Second part of chapter 2! Time for Alle and Echi to face off?
Enjoy!
Chapter 5: Michel’s Retrieval Strategy (Part 2)
***
Now in front of the rocky mountain, Alleyne raised her hood and exposed her face to the rain.
“Echidna! I know you’re watching!”
She shouted.
“If you don’t come out, we’ll go in ourselves.”
The instructor gripped her weapon even tighter, and looked at Cattleya, still keeping up behind.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”
Echidna’s voice suddenly rang by Cattleya’s ears.
“Eh?”
Surprising Cattleya by approaching her neck unnoticed, a snake with scales shining silver was hanging down.
“What’s so important? I’m busy, I’ll have you know.”
The wild elf’s voice sounded out of the snake’s mouth.
“We came to set your wrongdoings right.”
“Ooh? My wrongdoings? Would you care to elaborate?”
“Don’t play dumb with me… Release the child you kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped?”
“To think you would even stoop to kidnapping…”
“Aah, I see, there seems to be a misunderstanding.”
The snake moved slowly, leaving Cattleya’s side.
“If you’re talking about Michel, it’s not kidnapping. We decided after discussing it properly with the other party…”
“It doesn’t seem the person himself approved of it, did he?”
“Is that so?”
There was a silence for a while… and:
“Well, fine. Let’s release Michel.”
Alleyne was almost disappointed by the unexpected answer, but Cattleya heaved a sigh of relief; not having to fight was the best outcome.
“Are you serious?”
“Skeptical, aren’t we? When have I lied to you?”
“Time and again.”
Alleyne’s immediate reply made Echidna’s bitter smile appear on the snake’s mouth.
“Wait a minute. I’ll bring him there.”
In one of the mountain’s countless caves, Echidna and a boy appeared.
“Okay, go.”
The wild elf pushed on the boy’s back.
“Eh? Is it okay?”
Michel couldn’t hide his bewilderment when Echidna gave up on him all too readily.
“You don’t want to stay here, do you? Go ahead and try being somewhere else, see if you like it.”
Grinning, she gave him his flute back.
“Well, I had fun making the li’l Vance princess go on a fool’s errand.”
Echidna threw out her chest before the two beautiful fighters who appeared at the cave’s entrance.
“A kidnapping? How ludicrous.”
“It wasn’t one?”
“If it had been a kidnapping, I wouldn’t have released him so easily. I wanted to protect him. As proof, I did treat him quite well.”
“Is that true?”
The beautiful fighter in front of them, Alleyne, eyed the boy.
He nodded silently. He had been locked up of course, but he couldn’t say he had gone through a bad experience at all.
“See ya, Michel, stay strong.”
‘Come on’, the wild elf seemed to say, backing off just one step.
“By the way, I would advise against ever coming here again, you guys. This is my domain. It’d kinda bother me if you popped up like you own the place.”
Echidna threatened the other two over the back of the boy, who had started walking towards them by now.
“Worry not. We settled the issue. I’d very much prefer not to step inside the Viper’s Nest.”
“That’s wise of you. Well then, as a reward for being a good girl, I’ll tell you something you might find interesting.”
Echidna’s voice echoed in the cave.
“This kid is like a drug. Be careful.”
Alleyne couldn’t understand her actual point, even if she figured that seemed to be meant as advice.
***
“Well then, I will be excusing myself.”
Alleyne said goodbye to the two of them as Cattleya’s village approached.
“I never got around to asking you, but how is the performance of the weapon you ordered?”
Alleyne had asked for a special throwing weapon—a Bola—from the merchant.
“Right, it was well made. 100 points. Someday I’ll ask you to adjust this staff.”
The elf did a light swing with it. Shattering a few raindrops, a small spray danced in the air.
“I feel confident in your abilities to handle this staff made from the elven sacred tree. But that will be another day, let’s leave it at this for today.”
“Yes… let’s take things one at a time.”
Cattleya felt bad enough for having kept the elf so long already.
She knew that the purpose of Alleyne’s journey was to look for her favorite pupil, who had left the forest and joined Queen’s Blade. The captain might have gone out of her way to help her rescue Michel, but that was probably because she could see a glimmer of Nowa in him.
“Now then, I hope you can get to meet my husband soon, Michel.”
***
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