling at her warmly while extending his hands to give her some small leaves into her tiny little hands.

Fares was shocked, he knew exactly what that herb was, it was tea leaves! 'But how?' he thought. Other than that being the smallest leaves he saw since he came, he wouldn't mistake tea leaves for any other.

He was a tea freak, always researching different types with different boiling methods whenever he had 10 minutes of break time. It helps him breaks his stuck train of thoughts which becomes unhealthy for his research, and tea energizes him a little.

"Yes, uncle." Even though she wanted to know what happened to her sister, she was a good girl, too.

Taking the leaves, she went to one corner of the room containing what appeared to be a thick bamboo jug, it even had handles and all. Then put it over a large stove made of 3 large rocks placed on each side leaving one side free from anything. Above, was another slightly thinner rock placed flatly onto them, under the flat rock there was some firewood placed there.

She hugged a heavy bucket of water, climbed 2 small steps at the side of the stone stove, and filled three-quarters of the jug.

Right then she turned around, "Unc…" before she even continued, there was a ball of fire flying across the room into the firewood lighting it up.

"Didn't I teach you already how to make fire without the use of energy? How did you manage all of this time?" Azkar said disapprovingly.

"HeHe, Mona was playing outside she doesn't cook," Mona said poking her tongue at him in what she thought was a cutesy manner but was clumsy instead.

"Sigh, I don't even know what to do with you anymore," Azkar said sighing softly.

After that, the mood in the room suddenly sank, with nobody talking and just the sound of boiling water could be heard.

Checking to make sure that the Butan boiled enough, she then poured it into only 3 bamboo cups they have, and gave one to Azkar "This is your favorite cup."

When she looked at Fares she hesitated for a while, she usually uses her cup and Zena the only other cup left, but now Zena wasn't here, instead there was a weird pervert.

Does she give him Zena's cup? But wouldn't that be an indirect kiss like the adults do? She didn't know, she had never done this before.

Her head almost let out fumes from too much thinking, noticing this Fares just went on and grabbed a random cup.

This made her stunned… That was her cup. She almost let out tears, which confused Fares, even more, so he returned it and grabbed the other one.

This time she held her tears and sat opposite Azkar and asked "Uncle Azkar, will you tell me now what is going on? Mona is confused."

"This is what happened…" He said as he went on describing the events that took place.

As the story went on, even Mona's face became angered.

"I am going to teach them a lesson, those bastards. How dare they do this to my sister." Mona said as she got up ready to leave.

She was stopped in her tracks by a hand holding her, "Uncle doesn't stop me, I am going to…" But she stopped midway when she realized that it wasn't her uncle Azkar, but the guy her sister brought back a few days ago.

When she looked at him Fares shook his head 'Don't' then turned to Azkar and said "Please translate for us."

He didn't even wait for a reply before turning back to the girl and saying "I've heard about the rules of the Crystal Cave village. You won't change anything other than getting hurt and making your sister feel even worse."

As Azkar translated not knowing where this was going, Mona said crying "Then what do you want me to do? Just sit here and watch her leave, just like that ?"

"Who said anything about leaving her to a fate like that?" Fares smiled wickedly rubbing his hands together like a villain of some comics.

Interested, Mona sat back down and listened carefully to what Fares were going to say.