18: Haley the Victim
Why? Why? Why?! Why does this have to happen to me?!
Haley cursed in her mind as she ignored the little pricks and sharp pain inflicted on her ankles while running through the forest grounds. She needed to get out of there, and quickly.
She just saw something that she was definitely sure she wasn’t supposed to see, and unfortunately the guy managed to spot her. All she did was shout some lame excuse and run for the hills.
Dammit, bro! Why’d you gotta get hurt at this timing? I hate you!
It all started when her brother returned from his latest excursion into the borders of the Ruinga Mountains. Normally it was a dangerous zone filled with high-level monsters that her brother had nowhere near enough power to handle, even with a group.
However, even just scavenging around the primary boundary of the mountains could get away with finding treasures that could be worth a fortune if returned. Even after sharing it with a party of adventurers, there was still enough to pay for the bills and to keep the energy running in their household.
Unfortunately, her brother was hit with an ambush by flying creatures, hitting him square in the back and causing him constant chronic pain. It was so debilitating that he couldn’t even stand up from his bed when his party brought him in.
The only good news about all of that was that he was only inflicted with a status debuff of Broken Back and Paralyzed, which could be healed from picking up some herbs that help treat the debuffs from the forest near Forontia.
Haley made it as a business where she would go and gather up these herbs and used her Concoct skill to make some decent potions to sell. She wasn’t exactly an alchemist, but she had enough ranks in her skill to make a mean potion if need be.
So that was what she was here for, just to get some herbs for her foolish brother so that he could get out to work again. So why the hell did she have to find someone burying dead bodies in the middle of the night?
It’s okay, it’s okay, he can’t find me. It’s dark, and I know my way around this forest better than anyone else!
She was confident in her speed as well, as she usually traversed around the forest to avoid the monsters that sometimes prowled around the vicinity of the herbs she frequented. She even had an ability that allowed her to disguise her scent to be a part of the scenery, keeping most predators off her back.
So this was just the same as usual, except that this time it was with a person rather than a beast. She already considered that he was smart enough to try and find her, but the lay of the forest was as familiar to the back of her hand. There was no way that he could–
The ground around her started to bulge and contort, then several tendrils sprouted out from the earth and headed straight for her. Haley yelped as she relied on her high Speed stat to get away, but the tendrils kept coming after her.
Nooo!
She screamed in her mind, but she kept quiet as she kept avoiding the tendrils. They kept coiling around her, trying to ensnare her and keep her down. Her foot got caught by the root of the tree, which normally should’ve been impossible due to her Forestry Knowledge skill that granted her instant knowledge of her surroundings when inside a forest.
Could it be that these weird tentacles deliberately led her to get caught up in it? There was no way the guy should have that much control.
She fell and hit her chin and hands on the ground, pain instantly welling up as she forced herself to crawl instead, but the tendrils caught her ankle and wrists, dragging her up from the ground and then latching her body onto a nearby trunk of a tree.
Tears started budding in her eyes as her breath caught in her throat. She looked ahead to see a figure walking towards her with a steady gait.
She didn’t exactly see the man in question, the light from his flashrod darkening his face, but he looked to be younger than she suspected. At least around 20 years old or perhaps even younger, like her. He sported short brown hair and wore simple commoner’s clothing of a shirt, pants and simple boots.
But what caught her attention the most were his eyes, glowing a captivating multicolored hue that would’ve been difficult to perceive with any light around. In this darkness, only dimly lit thanks to the moonlight piercing through the canopies, his eyes became bare to the world to see, and for her specifically.
He approached with such a casual gait, as if her running from earlier was entirely pointless. He knew exactly where to find her and how to get her with his strange magic.
Haley could only let out tears as she waited for her fate to play out, her limbs caught and not giving an inch.
…..
Goddammit, she looks so young.
Aidan cursed multiple times throughout the ‘hunting’ he did, which only made him feel even shittier when he realized that he was the bad guy in this scenario.
It was clear as day. If he let her go, she might start spreading rumors, or worse, start talking to other guards about him. It was possible that she didn’t see his face and thus couldn’t make out his features, but he couldn’t let that go due to the possibility of the girl having skills that made it easy for her to recognize him from afar.
There were just too many variables in this system-run world, so he had no other choice but to go after her. He used Sense Vibrations to sense where she was running to, which was an incredible feat on her part considering that she didn’t seem that physically adept at first glance. She must be used to being around forests because she ran faster than probably even some horned wolves.
But it was all pointless as Aidan could just sense her specific rhythm even from miles away. Her soul was practically screaming in fright, a horrid tone that was like a pitched whine that hit the eardrums. He was so sure that she was having a heart attack from how her soul practically screamed in terror when he approached her.
Archer, Level 7.
He made sure not to injure her any further, despite the level difference, but he had to get her trapped enough that her foot got caught by the roots, much like how he once did. He knew how painful that was for himself, so he felt even worse for forcing the young girl to do the same to get caught. It was only good fortune that this was all that he had to do.
But now that he got her trapped onto the trunk of the tree, looking at her trembling form, he felt like a big bad wolf about to tear apart a small shivering bunny in those documentary videos he watched once upon a time. They were just brutal to look at.
“P-Please,” The girl started to plead, her shoulders trembling while her hands kept trying to be released from their confines. “Just let me go. I-I-I promise not to say anything, I swear!”
Aidan closed his eyes and sighed. Her soul couldn’t hold back from practically shoving the lie right to his face. He sensed her heart beating rapidly and the vibrations of her words didn’t match the rhythm of her soul. She was trying hard to stay alive, as any normal person would.
But he couldn’t let her go.
“...What did you see?” Aidan asked, hoping against hope for a good lie.
“Nothing! I swear! Pl-Please, just let me go!”
“How did you see nothing and then promise not to say anything?”
Aidan snapped back which got the poor girl to yelp out, her sobs echoing in the dark atmosphere. Aidan cursed himself as he stepped back from her, pacing back and forth.
He had no choice but to kill her. At least, that’s what every single movie and TV show would show when a killer gets spotted doing something bad. Even if this world isn’t technologically advanced enough to get cameras, there are instances where magic can replace the lacking technology, and he could get arrested from her blabbing.
Her lies only made it worse whenever she said that she wouldn’t say anything. But Aidan just didn’t have it in his heart to do the deed.
She was just a young girl, probably in her teenage years. She didn’t deserve to die just because they were both caught at a bad time.
As his mind whirled for an answer that would leave them both alive, a sickening thought ran through it. It made him want to hurl, but for the sake of his peace of mind and for her own life, it was a better choice than outright killing her.
He could only hope that Nina is open-minded enough to let one more into their little group.
“...I can’t trust you,” Aidan said, resolution in his voice. He snapped his fingers and the earth tendrils started to uncoil around her arms and legs.
However, some of it was still coiled around her wrists, and the soil conjoined to keep her hands stuck together. When she was dropped to the ground, Aidan grabbed the hardened soil holding her wrists together like a chain before flaunting it in front of her face.
“Follow me. If you want to stay alive, you do as I say, understand?”
The young girl looked ready to run for the hills the moment she was dropped, but her eyes drooped when she saw him holding tight to her newly made chains. She nodded once in understanding as Aidan forced the girl to come along with him.
It became an incredibly taxing and awkward travel to the city, putting Vanish on both himself and the girl. At first, he worried about whether his spell would even work, but thankfully if he could make even his own title vanish, he could make someone else disappear as well.
When they got close to the entrance to the city, he hid themselves behind some trees far enough away so that the patrolling guards wouldn’t see them. He first thought about threatening her to not make a sound, but realized it was too risky and crafted more soil from the ground to cover the girl’s mouth as well.
He had to make it tight enough that no matter how much she whined, the girl couldn’t utter a word. He felt sick to his stomach, but it was better than her suddenly getting confident with so many guards around her that she would just start screaming out and making his Vanish pointless.
Still, he kept her close as he whispered into her ear.
“Do anything, and I can’t promise you’ll make it back in one piece.”
Technically he wasn’t lying. In the girl’s mind, he could be thinking about all kinds of horrific gruesome tactics, but in Aidan’s mind, he was just going to cut off some of her hair to give her a bad hair day. In a way, she wasn’t in ‘one-piece’ anymore, right?
He knew in the end he was just fooling himself. He wanted to at least be some semblance of a good person who wouldn’t just take someone’s life without cause. At least a good one in his mind.
Thankfully she took the threat to heart and never once whined or tried to shout after passing through the gates. After what felt like the most anxiety-driven part of the process was done, Aidan led the girl back to the district where he lived, and entered into his store building with her in tow.
Now that they finally got into the building, he turned on the lights and closed the door. He pushed the girl lightly to the center and took the soil off with his control. Since he was the one that crafted them, he had enough control with his mana to take them off without using any particular spell or skill, though his mana points were still spent when the action was done.
The girl let out big gasps of breath, rubbing the sides of her mouth and her wrists for comfort. She looked back at her kidnapper with those big brown eyes, expecting the worst.
Despite how young she looked, she was quite pretty in Aidan’s eyes. He figured that the people of this world didn’t have as many beauty products as in his world, but he kept getting surprised at how some of the women were. She wasn’t as pretty as Nina, however. While Nina had her almost supermodel-like facial features, this girl was more of a down-to-earth cutie. Her black hair reaching her neck was well treated, and she wore simple rough linen clothes that covered her body up to her hands and feet. She had brown leather shoes that looked quite beaten up as though she used them for years on end, but showed that they were maintained quite well even so.
“W-What are you gonna do to me?” the girl asked, her arms covering her chest while stepping back from Aidan. He rolled his eyes as he locked the door and closed the windows. Staring at her just then caused her to misunderstand.
“Don’t worry–I’m not interested in kids.”
He hoped that was enough to settle her down, but looking back, she looked like she was ready to bolt the moment his eyes landed on her. She didn’t believe him at all.
“I mean it. You just caught me at a bad time. The thing is, I can’t let you go.”
“W-Why not?” she dared to ask. “What else are you gonna do to me?”
“Well, for instance, I’m planning on keeping you here.”
“What? Y-You can’t do that! I have a life here! Plus, if my brother doesn’t see me when I come back, he’ll start to worry and try to find me.”
“Whatever comes next isn’t up for me to decide,” Aidan said simply. “We’re only waiting for my… uhh, boss to come here to decide instead.”
“Your boss?” she asked incredulously. “And… is he gonna–”
“That’s not up for me to decide,” Aidan interjected, though he was also hoping that wouldn’t be the case. He pointed at her. “What’s your name?”
“...Haley,” the girl answered after a moment.
“Name’s Aidan,” Aidan pointed at himself, then pointed back to her. “Listen. I don’t like the idea of killing you. But I can’t let you go. If you work with me, we might be able to get away tonight without anyone dying.”
“Then you could’ve just let me go,” Haley insisted. “I said I wouldn't say anything.”
“And you think I would trust you, just like that?” Aidan scoffed. “I can tell when you’re lying. Don’t even bother.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I can literally sense when someone’s lying,” Aidan said, then decided to do something unexpected. “In fact, let’s try it–say three things, and make one of them a lie. Make it so that it’s not something ridiculous, like saying you’re a pink elephant or something.”
Haley lowered a single brow at him hard enough that he felt pretty awkward about it. She muttered to herself ‘elephant?’, making him realize that the animals of his world might not even exist here in this one. Despite that, in her head, it must have been better to play along than to die or getting tortured as she answered.
“Okay… umm, I like sour meat-stew, I have a bump on my lower back leg, and I’m 20 years old.”
“Wow, all lies, huh?”
Aidan chuckled, figuring that she was gonna try something like that. The girl for her part looked astonished at that, and so the two kept playing this game of truths and lies while they waited.
Nina said that she was going to come around at night when he was done with his mission, and he couldn’t be more thankful for that as he didn’t like the idea of putting this poor girl to sleep in his home like a predator.
As the games continued, it started to feel like Haley was getting into it, becoming animated as she kept weaving lies and formulating truths for him to pick through with ease.
“The first two were lies, the third was a half truth, and the final one was total bullshit.”
“I-I put so much effort into that last one,” Haley said, her breath caught. “Wow, you really can tell lies from truths. Is that like some sort of skill or spell?”
“In a way,” Aidan smirked.
“But… how do I know that you’re not gonna kill me?” Haley asked, returning to her wary state.
“Because I get nothing from killing you. But it’s not like you can tell if I’m lying or not, so you’re just gonna have to wait before–”
A knock on the door permeated the somewhat calm atmosphere, making Haley flinch while Aidan let out another sigh. He hoped that she would come by when their little game ended.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Aidan warned before going to the door. “And don’t do anything to provoke her, got it?”
Haley took a moment before nodding in assent, then Aidan pulled the door to reveal the coat-wearing woman coming forward as if she owned the place. Well, that much was definitely true.
For a short, agonizing moment, Nina stared at the young girl who looked like a tiny animal getting glared at by a huge predator. At least it felt that way to Aidan before Nina turned her predatory eyes straight back to him.
“...I didn’t take you to be interested in little girls,” Nina said, and there was a coldness in her tone that made his back slick with sweat.