บท 30: Finally Awake
Desperately trying to think of an excuse, Roger stared at Lila blankly as she stared right back, clearly expecting a good explanation.
'Gods what do I do now? Do I claim I scared a beast off? No, that will just put her on guard again. Not to mention she might try and find tracks and learn the truth when she doesn't find anything. Why didn't the System give me a book titled Women for Dummies?'
After a few seconds of awkward silence, he coughed awkwardly. He hadn't come up with anything believable, and decided to just come clean, even if it did hurt his pride.
He sighed and put his sword down, knowing there weren't any threats. Lila watched his actions with suspicion, before dismissing her artifact, which vanished in a flash of blue light.
"Well? Out with it."
Her voice was controlled, but the command left no room for refusal.
'Here we go…'
"I got, well, excited. And screamed in my excitement."
She stared at him flatly after his admission, his face turning more red with every passing moment.
'Gods woman, react! Do something! Anything! I can't tolerate this silence any longer!'
It seemed she could read his mind as she eagerly answered his wish, a smile slowing splitting her face before she grabbed her hips and began to laugh uncontrollably.
Roger watched her mock him without a response, crossing his arms and looking away to hide his embarrassment.
'There's nothing wrong with displaying a little excitement! My ability had just been upgraded after all, it was an important and appropriate reaction!'
Even with his self justification, he knew it was a little funny from an outside perspective. Still, there was a principle here, gods damn it! He wasn't just going to sit here and take her abuse!
His embarrassment fueled his anger as he lashed out at her.
"What are you laughing about? You were the one yipping just yesterday! Don't point fingers when you did something very similar!"
Lila continued to laugh through his words, clearly enjoying herself a little too much. Over a minute passed before she finally calmed down, and she responded while wiping tears from her eyes.
"Yesterday? That was days ago moron! You've been asleep for quite some time. I thought the mana exhaustion was going to kill you till your breathing stabilized. You can thank me for that, by the way. You would've frozen to death if not for me waking up multiple times to keep the fire roaring."
Roger's eyes widened as he realized the gravity of her words.
'Days? I've been asleep for that long?'
He shivered subconsciously.
It was a strange notion to have slept through multiple cycles without being able to defend yourself, especially in a place as dangerous as Avar. Not only that, Lila was claiming he would have died if not for her.
He didn't know how to react to the news, his mouth opening and closing multiple times as he struggled for the words, before finally settling on something simple.
"Thank you, Lila. I really appreciate it."
She watched him and nodded, a slight smile on her lips.
"Don't mention it. It gave me time to think about how much you've helped me too. If not for you, I might've died my first day here, whether it was the tiger or the Mind Wraiths. Consider us even."
Roger smiled too at her words, sensing a noticeable change in how she was treating him.
'Did something happen while I was unconscious? She seems different, almost suspiciously so. Not that I'm complaining, this Lila seems far nicer than the old one!'
Seeing that the conversation was dying, the teenage girl pointed at something behind Roger.
"Since yesterday I've started hunting in the surrounding forest. Vronti is very useful in that regard, allowing me to practice to charge up lightning bolts then using those to shoot prey. It's no charge rifle, but it gets the job done."
Turning around, Roger saw a small pile of woodland critters, each one having a charred wound on their bodies. Strangely, it did seem like something a charge rifle would do.
Charge rifles were advanced guns wielded by the military. They used compression fusion energy to fire bolts of energy at their targets, burning a hole clean through them. It seemed Vronti's lightning bolt ability had a similar, if weaker, effect.
Roger whistled at the sight of all the food.
'I have got to get me one of those!'
Lila seemed pleased at his appreciative look, reaching behind her back and tugging something off of her belt. To Roger's surprise, it was a bundle of strings connected to two more corpses, each tied by their necks to a thicker rope. He wondered where she got it from, before recognizing it as the rope that had tied the seed bag closed.
'She took apart my bag without asking? How rude! Now if I want to plant my Water Carrots I'll have to carry all the seeds in my hand!'
Despite his apparent outrage with her actions, he didn't mind too much. The whole point of the seeds was to generate food for them, and if the bag could help do that more efficiently than who was he to gripe about it?
Lila walked to his side, coming closer than he expected her to, and threw the bodies into the stack. He found her proximity strangely exciting, but forced his focus onto the pile of bloody animals.
Strangely, he didn't find all the dead animals to be very gruesome. Maybe it was his body quickly adapting to the situation, but he seemed to view it as a necessity, not a cruelty. It was just as likely his prison upbringing numbed him to the sight of pain and suffering.
He had been victim to, and witnessed, numerous beatings in his years in the concrete box. Killing things in one clean shot did not compare to the sadism humans could inflict on each other.
It also helped that the very forest these critters belonged to seemed hell-bent on killing them. It was difficult to sympathize with their enemy.
He walked up to the pile, with Lila following close behind, and inspected some of the carcasses.
He noticed a handful of brown round creatures with long ears, a few birds of varying colors, and a healthy amount of the skinny woodland creatures with bushy tails.
Roger smiled evilly when he saw those in particular, remembering how one of their brethren had roused the Spike-Tailed Tiger from its sleep, causing it to attack and almost kill him.
'How does it feel to be the prey now? I hope it hurt you guys in particular! You deserve it for the situation you put me in, devil spawn!'
He kicked their bodies for good measure, drawing a sideways glance from Lila.
Noticing it, Roger scoffed and explained.
"These little assholes almost got me killed the day before you arrived."
Her mouth made an "O" shape as she heard his explanation, before she shrugged.
"Kick them all you want, just don't spoil the meat. It's hard enough to hit the suckers, they run fast. I don't want to have to gather more just because of your vengeance."
Roger grinned at her words, rearing his leg back and striking them with his foot again.
'Who am I to deny myself some pleasure when given the opportunity? It's not like they are alive anyway! This isn't animal cruelty, it's justice!'
He tried not to think about the kind of punishment he would receive on Earth if the government ever learned of his actions here.
Animals were an incredible rarity on the industrial world, and any damage done to one would immediately get someone put in one of the harsh labor camps. Even after five years of hard prison time, nothing he ever did compared to the kind of work they did in those camps.
Still, there was no one around to report him. Except Lila, but she had killed them. If anything, she should be more worried about him spilling the truth.
'At least I'll have some dirt on her in case she tries to turn me in!'
Looking at the scorched holes in each body, he decided to reconsider fighting with the seemingly innocuous young woman.
It also reminded him of a question he had been meaning to ask her.
"Hey, you never did tell me what your element was."
He tried to pass his query off as innocent, and it seemed to work as she answered quickly.
"Lady of the Storm. It's not one I have heard about before, which makes sense given the rank it is."
Roger turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow but trying to control his curiosity from seeming too extreme.
"Oh? And what rank is that?"
She smiled at him with pride, clearly enjoying his question.
"It turns out I have the most rare of them all, an Omega-rank element!"
Roger had to control himself from collapsing on the spot.
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