"DO YOU TWO INTEND TO KILL EACH OTHER?" Eilda asked Furiously.
Lequiss and Jildelmn pulls back their weapon, as they pull back, Eilda immediately collapses on her knees and upon collapsing, Lequiss sheathes his sword and immediately goes to her aid.
"Eilda! Are you alright?!" Asked Lequiss, looking concerned as he kneels down to her level to check up on her. "I'm fine." Eilda responded with heavy breathing that followed.
*Huff* *Huff* *Huff* Eilda looks at both of her knuckles, they were bleeding. Lequiss sees this and grabs her arm and raises it. "You're bleeding!" Said Lequiss as he looks at her with a worried look.
Eilda looks at his worried face and thinks to herself. "This kid... Is he really that worried about me to make a face like that? We just barely met as well." Eilda feels a sweet feeling swell up inside her which makes her smirk a little.
"Don't worry, It's just blood. I'm fine." Said Eilda as she tries to stand up but she immediately sways back soon to fall but Lequiss grabs on to one of her hand saving her from falling and then places her arm on his shoulder, supporting her.
"Seems like you can't even stand up by yourself anymore. I'll help you walk so just hold onto me." Said Lequiss looking guilty. Eilda replies "Yeah, sorry I'll have to rely on you to walk for now."
Jildelmn at the back, disassembles his spear and puts everything he took out, back in his satchel, he then begins to ponder to himself while staring at his hand that held the spear he was weilding, he views his palm, filled with bruises. "Is it because I'm still injured? No, this kid..." Jildelmn looks at Lequiss with Eilda on his shoulder walking towards Mihikolo and Fylo.
"This kid is more powerful than I imagined! ...Not to mention the girl, Eilda was it? She withstood both of our attacks with her barehands!" Jildelmn thinks to himself as he lets out a grin. "This group might just be it!"
"E-Eilda! Are you alright?!" Asked Mihikolo as he checks around Eilda for any injuries. "I'm fine, don't worry. I just lost all my strength so I can't even walk anymore." Said Eilda to try and not make Mihikolo worry.
"Ah... THEN YOU'RE NOT FINE AT ALL! WHY WOULD YOU EVEN DO SOMETHING STUPID LIKE THAT?!" Mihikolo begins to loudly nag Eilda and she realized that he was right and didn't rebute anything.
"Stop being so damn loud." Said Jildelmn as he's walking towards them. "Just let her get some rest if she lost all her strength rather than nag her like that."
"W-What?! And whose fault do you think it is for this to happen?! If only yo-"
"It's fine, I don't need to rest. We need to get out of the forest first before anything else.." Eilda interrupts Mihikolo, they all look at her. "Are you sure you don't need to rest, Eilda?" Asked Fylo.
"Yeah we don't have any more food or water so we can't afford to stay here any longer." Eilda responded. "It's fine if you don't want to rest but at least take care of those knuckle of yours." Said Jildelmn, looking directly at her knuckles dripping a bit of blood. "Ah yes, you're right."
"Why? What happened to your knuckles?" Asked Mihikolo but as he looked at her knuckles he saw the blood dripping and instantly became concerned again. "Eilda! Your knuckles are bleeding! You aren't fine at all!" Mihikolo grabs Eilda's hand that wasn't holding on to Lequiss and takes a closer look. Upon closer inspection, Eilda's knuckles are just bleeding a little and it seemed like nothing serious.
Mihikolo sighs a sigh of relief. "Looks like it's nothing that serious. Looks like it bled from hitting something extremely hard. Wrapping some cloth around it will probably help." Mihikolo suggested. "What cloth will we use though boss? We don't have any cloth around?" Asked Fylo.
"Uhhh" Mihikolo begins to look around the area, the once before open field surrounded by trees, now looks decimated. With the ground having less than half of it's grass left and most of the trees surrounding it being rooted from the ground. "Did you really have to decimate the entire field?"
"Over there." Lequiss points to their left. "What? What's there?" They look over to where Lequiss pointed and sees one of the cloaks they slept on, hanging on a branch of one of the trees. "Ah! Our cloak!" Said Mihikolo as Jildelmn passes beside him already walking towards the cloak.
"I'll go grab it, so just put her down for now since we're not going right away anyway." Said Jildelmn. "Alright." Lequiss puts down Eilda and lays Eilda down on her back on the ground as he kneels down on her side.
"Are you really sure you're fine, Eilda?" Lequiss asks once more. Eilda replies. "I told you, I'm fine since both of your attacks..."
Eilda pauses for a second. "They didn't even land on my fists..."
?!?!
"What?! What do you mean?!" Asked Mihikolo.
"Think about it, if that kind of attack would've landed on me, how is it possible that I would only have suffered minor bruises in my knuckles?" Asked Eilda with what seemed like a tone of anticipation for Mihikolo to answer.
"You're right, with that kind of power, it wouldn't have only bruised your knuckles... It would've broken your entire arm!" Answered Mihikolo.
"Exactly." Eilda looks at Lequiss as she then grins at him.
Lequiss was surprised by her grin.
Eilda says with astonishment in her voice, "They both stopped before they could hit my fists. Just the shockwave... Just the shockwave from them stopping their attacks alone cause all this!" Eilda looks at the decimated forest.
"What are you talking about?" Jildelmn appears behind Mihikolo, holding the cloak in his hand "Nothing, just how strong you two are." Said Eilda with a sly smirk.
"Here." Jildelmn hands the cloak over to Mihikolo as he hands the cloth he then crosses his arms and turns around. "I know me and Lequiss are strong but I didn't think you were that strong too. I put all the strength I could muster into that swing and I could say the same to Lequiss, yet you withstood both." Jildelmn praises her.
Mihikolo tears a piece of the cloak and wraps it tightly around one of Eilda's hand while Eilda began to chuckle. "Ahahaha, I was able to withstand it? It didn't even touch me yet it took all of my strength just to try and block it... Although if there's one thing I could be proud then it's my fist! Other than my speed of course, hahaha-" Eilda came upon a realization. "But wait... You knew Lequiss is strong...?" Asked Eilda.
"Yeah? He's a chosen one, it's already a given he's going to be strong." Said Jildelmn. "Then what was the point of challenging him to a duel?!" Asked Eilda.
"Although it is a given he'll be strong since he's a chosen one but that didn't mean he was stronger than me." Jildelmn looks at Lequiss. "He still had to prove it, that's why I challenged him and although he didn't beat me, he proved his strength to not be weaker than mine which is more than enough for me to follow him." Explained Jildelmn.
"No, I'm definitely stronger than you!" Lequiss remarks as he starts to grin. Jildelmn was surprised by his remark. "What?" he uncrosses his arms and turns to Lequiss. Lequiss looks back at him with a mocking grin and suddenly sticks his tongue out in a mocking way. "Blehhh! Did you really think I went all out against someone injured? I'm definitely stronger than you! Hahahaha!"
Jildelmn with an annoyed expression, grits his teeth and was about to confront Lequiss but stops midway, he begins to contemplate a bit and eventually backs down. "Hmph." He crosses his arm again. "If that wasn't your full strength then that's even better."
Lequiss begins to laugh. "Hahaha! Don't worry, that was far from my best! So keep expecting!" Remarked Lequiss with a proud tone. Jildelmn looks at his proud expression. "Is that so? ...Anyhow, are you finished wrapping up her knuckles?" Jildelmn asks as he looks over at Eilda.
"Yeah the bleeding already stopped before I wrapped the cloth so I just wrapped it around her knuckles tightly." Mihikolo answers him. "Good then are we all set to go alre-"
"Over here!" A sudden voice inside the forest interrupts Jildelmn. "It came from this direction!" The voice sounding closer and closer. Lequiss stands up and looks at the direction where the voice came from, he places his hand on the hilt of his sword. Jildelmn also faces the same direction, he uncrosses his arms.
"I'll help too. " Says Eilda as she tries to get up but fails and falls back on her back.. "Stay down. We'll handle this." Jildelmn stops her. "And you two, just protect Eilda." Jildelmn instructs Mihikolo and Fylo.
"What happened here? Why're the trees like this?" The voice sounding in a close distance now. "There." Fylo points at one of the fallen tree, the leaves of the tree were moving, something was moving it. Lequiss and the others readies themselves, they wait as the movements inside the leaves get closer and closer.
A hand emerges inside the leaves, the hand pushes away the rest of the leaves, revealing where the hand came from, a middle age man in light metal armor with a small symbol on his chest, his face can't was covered by a helmet but you could clearly see a deep scar on his left eye all whilst carrying a sword in his waist.
"Right here! This is where it came from!" The guy in armor shouts behind him and soon followed two other people emerging from the leaves with the same attire as the first person, two young looking man wearing the same attire. They step out of the tree's leaves and walks forward, they look around the area as if scoping it out, they saw everything devastated. "Hmmm, Just what could've cause all this?" The middle aged man comments as he inspects the area. They continue moving forward till they saw Lequiss and the others, as they saw them, they come to a stop and immediately went on guard.
"Who are you people?! Are you the ones who caused this?!" Asked the middle aged man. Jildelmn stares at them and answers. "So what if we are?" The people in armor take out their sword upon hearing his answer. "So you admit that you are the cause of the explosion? Surrender yourselves or else we'll take you by force!"
Lequiss takes out his sword in response while Jildelmn was already in the midst of assembling his spear. "I just disassembled this a moment ago, what a hassle." Eilda raises her head to view the situation and then looks at the people in armor, upon seeing them she was surprised and immediately spoke. "Wait! We'll surrender! We'll surrender!" Eilda suddenly shouts.
!!!
Everybody was taken aback by Eilda's sudden shout.
"Oh? So you're surrendering yourselves? Then drop your weapons and approach us slowly! We'll be detaining you!"
"W-What do you mean Eilda?!" Asked Mihikolo.
"What're you planning Eilda?" Asked Jildelmn.
"I'm not planning anything. Just don't resist them!" Answered Eilda.
"Then who are they? Seems like you know them." Jildelmn asks.
"See that phoenix-like symbol on their chest?" Eilda points at their chest with a symbol of a blue bird seemingly covered in blue flames rising up. "That symbol is the symbol of the knight order in Laraposa."
This surprises them.
"Is that right?" Jildelmn asks as he continues on looking at the symbol in thought. "Yeah, no doubt about it. When I was living here, I always saw that symbol all around Laraposa." Eilda answered.
"Do you just live everywhere...?" Mihikolo jokingly asks.
"What are you talking about! Drop your weapons already!" The middle aged man instructs them to drop their weapon as he points his sword at them, the two young man also points their weapon at the group.
Jildelmn stares at the knights seemingly eyeing them up and down. "Well! What are you waiting for! Drop the weapons!" And after one more warning, Jildelmn finally complies and he lowers his weapons, Lequiss follows his lead and sheathes back his sword. "If they are from Laraposa then it would be better to follow them than to walk around aimlessly in this forest." Said Jildelmn.
"Finally you're complying!" The knights slowly approaches the group, not letting their guard down and as they got within reach of the group, the middle aged knight looks at the two young knights and says. "Take out the ropes, we're binding them, they might still be dangerous." The middle aged knight instructs them and the two young man hurriedly grabs and takes out a rope hanging on their waist.
"What?" Jildelmn glares at them, the two young man were instantly intimidated just from his stare alone. "What do you mean, what? We're tying you up! If you're the cause of that explosion earlier then you're too dangerous to just be let loose!" The older knight answered as he looks back at Jildelmn without getting intimidated, they stare at each other for a couple of second till Jildelmn drops his gaze, he clicks his tongue and says "Do what you want."
The older knight signals the two young man to apprehend the group and the two young man follows, they approach Lequiss and quickly ties up his arms, Lequiss didn't resist at all. The two young man then proceeds to tie up Mihikolo and Fylo's arms next, then one of them gets to Jildelmn, the young man nervously approaches Jildelmn slowly, the young man grabs both Jildelmns arm and ties them up. The young man was still slightly intimated at first but calmed down at the end as Jildelmn didn't resist one bit.
"Have you finished tying everyone up?" Asked the older knight.
"Yeah, we've got everyone except this woman here. She's just lying there, she seems to be injured." One of the young man responded.
"Huh?" The older knight takes a look at Eilda. "What happened to her?" Asked the older knight. Mihikolo answers "Well... The cause of the explosion and what happened to her are the same thing."
"Then are you entailing that you lot aren't the cause of the explosion?" Asked the older knight. Jildelmn gets near Lequiss and says "We are the cause of the explosion." he raises his tied up hand and points his thumbs at Lequiss.
"What? You two caused it? How did yo- No, interrogating you here would just be a waste of time. Let's go back to the Kingdom and interrogate them there." The older knight turns around and starts walking off to the direction they came from.
"But Sir Ruder, what will we do about this woman?" Asked one of the young man. The older knight stops and looks back at the group, he looks at Eilda and then at someone else. He turns back around and says "Just let the man with the blue hair carry her, he caused her to be like that right? And he seems to be pretty strong." The older knight continues walking.
"You heard Sir Ruder, carry her." One of the young man instructs Jildlemn. "How am I going to carry her while being tied up like this?" Asked Jildelmn as he flaunts around his tied up hands. "We don't know, just carry her!" Answered one of the young man, Jildelmn sighs and just complies, he then walks upto Eilda and kneels down, he grabs her slim waist and then he raises her up then puts her in his shoulder, he then stands up, his hands still on her, supporting so she wouldn't fall. He walks upto the young knights.
"Well, what are we waiting for? Lead the way already." Said Jildelmn. The two young knight seperated and one went behind the group and the other still in the front then they went on to follow the direction the older knight went to, while Lequiss's group followed closely behind.
They went in the forest again, the group still don't know the way but now they have someone they can follow, they kept following the young knight in front of them and kept walking behind till they saw the older knight in a distance, still walking. They walked a bit faster to catch up to the older knight, the group sped up too.
"Sir Ruder! Wait up!" Shouted the young knight in front. The older knight continued walking but turned his head to look behind. "Faster!" Shouted the older knight in a demanding tone. "We still have to make rounds after this!" After the older knight says that, the young knight in front hurried to his tracks, and the rest just followed in pursuit, then soon they were able to reach the older knight.
They continued walking with the older knight now in front and soon enough after walking just a little bit more they saw a light coming in to the forest in the distance, they walked towards the direction of the light "We're finally getting out of this damned forest!" Angrily remarked Mihikolo and finally they did make it out of the forest but the group stopped, they were surprised by what met them as soon as they got out the forest except Eilda.
"Hey! Who told you to stop! Keep walking!" Ordered the young knight behind the group. The group was still surprised and didn't move till Lequiss broke their shock. "Woaaaaaahhh!!! That's so big!" Astonishingly said Lequiss, what the group saw in the distance was a kingdom like structure with massive walls, similar to the walls of the Civite but were about 10x bigger and longer, to the point you couldn't see what was inside even from a distance and on the walls were several banners with the same symbol of a blue phoenix in the knight's chest.
"What a big city! It's far bigger than Civite!" Remarked Mihikolo.
"It seems more like a kingdom than a city." Remarked Jildelmn.
"Because it is... The Kingdom of Laraposa." Said the older knight, getting further away as he didn't stop walking yet he heard him.
"Hoh? A Kingdom, huh?" Remarked Jildelmn.
"A Kingdom? I bet there'll be a lot of interesting things there with how big it is!" Lequiss grins with an expectant gaze.
"Don't worry, we'll definitely see a lot of those if we're going to the Adventurer's guild...!"