Rose kept her eyes on Xuo as he moved toward Hajime, and for a brief instant, everything seemed to slow to a crawl.
The moment Xuo reached Hajime, he grabbed his hand and continued toward the forest. But before he could take another step, Rose moved. In a blink, she vanished from her previous spot and reappeared in front of Xuo, an irritated expression on her face, her fist raised and ready to strike.
Xuo shifted his gaze toward Rose as the dark mist around him began to disperse, enveloping Hajime's hand. Half a second later, Rose's punch landed.
What the hell is happening right now? Hajime wondered with a puzzled expression.
He fell to the ground, slowly turning his head to make sense of the situation. But before he could fully grasp it, he was no longer with Rose and Xuo. He found himself standing alone in the middle of the forest—at least, that's what it seemed. Next to him stood a humanoid shadow, facing west, before it vanished swiftly into thin air.
Hajime blinked.
Not long after, Xuo appeared in front of him, panting heavily.
"...You okay, kid?" he asked.
Did he just teleport us out of there? Hajime thought, astonished. Incredible… I didn't even know that was possible. But it looks like it drains a lot of mana. Maybe that's why teleportation isn't commonly used. He stared at Xuo, still catching his breath.
Meanwhile, blood spilled where Rose had been standing. Before her lay Xuo, mangled beyond recognition. Half his face had caved in, his lower body torn apart, and his arms and legs broken; he couldn't even move if he wanted to.
"A fake, huh?" Rose muttered, her gaze fixed on Xuo's lifeless body.
In the area, some of the trees were broken down due to the impact of Rose's punches. Some knights who were nearby got hurt in the process, while some were blown away, and the carriages that were nearby all got destroyed, including the one that was close to Mathew.
Yet, despite the carnage, not a speck of dirt touched Mathew.
"...Are we under attack?"
Some of the knights muttered to each other as they scrambled to their feet. A few rushed to help their fallen comrades, caught in the aftermath of Rose's destruction.
Rose glanced to her left, and a second later, she took a small step in that direction. Her eyes remained lifeless, her expression deadly serious, as if she were ready to kill anyone who dared stand in her way.
***
Inside the forest, Xuo sat down as he placed a hand on his chest, and sweat ran down his face.
"...You okay?" Hajime asked.
Xuo looked up, slowly clenching his fist.
"...Yeah... I think I'll be okay...?"
He turned toward a path to his right that looked man-made.
"If you head that way..., and start running for your life..., there's a chance that you run into some people who can help you out... Cough. Cough. ...Don't stop for anything, alright..."
He glanced back at Hajime, a faint smile breaking through his fatigue.
"...You got that, kid...?"
Hajime turned toward the path Xuo was looking at.
What are the chances that I'll find someone there? ...But from the looks of this, the chance might be somewhere around fifty percent. Yet, what will he do after I leave him here?
Wait, could it be that he's planning to die?
"...Wh, what do you mean...?" He turned, glancing back at Xuo with a concerned expression.
"Just leave...!" Xou said out loud.
Hajime took a step back.
This isn't going to end well.
He began to run, heading down the path Xuo had shown him, without looking back, but for some reason, he didn't feel that bad leaving Xuo behind.
After Hajime had left, Xuo was preparing himself to die. He took something that looked like pearls and placed them in his hand.
"...Well... I guess this is it for me..." he thought, staring up through the canopy of trees.
Baam!
Out of nowhere, a tree came crashing down from the sky, heading straight for Xuo. With no time to react, his body phased, dissolving into a thin veil of dark mist just as the tree struck the spot where he had been.
Rose appeared, striding toward the impact site.
"Found you." She said, her voice laced with fury.
Ahead of her, Xuo was reforming, his body slowly returning to its normal shape.
"...How did you…?" Xuo asked, his face paling after having transformed into mist.
"How clever of you to split yourself into two?" Rose said.
"But you weren't smart enough to realize that you left a trace of your mist all over the forest." Then she added while continuing to approach him.
"Now... Where is my little brother?"
Her body began radiating a silver light, followed by an immense surge of mana.
"...What do you mean, my brother, bitch…?" Xuo muttered, slipping the pearls into his mouth.
"Tsk." Rose clicked her tongue and clenched her fists tighter.
***
Somewhere in the forest, along the path Hajime had taken.
The forest looked as if it was closing in on itself as Hajime walked through it. He kept moving forward without looking back here and there, making sure he wasn't being followed, and he had no clue where he was headed.
He ran into some trees frequently, yet he stopped making landmarks of areas he had already been, and he planned these landmarks to be his guide back to where he was with Xuo.
The path split into multiple routes, but after guessing which one to take, he proceeded.
Eventually, he found himself completely lost. The path he had taken ended at a sheer cliff, and the only way around it was to climb, but the cliff was too tall and smooth to hold onto.
He sat on a rock to rest for a bit before moving again, but a few seconds after sitting, an arrow barely missed, embedding itself deep into the cliff beside him.
Where did that come from?
Hajime thought, glancing at the embedded arrow, then a second later, using the arrow's trajectory and the few visible footholds, he deduced it had come from the dense forest adjacent to the one he was in.
I have to get out of here... Whoever drew that arrow sure is after me.
A moment later, he approached a tree he had marked earlier, pretending to search for something, then split away the moment he heard movement from the direction of the last arrow.
...
After running for a minute or so, he tripped, falling to the ground, but before he could get up, an arrow coated in a strange liquid struck him from behind, lodging halfway into his body.
With no time to react, his body became rigid as his eyes turned completely white, and he lost consciousness.