Chapter 288

Trial of the Alchemist (IV)

Cain made himself as stealthy as possible as he continued sneaking toward the cave. He could be detected at any point, so he was always battle-ready, primed for conflict. Though it was exhausting for his psyche, it wasn’t anything he wasn’t accustomed to. After all, he’d spent quarter of a lifetime in such a state beforehand. Just because it’s been a while doesn’t mean he’s forgotten.

However, something was strange. He was already less than a hundred feet from the cave. If the witch truly was as strong as advertised, she should have long since noticed him and engaged him. And yet, there wasn’t even a peep from the cave. Just silence and the flickering light of the fire that burned. He frowned, thinking back to quest. Was there anything in it that acted as a hint? He couldn’t tell. Sighing, he could only venture forward, until he ventured directly into the cave.

It wasn’t a terribly large or deep cave, merely forty-fifty feet into the mountain, barely wide and tall to fit two men side by side. At the end it opened up slightly into a ecliptic shape, bending like a dome so its cast shadows appeared larger than their bearers. Such was the case with what Cain found within the cave—there, sitting behind the thinly-roaring fire, was a young girl. She looked younger than sixteen-seventeen by Cain’s estimates and was currently holding her knees abreast, her arms wrapped tightly around them, her jaw locked in-between them.

She was visibly shaking, and was so out of it that she didn’t even notice Cain enter. The latter paused. Something was visibly off here. This… this wasn’t a witch, he ascertained. Even if he had no means of gauging her strength directly, his decades of experiences told him that this was just a young girl. What made him doubt that assessment, however, was her physical appearance—Cain wouldn’t quantify it as ‘beautiful’, per se, but more transcendent than anything else. She… wasn’t human.

All human beings, no matter their age and levels of self-care, have flaws. A wrinkle there, an old acne scar here, some asymmetry, big ears, crooked nose… there was always something. Those flaws made each person unique, different enough to where the world learned to love and even fetishize certain flaws. It came full circle, in the end, when the flaws ceased being flaws.

The girl in front of him was different. She had no blemishes—any blemishes. She was like a highly-photoshoped and airbrushed version of a person. Her skin was flawless, smooth, and without any scarring. She had a perfectly-chiseled jaw, masculine enough to where it defined her facial features, but feminine enough to where it afforded her an oval-shaped face. Her lips were full but not overbearing and her eyes were wide and round like a certain type of a princess from a certain type of a movie.

Everything about her screamed artificial and fake and made-up and yet… she was very much real. Cain didn’t know the math behind how she ended up looking like something an artist making bread painting impossible women made, but she did nonetheless. It gave him the uncanny valley feeling—a sensation of something being real without really being real. Like hyper-realistic paintings and animations, somehow, one way or another, brains can immediately detect if something is fake. She gave him that same feeling.

Nonetheless, it took nearly five minutes of Cain standing there awkwardly, and even Te’gha not knowing exactly what is going on, for the young girl to notice the two. As soon as she did, she yelped in panic and tried to run deeper into the cave, headbutting the wall in the process. However, even still, there was no visible scarring or blood or anything like it despite her holding her head and crying lowly in pain.

“S-stay back!” she warned meekly. “I… I am a powerful witch!”

“Uh,” Cain wanted to say that he was sent here by that elderly woman, but he’d actually forgotten to get the woman’s name. “I… I mean no harm? I was sent here by your elderly friend.”

“Grandma Fau?!” the girl excitedly exclaimed, her eyes alighting. “Were you truly?! Are you not lying to me?”

“No, no,” Cain shook his head. “She asked me to find you and bring you to her so she can hear why you did what you did.”

“I… I didn’t do anything!” the young girl proclaimed boldly, on the verge of tears. “I really didn’t! I… I don’t know what happened, I swear!”

Cain bought her story, actually—it truly felt as though she was entirely clueless about the entire plot. On the other hand, however, she could be a master-class actor, which was why he didn’t lower his guard just yet.

“I can bring you back to Grandma Fau and you can explain to her,” Cain wanted to rush to the end of the quest so he can move on and not be stuck here much longer, so he decided to take the shortest route there. “If you’d like.”

“Yes, please!” the girl replied. “Running away… I ended up lost. I still don’t know where I am.”

“Where are the men that were chasing you?” Cain asked as the girl joined him in leaving the cave.

“The men? Who were chasing me? I… there weren’t any?”

“Really? You didn’t see any men?”

“No,” the girl shook her head innocently. Okay, seriously, the fuck is going on?!

“Alright. Let’s get you to Grandma Fau, then."

Quietly stirring, Cain led the young girl back up the mountain and over toward the forested portions, eventually beginning their descent. The girl didn’t talk of her own, only ever responding to Cain’s questions. He learned that her name was Ayna and that she was actually fifteen years old. Furthermore, she told him of her own volition that all her life she was ‘ugly’, as she put it, due to numerous birth defects suffered due to the fact that her mother and father were blood siblings.

It wasn’t just her physical appearance that suffered; she also said that, until recently, her thoughts were slow and muddy and words and concepts were confusing. She was also partially deaf and mute and had struggled to walk most of the time due to being a hunchback. The more he listened to her story the more he grasped just how seriously insane her life must have been and, because of it, how deranged the sudden shift in her situation must have felt like.

Part of him didn’t even want to take her back to the old woman but to stealthily take the girl out of the trial and adopt her. He cursed himself immediately, however, as that sounded far more like kidnapping rather than adoption. From the sounds of it, anyway, the old woman never mistreated her and should be able to help at least slightly.

“I didn’t really mean to steal anything, I swear!” the girl repeatedly said. “One day, I just woke up and there was this blinding light and when I left the house everyone got angry and tried beating me and I had to run away…”

The journey back took a while longer than his departure, especially because he decided to take yet another break at the same spot as before. He cooked himself and Ayna a meal while giving Te’gha an entire pig due to how compliant and silent and obedient the cat was.

The girl must have not eaten in days since she practically inhaled the food, leaving little in the way of breathing. She thanked him aplenty as they began moving again, claiming it was the best meal she’d ever had.

All else aside, he’d bonded slightly with the girl; though his lifetime of plights was like a drop in a bucket for her, it’s quite easy for people to find companionship in misery. Except… she wasn’t miserable. At least wasn’t until what happened to her. Though the people were mean to her, as she said, they never hurt her too much. Sometimes, some old men and women would give her food out of pity, and her ‘Grandma Fau’ would come visit at least once a week to play with her.

Cain waited at the edge of the forest, just below the cascading city, for the night to fall. All lights within the city dimmed and dulled and the two took their opportunity to sneak in and slowly make their way up the stratas toward the old woman’s house. It took them awhile, especially because there were quite a few women patrolling the streets, but they eventually made it there.

“Ayna!”

“Grandma Fau!” the young girl practically raced over the threshold and jumped into the old woman’s arms, crying her eyes out in the process. “I was so scared, grandma! So, so, so scared!”

“It is alright, child,” the old woman rubbed her hand over the girl’s hair. “You are with me now. Everything will be fine.”

“I really didn’t mean for that to happen, grandma! I… I don’t know how it did…”

“Grandma knows,” the old woman said.

“Grandma… knows? So, you believe me?”

“Yes,” the old woman nodded, glancing at Cain. “Thank you, hero, for bringing her to me. I was fearful you might take her to the others.”

“I didn’t find any of the men, though,” Cain said, getting a bad feeling all of a sudden.

“Oh, that’s quite alright—I wasn’t expecting you to,” the woman said. “Ayna is all that matters. Everything rested on her. When she ran off… aah, it would have been costly.”

“What’s… I am feeling dizzy…” the girl mumbled suddenly as Cain’s synapses finally woke up from their slumber.

“Awh, goddammit, not this shit again,” he said in exasperation. “You’re the bad guy? Shit, not only the setting, even the dumb twist is like a fairy tale. Fuck me, how didn’t I see it? Stupid Te’gha, how didn’t you see it?!”

“Te—Te’gha isn’t stupid, stupid human! Great… Great Te’gha saw it! Yes, yes, he saw it! Didn’t want to tell you! Blrrrr!” the cut stuck out his tongue in the protest, but the words of defense were very weak. By then, the girl was already passed out, lying in the center of the room which Cain quickly recognized for a magic circle that it was.

“Now,” the old woman cackled. “It is time for me to be reborn anew! After so many years… ha ha ha, Queen Terrasha shall rule these lands once more! Kneel before me, o’ thine cruel world!”