Lucimia didn’t answer at once. Doubt rippled through her, a cold wave under still water.
Seriously—“you don’t know your own name”? An abandoned toddler, sure. But you’re grown, my height, even a touch taller, and you don’t know?
And “they”? Who are “they”? The word fell like a pebble in a well with no bottom.
Strange. This girl was strange, a thorn under silk.
She had woken once mid-flight. In that brief crack of awareness, she saw the girl dragging her like a pack through bramble, as if something hunted them. Lucimia split space like tearing silk, snared the enemy’s lightning with the rift, and dropped trees like a falling wall to block the chase.
But that alone shouldn’t have worked, a leaf against a storm. How did she run free?
She chose not to answer and asked instead, voice cool as dew, “Do you use magic?”
“Huh? Ah, sadly, no magic for me,” Rexi sighed, shoulders sinking like wilted grass. “Guess I’ve got no talent.”
“Then how’d you light the fire? Rubbing sticks?”
“No. I used a Fireball Spell,” Rexi said, as if it were bread and water. “I only know that one, so it doesn’t count. Lots of people can do it.”
Lucimia nodded, a slow tap of thought like rain on stone. True enough. Yet the strangeness clung like fog.
“Hey, hey. I’ve answered a bunch, and you won’t even tell me your name!” Rexi puffed her cheeks, like a kitten bristling. “So unfair!”
Lucimia still didn’t answer. Her gaze sharpened, a blade unsheathed.
Fear pricked first, then the thought. What if this was Ment’s hand? As she’d guessed: Ment, cut off from the Purification Deity, Authority Power muzzled, would only be able to curse from the shadows to stop her.
Like the tale she’d pictured: Lucimia saves a beauty, the beauty invites her to dinner, she eats, and the curse slides in like poison honey.
This girl might be false, crafted bait. Ment could’ve made her, or pulled her like a puppet, to lure out trust.
Maybe some curse trick needed the target to say her own name. So many methods, like needles in the dark. She had to stay cautious.
Even the pursuers could’ve been play-actors, a staged hunt to buy trust.
But one thorn snagged the fabric: she had been unconscious. They’d had all the time in the world to act. Why not strike then?
Maybe trust bait was better than a perfect ambush, honey sweeter than blade. Or maybe this place stood outside the Cross’s reach, and Ment’s curses were shackled.
Of course, third path: the girl was just a normal soul, a sparrow on the road.
After a breath of thought, Lucimia asked, “The ‘they’ you mentioned—those soldiers hunting you? How’d you shake them?”
That did it. Rexi’s face fell like a dropped fan.
She crossed her arms and turned her head with a crisp hmph, like a fox refusing bait. “I’m not telling. You didn’t answer me.”
Cute move, sure, sugar on a knife. But Lucimia wouldn’t play. The cave had aired out enough; she lifted a palm and poured pure light into the hollow, dawn washing the stone.
In the glow, she saw Rexi clearly, picture sharp as lacquer.
A waterfall of green hair, smooth yet mussed, ahoge sprouting here and there like mischievous shoots.
Her eyes were slit-pupiled, not the round gaze of common humans, twin leaves cut thin.
Her face was finely carved, edges clean as a chisel stroke, and that pouty tone earlier rang with a lively, impish charm.
She wore a light travel cloak. A brown belt hugged her waist, hung with a dagger, small tools, and a few mana crystals etched with Magic Arrays—an adventurer’s kit, rough and ready.
Below, black leather leggings hugged her legs like night water, paired with short walking boots. Tights and leather flowed together, drawing out long lines like bamboo stalks.
Then Lucimia noticed a ring. The glint caught like a star on a still pond. A Storage Ring on the girl’s finger.
She narrowed her eyes to be sure. Yes. A Storage Ring.
Stranger still: with a Storage Ring, why hang tools outside? Habit? Careless pride?
No, that wasn’t the key. The key was—she had a Storage Ring.
On this continent, a Storage Ring was luxury and banner—status, identity, wealth, all stamped in steel.
Usually only nobles, a few richest merchants, the royal line, or those strong enough—top mages, Holy Knights, Swordmasters, or elite academy graduates—would have one.
And a Storage Ring bound to its owner stayed locked to thieves, often traceable like a beacon.
So where did Rexi get hers? Stolen? If stolen, was that why the knives and tools stayed outside, like bait left untouched?
Lucimia studied her, suspicion coiling like smoke. Then she lifted her hand, and an Ice Lance bloomed, frost-white and razor-straight, the tip leveled at Rexi’s brow.
“Eh—!” Rexi jolted, hands up fast, like a rabbit caught in moonlight. “W-what are you doing! I saved you! You can’t repay kindness with a knife!”
“I saved you too. We’re even,” Lucimia said, voice clouded and cold. The Ice Lance drifted closer, winter breathing on skin. “Tell me how you shook the soldiers. Or I kill you.”
Earlier, when Lucimia had threatened to eat her, Rexi had scrambled off her lap. Lucimia had thought she’d fold now too. Yet with a spear at her brow, Rexi still held back.
“I—I—I’m warning you,” Rexi stammered, bluff thin as paper. “I’m really strong. Don’t push me.”
“I have other ways to learn how you escaped,” Lucimia said, a calm blade in the dark. “They might bruise your brain a little. Want to try?”
“—!!” Rexi stared. Cute cherry lips, venom for petals—how could such a face breathe such thorns?
“I didn’t mean you harm! I’m a good person! Wait—are you the bad one?”
Lucimia only watched, her silence a vice tightening.
“…Fine. I’ll tell you.” Rexi sagged, the fight leaking out like air from a drum. “I tricked them into thinking I ran right. I actually hid left.”
“A trick? How?”
“Uh…” Sweat beaded like dew at dawn. “Secret. Adventurer’s secret.”
“Hmm?”
The Ice Lance kissed her neck. Cold cut in like a knife of ice, and Rexi shivered to her bones.
“Okay, okay! I’ll talk. It’s this.” She pulled a mana crystal from her belt and pointed. “This one has pre-carved magic. I can’t do magic, so I buy these. One happened to be an illusion spell. I used the illusion to fool them.”
