A favor

Chirping birds, running streams, incandescent flowers, and a bright blue sky. The first imprint of otherworldly beauty Adrian laid eyes on after phasing through the grand teleportation portal governed by thirteen grade six entities, otherwise graded as continent-level characters.

Taking in a deep breath, Adrian let it out with a deep, low-pitched roar towards the sky, feeling refreshed. Ordinarily, the translocation is at a random compass, unless a party preferred to phase through from one world to the next together. "Now that I'm already in here, as long as I keep a low profile, their chances to find me are as good as nil," whispered Adrian to himself.

"Oh, I'm all wet," coming to the realization that he dropped into a pond of crystal clear water, Adrian scooped up a handful to wash his face. As his digits graced his sun-kissed skin, he could feel the trace of a scar that ran along with his left eye above and below. This will serve as a monument, a testimony to his past as a test subject.

As Adrian cast a curious look around this new environment, he froze. Right there on the banks of this pond, in the shade of a willow tree, a group of three young lads and a female companion? Looked at him with an equivalent, if not an overwhelming amount of shock.

One man crouched right above the woman's head, another one positioned himself at her heels, and the last fixed his body to straddle her abdomen. Looking closer, they had each pinned her down respectively; both hands and feet, even her little mouth was pressed hard under the third man's palm.

The group was stunned for a moment, enough for the woman to bite into the vile hand obscuring her mouth before she cried out in a dry voice, as dry as the stains trashing the image of her soft, pale cheeks.

"Help me! Help me!" She cried after the aggressor withdrew his hand in a stinge of pain. Infuriated, he smacked her across the face, anxiously looking back at Adrian as soon as possible. With a pair of round, befuddled eyes, the three men watched Adrian turn tracks and leave the pond, not even bothering to entertain the prospect of getting involved.

"None of my business," he shrugged, opting to leave the scene. Even if he wished to help out, he was too exhausted at the moment, not to mention he had just decided on keeping a low profile.

The three men exchanged glances between one another. After the shock, came the realization. Their mouths began to water at the thought of ravaging this blonde babe.

"Shhh…" Said the man straddling her abdomen, his eyes frantically looming over her palm-sized breasts. Not too big neither too small, just the right amount of fat to fondle, they looked so tempting that his hand moved on its own accord to grasp and knead. As his palm landed, something within the woman's eyes cracked, a prism-shaped pendant glowed through her corset and shot forth a dome of silver mist.

In the distance, Adrian felt the temperature drop, significantly at that. Looking over his broad shoulders, there he found the woman panting, her blonde locks slowly dyed snow-white. As for the unlucky trio, they morphed into arctic sculptures where they lay, motionless. With a grunt, the woman arched her back, and the ice statues webbed with cracks before crumbling to dust.

It was a heart bounding scene, to say the least.

"Beautiful," Adrian whispered, readying himself to tread towards the nearest town or something similar. "Halt it there," an unfamiliar voice, cold and distant, closed upon Adrian as he walked away.

Stopping again, he glanced back at the woman. She seemed like a separate entity altogether, not just in appearance, but aura and demeanor as well. "What?" Adrian asked, frowning. She better not accuse him of being an accomplice. Although he didn't help, he wasn't obliged to help in any shape or form.

"My daughter is in no condition to return home by herself, and her body can't withstand my presence much longer." The woman spoke, not taking a step from her position. Observing the frail body, layers of rime began to accumulate and grace her delicate skin.

"What will you offer me for my time?" Raising his eyebrows, Adrian asked.

The woman nodded, she appreciated that he skipped right to the core of the subject, saving her daughter from any excessive drawbacks. "Name your price." She replied.

"Hmm, let's say you owe me a favor. Then, where should I take her?" At this point, Adrian had already turned around and approached the woman. Or rather, the body of her daughter.

The woman's silver eyebrows creased, she didn't see this one coming. Still, she nodded, saying, "Alright. Just take her east and you'll find Soul Heart City, deliver her to anyone clad in robes emblemed by seven snowflakes and present them the pendant, they'll know what to do."

"Okay," Adrian responded, already standing within arms reach of the frail girl. The silver shade of her hair began to wither into sprinkles, returning the splendor of her blonde waves. As that happened, the body dropped into Adrian's chest, prompting him to deliver the woman into a comfortable princess carry stance.

She looked pitiful.

Utterly pitiful.

With a sigh, Adrian embarked east, unaware that the eyelids of the presumably unconscious woman began to flutter, and slowly part open. From her cozy position, she caught a glance of a foreign side-profile rinsed in sunlight, and her heart skipped a beat in fright.

Instinctively, she began to writhe and thrash about in his arms, albeit weakly.

"No! Let me go, no!" She cried out in alarm, only to be rendered mute by a low-pitched groan and a pair of condescending eyes. She froze.

It was only now that Adrian noticed that this woman wasn't that strong. In fact, she was as weak as a normal human from Prime Planet. Knitting his brows, he said, "Be good, I'm taking you home."

"En..." The girl nodded apprehensively, her baby blue eyes glistening with a sheen of uncertainty. If she recalled it right, he had no mind into helping her, so why was she carried in his arms now? Was he just teasing her? She prayed that was the case.

Suddenly, her beautiful eyes gleamed with worry, she never told him where her home was, who she is, and where to even go.

"Please let me go..." She whispered faintly, dodging his cold glare.

"Be good!" He replied again, already growing a headache, is she really the daughter of that woman? Adrian wondered. However, ultimately, he didn't really care.

The girl flinched, tucking her head into his chest without thinking. Then, she quieted down considerably, only a number of faint whimpers and indistinct sobbing could be heard as Adrian kept heading east.