It felt as if pain was being pumped through his leg instead of the blood it should receive and he could not move his right arm at all. Emp didn't remember if he screamed in pain or not.

He didn't remember placing the unnameable of chaos in his bag but he apparently had done so right after the thing died.

What he did remember was Connie enduring the pain of her own crushed limb and giving out orders. She had no choice since her second in command had fallen unconscious again.

She asked everyone that could walk to carry those that couldn't and the dead. She wanted everyone to run back to the village. If there was to be any other fight, they were in no shape to defend themselves.

Since no one still alive seemed in critical condition, she chose to wait for the safety of the village before asking Jaska to check the injuries of everyone.

She had no intention of stopping to rest before they were back in the village. Since they didn't have to worry about stealth and looking for clues and tracks anymore, the way back should be much faster than the two days it took them to reach this place.

They had to leave a bunch of supplies and equipment behind to carry everyone. Emp would have taken everything in his bag but apparently he didn't, this was one of the moments he missed.

In the time between then and when they reached the village, he kept dozing off only to be woken up by pain. He would feel is consciousness drift away from the loud voices, exclamations of all kinds and the maddening pain then suddenly, his eyes would open widely in shock.

In those moments, he would hurriedly check around himself to try to make sense of what was happening around him. He had no idea for how long he had been dragged, how much they still had to travel before getting back to the village or even who were dragging him. he did understand they were huntresses however, he was too feverish from the pain to see which ones they were.

Then, he was in the village, right at the gate, Marcy was absolutely furious. He had never seen her scream so loudly at someone before. She was unleas.h.i.+ng a h.e.l.lish storm of words upon Connie. She would be so mad at him too because he chose to fight instead of run, he just knew it. After the whole battle had really started, it had never really seemed like a great idea to run, he was too determined to defeat it.

His next clear memory was of both the village healer and Jaska trying to remove his armor from him. The whole leg part of it was in tiny pieces, irreparable junk, completely destroyed. When they unclasped his chest protector and remove the back of his armor, they had to remove all layers of it together because apparently, the back had been fused in a purple melted mess. The skin of his back was burnt by the heated metal but he had luckily escaped the fate of his armor.

Marcy had to bring a pair of large pincers to cut open the chainmail and the under layer in order to free him from it. He remembered her serious face between him and the orange evening sky as she did her work.

His next memory was of him getting carried on a large plank towards the house. Somehow, the pain had been lessened but they kept his leg under a large piece of cloth so he couldn't see how it looked like. A crowd had gathered around the huntresses and the injured, a large chunk of it followed him as he was getting moved. All of them were faces he knew but he was in no shape to greet them, it was hard to keep his head together.

On his way, he caught a glimpse of Gilbert Champom, he had a deep frown on his face. The apple flashed in his head, how he had blinded the monster with it. Without it, he felt he may have died instead. He called out to Gilbert, raising his hand in the air.

"Gilbert! Help me!"

The teen pushed his way through the other faces and came to his side, keeping up with the moving speed of the plank.

"Help you? How!? I don't know how to heal!"

"Call I need to- Bring her here. I need to-"

"Got it brother! Calla. She's really not good with injuries but I'll try my best."

With that, he ran off and Emp lost another length of time to the abyss.

When he opened his eyes again, he was in the main room of Marcy's house. There weren't many people left here. There was Marcy, Bor, the healer and Calla. When he twitched and his eyes flew all over the room to recognize his surrounding, she froze in place. Her head couldn't decide if she should jump forward in worry for him or jump back in surprise from his sudden actions.

When he saw her clearly, he called her name.

Hearing this, her feet finally moved and she quickly found herself just by his side.

"Emp, are you... I..."

She didn't know what to tell him but it did not matter at all. He reached out to her with his left arm and wrapped it around her neck. He brought himself up to her as he dragged her down towards him and held her in a comforting embrace.

Her head ended up resting on his shoulder while his own was brought up close to her ear. It all happened too fast for her, she had not managed to react. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. She had not expected that Emp of all people would hug her so suddenly. She felt her face burning but she was unable to decide what to do about it.

She didn't want to pull away but she was afraid of hurting him further if she was to share that hug. Because the older villagers knew how she feared injuries, they had not told her how bad Emp's condition was exactly. She was scared of placing her hand in a wrong place and hurt him further. She could only keep her hand frozen in the air by her side.

His words reached her ear, they were filled with grat.i.tude.

"Your apple Calla, your apple saved us. Your apple saved me. Thank you."

A part of Emp brain told him that the apple itself hadn't saved them, anything else from the bag could have done the job. The rest of himself disagreed with that thought.

Anything else could have saved them but anything else could also have led them to death. There was no way to know. All he knew for sure was that the apple had worked and that apple was there because Calla gifted it to him.

He wanted her to know, he wanted her to feel how thankful he was for her seemingly little gift. From Vesa and his own observations he knew, when Calla didn't know what to do or say, she used food instead. That apple carried her wish for him to come back safely and it fulfilled its purpose.

He didn't know why it was so and he understood it made no sense but this was what had happened anyway. There was no magic in that apple, only her words and wishes. Yet, that ordinary green apple turned his fate around.

Calla felt a wave of pride and joy spread through her. She had helped him. She had not thought that something could have made her more happy than hearing that he had come back alive. Finally, her own arms held him close to her, returning the hug. His back felt oddly smooth from the burns she had not been told about. She didn't know how else to express how glad she was that he came back and that her apple had somehow helped.

After that, he lost track of what was happening around him again, pain overlapping reason and time.

His next memory was of Marcy trying to get his attention. Calla wasn't here anymore but it must not have been too long after since the healer was still explaining his condition to Marcy.

"His arm is just dislocated and his life isn't in any danger but I don't have the knowledge to fix his leg. Whether you believe it or not, Sophus said he can't either and the huntress only had enough components for her own people, her magic is dry."

"I feel like it's the exact same as last time." She was very frustrated. "Emp! Can ya hear me?"

"Marcy. I can, I need to tell you-"

"It can wait later. For now, we have to do something about yar leg. It's in pieces, I might have to bring ya all the way to Bêtéclair to have it fixed."

"But, it's important. It's about Chijou."

At that moment her face froze completely, it was as if she had been turned into stone. Only her eyes grew tenfold from the surprise. That was a name she had never expected him to utter.

Before he could say another word though, she had placed a hand over his mouth to stop him. Her eyes seemed to focus somewhere that wasn't here but her words were clear.

"Not now, it's not urgent is it? For now, I need to help ya or ya might lose yar leg. It needs to be tended to in the shortest time possible, the more time we waste the higher the chances of losing it increases. It's already very impressive ya can keep up a coherent speech at this point."

Was is leg really in such a bad shape? It was extremely painful and he couldn't move it but being unable to see it, he didn't know how bad it really was. Her eyes focused back onto him after a short pause.

"Do you understand what I'm saying? Focus on your leg! Now, tell me, can the other you do something about this? Can you find a healer?"

She removed her hand and waited for him to answer her.

His mind was sluggish because of the pain but he understood what she meant. All he had to do was tell the other him that he needed to find a healer before merging. He moved his left arm to his right side and tried to find his bag. He found out it wasn't there.

"Bag."

"Right, here."

She picked it up from his bed's side and gave it to him. He was on his bed? He had thought he was on the table. He placed his hand in the bag, he felt tired, somehow, his hand was slower than earlier when he hugged Calla. He found a paper and a quill he dragged out of it and let everything fall on the bed.

"Write what I need."

She had to do it for him because there was no way he would ever manage to write it with his left hand.

She gave him a short nod and wrote down a few lines before handing him back the paper. He didn't take the time to read it and placed it back in the bag.

"I'll find it and call myself back after."

"When you get back Emp, prepare yourself for the scolding of your life."

Emp got a bit worried by her words but the darkness swallowed him again before he could answer. He didn't even manage to tell her.

***

In Bêtéclair imperial school.

Emp had tried to look inside the bag for a second time but found nothing. He was waiting for the message telling him he could fetch his other self back but it was late to arrive. He had decided that the other him might have been busy with the huntresses.

If that was the case, it would be pointless to look all the time, it was best to wait and look back after longer. Instead, he left his bed and went to the main room to get himself some more water.

Here, Harriett was still up. Only illuminated by a candle melting on the table, she was just finis.h.i.+ng cleaning up the pot they had used for supper. Emp felt she worked too hard and should have gone to bed already.

"Harriett, you're still up? Aren't you tired?"

Emp asked her as he poured himself some water. He drank it but it was a bit displeasing. It had been out of the well for too long and now it was lukewarm. Since he was thirsty, he didn't complain and drank his whole cup while Harriett gave him an answer.

"Ah, master. I had thought you went to bed already..."

In the dark like that, she seemed very gloomy. Both her and Celtine acted strangely since he had become a lord protector two days ago. He had found really funny that it had been added on his hunting card in his list of t.i.ttles too, just under his name. Oh, he had almost gotten distracted again, he needed to ask her what was wrong.

"Harriett, is something bothering you? Both you and Celtine seem a little strange since the other day."

She seemed hesitant to speak but after Emp dragged a chair in front of her, she had no choice but to sit down and talk. With almost a full year behind him, Emp had learned that it was much easier to extract information from Harriett than Celtine. The mute girl had an easier time to hide things since she always thought about her words very carefully before writing them down.

If he wanted to know what was the problem, his chances of finding out were higher with Harriett. She was too loyal to hide anything at all from him.

"It's because of two things master. But, it's pointless to talk about it because master doesn't understand those kinds of things. We said nothing because we don't want to bother master with things he can't help with."

"I see."

Her answer was a bit troublesome to him. How come he couldn't help? Was it an emotional problem? Even if he didn't understand, he should still be able to fix the root of the problem no? If someone makes them sad, he just had to avenge them and everything would go back to normal. He felt bad too when they looked bothered all the time like that.

"Tell me anyway. Even if I can't help, I was told that saying what bothers you to someone else makes it a bit better anyway."

"Who told this to master?" She asked a bit surprised.

"Marcy, whom you haven't met yet. Now, will you say it?"

Harriett fidgeted on her chair but still told him what was bothering her.

"The first thing is about miss Mable and miss Aglaya. We're afraid that miss Mable will take you away from us like how my father's wife got rid of me and my mother."

That wasn't exactly what he had expected. Wait, did he have to beat himself up now?

"Miss Pierail wants you to get closer to miss Mable so she prepared a trap master would be unable to escape and now master is her lord protector. We fear that the more time you spend with them, the less you will spend with us. You even gave her one of those rings."

She even resented him giving Mable one of the rings?

Considering that he was now working as her protector, Emp had decided that the ring was an incredible advantage. He would be insane if he didn't give her one of the allegiance rings copy.

He had brought up the matter to her on the day right after the spars.

"Mable, I was thinking about something I would like you to do."

"Something you would like me to do?"

At that moment, he was walking through the corridors of the school with her, they were going towards the room used for the magic cla.s.s.

According to Galana, n.o.bles didn't like when those working for them called them by their name or asked them to do things. They were the ones that were supposed to be in control after all.

Mable however, wasn't displeased at all by that. Emp didn't believe she was that kind of person but even if she had been, she was his friend and he had always called her Mable before so he didn't think she would want that to change.

"Yes, I have a magic ring I would like you to wear."

"Oooh! A magic ring really? What does it do?"

She was very excited to hear about it. Celtine squeezed his head between her legs, she was either surprised he brought this up or annoyed he did.

He would not change his mind though, he eventually planned on giving one to almost everyone in cla.s.s and most of his friends in the village too.

"If you wear it, it will let me know all sorts of things about you, in particular, if you are in danger, the ring will tell me so that even if I am not beside you, I will be able to run to your room to help."

She seemed really impressed about the power of the ring. She loudly gasped and harbored a shocked expression.

Usually, magic trinkets were engraved with very small runes giving some strange property to them however, because of their small size, the effects were often weak or very limited. She had never heard of such a special effect on a thing this small before.

Instead of being worried about him receiving some information about her, she grabbed onto his arm and shook it wildly.

"This is amazing! Will you really give that to me? I want to see it quick, show me!"

With an amused smile, he pa.s.sed the ordinary iron ring onto her. She looked really disappointed. As she stared at the worthless piece of metal in her hand, she asked in disbelief.

"Are you sure that this is magic? Are you making fun of me?"

"No, it really is magic, put it on, you will see." He urged her with an even brighter smile.

Somehow, seeing her so downhearted made him feel very impatient to see the amazed expression she would make.

She did as she was asked and picked a finger at random to slide the ring on. Immediately, she was taken by surprise and gasped in shock as the ring changed its shape right in front of her eyes. He was right, she had an impressive reaction to show him, pleasing him greatly.

"It changed!"

"It did. It changes on its own according to how I feel about the wearer."

The new ring was sparkling and colorful. It now had a cheerful design all made in simple waves of colored metals and had a ruby sculpted to look like a strawberry as main ornament.

"It's so pretty! I love it. Thank you so much Emp. How can it be so special? How does it work?"

"It's because it was given to me by a G.o.d. This is why you can trust its ability."

"By a G.o.d? Is it really okay to give it to me then?"

n.o.body in their right mind would give something offered by a G.o.d to someone else. She didn't doubt that it had came from a G.o.d even if it was the part of the story that was the hardest to believe. Instead, she was only wondering if it was really fine for her to have it. She did not want to cause trouble for Emp. At least, not more than she already had.

"Of course its fine, its made just for this. It only works because I have one on my finger too. I already gave one to Celtine and Harriett."

"Oh, I see. So it was like that. I had thought you liked to give new rings to Celtine all the time but instead, was it the same that kept changing?"

Emp nodded to confirm her suspicion.

"Then I'll take it! Such a good thing, I'll be really upset if you don't come save me even though I'm wearing this."

"Don't worry, of course I will."

Later on, in the cla.s.s, she had proudly showcased the ring to Aglaya, ignoring the ability to warn him if she was in danger and only insisting on how it changed on its own and that it was Emp that gave it to her.

She had seemed very suspicious of his motives and he found the smile she gave him very embarra.s.sing. It was like he had been caught doing some mischief.

At least, now he knew that giving jewelry to someone else than Celtine and Harriett would earn him the stares of everyone. Because of the strange looks everyone gave him, the rest of the day felt a little strange. On the good side, the special task Aglaya gave him was on the path of success.

If the reactions of the others only mildly embarra.s.sed him, he dreaded how madam Blackbull would react. He would have a cla.s.s with her tomorrow and it would be the first since he became lord protector.

Speaking of tomorrow, he should pay attention to his current conversation with Harriett instead of thinking about the other day and quickly call back his other self.

She had been right to say he would not understand, he couldn't picture in his head a situation in which he would get rid of those two. To rea.s.sure her, he reached out to her and held her hand in a manner that would show off the ring clearly.

"I have no desire to set either of you aside. You only have to look at the ring to know don't you? I do not want to spend less time with you either. You should know better, we talked about this not too long ago. It is true I do not understand anything about emotions and the matters of the heart yet but even then, my mind will not change. You are already very precious to me. I think I would be very sad to not have you around and not only because I do not know how to take care of my clothes alone. I believe it is impossible to convince me I should feel less of you or push you away."

"Master... How can you never understand anything but still give us a good answer every time? I understand master, I will try my best to not scare myself with this anymore."

"Good, I like you better when you smile after all."

She seemed really pleased by his words and she gripped the fingers holding her hand slightly more strongly.

"Now, what was the second thing?"

"Well..." She hesitated to tell. "What happened made us remember the fortunes we picked up in the temple of Love. We tried to make sense of them but it's hard. Master said that Love personally told him to have us pick one so the message must be important but we simply can't figure it out."

Emp felt a bit disappointed, for this one, he really couldn't help.

"I'm sorry, if it's about that, I really can't help, Love told me to not peek on the messages. If they are written like a page in the book of answers, I'm sure they are horrible to decipher."

The clear laughter of Harriett rang inside the dark room.

"They are even worse master, I tell you! It's too short and doesn't say anything!"

Then it was Emp's turn to laugh.

"I'm sure you will figure it out at some point but for now, it's late, you should go to bed already, it is not good to work in the dark. It can all wait tomorrow."

"Alright master. I'll just finish storing what I left laying around."

With a recovered smile, she free her hand from his and stood back up to store her things as quickly as she could. Emp used the moment to look again in the bag and finally found a note. He got it out of the bag and read it. To his surprise, It was written by Marcy. He could recognize her overlarge letters easily.

This fact alone gave him chills, why would Marcy write in his stead? he quickly moved the candle to the very corner of the table and paid careful attention to the words presented on the message.

"Master?" Harriett asked, but he was already too lost into the note to answer her.

You need to find the best of healers before you make our Emp disappear.

You need someone able to repair bones that are, from what Clide described, "feeling like sawdust" and fix the leg around it. He thinks your leg should be removed before it's too late to save the rest of you so you better get a real pro. Make it quick, the more time you waste, the less chances you have of saving that leg.>

As he read those lines written in a hurry, he felt disturbed by the description of his own wounds. Thinking about how he would soon have to experience their painful bite, he couldn't help but shudder.

At least, Marcy didn't waste words. She was always someone very direct. He needed to move fast, there was no time to waste. He left the note on the table and jumped up.

Who did he need to notify? He would go to the medical room of the school of course but he should probably send someone to fetch Heinrich. He wasn't a healer but a great mage was useful for many serious wounds. Then, he needed to message the duke about the situation or he would surely get angry. Aside from those two, did he need to tell anyone else? He couldn't think of... Maybe Mable? If she waited for him in the morning and the wound stopped him from going to her room, she might stomp her feet angrily because he didn't show up.

He decided all this in a second and called out to Harriett who was already looking towards him with all her attention.

"Harriett, the other me was gravely injured in a hunt today, I need to hurry to the medical hall of the school right away before I call back my other self."

Harriett was so shocked she let the cleaning rag she was holding fall to the ground. Emp did not dare to wait for her to regain control over herself before he showered her with instructions.

"I will run there with all haste but meanwhile, you have to go get the Duke, the magic teacher Heinrich and notify Mable's servants that I probably won't be there to follow her to cla.s.s tomorrow. Once this is all done, you will join up with me over there. The teacher has priority, tell him my leg is more paste than leg. Do you understand, can I rely on you?"

Hearing his last question, Harriett straightened her back and almost shouted out her answer in a panic.

"Yes! Yes master! I can do it!"

"Then go."

With not a word more, she dashed to the door and left it open as she rushed in the dark corridor of the stone building. He could still hear her steps in the distance as he opened the door to the two slaves room and looked for Celtine.

She had been sitting on the side of her bed, waiting for Harriett to come back but the loud noises on the other side had awakened her curiosity. She was now listening very carefully and waited for either an explanation or an order. She was dressed in her night gown but it was of no matter for her. A single candle was burning close to her bed, only waiting for Harriett to be snuffed out.

"Celtine, I need to run really fast to the medical hall. You will be of no help at all to me this time but do you still wish to come?"

She understood clearly what he meant when he said she would be of no help but still desired to go along. She could not stay here alone as her master was hurt. She did not know yet of what ailment he suffered but she had to come no matter what, she nodded and slipped out of bed to walk towards him.

This was one of the times Emp saw her walk the fastest, using her extended arms to gain a more reliable balance but he had no time to be impressed. He s.p.a.ce stepped right in front of her, hoisted her up to his shoulder and dashed out of his room as well. He closed the door but did not take the time to lock it and just ran in the dark.

He understood that running in the dark was dangerous since he could barely see anything at all but at the same time, he was pretty sure that even if he was to fall in a flight of stairs, his wounds would not be as grievous as the one described by Marcy in her note.

He had already been in great danger once before and had committed the very idiotic mistake of just walking to his destination in order to not alarm his two servants. He had no intentions of doing the same twice.

In no time at all, he had rushed through most of the school building and reached the medical hall. Here, there was always at least one healer up at all time to receive wounded students in case of an accident. This was true even in the darkest part of night but since it was still only just after nightfall, there were still six of them lightly discussing around a few candles and mugs of mead.

When Emp rushed in, without announcing himself, they all jumped in surprise and one of them fell off his chair.

The group of healers reacted in anger. They didn't like to be disturbed so late and more than that, they hated to be surprised. A lot of mead had been spilled over the table and the six were lamenting their loss. It took Emp a while to convince them that he had a good reason to be here, after all, currently, he didn't look injured at all.

What's more, they could hardly take seriously a man walking around with a half naked girl on his shoulder. If not for his head blocking the view, all of them would have seen her underwear. They found it rather inappropriate to say the least and angrily asked him to leave.

It was only after he told them that he had used a divine treasure to delay his wound and that he had already sent a message to the duke about it that they finally reluctantly let him lay down on a medical bed to prove his words.

The bed was hard and not much warmer than stone but the point of it wasn't to sleep. It was low to the ground and narrow to allow as many healers and mages as possible to its side.

Celtine was now standing close by, anxiously awaiting the next event that would occur. They had been too quick in their rush to the medical hall and she had not taken her tablet and quill with her. She would not be able to say a word at all this night.

Of the many healers here, none seemed really interested in his condition. Emp could hardly blame them since his leg seemed perfectly fine and he was currently feeling perfectly healthy but it only made him more anxious about the next step. Once he merged, would these worry free guys be able to help him properly?

He knew that in the school building, there were all sorts of healers. There were mages, herbalists and even physicians. He had no way of knowing what those six specialized in though. One of them gave him a look of disbelief and asked him a offhanded question.

"So, when do you think this divine artifact of yours will stop working? How long do you plan to have us wait here?"

"I can bring back the wound whenever you are all ready to fix it." Emp answered impatiently.

"Alright then, give it a shot." The man said after a long gulp from his mug.

It would serve no purpose to delay it any longer anyway. They would only move once they saw that he was saying the truth. The best thing to do now was to comply to his demand. He took a deep breath and braced himself for the pain he expected to feel.

After that, just like his memories in the village, everything became jerky. Every time he became truly conscious of what was around him, the scene was completely different than the previous one. It was like people kept appearing and disappearing from his side. His life was cut in bits and rearranged at random, cutting from scene to scene without warning.

They gave him this and that to drink but he only remembered about a quarter of them, his pants were torn to shreds at some point to let the healers do their work and an impossible amount of faces came to his side to argue with each other.

It seemed that sometimes, they couldn't agree on what they should do and at other times, they were all busying themselves around him.

At some point, Heinrich was added in the mix of faces and he could also hear the voice of the duke threatening everyone here of extreme punishments if they couldn't save his leg.

"If ya lot dare cut off his leg I will feed all of yours to the dogs!"

This was only one of many disturbing shout he heard him make through the night.

He was somewhat conscious that Celtine and Harriett were close by but he didn't get to see them because there were always many other people in the way.

His vision was blurred most of the time and even if the pain had greatly lessened since they had begun, he still could not stay awake for more than a moment or form any coherent thoughts.

His dulled senses where buried under all kinds of magic chants and a number of exotic smells and tastes.

He spent more time unconscious than awake and once the treatment had progressed enough, he fell into his usual deep sleep. A mercy he welcomed wholeheartedly.