7 Ch 7: Park Incident

---2 years later---

Baldeur had a number of siblings over the course of his lives. Some he was close to and a few actually tried to kill him. He even had a few children of his own, though he tended to limit his family size once he realized he would continue on without them.

Because of his life as a healer he was able to secretly help his little sister in this life develop. Before she was even born he had a good idea about her Sources; Mana and Divinus.

Watching over her in the womb allowed him to gain a better understanding of how the Source Winds affected a fetus. He was pretty confident that he would be able to help any child be born with two Sources. Not that he was going to tell anyone.

After his little sister Ilinka was born, his father took some time off exploring and when he did go back it was only for short term missions no longer than three months at the most.

This did cause some issues with the leader of the Explorers Union. He viewed Vivek as the leader of his mid length teams; out four to eight months at a time.

While still beneficial, short term explorations didn't have the same degree of importance. Meaning they often didn't make as much money in the long term.

When his father did leave, that was when Pantel would start sending gifts to Levanya. She would always turn them away and the young noble became frustrated, not understanding why his curse didn't work.

He would have taken more direct approaches but Hogart had already warned the Duke that his son was stepping out of line with one of his people and Pantel's father warned his son about creating trouble for the family yet again.

Secretly he already had a plan in place. It would get him what he wanted and humiliate Vivek as the protector of his family.

A few days before Vivek was set to come home Pantel set his plan in motion.

There was a park near their home that Levanya liked to take her kids to play. They were often joined by Yulia, Leonid's wife, and their daughter Arisha.

"Honey, don't play too rough with Baldeur. You know he doesn't like it." Yulia called after her daughter who had already begun her hunt for her favorite playmate.

Like usual her daughter paid little attention to her warning. She was a fairly well behaved girl, except when it came to Baldeur.

The two mothers gently laughed watching their six year olds play a game of hide and seek with higher than normal stakes for the one hiding. The two year old Ilinka was playing near them, chasing tiny fairies.

"I wonder if when they're teens their roles will become reversed, with Baldeur chasing after her." Levanya said.

"It's possible. Though I don't think she'll try to hide all that much. She was really disappointed when she couldn't find him a few days ago." Yulia said.

Neither mother knew that Baldeur used his talents with Anodular to hide among the natural surroundings of the park. He usually only hides for an hour before letting Arisha find him, so they wouldn't suspect anything.

But last time they were at the park, Baldeur noticed someone watching his family. He suspected that this person worked for Pantel.

While he had thought about showing off a Source or two to his parents, he didn't want his enemies to find out any of his talents. Keeping them secret would give him an advantage.

He also knew what those in power could do to those they saw as being more talented than them.

During his third life he had a number of siblings since his father had a large harem. His talented older siblings would often set deadly traps for the talented younger siblings so that they wouldn't have to share their families limited resources.

Their father even subtly encouraged these acts, wanting his family to produce the best Cultivators. Since Baldeur was only of average talent, he was never seriously targeted by his older siblings. Instead they tried to make him their lackey.

After searching the area for any of Pantel's spies and finding none, he allowed Arisha to find him. He upped his pain tolerance as she began their next phase of playtime.

This continued for a few minutes before an altercation on the far side of the park pulled most people's attention.

Two men were arguing over a woman. From what Baldeur could hear, she was out with one man and the other was supposed to be her fiance.

"Why aren't they mad at each other?" Arisha asked. She was an Esper with the mental discipline and was sensing the same thing that Baldeur was. Their emotions didn't fully match what they were yelling at each other.

Immediately looking around Baldeur was too late to stop a thin black line of Infernius hitting his sister while his mother was watching the arguing couple.

Once hit, Ilinka started crying. Levanya got to her daughter just before Baldeur. She was a little surprised how quickly her son had traveled to them.

On Ilinka's hand were two tiny red marks.

"Oh, did one of the fairies bite you? Don't worry, mommies here." Levanya said.

Baldeur wanted to look at the wound since he knew that it wasn't a fairy bite but his mother had his sister high in her arms and his sister was currently too fussy to be set back down.

Instead, Baldeur tried to locate the attacker.

"Baldeur it's okay. She must have played with them a little too much." Levanya thought her angry son was about to chase after the fairies for his little sister.

"Mommy can I kiss the wound better?" Since Baldeur couldn't chase after the culprit without using his Sources, he wanted to check on Ilinka.

"Aww." Levanya knelt down and held out Ilinka's hand.

Baldeur kissed the wound and tried to heal what damage had been done. Unfortunately, the curse was accompanied by a fast spreading poison. In order to get rid of it he'd have to use enough power that his mother would notice.

He had encountered this poison in his third life. It worked best against Cultivators but could still slowly kill others.

Knowing that symptoms wouldn't start for a day, Baldeur injected some decay energy of Anodular into the wound. It would cause it to puff up and turn a pale green. He knew this would cause his mother to call a healer quicker than she normally would.

His only regret was that this would cause his sister a little more pain.

'Maybe I should just show off some Sources? Divinus and Anodular combined with a few herbs should be able to take care of the poison.' Baldeur thought.

He decided against it since while the antidote wasn't all that common, its ingredients weren't hard to gather. The poison was slow acting and would take a week before it started to permanently harm Ilinka.

"Mommy I think it's infected." Baldeur still wanted his sister to start treatment right away.

"Hmm, it does look a little puff for just a bit." Levanya replied. "Yulia, I'm going to take them home to treat this in case that fairy was sick or something."

"Aww, no fair. Baldeur needs to play with me more." Arisha said.

"He can stay with me if you want to take her home." Yulia said.

"Thanks. I'll be back in a bit to pick him up." Levanya said.

Baldeur wanted to argue but his playmate already had him by the arm and was dragging him away.