Lahnthean Aria

5

"If it were that easy, it wouldn't have been treated as a rite of passage."

His mentor's words echoed in his head as he effortlessly skipped from one stone step to another on his way down the mountain. The old man was right yet again and he hated it. He hated how he was wrong, and how all his preparations had been for nothing.

Noorh planned the k********g of Alessa Dia since he learned of her existence. He had been so close to achieving his goal until a weak-looking stranger meddled and ended up being summoned into his world instead.

"Mr. Kidnapper!"

The memory of her accusing voice made him flinch.

Yes, the "great and respectable" Noorh was a kidnapper and he cruelly victimized an innocent girl after failing to accomplish his mission. He paused after softly landing his feet on the thirty-fifth stone step protruding from the cliff wall.

He was furious and frustrated.

That was why he ran away. If he stayed, he would have released his anger on the sacred stone pillars and burned the dimensional gate to the ground. He needed to release the pent up rage inside him so he leaped down the stone steps, one after another, letting the icy wind chip away at his flaring temper.

Noorh's mind wandered through painful memories, broken promises and unwavering convictions; seeking possible solutions and calculating possibilities.

Something didn't go as planned somewhere along his preparations for the task. He was sure that his heart and mind had been set at Alessa Dia, which would explain how she almost fell into the portal. Yet the universe sent him someone else by inserting an unforeseen variable into the picture.

He would return home a failure. He could already imagine his teacher telling him "I told you so."

Noorh bitterly grumbled and turned around.

The woman - Kiran, was it? - should be done counting to a hundred by then. He smirked when he realized she might have even stopped counting before then, like she did when she counted to ten and turned around to check on him the first time. She could already be aware of his absence.

He glanced up at the towering set of stone steps surrounding the pillar-shaped mountain, and wondered what the young woman might be doing at that very moment.

According to historical accounts, people like her were meek and helpless. They easily trusted whoever they met first because they didn't know much about the world. If he told the woman to count to a hundred then, she should have done so accordingly.

Yet she previously counted to ten instead, and turned around to check if he was still there.

Noorh narrowed his eyes at the stone steps. On top of keeping his target Alessa Dia away from him, the young woman also seemed to show signs of being different from other summoned maidens.

"She couldn't be making her way down these steps, could she?" The safest course of action for her was to wait patiently like a good girl in the meadow.

"Where do you think you're going?! Are you leaving me here?"

He flinched, his gut telling him that she wasn't the type to sit around like a typical damsel in distress. If she did try to make her way down the stairs and failed, he would have noticed her falling off the cliff.

That meant if she did hike down the steps, she had managed to descend from the meadow successfully so far. He could simply meet her at the steps and take her to the bottom of the mountain with him.

The cliff wall suddenly grumbled; the stone steps trembling underneath his feet.

He gasped as realization dawned on him. The eleventh step was situated next to the cave of the mountain's guardian. Could the rumbling mean she was there, and she had woken it up?!