Einder Bloodline

Chapter 7: Naked

Right now, I'm running. As fast as I possibly could, with all my strength I ran. As if my life is on the line I run.

"IT LITERALLY IS ON THE LINE! SHMIT!" Unconsciously, he vulgarly cursed under his breath with the language that would probably get his foster mother mad at him for uttering.

‘I can't regret doing this, now can I? If I didn't do this then Hannah would've been in danger. Yeah, what I'm doing is right. It's gonna work out somehow, right? I can do this! Faster! I just need to run even faster! That's it. I don't have to think about anything else. All I need to do is just run.’

And while he was in the middle of psyching himself up, he, who had only brought with himself the bare minimum, have not even brought himself any footwear thus resulting in him magnificently tripping. He tripped because he didn't even think of where I was going, no, he did not even have the time to think, and before he knew it, he was already at the edges of Zone 9.

He was approaching the last place where he would want to be in. Cray had accidentally dragged her all the way to the entrance of zone 10, a place that mostly consisted of trees and at times, wild beasts.

He immediately picked himself up and prepared to start another dash but before he could even do so, a loud screech echoed out.

"No way! How could the front line be passed through? Argh! Today is such a bad day! I've been sent all the way here to this stinking place only to play chase with a boy who's wearing nothing but a towel on his waist! And now even a monster's going to get in my way!" The Lady was fuming with rage as she switched targets and ran towards the direction of where the screech was coming from.

Meanwhile, while Cray was still down, the earth started shaking with loud thumps that were moving towards his direction. A creature was single-handedly mowing down trees with its large frame. Its body looks like a mix of a Lion with an Eagle like head together with its wings that were bleeding. Its eyes were Crimson Red as it stared in my direction.

Luckily the lady went towards the direction of the monster. Cray then whispered under his breath "Now I'll just let these two fight while I'll quickly make my way out of here."

Feeling relieved, he can finally start to see the hope of escaping the crazy woman who kept on chasing him. “Now I better run before the fight finishes, because if either of the two won it would still be bad for me.” Of course, he did not regret letting the woman face off against the monstrosity in front of him. He already guessed that the woman should be capable of killing the winged monster, or else she wouldn’t possibly try to face off against it in the first place.

Cray then silently sneaked back as he faced the direction of Hannah's house to meet up with her again. But just as he was about a few meters away from those two, he noticed that the creature that had been screeching every now and then had now turned silent. Then came the sound of something huge falling down the ground. He didn't want to believe that something had already happened to the towering creature that was energetically mowing down trees just a minute ago. But as he slowly turned his face around he saw the exact moment that the lady had beheaded the beast. She showed a very cold and cruel expression.

‘No good. At this rate, it's no use to run away. I'm already out of breath but she still looks fine even after fighting that monster. If it's like this then she would eventually catch me and when that happens then at worse, I would have to face the same fate as that creature that easily died in front of her sword. My only hope now would be to reason with her. Come to think of it she wouldn't have chased me and would've just killed me if she wanted to, after all, she did not even try to take any aggressive measures towards me.’

Cray then decided to calm himself down as he instead walked towards the lady who was still emitting intense killing intent. "He-Hey!" He shouted with his voice nearly cracking due to him being unsure of his plans that is why he became so nervous that even his palms were filled to the brim with sweat.

The lady noticing him looked his way and smiled. "Oh, so you're not running away this time huh? Well, I guess that's good for me, I wouldn't spend any more time chasing you if you'd be willing to come with me obediently. She then sheathed her sword at her waist and jumped off the corpse of the monster, then she slowly walked towards Cray. Every step she took made Cray even more scared as he could feel her bloodlust a whole lot closer now more than ever before, especially since she had just finished a battle and right now she was focusing solely on him.

Seeing as she might be reasoned with as she did not merely execute orders as is and the proof of that is with her being too chatty, Cray calmed himself down with one heavy breath. "What's your objective?" he almost choked just by talking to her directly face to face. Luckily it didn’t seem to be that much apparent. 

"Judging from your clothes and the way you conduct yourself should be a noble right? And from the two stars on your badge, you should have a high rank and your status should be upon the level of a marquis. What is a person of your status doing here in a faraway place?"

‘Right now all I can do is get more information before she does anything to me. I need to at least know what's going to happen to me. But seriously why would someone at her rank come after me? She could've just sent some lower-ranking knights instead. It seems that someone even higher ranked than even her had instructed her to come here. But why? Am I actually in that much of a danger?’

"You're pretty good for still being able to talk normally in front of me. I commend you for that. Since you managed to ask me that question then I'll answer you, I am the daughter of the margrave Grenfell, Leader of the Chivalric Order of the Silver Wings, Alect Louise Grenfell." The lady proudly introduced herself as she looked at Cray with contempt. "Rejoice for I have answered your question, you damned peasant! Now hurry up and offer yourself to me!" Her lips were arched with a very big smile as she seemed to take pleasure from imagining the rewards that were promised to her just for capturing this boy unharmed.

"Honestly, chasing you all the way here was a huge waste of time. If you just did this right from the start, then neither of us would be tired from this cat chase."

‘After hearing all that, I didn't know what to do anymore. I’ve never been so helpless my entire life. First of all, I didn't want to offer myself to her. Who knows what might happen to me if I were to be captured. And although it might sound stupid saying it right now in this situation, I also don't want to go with her only looking like this. I mean all I'm wearing is just a piece of towel, nothing more. It’s just a towel, okay? It’s perfectly normal to feel unsafe wearing this piece of clothing outside. I’m practically naked if some wind blows it away!’

Thus, he ran. He couldn't help but run. Not because she was too scary or anything, it was because his towel was undone right after he thought that it might be, and when it did he felt nothing but shame. He could’ve tried to catch the towel with his hands before it was blown far away by the wind, but he instinctively covered his nether regions first.

So, after everything that has happened, he was now too embarrassed to go with her naked. But while he was running Alect was already at his back and in pursuit.

"I didn't want to do this, but since you're not very cooperative, I'll just knock you out!" Alect then used the handle of her sword to knock him out by heavily hitting him on the back of his head.