Lily leaned against the entrance into the sewers, feeling the little fuzz of moss against the crumbling stone through her claws. Although her body had mended itself, she was still shaken by the sudden encounter with Ega.
She had heard stories from her father, how the Blood Hunter tracked anyone possessing Mithril Blood like a hound. He had only entered the city today, and suddenly, here he was, having sniffed them out like a beast.
Shivering as she recalled all the stories that her father had told her about Ega, she dragged the body in her claws down into the sewers.
Her amber eyes shone through the pitch darkness, and though it didn’t grant her perfect night vision, it was enough for her to make it around in the dark. Lily couldn’t help but think back at her fight with Ega, back to how effortlessly he had cut her apart. But to her, that wasn’t the worst part.
It was his eyes. The way he looked at her, as if she was some disgusting monster worthy only of death. She had never met any other person’s eyes aside from her brother and father, having killed them before they could even see her true form.
Was she truly some sort of monster? Some abomination that should have died just like how Ega had looked at her? Her heart began to beat faster at the thought that she shouldn’t have existed. Those strange thoughts and feelings were beginning to resurface again after all this time.
Finally arriving before a metal door carved out against the sewer wall, she opened the door to her safe haven.
The floors and walls were stained with blood, with tables full of all sorts of instruments meant to pierce and cut through bone and flesh in an endless amount of ways. “Parts” lay scattered everywhere while the person who meant the world to her stood in the middle; Olian, her father.
He was thin, wearing a white coat stained with blood from all of his work. His hair was a mess, probably haven’t been washed for a few days now that he was getting close to a breakthrough. Hearing the door open, Olian turned around to greet his daughter.
“Lily! You came back with more supplies! That’s…” Just before he was going to praise her, he quickly noticed the crumbling expression on her face. “Is something wrong?”
Wiping his bloody hands on a towel, he ran up to his daughter as more concern began to wash over him. Tears began to well in Lilys’ eyes, and unable to hold it in anymore, she embraced her father.
“Da… Dad…” She could barely croak the words out through her tears.
“What? What is it, Lily?” Olian began to stroke her brown hair, trying his best to comfort her.
“Am I… a monster? Am I not… supposed to…”
“What! Who told you that?”
“The Blood Hunter… He called me a monster…”
Olian’s eyes grew wide as he heard the name “Blood Hunter.” He also began to notice that the blood on Lily’s cloak wasn’t the blood of her victims, but her own blood.
“That bastard…” As much as he wanted to be angry, comforting his daughter was his first priority. “Lily, look at me Lily. Listen, listen to my voice.”
Gently holding her face in his hands, he stared straight into her eyes. The left side of her face was scaly, her body was stitched together with the flesh of other animals, and the parts that were still human could transform themselves in such strange manners that it would be difficult to even consider it such. And yet, Olian still thought of her as his one and only daughter.
“You are human. I don’t care what anyone thinks, I don’t care if you look different, I don’t care if the world sees you differently. You are my daughter, and you are human.”
Lily pressed her face into her father’s chest, letting the tears flow freely and staining his coat with other than blood.
“It’s alright, it’s alright…” Olian continued to stroke her hair. “We’ll be out of here soon enough.”
All he needed was a bit more time, and he would finally be able to bring his family back. After all of these years, after all of the work he had poured into experimenting with souls, flesh, and snow, Mithril Blood, he was close to reaching a breakthrough.
As Lily’s tears finally subsided, she spoke in croaking. “Thank you… Dad. I’m… glad to be here.”
Seeing her smile through her swollen eyes, Olian felt a sudden pang in his heart. If only life had been more merciful to them, maybe then they could have lived as a normal family. Still, he tried his best to salvage that dream, not just with his children, but as a whole family.
He couldn’t have done it without the Mithril Blood that he was able to get his hands on, but it seemed like possessing it was beginning to catch up to him. Not only were the Order of Knights on his tail, but so was the rumored Blood Hunter.
“Just a little bit more…” Olian murmured, turning his attention to the body that Lily had brought to him. “I see you’ve brought back more supplies.”
Lily nodded her head with a sense of pride. Unable to help himself, he patted her head as a way to praise her.
“Perfect, this should be enough.” Slinging the body over his shoulders, he brought it over to his operating table.
“Really?” She couldn’t believe that they were so close. Lily could remember it like it was yesterday; when Olian had first started researching how he could bring their mother back.
“Yes, yes, you’ve done a great job.” Picking up his instruments, he called out to his son. “Lliam! I’m going to need some help here!”
Lliam quickly responded to his father’s call, bursting through an iron door and arriving at his side. Unlike his twin sister, Lliam was large. His arms were like that of a bear’s, his figure towering over even his father as fur and scales littered his body. Though he was unable to speak, Olian loved him all the same.
“After this, we’re going to need to set up some precautionary measures.”
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Lliam nodded his head, understanding what his father meant.
If the Blood Hunter had somehow tracked down Lily in less than a day, it would only be a matter of time before he came knocking on their doorstep. Olian would be prepared for this calamity, for this “Hunter” who dared try to tear apart his family.
With the bits of information that he had above ground and all the supplies that he had down here, he would be able to stop Ega from tearing his family apart. Life had already tried to do it once before, and he refused to let it happen again.
…
Hela stared at the pile of documents on her desk, letting out a relieved sigh that she was able to get through them all in a day. Though a good part of the night had passed, she would be able to at least get some sleep in.
She would have finished them much earlier, but her sudden encounter with an old friend had set her back a few hours. Her lips curled into a grin as she recalled the day, glad to see that he was still doing well after all these years.
Standing up from her desk, she was just about to leave until a strange sound began to echo through the air. It was the sound of knocking, but it wasn’t coming from the door into her office. Instead, it seemed to be coming from behind her, behind the curtains to the window.
Picking up the sword leaning against her desk, she pulled the blade from its sheath. Readying herself, she threw open the curtains to reveal… Ega?
He was crouched by the window sill, covered in blood and knocking against the glass trying to get her attention. Once the shock finally wore off, she opened the window to see why in the world he was even there in the first place.
“What the hell are you doing at my window? Did you mix the soul of a bird into your own a little too far?”
“I…” Ega was panting, trying his best to catch his breath. “I needed to talk to you.”
“And you thought coming to the window of my office was the best idea?” Sheathing her blade, she leaned it back against the desk.
“As if any of the knights were going to let me talk to you in the dead of night.”
“That’s… a good point.” As absurd as the situation was, it seemed like he thought it through.
“Anyways, I know who’s behind the disappearances in Ashier.”
“What? How did you…” Despite having arrived at Ashier a week earlier, Hela hadn’t made much progress in discovering the culprit to the disappearances. Granted, she was chained to her desk for most of the time, always having more paperwork to fill out so that the investigation could go smoothly, but still…
She couldn’t help but crack a smile, remembering how Ega never followed procedures. He always acted first without permission and she’d always have to cover up for him, but it was easy to do because he brought back positive results, well, most of the time.
“What do you mean ‘how’? I just went off and did my own investigating.” Ega deliberately left out the part where he had used one of her knights as bait. Thankfully, none of them got hurt, well, not from the monster at least.
“And? What did you find?”
“Well, I don’t know ‘who’ they are exactly, but I have a general idea of where they are.” When Ega had searched the area around where his arrow had landed, he had found an entrance into the sewers.
The sewers themselves weren’t that suspicious, it was what he noticed on the entrance of it that had tipped him off. There was blood imprinted on the moss, too large to be a human hand but big enough to belong to that monster’s claws.
“They’re down in the sewers, somewhere… and I know for a fact that there’s more than just one person.”
Although Ega could sense Mithril Blood inside of that monster, it was nothing significant. His body didn’t react to the blood as violently as with Vulf or all his other victims. At the very least, there was one more person who possessed most of the blood.
“And? It seems like you haven’t gone down the sewers yet.” Hela already knew what he was going to say next.
“Of course I haven’t. I need you and your knights to help me search the sewers. Who knows how big that place is, and if there’s a large group waiting down there, I might as well be committing suicide going down their alone.”
Letting out a long sigh, Hela looked over at the papers on her desk. “It’ll take me a day or two to get permission to search the sewers.”
“Oh not this shit again. Are you kidding me? Permission? They’re still doing this after all of these years?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Ega let out a groan of frustration. This was the part of the procedure that he had always broken when he was still in the Order; gaining permission. In order to keep Commanders inside of the Order in check, they were required to gain permission from the Lord overlooking the land before they could take action.
Most commanders were incredible soul bearers, so to prevent them and their squadron from wreaking havoc whenever they felt fit, they had to gain permission to take any sort of substantial action. It was a good idea to help minimize damages to a city and its civilians, but in practice, the process could drag up to a week for even the smallest things.
“One or two days…” Ega repeated her words. “Those bastards aren’t going to wait one or two days for us to get off our asses.”
Giving that much time to his opponent was too risky. Two days for them to prepare, two days from them to try and escape, two days from them to possibly strike first, there was just too much to consider.
Frustrated, Ega walked back to the window as he ran his hand through his hair, trying to figure out how he would approach this situation alone.
“However…”
Ega quickly whipped his head back around at Hela’s word. “However?”
“I have ten knights from my original squadron with me. I’m sure I could have them follow you over whatever the proper procedure is.”
Relief began to wash over him as, at the very least, he’d have some support. “Alright, great. So I’ll have ten knights accompanying me to—”
“Eleven.” She corrected him.
“Eleven? I thought you told me you had…” The realization had finally struck Ega. “You aren’t thinking of coming with me, are you?”
“Why not? The situation seems serious enough for me to be there in person.”
“Aren’t you going to get into major trouble? You’re a commander above all else, you know the Order won’t—”
“I know. You don’t understand how many complaints I received because of you, Ega.” Hela looked at the window, thinking for a second. “But after all this time, I think I’m due for breaking a rule or two. Don’t you think they’ll give some leniency for working my entire life in the Order?”
Though small, Ega could see the mischievous smile form on her lips. “Are you in your rebellious phase now?”
“No, I’m too old for that. I just think it’s finally time to pay back all of the falls that you’ve taken for me, all of the things that you did in my stead.”
Ega let out a sigh. “I already told you a long time ago that you didn’t need to pay me back.”
“I know, but I don’t quite feel the same way.” Picking up her sword, she walked over to the door. “Come on now, shouldn’t we prepare quickly? I’ll have my knights ready in a minute.”
“Fine. If you really want to be punished by the Order that badly then do what you want. Unlike me, you won’t have a commander to cover your ass.”
“Don’t worry about me. I have my ways.”
“I’m sure you do.” She always had some way to get him out of trouble, so she must have had something in mind for herself.
Ega followed behind Hela as they moved forward, ready to face whatever awaited them in the sewers; and there would be much to face, for Olian and his children had made sure of it.
