Chapter 3: Connection
Two days after their departure from Amande, Rio and Latifa finally crossed the border to the eastern region of the Galarc Kingdom.
From this point on was the Wilderness, where their first challenge immediately awaited them. The Nephilim Mountains were a mountain range that divided the Wilderness from the region of Strahl in a single vertical line, with a height ranging from 2000 meters to 5000 meters. Furthermore, more mountains continued past the mountain range; a vast wasteland that was of no benefit for the humans of Strahl to venture into. Thus the name: the Wilderness.
To cross over the gate to that isolated land, Rio was sprinting at full speed. Behind him was Latifa’s small figure.
“How are you holding up?” Rio called out to Latifa, who was running behind him. He stopped along the mountainside.
“I’m... all right,” Latifa answered with a nod, but her breath was coming out a bit roughly. Meanwhile, Rio’s expression was still calm and comfortably at ease.
“It’s a little early, but let’s set up camp for today. I’ll get everything ready, so you can rest. Make sure you rehydrate yourself,” Rio said, marking the end of their travel for the day. At that, an expression of fear appeared across Latifa’s face. She hurriedly bowed her head.
“I-I’m... sorry!”
“...Why are you apologizing?” Rio asked calmly.
“I’m... slowing you... down. Ah... W-Will you leave me... behind?” Latifa asked, hanging her head.
The second half of her sentence was so quiet, it faded before it could reach Rio’s ears. But, he could pretty much guess what she had said from the mood in the air.
“You’re not being a burden at all. We’re in the mountains right now — if we rushed forward too hastily, we’d end up with altitude sickness. That’s why we’re camping here now. It’s out of necessity.”
Rio scratched his head as he tried to explain everything with as gentle of a tone as possible. Hearing that, Latifa sighed with relief. Since making his inference about Latifa’s circumstances, Rio was doing his best to treat her as kindly as possible, talking to her whenever he could. By doing that, he figured he could clear away some of her anxieties and prompt her to participate in more conversations, developing her language abilities.
However, Rio wasn’t a psychologist, and he didn’t really have a social personality to begin with.
If anything, he was quite awkward when it came to relationships. That was why he was mostly observing the situation for now, clumsy as he might be.
I’ll do the best I can... Hopefully things will work out.
He could only do his best with the situation, after all. With that thought, Rio went about setting up the
camp.
Later that night, their newest problem occurred shortly after the two of them had settled down to sleep.
“Wah... wah... uwaaaah!”
Inside the pitch black tent they were sleeping in — small and simply constructed to just cram the two of them in — Latifa suddenly burst into tears. Rio’s eyes shot open and he immediately looked towards Latifa, who was laying down next to him. She was crying with her eyes closed beside him. It was the night-time crying of an infant, so to speak. While it varied from person to person, children who cried at night at Latifa’s age were rare. However, Rio couldn’t figure out why she would be crying. She had been fine the day before, after all.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Rio asked her helplessly through her incessant tears.
“Eek! No... Where am I?! Someone save me!” Latifa mumbled in her sleep as tears continued to stream down her face.
“That’s... Japanese...” The words that came forth from Latifa were of a language extremely familiar to Rio — no, Amakawa Haruto. He was utterly dumbfounded. However, Latifa’s eyes remained shut.
“Was that... sleeptalking?”
Rio realized that the words had been involuntarily spoken. But for merely talking while she was asleep, her words were a shocking revelation.
Latifa suddenly clutched the robe Rio was using as a blanket tightly, pulling it closer to cling to him. She had quieted to just sniffling, now, but still showed no sign of stopping her tears.
“
What should I do...” Should he wake her up, or should he let her sleep on like this? Not knowing what to do, Rio simply laid there, bewildered.
“Are you awake?” Rio gently tried to shake her.
“Mom... dad... brother,” she murmured timidly in Japanese.
Rio furrowed his brow at the unbearable feeling within him. Was she experiencing some kind of dream? He couldn’t help but imagine what kind of dream it could be.
Warm, gentle days. Living in happiness, every day. Maybe it was a dream like that...
But that dream wouldn’t last long. As though proving his theory, Latifa teared up more and buried her face into Rio’s chest.
Her small frame fit snugly against Rio’s chest, and her white, porcelain-like skin seemed so delicate; fragile enough to break with a single touch...
Rio wrapped an arm around Latifa’s back and patted her gently, as though handling a glass doll. At the same time, he carefully stroked her beautiful, pale orange hair, untangling the knots. Her cute fox ears moved, twitching happily as he did. For a while, Rio continued to soothe Latifa like an older brother calming his crying sister.
“Nngh...”
Eventually, Latifa’s breathing evened out in her sleep. Rio let out a sigh of relief. She was still clinging to his robe, but he didn’t see a need to forcefully pull away from her, so he let it be.
Suddenly, Rio was overwhelmed by a surge of mental fatigue. They had been running every single day, accumulating exhaustion until it manifested as a sleepiness that gnawed away at his consciousness.
Rio slowly blinked his heavy eyelids shut and let the darkness of sleep take his mind far away.
The next morning, when Latifa woke up, she found herself clinging onto something warm and comforting.
She rubbed her cheek against it in her half-conscious daze, only coming to her senses once she reluctantly drew her cheek away from it. After several blinks, she realized what she had been clinging to, and froze in shock.
There before her was a boy with well-defined features — Rio. He was breathing peacefully as he slept.
How, when, why had she been clinging to him? Incoherent questions passed through her head one after another, causing Latifa to fall into a panic.
C-Come to think of it... I... was crying... That wasn’t... a dream, was it...?
She took a deep breath in order to try to calm herself as she recalled the events of last night, but she couldn’t determine what had been a dream and what had been reality.
However, she was certain that someone had held her and comforted her with their warmth. Considering her situation right now, those events had probably been reality.
Once Latifa had settled on that conclusion, an embarrassment hard to express in words surged forward. Her heart thumped madly. She clutched Rio’s robe with both her hands and hesitantly fixed her gaze on Rio once more.
“Fwah...”
Latifa’s pale cheeks flushed red in an instant, and she accidentally let out a befuddled sound.
“His hair... so black... He looks... like him? Like that older brother... like an onii-chan...”
She tilted her head as she looked at him curiously.
“Ehehe. Onii-chan.”
Latifa buried her face against Rio’s chest once more, happily letting a smile appear on her face. Her actions were like that of a small puppy furiously seeking affection.
After taking in Rio’s scent and feel for a while, Latifa slowly raised her head to look up at him.
“Good morning. Sleep well?” Rio greeted her softly, looking back at her with a somewhat troubled face.
“Fweh?! Ah, I... I’m sorry! Wah!” Latifa stuttered her apology, jumping back in a panic and bumping her head against the low roof. Rio rubbed Latifa’s head gently.
“It’s all right, I’m not mad. This place is cramped, so you need to be careful. Are you hurt?”
“I-I’m... fine. Ehe. Eheheh.” Latifa grinned in delight.
◇◇◇
Over two months passed since the night Latifa cried in her sleep.
Presently, Rio and Latifa had crossed the Nephilim Mountains and passed through the huge wasteland beyond it, continuously making their way east. With no map, they had to fumble their way through, sometimes taking detours and sometimes retreating backwards. But they were definitely moving forward, little by little.
“Rio! Excuse me, but I can smell something strange! It smells like a beast’s blood!” As the two of them were running across a plateau, Latifa called out. She had lost a lot of her stuttering speech by conversing with Rio in the last two months.
Rio, who was running in front, threw up a hand sign and stopped.
As a werefox, Latifa’s sense of smell was leagues above Rio’s, even when he enhanced his senses through his physical body enchantment. Her nose was able to identify any scent and process the information accurately. That was why Rio placed his trust in Latifa’s sense of smell, requesting that she let him know whenever she smelled something suspicious.
However, yelling it out loudly wasn’t the best idea.
“A beast’s blood... There might be a carnivorous beast nearby. Which way did the scent—”
Just as Rio was about to ask Latifa for further details, his heightened sense of hearing picked up on the shrill screeches of a reptilian creature.
“What was that just now...?”
“Is something wrong?”
Seeing Rio’s sudden perceptive expression made Latifa tilt her head in confusion. After about a ten-second pause, Rio located the origin of the strange sound and looked up at the sky far above them. There was a flight of eerie, black, bird-like creatures.
They tucked in their wings and swooped down at Rio and Latifa. Once they reduced their air resistance to the absolute minimum, they closed the distance between them and Rio in the blink of an eye.
“Is that a bird...?! Latifa, they’re coming at us from above!” Rio yelled, prompting Latifa to draw her dagger from her waist. However, she was overwhelmingly short on reach for fighting an enemy that could fly in the air.
Furthermore, Latifa was incapable of any magic other than Augendae Corporis, so she didn’t have any other effective means of attack. Thus, she could only glare at the flying group as they approached. Her small body trembled just barely.
“It’ll be fine. Don’t move!” Rio said, manipulating the essence in his body to form two lumps of ice in his hands. Then, he swung his hands and hurled the boulder-like blocks of ice at the flight of bird creatures.
The giant blocks of ice hurtled through the sky like cannonballs, colliding with the creatures as though it was absorbing their bodies, before shattering and blowing the eerie beasts away.
But the group of creatures itself was still full of life. Without pausing for breath, Rio launched a second round. This knocked two more creatures out of the group in the sky — and one of them landed near Rio and Latifa. Rio took one look at it, before widening his eyes in shock.
A dragon? No, a demi-dragon?! The identity of the bird-like creature that had attacked Rio and Latifa was a demi-dragon — similar to a dragon in appearance and said to be a member of the dragon family. This flight in particular was composed of the smallest subspecies of demi-dragon: the three-meter-long Winged Lizard.
The creature that had fallen before Rio had taken an ice chunk straight to the face, but it was still breathing weakly. They weren’t members of the dragon family for nothing — their bodies were ridiculously sturdy.
“Kyaaah!”
Having had four of their group defeated in such a short time, the remaining Winged Lizards became wary, scattering themselves to surround Rio and Latifa. Rio scowled faintly and released a third round of ice blocks. However, the circling flight of the Winged Lizards was much harder to aim at compared to the direct path they had used before.
“R-Rio! They’re coming all at once!”
“Yeah, it’s not worth the effort of taking them all down. Let’s run! Come on!”
Rio kicked off the ground as Latifa did the same behind him. The two of them bolted away like a startled hare, but the Winged Lizards also gave pursuit. Irritatingly, they maintained a distance not too near and not too far as they enclosed around Rio and Latifa.
I guess they won’t let us get away that easily, Rio thought, turning to look behind him and frowning. It was difficult to gain a lead on Winged Lizards when they could fly.
“Hah... Hah... Hah...” Their full-speed dash with their baggage had already caused Latifa’s breath to come out in rough pants.
They’re trying to wear our stamina out, huh? Latifa won’t last long running at this speed. The situation will only get worse at this rate. Rio analyzed the situation on the spot before coming to a decision.
“Latifa, you go ahead! Hide behind that hill over there.”
“Huh? Ah... B-But!” The sudden order perplexed Latifa; she strongly opposed the idea of it.
“It’s fine, just go! It’s okay, I can manage this by myself! Got it?!” Rio repeated in a stronger tone, before coming to a stop without waiting for a reply.
For an instant, Latifa’s speed fell dramatically. But she was more than painfully aware of how much of a burden she was, so she focused on running even as her face screwed up in shame.
One of the Winged Lizards glided down towards Rio.
“Sorry, but you’re not getting past me,” Rio muttered, removing his backpack before leaping into the air towards the Winged Lizard. He clutched his longsword in his right hand and thrust it into the body of the creature.
So tough! And heavy!
Despite his astonishment at the sensation in his hand, he pulled his sword back. He grabbed the Winged Lizard’s neck and pulled it closer to him, flipping himself onto its back with nimble movements, then using it as a stepping stone to attack another Winged Lizard. The Winged Lizard currently under siege tried to snap at Rio and drive him away, but Rio gathered essence in his arms and enhanced his strength. Then, he swung the sword as they passed each other and felled the neck of the beast.
Immediately, Rio created a blast of wind in his left hand and used the reverse thrust to brake and land on the headless creature’s back. That was when a new Winged Lizard tried to snap at Rio. Without batting an eyelash, he fired another blast of wind at the creature he was standing on. His body shot upwards, causing the attacking Winged Lizard’s jaws to close around nothing but thin air.
Rio flipped himself around midair and brought his sword down against the extended neck of the Winged Lizard from above. No sooner then he had done that, he stuck his left arm above him and used the reverse thrust to leap onto the back of the just-beheaded Winged Lizard. Landing on its back, Rio sheathed his sword by his waist and held both hands out to each side, using essence to create large balls of fire. He launched them at two of the Winged Lizards nearby.
The fireballs drew a neat curve in the air as they collided directly with the creatures. A shockwave rang out from the impact, shaking the air around them, but the only damage the Winged Lizards took was having their balance thrown off.
They may have been demi-dragons, but they were still renowned for being vicious creatures — their skin was highly resistant towards heat.
“Krraaah!”
The leader of the Winged Lizards raised its strange voice in protest, responding to what it perceived as a threat — Rio. The flight scattered in every direction and fled.
Meanwhile, the Winged Lizard Rio was standing on was on a collision course with the ground. Just before making contact, Rio directed a blast of wind towards the ground to soften the impact. The force of the wind blew him backwards, raising him into the air. Next, he maximized the enhancement on his physical body before landing a few moments after the Winged Lizard crashed into the ground.
◇◇◇
After Latifa managed to escape by herself, she was faced with a threat that was different than the one Rio was tackling.
“Hah... Hah... H-huh?!”
As she hid behind the hill that Rio had pointed out and regained her breath, she suddenly caught the scent of something else. Glancing around nervously, she spotted a Lizardman — another subspecies of demi-dragon like the Winged Lizard. The shadow of death loomed over her; fear clawed away at her heart.
“Eek?!”
Body trembling, Latifa readied her dagger. For all the assassination experience she had until now, she had never been on the side of being attacked herself.
The Lizardman was two meters tall and boasted five meters from head to tail — almost like a dinosaur — with its whip-like tail swinging from side to side.
Using the movements ingrained within her body, Latifa leaped instinctively. She flipped once in the air and stabbed at the Lizardman’s back with her dagger. However, her physical enchantments weren’t enough to make up for her childish strength. The light attack of her dagger only spurred the creature on further.
“Ugh! I-It’s so tough?!”
Faced with the fact her dagger could only scratch the surface of its skin, Latifa gasped. When the Lizardman let out an angry roar at the dull pain in its backside, Latifa used its back as a stepping stone to leap away in a panic. Landing in a clearing where the group of beasts hadn’t gathered, Latifa poured her strength into her legs to focus on a getaway. However, when she tried to run, she found the Lizardmen had already cut around her in wait.
Overwhelmed at the numbers, Latifa’s face twisted with fright.
If she could use her battle abilities to their full capacity, she would have been able to create as many escape routes as she wanted. What Latifa lacked in power, she made up for in speed, after all. As long as she positioned herself correctly, she’d be able to keep them at bay for as long as her stamina could hold up. Then, once she bought enough time, Rio would come back to save her.
But Latifa had lost her nerve from the start, panicking too much to remain calm, not unlike those times when she had been controlled by the Collar of Submission. She’d do anything to avoid a situation where she’d have to fight to the death.
Furthermore, Latifa had almost no experience fighting in anything other than a one-on-one situation.
“Krraaah!” The Lizardman she cut in the back earlier roared, jumping at Latifa.
“No!” she screamed, leaping away from it with more strength than needed. The unexpected turn of events had completely turned her panic into inner chaos.
The Lizardmen seemed to pick up on her fear as they swished their tails tauntingly in a mocking strike against her. Latifa somehow managed the evade the attack with her jump, but the chaos within her only grew stronger. Her movements became slower and slower.
“Kya?!” Eventually, Latifa tripped and fell.
She tried to stand up in a hurry, but her body collapsed beneath her. There was no strength in her arms... Her legs wouldn’t move, either.
The Lizardmen halted their animated display of intimidation and slowly walked forward.
“Ugh, ah... N-No... S-Save me... O... Onii...chan...” Latifa squeaked out, on the verge of tears, as her imminent death approached her step-by-step.
Save me... That was all she could think.
In front of her was a large shadow — the drooling mouth and sharp fangs of a Lizardman. It was the same one that Latifa injured earlier; it emitted a delightful screech as it opened its jaws wide.
As she stared up at the evil creature above her in a helpless daze, Rio’s face flashed across Latifa’s mind. He had saved her after she tried to assassinate him, looked after her, and was somewhat similar to the young man in her other self’s memories. A kind, gentle person.
“Onii-chan!”
Before she knew it, Latifa was yelling that name — the name she had always wanted to call, but had never been able to.
Just then, a large boulder came flying from the side, easily blowing away the Lizardman’s body and causing the other Lizardmen to stir at the sudden ambush. Latifa jumped to her feet as quickly as possible and turned in the direction the boulder came from. There, in a black robe, stood the boy several years older than her — Rio.
A flicker of hope burned in Latifa’s eyes.
In contrast, the Lizardmen, instinctively sensing that they had something to fear, backed away gradually.
Rio held his sword at the ready and released a fierce, intimidating aura. His tawny brown eyes glinted sharply, taking in the Lizardmen observantly, before suddenly springing forth. He moved like the wind, closing the gap between them and placing himself before Latifa instantly. After cutting the neck of the one in front of him, he stomped firmly against the ground. In response, the ground before him warped, shooting up like a spear to attack the Lizardmen.
While he wasn’t able to deal effective damage against the thick-skinned demi-dragons, he successfully broke up their formation. Jumping at that chance, he swung his sword to fatally wound them.
“K-Krraaah!”
After reducing a few of their numbers, their leader signaled for their retreat, and the group of Lizardmen all began to withdraw at once.
Watching their retreating figures, Rio let out a small sigh. He slid the longsword in his right hand back into the scabbard at his waist, then made eye contact with Latifa.
“Sorry. The Lizardmen just now were probably in cahoots with the Winged Lizards earlier. Their goal was to split us up.”
“...O-Onii-chan!”
Latifa lost all the strength in her body, wailing “onii-chan” loudly as she bawled her eyes out.
Rio had no idea who “onii-chan” referred to, but he slowly approached and knelt before her. Latifa clung to him.
“Onii-chan, I was so scared!”
“Huh? Umm... I’m sorry.”
Does she mean me when she says “onii-chan”? Rio hesitated for a moment, before reaching over to pat Latifa’s back awkwardly.
“No... Thank you. For saving me.” Latifa choked back on her sobs, reaching out to tightly grasp Rio’s robes.
“Umm, by the way,” Rio began in a slightly tentative voice. Latifa raised her head to peer up at Rio’s face.
“You said ‘onii-chan’...”
It took Latifa a few seconds to process the meaning of Rio’s words. Realizing how long she spent gazing at his face in a daze made her blush with embarrassment.
“Err, ah, umm! S-Sorry!”
“No, it’s not something you need to apologize for...” Rio said with a troubled face at Latifa’s panicked apology.
“Huh? Really?!” Latifa’s expression suddenly brightened up.
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“I-Is it okay if I call you onii-chan...?”
“E-Eeh...?”
“Or... not... You wouldn’t want that...”
“I don’t mind. But why?”
“I just thought it’d be nice having you as my Onii-chan...” Latifa trailed off towards the end, then glanced up at Rio nervously.
“...I see.”
Rio’s expression conveyed his complicated, hard-to-describe state of mind. He didn’t think he had done anything overly brotherly-like on their journey until now. Knowing they’d part ways eventually, he had kept Latifa at a distance while treating her with a gentle disposition. That was all Rio had intended for in his interactions with her.
But what Latifa thought as she journeyed with him was a different story. Ever since that first night when she cried, she had rapidly started to open her heart towards him. The emotions she had suppressed during her slave days burst forth like a broken dam.
That was understandable — Latifa had been starving. Starving for kindness, for affection, for love... It made sense that the object of her desires would be pointed towards Rio, the one who saved her, in a nearly dependent form.
“Onii-... Rio. I’m sorry,” Latifa apologized, watching for Rio’s reaction fearfully. Her expression was like a crestfallen puppy that had been abandoned. Rio sighed at that thought.
“Whichever way is fine.”
“Huh?” Latifa’s mouth dropped open as she looked at Rio blankly.
“You can call me whatever you want.” While he knew it was a compliant judgment to make, Rio couldn’t help but tell her that. He had gotten too close to Latifa without even realizing it himself.
“R-Really?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Ehehe...” Unable to hold back the giggle that bubbled up within her, Latifa smiled joyfully.
No, there was no need to hold back. It had been so long since she had felt happiness this warm, after all.
