Chapter XXXIV: Encounter With The Phoenix 1

"I can't believe that one piece of hard-made bread would cost a piece of gold!"

Erwin groused out with his arms crossed from each other.

 'And that brat is just shoving it inside his mouth like a beast!'

He added while standing in the corner of the room, scowling while watching how the kid with a disheveled appearance shoved the baguette continuously as if he had been famished for years.

While Khalid could be seen standing in front of him, who was surrounded by a full basket of bread-like bricks.

'The aftermath of war is something, huh.'

He thought as he watched him chomp all the bread down his throat that he could not even try to ignore the broken chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles.

 The chains look rusty and old, and they almost do not even fit on both his wrists, as if they had been attached to him for such a long time that his blood circulation seems to have been cut off, preventing his skin from breathing, leaving his flesh with purple-ish bruises and swollen, peeled-off skin.

*COUGH! - COUGH! *

The boy chokes the moment he meets his eyes.

 He then chugs the cup of water on the table beside him before he is frozen like a statue when Khalid pats his head, leaving the others in the room all confused and shocked, especially Dal, who's almost made his jaw reach the floor.

"You look like a twig, but you fought well."

The boy did not answer, but instead, he was looking down at the floor while feeling the warmth of his touch, thinking that a different voice and tone of a familiar person was what he heard instead of Khalid. 

It made him shake and tremble while his crimson eyes, like blood, turned reddish as if he were about to cry.

"Hyung…" 

He mumbled before Khalid got his hand off him after noticing how he shook his head while sniffing the air and wiping his eyes with both hands, preventing himself from shedding a single drop of his tears.

When the golden hour appears from the sky, penetrating through the windows of the room, where the stars slowly appear one by one, surrounding the moon that is glowing from above, reaching through the window of the kid that was lying on the bed, silently staring through the ceiling.

He then looked at his wrist, which was all healed and freed from the rusty chain.

The boy could not even know how he was supposed to feel knowing that he could be free from those things; he did not even daydream or expect that one day he would encounter someone who would free him from everything, and thinking about what had happened earlier made him feel a weird, fiery sensation in his heart.

"You must have been feeling uncomfortable with those chains."

Khalid stated while forcefully dragging Dal towards the kid, who looked as if he were being threatened by him.

The boy was left in awe when he had a proper look at Dal; he was so tall and beautiful that it was just too impossible for him to be shocked, while Dal could be seen scratching the back of his head, looking so disgusted at the sight of him.

"This is Dal; he would take it off for you."

He continued to affirm, which made Dal totally against it, but before he could even complain, the kid spoke with a serious and gloomy expression written on his face as if he had already known the result of their attempt.

"You can't."

The boy responded, looking at Khalid with his hair covering his eyes.

"Is there a reason why?"

Khalid then asks, persuading the boy to let go of his doubt and to believe in the process.

"This is the chain made with powerful black magic that the slave trader uses, so no one can break it-

Without even finishing his words, Khalid just touched it, but it magically turned to dust, which left them all surprised, knowing that Khalid could break a chain made of black magic with a simple touch of his index finger.

"Well, I guess I can."

He responded making the little boy lock up his sight on Khalid even after being healed by Dal.

*Sigh~*

"What a weird kid."

Remembering it just made him sigh before he rummaged inside his pocket to find out that he had lost the pin he had stolen from Khalid without knowing that his pocket had a big hole, making it fall out of nowhere. 

That is when he suddenly felt a burden of guilt in his heart. 

*Sigh~* 

"I don't know what to do anymore..." 

He mumbled before jumping out of the three-story building of an inn from the window to search for the missing pin.

"Haist!' Let's just see if he's sleeping or not, and that's it.'

Meanwhile, Erwin, who was ordered to check for the kid, was left speechless when he found out that the window inside his room was left wide open and that no kid was lying on the bed; he even checked under it, but he could not find him.

Erwin could only think that the kid had purposely jumped out of the window to end his life, but finding out that no corpse or puddle of blood was left on the ground, made him speculate that he wasn't an ordinary kid to watch over but instead, a being that they had to be cautious of.

After Dal had been eaten by his deep thought, the entire place suddenly rumbled, leaving the ground to shake when a massive and roaring explosion outburst not so far from the inn, devouring the silence and peace of the night, giving Erwin a sense of chill through his bones, leaving him frozen for a second.

"Shit! This can't be happening!"

He immediately ran out of the room just to find Khalid and others with a serious expression on their faces, while on the other hand, a kid could be seen kneeling on the ground of the town square while being surrounded by the fire that was enough to melt anyone's flesh, but surprisingly, he wasn't affected by the fiery heat of the blazing fire; instead, he was there trembling while closing both of his ears with his hands, continuously mumbling the same word from his mouth with flowing tears running out of his eyes.

"I-I am not....a monster....I-I don't want t-to be a monster!"