Realizing their time was limited, Lina looked out into the storm. The rain didn’t ease at all. If anything, it felt worse. It swallowed every sound, and for a moment it was as if the forest itself had awakened from a deep slumber. Rustles and low groans filled the air, branches shifting and creaking as though something vast moved beneath the canopy. Even the shadows seemed to slide between the trees, draping the newly awakened forest in a cloak of darkness that refused to grant Lina even a moment of ease.

  The wind howled through the trees, carrying with it soot colored leaves that looked more like ravens than foliage.

  “How the hell are we supposed to get out of here? Look at that storm,” Lina said, her voice half frustration, half disbelief.

  The boy shifted, wincing slightly as he leaned back against the wall. “Look, you know how we emit mana even when we’re not casting, right?”

  “Right, but it’s only a small amount.”

  “Yeah, well, size doesn’t matter here,” he said with weary eyes. “Mana beasts in this forest are far more sensitive than those outside. Something in this place is making them stronger and more intelligent—probably the dense natural mana or something like that.”

  “If there’s that much natural mana around, shouldn’t it hide ours?” Lina frowned. “When I tried magic earlier, it felt heavier. I had to push harder. That means my mana was being suffocated by the natural mana, right?”

  The boy stared at her, dumbfounded, a mix of disbelief and faint amusement flashing across his face. “Nee- I mean miss, natural mana and human mana are totally different. Even when I use natural mana I—”

  He froze mid-sentence.

  Lina’s stomach twisted. It was one thing to suspect, another to hear him almost admit it. For a moment, she forgot the storm, the beasts—everything but the strange, heavy weight of that realization. Either it was the fever making him careless or he wasn’t a good liar in the first place, he said he was able to use natural mana, another trait that Albrecht mentioned belong to Kagemori.

  So despite the unlikely circumstances, that remark convinced Lina that the boy was indeed a Kagemori, like Vierna. That made keeping him alive more important than ever. If they could bring a Kagemori to Leopold, maybe they could bargain for Vierna’s pardon.

  Lina quickly snapped out of her mind. She needs to make sure that the boy still thought she was clueless. “Something wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he muttered quickly, looking away. “It’s just… common knowledge. Anyway, under normal circumstances my spell could cloak both of our mana, but as you can see I am not in my best condition, so the best I could do was hide one person.”

  “Are you saying that I should go away so you could hide here alone?”

  “Yes, but iam not going to let you die out there, I need to repay you after all.”

  The boy traced a rune in the air, a faint whitish sigil shimmering to life before him. Then, without hesitation, he reached inside it—his hand sinking past the glowing surface as if the light itself were liquid—and pulled out a small, pot-shaped device.

  Lina observed the object. It was covered in runic markings, but none she recognized. They weren’t the angular lines or looping curves of the Reich’s scripts. These looked alien, dense, compact strokes that seemed to twist in on themselves, like someone had tried to turn a painting into a language. Each mark carried a strange rhythm, as if written by someone who thought in shapes instead of words. To Lina, it was both beautiful and deeply unsettling, like staring at a page that she knew should make sense but didn’t belong to her world at all.

  “Lend me your knife,” Axel said.

  Lina handed it over, watching warily. The boy straightened and forced himself upright, folding his legs neatly beneath him in a posture that looked practiced, almost ceremonial. His breathing slowed, becoming steady and deliberate. He muttered something under his breath—soft, rhythmic words in a language Lina didn’t recognize. The syllables were sharp and fluid at once, nothing like Reich dialects.

  For someone who tried so hard to hide his identity, the boy wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Maybe, despite everything, he really was just a boy after all.

  Without hesitation, he turned the blade toward his inner forearm and drew a clean, shallow cut across the skin. Blood welled up instantly and ran down his wrist in thin, dark lines. He tilted his arm over the small device, letting the drops fall into its narrow mouth. Each one landed with a soft, wet sound, spreading slowly inside the metal.

  Then blood inside the pot shimmered faintly, the runes along its surface flickering to life for a heartbeat before dimming again. The air around him seemed to thicken, heavy with the copper scent of blood and something older—like the moment before lightning struck.

  “What the hell are you doing? You’ve already lost enough blood,” Lina hissed, stepping closer.

  Axel didn’t respond. His face was turning paler by the second, the color draining until his skin looked almost translucent. His breathing grew uneven. A faint tremor ran through his fingers as he kept the arm steady, and his lips parted as if to speak, but no words came. His gaze unfocused for a moment, and Lina saw the dull sheen of sweat gathering at his temples—signs of a body pushed far beyond what it should endure.

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  Finally, Axel stopped whatever he was doing. The hand holding the knife slackened, slipping from his grasp. His shoulders sagged forward before his body gave out completely, collapsing onto the cold stone floor with a dull thud. The faint light from the runes flickered as his head turned to the side, his breathing shallow and labored.

  Axel reached out to Lina, the small object trembling in his hand.

  “When you get out of this place,” he said weakly, “pour some mana into this. It will hide you from the mana beasts. But it’s not as good as it should be, so you need to get out as soon as you can.”

  Lina took the pot-shaped object from him. Inside, she could see the dark swirl of his blood, filling barely a quarter of it. The metallic scent stung her nose, thick and warm.

  She looked back at Axel. “Then what about you?”

  “I’ll be fine… don’t worry.”

  He tried to smile, but it came out faint and brittle, his lips pale and trembling. For a second, she almost believed him—until his eyes fluttered, unfocused, and his breath rasped again. That tiny, pitiful sound shattered any illusion of strength he still had left.

  Leaving him here… it wasn’t an option. He’d collapse before she even reached the forest edge. She told herself it was practicality—that letting him die would waste all the effort she’d spent keeping him alive—but that wasn’t the full truth. Somewhere beneath that logic, a quieter thought lingered: if she walked away now, she’d be no better than those who had turned their backs on Vierna.

  Still, when she looked at him—half-conscious, trembling, a boy who would surely die if left alone—something twisted in her chest. It wasn’t pity exactly, just a quiet sense that walking away would be wrong. Whatever he was hiding, whatever he’d done, no one deserved to die like this.

  “No,” Lina said quietly. “You’re coming with me.”

  “Miss… like I said, I’m not in my best condition. The spell only hides one person. The more it hides, the more blood it feeds on. If we both go, it won’t last long… so just get out by yourself.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t have a choice in the matter.”

  “Where are you going to take me?”

  “To the village, of course.”

  His pupils shrank. His throat bobbed in a hard swallow, and his fingers clawed weakly at the blanket as if searching for an anchor.

  “No! Just leave me here! Don’t take me to that place!”

  “But you’re going to die here! Whatever’s in that village won’t kill you. The cold here definitely will.”

  “No!”

  Lina scratched her head, exasperated.

  “Okay, fine! My friend’s got a hideout outside the village,” she lied. “I’ll put you there and look after you until you’re fit enough to walk away. Happy?”

  “You’re lying. You’re going to take me to that village.”

  “Look, it’s not like I’m gonna knock you out or something. If you see me dragging you toward the village, you can fight me off or whatever.”

  “Are you stupid? In this condition, how could I fight you off?”

  “In this condition you’re going to die,” Lina shot back. “And I seriously hate repeating myself. So either you die out here and never get to do… whatever the hell you came into this forest for, or you trust the girl who literally saved your life not to dump you in some village. Your choice.”

  The boy looked like he wanted to argue more, but his eyes suddenly went distant—glazed, fixed on nothing, unresponsive. Lina waved a hand in front of his face, getting no reaction.

  Eventually, the blankness faded. His gaze came back into focus.

  “Okay… fine. But don’t bring me to the village, okay?”

  Lina nodded and stood up and tore another strip from her skirt. The fabric ripped unevenly, leaving the hem riding even higher up her thigh. She flushed, but her hands didn’t stop moving. Embarrassment was a luxury she couldn’t afford. She knelt beside him again, tying the cloth tightly around the wound he had made, ignoring how her fingers slipped slightly from the blood.

  As she tightened the knot, she whispered, “Don’t you fucking die after I went through all that trouble saving you.”

  The boy didn’t replied, just looking away avoiding her gaze.

  She exhaled shakily, pushing stray hair from her face. Then she stretched her limbs, sliding everything she didn’t need into her storage rune. The faint light of the runes reflected in her eyes like embers refusing to die out. She tapped her pocket; the cylindrical object was still there.

  Then she went to the tea she had brewed earlier.

  “Here, drink this.” She said as she put the pot in front of Axel.

  Axel eyed the pot as if it contained poison. His hand twitched toward it, then pulled back; his posture tightened, legs drawing slightly inward.

  “What is this?” he asked, voice guarded.

  “It’s Veilfern tea. It’s for your fever. We’re about to push through the storm, and I’m hoping it’ll keep the cold off you a bit.”

  He still didn’t take it. Suspicion clung to his face like a shadow.

  Lina let out a sharp exhale. “Unbelievable…” She snatched the pot back and raised it to her lips.

  “Look,” she said.

  She crouched, then took a small mouthful of the tea. She opened her mouth to show that the tea was indeed inside. Then she swallowed with an exaggerated gulp. After that, she opened her mouth again, sticking her tongue out a bit to prove it was gone.

  “There. Happy?”

  She pushed the pot toward him again.

  “Now quit being a pain in the ass and drink.”

  Axel hesitated only a second longer before finally relenting, taking the pot, and drinking the tea she made.

  “Good,” Lina said. She crouched beside him and turned her back. “Now get on.”

  Alex blinked, confused. “What?”

  “I said get on. I’m not dragging you like a sack of grain.”

  “Nee-san… no,” he muttered, shaking his head weakly. “We’ll both… get killed.”

  Lina shot him a sharp look over her shoulder. “Either you get on my back, or I carry you like a princess. Your choice.”

  For a moment, Alex just stared at her, caught between disbelief and what little pride he had left. Then, with a strained sigh, he gave in. Lina helped guide his arms around her shoulders, steadying him as his weight settled against her back.

  His breath was shallow against her ear, the warmth of it uneven, fading in and out. His weight pressed against her back, warmer than she expected. For a second, it felt absurd—storm raging outside, beasts waiting in the dark, and here she was arguing about how to carry a half-dead stranger. A quiet, bitter laugh almost escaped her.

  For a fleeting moment, this reminds Lina of her younger friends back then who keep asking her for piggy back. And yet she shook the memory, the time for nostalgia has gone now.

  “Good boy,” she muttered, adjusting her grip under his knees. “Now hold on.”

  Lina looked at the storm outside. The wind was still blowing hard, carrying the crow-like leaves, but she braced herself. After all, she was carrying a way out of her problem. She steeled her nerves and stepped outside, walking into the black forest from which not even light itself could escape.