31 Chapter 28

As he fastened a strip of fabric over the cloth, a red string lay mangled on the groundsheet.

K: (There's a strand of red hair on this?)

Katachi didn't seem to understand how the strand of red hair got onto his sheet. Had he been awake fifteen minutes ago, he would have caught sight of the girl's sleeping face on the groundsheet he was under.

K: (Did this get here somewhere from the scuffle yesterday? That can't be. Maybe it belongs to the people who made the groundsheet?)

If only he knew that the lady he fought yesterday spent the night right next to him, the misunderstandings to come would not be as awkward.

K: (It doesn't really matter. Time is wasting away, I ought to start out soon.)

Katachi placed the rolled sheet above his bag and strapped it on firmly.

*** ***

Before venturing out, however, Katachi climbed the orange tree once more. He reached for a smaller orange on the branch, plucked the fruit and cupped it in his hands.

K: (恒定! Constant status – Orange!)

Katachi placed the delicate fruit into his pocket, though why he chose to be careful with it despite the sigil's presence was a mystery. A little rough handling did little against an orange meant to remain constant and resist change.

K: (I know it's bad of me to take another when I've already had one, but I'm going to give this to Mother Rin when I get there. It's not for me so I really hope the owner of this tree wouldn't mind too much.)

Katachi made his way to the northeast of Rulid facing Mielfeud. But, just to be sure he's walking in the right direction he approached a sentry.

K: "Excuse me, which way is it to Mielfeud?"

"Oh, that way. Walk straight along the path and the road over yonder splits. The left leads to Fereport, so take the right to reach Mielfeud."

K: "Thanks."

Katachi's wooden sabots clacked loudly against the sandy path and he hoisted his bag under his arm.

K: (Go down this road, and don't take the left...)

He glanced at the road ahead briefly to gauge how much distance he had to cover. But, as he tiptoed on his sabots to view the road over the horizon, a metallic sound of something being dragged along by chains could be heard. Katachi spun around to see a lady running and swinging the grey blur at him without warning.

K: (!! I have to dodge!)

Katachi leaned backward and pressed his hands against the ground before rolling away further in the direction away from the attacker. A crunching, crashing sound was heard and he quaked to think that his head would have been on the receiving end of that strike. As he looked up, the slender lady with a ponytail and grey armor entered his vision. She was holding something new this time; to be specific, it was a flail with a long handle and three weights tethered onto it.

K: "!! It's you again!"

*** ***

Roberia wasn't concerned with greeting him back.

R: "Haaah!"

She did not bother with his unfocused rambling and mauled the flail at him hard. The balls of steel attached to the chains swung through the air and Katachi evaded the attack by a few inches. He sprawled his body out and withdrew that peculiar wooden dagger once more.

K: (I can't fight like this...)

Katachi stood hesitantly with his body leaned backward, indicating his choice of flight as opposed to the stance he adopted yesterday. He seriously did not want to fight her as things stood – But Roberia didn't take heed at all. On the contrary, she became a lot more aggressive than before, now that she wielded a weapon she could freely manipulate without having to use her whole body to control it.

She proceeded to draw out ferocious attacks that would maim him on his limbs, forcing Katachi towards the trees by the roadside. She tried pressuring him to a restrictive place where he had no freedom to run and no choice but to fight back. As expected, he was cornered easily since he was rendered incapable of any offensive action.

K: (Gh! I can't risk her damaging any of my stuff! I need to find an opportunity to get away from her and put the bag down!)

Roberia mercilessly brandished the flail about, disregarding her opponent's handicap completely. The tethered weights made full revolutions around its handle and crashed against the trunks of the trees with no signs of restraint.

K: (I-! Can't-! Find an opening! 固定! Fixate object – Weight!)

A hoarse whisper rang in the back of his head and a 定 formed on one of the metal eggs. Roberia suddenly felt the limitations of her weapon as the chain between the handle and the fixated weight was stretched to its maximum allowed length.

R: "! What the-!" (The weight is fixed in mid-air?! Wait a minute, it's just as immovable as my sword! Then- !!)

Katachi took advantage of the confusion to leap back and placed his bag down gently. With the dagger tightly in hand, he stood firm and finally prepared to retaliate.

K: (恒定! Constant status – Self! Constant status – Dagger!)

定 formed on his chest and the dagger's blade. With the shade of the trees blocking out the sunlight above Roberia could finally see the Word of Power on the dagger properly for the first time.

R: (It's not a hex on my sword that made it too heavy to move. He sealed my weapon in that space, that position, so it won't be able to move! And that Word... I recognize that magic anywhere!!) "That's a Word of Power!"

K: (What... What did she mean? Did she not attack me because I had the Word of Power in the first place?) "Who are you? Who sent you?"

Katachi failed to recognize that she was buried in deep thought.

R: (This is great. Excellent! Defeating him and getting his Word of Power for my own is worthy of securing Rugnud's strength!) "Looks like my choice of targets isn't as bad as I thought!"

Roberia fished out something he did not expect – A tough pair of shears sashed on her back. She wedged the chain close to the fixated weight between the scissor blades and snipped it off cleanly.

K: "!!" (She snipped it off... That is going to be problematic. If the weapon can be broken down and segmented like that, then stopping it won't be as easy as I thought.)

With a combat craze yet unseen Roberia swiped the weapon at Katachi once more.

*** ***

R: (As expected of a Scholar... He's really tough!)

The lady repeatedly whipped the boy with the flail with no intent on letting up. Yet, neither did he flinch from the pain nor stagger from the blows. It was as though he was one of those wooden dummies that Anikans used to practice their techniques on.

R: (It figures that I can't get him to crack easily. I have to target something important to him. I need to force a fight out of him if I want a chance at his Word of Power!)

Roberia continually swung the flail at regions where it would hurt badly – At the waist, at the neck and larynx, the calf muscles and even at the genitals, but Katachi may as well be part of the unmoving background. She relented on her flurry of attacks for a while and backed off to reconsider her strategy.

R: (Come to think of it, he didn't defend like this when he had his stuff on. Maybe there's something important in his belongings? Would he start attacking me actively if I aimed for his stuff, then?)

Roberia threw glances briefly at his bag and Katachi, for some reason, reacted to that by shifting between her and the bag.

R: (! Oh? So his bag is valuable to him.) "What's so important in the bag that you have to guard it so strictly?"

K: "... It was given to me for free."

The answer was so out-of-place that Roberia couldn't help but cringe a little.

R: (What? 'Given to him for free' is a reason to protect it? That's so cheap! What a miser!) "Really? That's the reason you'd place yourself between me and that?"

K: "Yes. I also have a gift to deliver, so I cannot let any harm come to it."

R: (Maybe it's fragile.) "Hoho, a gift! That's more like it. What could be so valuable that you have to protect it like this?"

Roberia stormed forward, swinging the flail in circles and warming up for a powerful swing carried by momentum. She changed her stride suddenly and rushed at the bag, swinging the flail down at it. Katachi had to sacrifice his left arm in response and snagged the flail onto his wrist to stop the attack.

R: "It wouldn't happen to be something you bought in town, like flasks of dried goods, would it?"

She pulled back and the two locked eyes with each other fiercely.

R: (I had thought of him a poor bloke, but if he's simply the miserly and stingy type to put value above all else then I don't feel as bad for attacking him!)

K: (I can't have her ruining the free stuff blessed to me by their goodwill. I should just end this quickly. 固定! Fixate object – Weight!)

The remaining two weights on the flail were fixated in the air, but Roberia simply snipped them off again. Two weights now floated next to her and the third metal egg to Katachi's far left.

R: "I figured you would use that technique again. Did you think I wouldn't expect this outcome?" (I didn't expect this outcome at all... But this is good too. It gives my weapon speed which seems to fare better than power.)

But if it irked her opponent to disarray, it was an acceptable strategy regardless.

R: "You played right into my trap."

K: (So this is her trap... It was one thing with the weights that slowed down when she whacked me, but her chains are swiveling so quickly that I cannot place my 定 on any of the segments. It's all a blur and I can't imagine the 定 on the chain clearly enough.)

Roberia began spinning the three loose chains at very high speeds. It was not synchronized at first, but she spun it so rapidly that the three chains united into a whip-like fashion. She ran towards Katachi and whacked him clean in the head, the chains wrapping around his neck from the momentum. She grabbed at the chains with her free hand and pulled at it from the separate ends.

R: (I'll choke him out if I have to!) "I got you!- ... !!"

But Katachi grabbed the handle of the flail with his left hand while ignoring the attack altogether and plunged the wooden dagger at her face, forcing the warrior to step back. When he unhanded the weapon to retreat a 定 was engraved on the handle.

K: "No more. Please."

He then pulled the chains off his neck, kept his dagger, turned around to pick his stuff up and continued on his way-

R: "Don't turn your back on an opponent, you miserable skinflint!"

-and Roberia revealed a hidden steel dagger behind her, stabbing it into his back. Or so she envisioned, but the simple knife skidded off his body like stabbing a brick wall with a twig.

K: "Please go away. I really don't want to fight you."

That plea fell upon deaf ears. Roberia continued to blindly swipe her blade at Katachi, but as he side-stepped to avoid a lunge...

R: "! Guh!"

K: "!!"

... Roberia accidentally brushed her side against a sharp branch. She clutched her gut in agony and a shiny, sticky red liquid as brilliant as her hair glimmered on her hand.

K: "By the gods... Lie down!"

R: "Aahhh..."

It was only in moments such as these that the boy took a proactive role.

K: "Lie down, and don't move!"

Katachi ran towards his bag and returned with a corked bottle.

R: "I... You're smaller than me... I should have... Seen that branch..."

K: (What kind of nonsense is she spewing?! Injured people shouldn't exert themselves!) "Stop talking! Don't worsen the wound any further!"

He removed the wooden cork and rubbed the ointment-like substance against the gashing wound. It was not much, but he did the best he could to ease her pain and stimulate the recovery. When he was done applying his salve on the wound Katachi laid her body completely flat and cast a Word of Power on her.

K: (固定! Fixate position – Red-haired girl!)

Roberia's body stopped moving completely and she remained stiff as a board. He tied two straps of fabric to a long branch, bound her limbs with much care and rotated the makeshift stretcher so she would face the sky with her back against the branch. He dragged the rotting plant matter back to Rulid carefully while holding her under the arms.

"Wha- Hey, what happened to her?"

K: "She needs treatment! Her waist got stabbed by a branch! Please tend to her immediately!"

"Understood! Leave it to us."

*** ***

Katachi rested Roberia on the cold floor of the abandoned house which he- Or rather, they spent the night in.

K: (She will get better in a couple of days. Looks like I'm going to spend another day in Rulid after all... I have to ensure she's fine before I go. I also need to stock up on Mestiel now.)

Mestiel comprised a major component of the ointment he made along with some Curamel and Dolosseia to sterilize and sedate the wound. If he were to prepare more of the ointment the healing agent was imperative. It was unfortunate that Mestiel was uncommon around the Month of the Halberd as it was harvested in the Month of the Reeds, but with any amount of luck, he would find some. Katachi dropped his blanket on the floor and laid Roberia on it gently.

K: (She received proper treatment from the sentry, so everything should be okay now.)

Katachi couldn't help but blush and redden at the slender waist while the sentry patched her up. The grey chiseled armor and her top had to be removed so her injury could be tended to. As such, it was natural for him to shy away upon the sight of Roberia's navel.

K: (At least the sentries didn't violate her body or anything... !! What was I thinking!? Mother will punish me for this!)

Katachi rid his head of the embarrassing emotions and walked out of the abandoned house's awkward atmosphere he conjured in his own mind. He took out the bottle of healing salve and swiveled the fluid within a little to measure how much he had left.

K: (I should have a look around town. Hopefully, there'll be an apothecary here. But Mestiel won't be cheap this time of the year... I should consider my options carefully.)

Katachi headed towards the south of Rulid with high hopes of finding what he needed.