3: Recovery

In a rush, the villagers took the knight into one of the houses. The village head, a young female in her early twenties, came forward.

"Let me take care of him. His condition is terminal," she said.

Her name was Cleo. The only reason she is the head of the village is because she is the only named resident. Her mana was pink, healing magic, revered across the continent for its versatility in the medical field. Nobody knew why she had come to the village in the first place, after all, healing magic was rare. She would have led a much more profitable life out in the capital due to the lack of healers. Everyone made speculations, but Cleo had her own reasons.

As all the other villagers left, Cleo began the procedure, gathering the mana in certain fingertips until they were glowing a rose color. She touched her left middle, pinky and her right index to his leg, the first finger removed the burns, the second restored the lost blood, and the third healed the bottom layers of his skin and stopped the bleeding. Now he just needed to rest.

As she removed his mask to let him breathe easily she let out a small gasp. "Why would he hide his face if he looks good? I thought he'd have a huge defect of some sort." The knight was by no means a model, but he looked far better than average for a traveling swordsman.

She stayed by his side in case another issue arose, but she also had nothing to do. She wasn't allowed to work the fields because she was a bit too frail, and she couldn't sew or cook well, so she didn't mend clothing or help prepare dinners. However, she was a more than capable leader for the settlement, her resource management allowed them to survive through the winter without a single starvation several years in a row.

As the days went by, the knight's leg was healing at a rapid pace. His body was entirely healed long before he woke up. He spent the last day and a half dreaming about the past. A time where he was known as Augustus, an anomaly even by the standards of magic. He had no cap, and he was the only successful colerless mage. Augustus was different from him. He no longer had the confidence Augustus did. He didn't take on challenges anymore, especially if he knew it could possibly kill him. Augustus was charismatic… or he tried to be. The knight hardly spoke to anyone. After all, he felt that communication wasn't necessary beyond relaying important information. However, the largest difference is strength. When the knight was known as Augustus, he was revered as an up-and-coming legend. There were few people who could rival him at the age of nine.

Back then, Augustus was trained heavily, forced to live up to the expectations put on him. His education was gruesome and his physical training was even worse. He had no official mana training but was expected to refine his abilities in his downtime.

However, Augustus was dead, to both the knight and the people of the kingdom, he had died over a decade ago, and was never coming back.

The knight continued to dream about his past life in the upper kingdom for the next day and a half before waking up. When he finally came to, he realized that he was tied to the bed and there was a girl not much older that he was sitting at the side of the bed, staring at him.

"Why the fuck did you tie me up? We don't have time for this!" he shouted angrily at the girl. She calmly looked up and stared dead into his eyes.

"I am Cleo Lucius, formally named by Titus Lucius. Do you still think it's a good idea to speak to me with that tone?"

He stopped struggling almost instantly and stared at her in fear. A thousand questions raced through his mind, he didn't want to be found out, 'now, of all times? Why has my luck been so rotten?' he cursed himself heavily in his mind.

After a minute or so, the knight calmed down and asked Cleo "What do you want from me?"

"Your name." Cleo replied simply, yet on the inside she was screaming to know his answer.

"Unnamed." the knight said decisively, hoping the conversation would end there. His hopes were in vain.

"Impossible. Your healing speed was abnormally fast. You recovered layers of skin in a half of a day! There's no way you aren't a mage."

"And there's no way you're a combat mage," he shot back at her. "I'd be dead for this level of insolence otherwise."

Cleo stopped after hearing this. They were both silent for a minute. Then she began to laugh loudly.

"How right you are! I can't even begin to uphold that act without forcing myself not to laugh. Yeah, you're right though, I'm a healer, and I was the one who did the basic aid on your leg."

"You are with the capital, right?" the knight questioned, relieved that he wouldn't be arrested.

Cleo shot his hopes down "Sadly, not anymore. Is this about what you shouted when entering the square? Other people reported that you said something about hellhounds before collapsing in the square. If you need to make a request, I can pull some weight but there's no guarantee that they'll help."

"Are you familiar with the evolutionary properties of the direwolf?" the knight urgently questioned. "The beast isn't a hellhound, it's a cerberus. We need to evacuate the village immediately. It could be just over the horizon for all we know."

"Think before you speak. We live in a plains environment, judging by where you entered the village, it would have to cross the river. There isn't a single bridge along the entire stretch of the river, so there's no way it can get to us. Even if it could make it across, there's no way for it to escape the sunlight. This village is safe, for now. We just have to notify the archmagi. They're the ones who can easy organize a subjugation team. There's one problem though…"

"Let me guess, you aren't on good terms with them either?"

"It's not that, but we're going to have a talk about what you just said after this is done. I am in fine relations with the capital, but I don't pull enough weight to get a message through to them. You know how they are about receiving letters. Anything signed with my name will be discarded before it is read because they know I'm not sending them anything that could mean trouble."

The knight looked at his lap for a few minutes, contemplating his options. He knew that for whatever reason, this woman cherished this town dearly. She never said it, but the message was evident in how she handled the knight. He looked up from his lap, the determination evident in his eyes, to the point where one could swear that they were glowing.

"I have a way to convince them. I know how to make sure they get the message." There was no turning back for him now, but he wanted to save this settlement and others like it.

"That's wonderful!" She exclaimed, the excitement all too evident in her voice.

"Before we get to that, you need to untie me first…"