Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Bloody Night and The Tuna Father
Just like what Sigurd had said, his eyesight deteriorates dramatically when he's in the dark. But fortunately, in the brightly lit room, the light coming through the windows is enough to clearly clarify the scene in the room.
Also, due to this, Sigurd can also easily see where each member of the gangs are inside the house.
"I see two people in front of the window on the first floor, and one in front of the window on the second floor, from the look of it, they are the people in charge of security."
The noisy noise inside the building has long subsided, and Sigurd knew that, except for the vigilant ones, most of the rest of the guys inside the building should have passed out drunk.
So, the time has come.
Should he wait for dawn to come, while it's true that Sigurd's eyesight can be restored, but most of the people in the room will also be awake by then. What's more, after waiting overnight, Sigurd's physical strength and state will also decline accordingly, and his own combat power may not be stronger than at this moment.
Therefore, doing it at midnight is the best time.
Sigurd gestured to Kiana with his head, and then started to aim the crossbow in his hand toward 3 of the patrolling gang members.
*Swish*
*Swish*
*Swish*
Three arrows soar into the air in a row, from loading the arrow into the crossbow, into aiming then and letting them loose, the whole process takes less than three seconds, and the aim has already been adjusted to the best through his brain analysis results, even without using his own eyes to aim, the percentage of each one of his arrow hitting a headshot is 100%.
Soon, three successive sounds of broken glass came, but due to the silence when the arrow on the crossbow was released, their exact location would not be revealed.
Sigurd knew that the arrow that he had shot certainly hit their mark, he knew that he had just murdered 3 men.
However, unexpectedly, his mood is very calm right now.
The psychological preparation had already been done during the monitoring, and besides a little nervousness, Sigurd didn't feel any discomfort when he actually killed someone.
Kiana, who was lying next to him, scratched the snow and dirt on the ground a little bit reluctantly, but she didn't look away from what was happening in front of her.
"Now, you are my eyes."
Sigurd's exhortations were imprinted in her mind, and Kiana knew that the matter of Sigurd life and death were now directly related to her observation skill.
There was a brief commotion in the house.
An unlucky guy poked half his head out of the window on the first floor, thinking he was carefully observing the enemy's situation outside the window.
Then he was taken away by Sigurd with an arrow.
Then, the lights in the house went out.
It's originally noisy, but when the netizens of the house notice the attack from outside, the entirety of the house has fallen into dead silence .
"There are seven more people."
Sigurd said, not only for himself, but also for Kiana who was the eye.
Worried that Kiana was too nervous, Sigurd reached out his hand and patted her on the back.
"I'm fine." Kiana gritted her teeth, staring at the windows and doors of the house, not even daring to blink.
"That's good. We are entering the second stage of this operation, make sure to keep watching."
As Sigurd said so, he took out two tightly corked beer bottles from his waist in the dark.
Unlike Kiana, his eyes really can't see in the night, and night blindness cannot be recovered by simple adjustments in a day or two, however, the location of his side and the location of the house are fixed, and the three-dimensional orientation model has already been printed in Sigurd's mind.
Sigurd weighed the weight of the wine bottle, calculating the weight, his arm strength, the speed of their surrounding wind, the distance of his hiding spot to the house, and the direction, after inputting all of the necessary data, a series of information turned into a complete calculation formula in his mind, and then he threw two wine bottles one after another.
"Sig, all of the bottles went in."
Using her eyes, Kiana was able to clearly see the way the bottle went inside the various holes inside the building, when the young man heard that, he just let out a tiny humm in acknowledgement.
Inside the building, the moment when the bottle that Sigurd threw broke due to impact, a gas began to spread rapidly.
This is Sigurd's self-made chemical weapon. The short amount of preparation time that he got made him unable to find enough material to make a lethal type chemical bomb, however, it's still enough for him to make a chemical weapon that would release a gas that are strong enough to burns the skins of it victim, especially the powerful effect of burning fragile tissues such as eyes and nasal cavity.
"Ah!!"
"What? What is that?"
"My eyes! It burns!!!"
"Out of the way!! Go! Go! Go!"
Amid the sound of the collision between locals and outsider gang members, and the falling of tables and chairs, Sigurd heard the sound of the door opening.
"Kiana!" Sigurd called out the girl beside him.
Kiana heard Sigurd's call and began to follow the instruction that Sigurd had told her before, she focused her eyes and after observing the location of the gang member, began to quickly reply. "There are people in the left room, and also the right room! There are two people in total!"
*Swish*
*Swish*
Sigurd closed his eyes and let loose two arrows, shooting the back of the head of the two people who were staggering and trying to get out of the door.
When the dull sound of something hitting someone, Kiana reported the results in time:
"Those two people were hit in the chest. They...they didn't move. In the middle left, there's about...about two meters behind the door, and there's another person squatting."
Sigurd frowned, the information that Kiana gave was more vague and uncertain, he counted for a second and shot three arrows.
After a while, Kiana reported:
"That man was hit by two arrows, one was on the leg, and the other one was... the other one was on his head, i think he died instantly."
"Four left."
Sigurd said coldly, this is the remaining number of people that needed to be erased tonight.
Then, he took out two glass balls filled with his own handmade chemical weapon and threw them into the house.
"Crack! Crack!"
There was the sound of wine bottles breaking into the room.
Due to the opening of the windows and door, some of the chemical burning gas had dissipated from the room, but after the two glass balls crashed inside the room, the gas quickly filled the room again, and continued to torment the vision and nose and mouth organs of the people in the room.
A wound burned by fire will become more injured if it continues to burn. Similarly, body tissues that have been damaged by gas are not immune to the continuous damage that it received. Especially when the gas concentration continues to increase in their potency, the victim will only feel more severe pain should it be left alone.
Sure enough, not long after the glass balls broke, there was a terrible cry of pain loudly echoed in the room, loud enough that even Sigurd, who is quite a distance away from the building, still can hear it clearly.
Then, the sound of random shooting came from the building, something that quickly alarmed the surrounding neighbors.
But the people in the town already knew that the people in this house were not a good kind of people, and furthermore, the sound that they heard were that of a gunshot, and no matter how you think about it, butting their nose into this matter is not a good thing, hence, no one dared to come out of their house to watch, for fear of being involved in danger.
Thanks to this, Sigurd could hear the screams in the room more clearly, and after the gunfire ended, he roughly identified the direction of each gang member.
In Sigurd's hand appeared the shotgun generously subsidized by the hardware store owner, a shotgun that could only be loaded with one round at a time.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Four gunshots, and four reloads, putting down the still loaded shotgun, Sigurd tilted his ear to listen to the sound inside the building.
After a full ten minutes had passed, and when he was sure that he heard no sound coming from the building, Sigurd let out a sigh of relief.
"It should be over, Kiana, wait a minute, I'll go over and have a look first..."
"I'll check the situation, you wait for me here!" Kiana ignored Sigurd's order, and got up by herself and tiptoed towards the house.
"Kiana, you are crazy! Come back here!" Sigurd shouted in a low voice.
However, all Sigurd got was the sound of Kiana's distant footsteps stepping on the snow.
*Baff*
Sigurd hit the snowy ground with his clenched fist, and veins popped up on his forehead.
Even though he was 99% sure that there was no one alive inside that building, even if there was even a trace of uncertainty—he didn't want to see the scene of Kiana being shot, not at all.
"Wait! At least bring a gun with you!" Sigurd moved forward with a growl, and said, "Don't play with your own life!"
Perhaps because of being intimidated by Sigurd's growl, or because she understood the danger of what she was doing, Kiana finally turned back, intending to take the shotgun in Sigurd's hand.
However, just as she started to approach Sigurd, which is still only two or three steps away from her, and was about to squat down to take the gun, Sigurd, who was listening to the sound of footsteps of the little tuna, suddenly stretched out his hands, grabbed Kiana's trousers, and yanked her to him.
"Ah!!"
Kiana was pulled back by the white haired young man and was pressed by him to the ground, her body covered by Sigurd.
"You're promising indeed! You've learned to make your own decisions, haven't you?"
"Wooooo!"
Kiana's mouth was covered by Sigurd's palm and she couldn't say anything.
To be honest, even when Sigurd was in a rage, his strength was not beyond the scope of a child. For Kiana, who has her body enhanced to the brim with Honkai Energy, she could easily overpower him.
But seeing Sigurd's gloomy and terrifying expression, Kiana suddenly didn't dare to resist.
There is fear in her heart, but at the same time, Kiana also felt something strange in her heart, something that she had never experienced before, and if she had to comment on what's the feeling it's the closest to, it would be closest to happiness.
Sigurd stared at the little tuna under him, his normal human eyes made him unable to see her expression clearly in the dark. After a while, he finally let go of Kiana's mouth and said:
"Don't go there, at the very least, you need to wait a little longer, if someone is awake after all of my shots, it would be impossible to keep silent due to the toxic gas floating inside the building."
Kiana nodded quickly, and immediately thought that Sigurd might not be able to see her nodding her white head, so she replied weakly:
"I...I understand."
Before starting his plan to purge the gang member, Sigurd had made sure to count the number of people that he had shot correctly, and also made some more backup plan in case some of the gang members are still alive, there are nothing wrong with being that after all, but even with his brilliant mind would he be able to calculate the chaotic variable known as Kiana Kaslana impulsive decision.
Of course, he could understand that Kiana was thinking about his safety. It's just that this kind of thing is not negotiable, if he said that something can't be done, then it can't be done.
The result of neither of the white haired kids compromising on their decision was that the two of them continued to lie down on the icy and snowy ground for more than half an hour.
For Kiana, this kind of thing is something that doesn't bother her at all, both physically or emotionally, rather, she actually becomes more energetic as the time goes on.
But for Sigurd, who had just eaten a few piece of black bread to sustain his still fragile and weak body for a whole day, waiting in the cold was nothing less than pure torture.
This kind of result was also something that Sigurd had expected priorhand, so he didn't panic or something like that.
Therefore, when the time limit on how much his body can take was almost up, Sigurd didn't try to be brave, and let go of the little tuna under him, and after making sure that she was unhurt, he let her drag his body toward the now silent building.
In order to prevent a sneak attack, Sigurd didn't turn on the light source at all, but held a shotgun in one hand, and accompanied by Kiana, he carefully groped up and down the stairs.
After making sure that he can't hear any sound of breathing or heartbeat on the corpse that he found around the building, Sigurd let out a sigh of relief, the feeling of something incredibly heavy on his shoulder finally gone.
After that, Sigurd signaled to Kiana who was waiting outside to come into the building, making sure to tell her to turn on the light on the building.
The wiring on the second floor seemed to have been cut off during his attack, and in the end, only the lights in the living room on the first floor were left intact, which were still able to light up the building normally.
After confirming that there are no more leftover dangerous gasses inside the building, Sigurd started to pay attention to his physical problems, so he cooked some soup with the ingredients in the house. After making sure they were all clean, he prepared some hot soup, and put them on the table.
"Kiana, Eat this, you need to eat food that gives you a lot of nutrition."
When Sigurd said this, The little tuna expression brightened immediately, her love for food made her tunnel vision so much that she is able to ignore the chaos and blood around them.
Of course, it's only for a moment, just as Kiana started to devour the hot soup that Sigurd gave her, she finally noticed.
She looked at the corpses around her, blood was flowing all over the floor, and there were a few traces of blood splashes on the table, and even the plate in front of her had red blood stains on the side, making her start to felt suspicious about whatever there are human blood tainted her delicious soup.
Kiana (?.?): "..."
Noticing the way Kiana gazed at her plate with conflicted expression, Sigurd stopped eating the soup for a moment and then said.
"No need to worry, I have cleaned all of the plate carefully, there is no blood in it. Moreover, even if there is, it is not poisonous."
Sigurd glanced at the several corpses circling the table, and continued to drank his soup as if nothing had happened.
Just as he had told her, all of the tableware has been washed clean, and even if it is accidentally mixed with a little human blood, it is generally not poisonous, not to mention it has been heated and sterilized, so there is no danger from eating food using it.
Kiana looked at Sigurd dumbly, and said speechlessly: "The problem is not whatever it's poisoned or not okay? and besides, do you really think i can eat normally in this situation?"
Sigurd glared at the little tuna, closed his eyes helplessly, took a deep breath, and swallowed the broth in his mouth before he then spoke.
"It's up to you, if you don't want to eat now, then you would need to eat the dry food later."
After saying such heartless things, the white haired kid continued to eat his soup, unlike Kiana, who has a supernatural physique thanks to her Kaslana bloodline and Herrscher body, even if she didn't eat anything for a week and more, there would be nothing bad happen to her.
He is different, his physique is already so fragile that if the temperature outside drops a more, even if only by a little, he may accidentally freeze to death. At this moment, he has been lying in the snow outside for a long time, and he has not supplemented himself with any food and water for a long amount of time, and if he does not immediately fill himself full with more calories and nutrition, something bad will definitely happen.
Feeling the coldness of his limbs and the faint tingling of his respiratory tract, Sigurd held his breath for a moment, trying to suppress all kinds of discomfort that he was feeling, and forced himself to chew and swallow the food.
Despite the many seasonings he had put into the food, the soup somehow still felt tasteless in his tongue.
After finishing his dinner, Sigurd finally felt some warmth blooming from inside his body, then after sending a signal to Kiana, he took out the two lockboxes they had found.
It was a boxy black briefcase that is often seen in movies. At first glance, it made people think that it was holding some huge amount of cash or top secret confidential documents.
Sigurd didn't get to hear the password when he was listening, but now he has a lot of tools at hand. After carefully testing the box security using the tool that he has in hand, he opened the box easily.
On Sigurd's left side, a bunch of neatly wrapped cash was sitting nicely inside a box, while on his right neat banknotes, on the right, bags of crystal particles.
"Hmm.. a beautifully carved knife, and a bunch of odorless and tasteless poison. . . ."
Sigurd looked at the items in the two boxes and mumbled to himself, then, the box containing the crystallized drug was thrown aside, and the other box, filled to the brim with cash was poured into the bag that he had brought, and then he threw the empty box aside as well.
After gesturing to Kiana to carry the cash-filled backpacks in his hand, Sigurd thought for a moment, then took out a mobile phone from a corpse with a well fashioned dress.
Fortunately, he had paid special attention to and analyzed the written language that is being used in this country when he was doing some odd business yesterday. While he didn't dare to say that he had mastered the language, he is already good enough, as good as how a normal teenager would be.
'Fortunately, it's an old-fashioned push-button type of phone, and there are no fingerprint passwords or anything... Oh, I found it, this is the Boss' phone number. '
"Cough! Cough cough!"
Sigurd squeezed his throat, adjusted his voice, and then dialed the phone.
"Hey! It's Gart, is everything going well?"
"Ura...Ural's...Silver Wolf..."
Sigurd imitated the voice of the leader of one of the two gangs, with a feeble, painful staccato vibrating on his tone.
Then,
"Boom!"
The mobile phone was thrown under the table next to a random corpse. At the same time, Sigurd repeatedly pulled the trigger of the gun in his hand, and he shot the ground and corpse using all of the available bullets, making sure to recreate a fake fierce gun battle for the boss on the other side to hear.
Then, Sigurd winked at Kiana who was covering her mouth and making no sound.
The two quietly walked out of the house, and while closing the door, he spread some oil in and outside of the building.
After walking a few steps, Sigurd dropped a Molotov cocktail in a car by the side of the road.
Soon, both cars and the building were all engulfed in scorching flames, and there were successive explosions, and not long after, all traces about their appearance in that area would disappear alongside the corpse, being engulfed in the sea of flames.
In this way, the only information these two groups can get is the code name of the "Silver Wolf of the Urals".
"What is Ulals Silver wolf?"
While walking with her back to the explosion, the little tuna asked curiously.
"It's the silver wolf of Ural. Forget it, that's not important, just pretend you haven't heard of it."
'That's your future buddy' Sigurd said in his heart.
He didn't know if the current Bronya had already obtained this title and started to act in the dark world, but the approximate time should not be different, even if she has not yet obtained the title of the "Silver Wolf of the Urals" now, she will be soon.
Weapons with traces of use, such as shotguns and crossbow bolts, were left in the sea of fire by Sigurd.
Sigurd asked Kiana to stuff a small wad of singapur dollar bills into the hardware store as compensation for burning both the shotgun and crossbow, and after making sure everything is paid for, Sigurd goes back to their abode and start to smash everything apart, making sure no one would ever think that there is a trace of life once living in it.
Looking at it again, this messy bridge hole full of waste is like a garbage dump, even if he didn't smash everything inside it apart, no one would even bother to look into it.
Sigurd then steals a donkey cart. And after making sure no one was around to see them, the two white haired kid left the small town in a donkey cart.
"What a pity, the charcoal buried in the morning has not been dug out yet."
Kiana hugged her knees and pressed her body against Sigurd's, and said such words with a sad tone of voice.
"If you want to, we can try to dig the charcoal out in the far future, perhaps it can be used to make a barbecue or something, of course, provided it hasn't been dug away by someone else first."
"Impossible, we are leaving such obvious traces in the ground when making that hole, obviously it will definitely be dug away when we come back!"
Kiana muttered in frustration, and it was rare that she didn't pay attention to the food that he was waving in front of her, it's probably because she hadn't recovered from the bloody scene just now.
Sigurd put away the food in his arm and asked:
"This is a surprise, did you really care so much about the charcoal?"
"Of course, that's the charcoal we personally made together! It's unique!"
Kiana pouted, and said with a tone full of sadness and melancholy.
Sigurd was speechless.
The little tuna already has a bag filled to the brim with cash, why would she still care about something as small as those charcoal?
"Go to sleep when you're tired."
Being somewhat unaware of the source of Kiana's depression. Sigurd opened his mouth and said so.
Unexpectedly, Kiana shook her head: "No, your health is too poor, If i fell asleep, what if you can't stand the cold night and pass out?"
"..."
Sigurd pride as a man made him not want to admit his inability to handle the cold, but he had to admit that Kiana's word held some merit, and unfortunately, his short legs made him unable to drive a car, therefore, he can only travel using donkey carts. And to drive a donkey cart, someone needs to be awake at all times to make sure the donkey moves in the right direction.
"Ha~"
Probably due to not sleeping and being awake all day, Sigurd couldn't help yawning, suddenly, his eyelids became heavier. Then, he looked at Kiana, who was obviously not feeling sleepy at all. In this case, perhaps it would be better if he let kiana take the reign of the donkey.
"Kiana, sit down beside me, I'll teach you how to drive a donkey cart."
"Huh? Oh, okay."
It's not difficult, even with Kiana's unique intelligence, it only took her more or less an hour to master it.
Then Sigurd, who was gradually unable to support himself to stay awake, rested at the back of the donkey cart, and Kiana controlled the donkey by herself, and went deeper into the snow mountain little by little.
...
The night passed, and the sky gradually turned white as the sun started to rise higher and higher.
Keeping Sigurd's advice in mind, Kiana started to shake the little boy using her hand after seeing the light:
"Sigurd, wake up, it's already morning."
Kiana wanted to wake Sigurd up, just like he had instructed before, but after shaking his body for a long time, she still couldn't hear Sigurd's reply.
Kiana was puzzled, stopped the donkey cart, and looked back, and saw Sigurd's small body curled up on the car board, tightly wrapped in the quilt, but his face was pale and his brows were tightly furrowed.
"Sig!"
Kiana was startled, and quickly crawled to the back of the cart, and put her hand on his forehead.
"It's hot!"
'He has a fever!'
Kiana hurriedly searched the cardboard, where food, clothes, fuel, even pistols and bullets were piled up on the cart. But unfortunately, due to how scarce medicine was in Mond, they bought none of them along with them on this trip.
Even if there is, Kiana who has never had a cold, under the care of Siegfried who also has yet to catch a cold in this world, would not know how to use the medicine at all!
"What should I do? What should i do!! Doctor! Yes! Sigurd needs a doctor!"
"Umm.. Sig said, he said that, umm, ah yes! He said I just need to walk straight in the direction of the hill over there! No problem! Hold on Sig!!"
Kiana covered Sigurd with all the quilts she could find, and then climbed to the front to drive the donkey cart, trying to make the donkey move faster
However, the donkey cart does not have this function.
The more Kiana became anxious, the more she felt that the donkey in front of her was moving too slow. There was always the scenery fully painted with white snow in front of her, making her feel as if she hadn't moved an inch.
To make the matter worse, snowflakes began to float in the sky, making the little tuna let out some curse word that she heard some old man say when she was still traveling all alone.
"Damn it! Why now!?"
Kiana's eyes that are filled with anxiety are filled with hot tears, but no matter how much tears fall from her eyes, the donkey that is pulling the cars can't run faster than what it is now.
She looked back and could clearly feel that Sigurd's breath was weakening, as if... as if he would die at any moment.
"Obviously...Obviously you obviously looked so powerful last night, why did this happen? Sigurd, please hold on a little longer!!"
Kiana turned back to the front, looking at the donkey who was unhurried and completely unaware of her anxiety.
"Damn it! I'll do it myself!"
Gritting her teeth, Kiana took out a big pancake from her bosom and stuffed it into her mouth, then pulled out the pistol behind the carriage and pointed it at the leash of the donkey cart.
"Bang! Bang!"
Two shots were fired, and the donkey got out of the donkey cart. Suddenly losing its weight and being startled by the gunshots, it sped up its pace a little bit and fled to the distance.
Kiana didn't pay attention to the donkey's movement, and jumped out of the driver's seat, with a pancake in her mouth, and supported the handlebar with both hands.
"Damn it... move!"
Suddenly, an unexplained force surged in her body, causing Kiana's small body to forcibly pull the heavy donkey cart, her movement that's initially super slow suddenly got faster and faster. After taking a deep breath, the little tuna quickly galloped in the snow field.
'The mountain over there...just go towards the mountain over there...'
'There is a lot of snow, Sigurd... Sigurd must be cold...Damn it, agh! snow in my eyes! '
Kiana took a sharp breath, bit the pancake, and accelerated her pace again, and white steam started to come out of her body.
There was only one thought in her mind now—hurry up, and hurry up.
Even the disappearance of Siegfried has never made Kiana so terrified.
Because Siegfried is very strong, Kiana knows that nothing will happen to him, and she is sure that they would be able to meet each other again, it's just a matter of time.
But Sigurd was different, Sigurd was dying right in front of her eyes, she knew that his body was weak, she was afraid that he would lose his breath the next moment.
Kiana doesn't know many people in her life, and even those people that she knew, few of them truly care about her, one is her stinky daddy Siegfried, who is lost, and the other one is Sigurd, who she has been together with for only two days.
Now, the person who cared about her was about to die right in front of Kiana's eyes.
Kiana felt as if a hole had been dug in her heart, and there was nothing she could do.
"Aaaah!!!"
With a loud shout full of unwillingness, the pancake that she was biting fell from her mouth, and suddenly, a touch of gold quietly appeared in the beautiful blue eyes of the running Kiana.
At the same time, Siegfried, who was not too far away from Kiana, merely just ten kilometers away, seemed to have sensed something wrong, and suddenly raised his head to look in the direction of Kiana, and in an instant, he dashed to her, breaking apart the snow that are hindering his way..
...
Half a day later, at night, Kiana lifted the quilt and sat up, her head turned left and right, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings around her.
The little tuna felt very strange.
Her memory was interrupted at the moment when she was pulling the donkey cart and started galloping as hard as she could, and due to the interference of the heavy snow, she could hardly tell the direction.
When she woke up again, her body was already covered with a quilt, and under her body were neatly laid straw mats and mattresses. When she looked up, she saw that she seemed to be inside a small cave.
Kiana turned her head and saw that there was a warm bonfire not far away, and at the entrance of the cave, there was a donkey cart with all supplies parked perfectly, the only thing missing was the donkey, which had already run away earlier.
Beside the fire, the small figure of Sigurd was sitting wrapped in a thick quilt, holding some cup containing steaming water in both hands, looking at her calmly.
"Eh? Sigurd, are you alright!?"
"I guess so."
"Uh, where is this? How did we get here?"
Sigurd kept staring at the little tuna in silence for a few seconds, then he opened his mouth and said: "...Wasn't it you who brought us here?"
The only response that Sigurd got was Kiana who tilted her head, and a series of question marks also appeared above her head.
"I guess that doesn't seem to be the case. That's right. With your unique IQ, how can you manage all of this so orderly?"
"Hey!"
Kiana jumped in agitation all of a sudden, her cheeks puffed up in indignation like a furious pufferfish.
Then, Sigurd calmed down Kiana's rage with one sentence.
"Thanks."
"Eh? Eh!!"
Kiana was shocked, she would have never expected a brat like Sigurd to say the word thank you!
Sigurd turned his head to look at the fire, not letting Kiana notice the corners of his mouth slightly raised.
"Although it was true that I was unconscious from the fever, I could actually still know what happened when you ran with the donkey cart."
"?"
"When you ran, I actually wanted to tell you that the direction you were going was wrong, but I didn't have the energy to say it out loud. yet, thank you for trying so hard to save me."
"That's! ummmm... Hehehe, Don't think too much about it! This lady is a loyal person, of course I won't let you die in front of me!"
Kiana scratched her head with an embarrassed expression on her face, seemingly ignoring the fact that she ran in the wrong direction.
Sigurd patted the place next to him and said:
"Come over and have something to eat, after that, I need you to go out of the cave and see the weather and environment outside, so that I can determine when we need to go next."
"Hey! I just woke up and yet you asked me to go to work right after? Are you still human!?"
"When we arrive at the nearest town, I'll take you to eat all the delicious food that you want."
"Deal! But this Is not because of the food. It's because I'm thinking about you. After all, you're so stupid. What if you pass out again when you go out to find the surroundings?"
Kiana then walked forward to where Sigurd sat at and touched his forehead, when she realized that his temperature had gotten normal, the tension on Kiana's body began to relax.
"Yes yes yes, Lady Kiana is really benevolent, here, eat this first."
Just as Sigurd said so, he swatted away Kiana hand on his forehead and handed over the prepared soup and food to the little tuna.
"Hmph! it's like coaxing a child!"
Kiana snorted in anger, but when she felt that her stomach was empty, she didn't bother to protest with Sigurd, instead, the little girl sat down next to the boy and ate her meal in big mouthfuls. After eating and drinking enough, the girl hiccupped, patted her belly with satisfaction, her head tilted to side, her airheaded mind suddenly notice something off, and asked:
"Huh? Then how did we get here?"
"You ran in the wrong direction, so you ran deeper and deeper into the snow-capped mountains, and finally passed out due to exhaustion. Fortunately, a kind-hearted man passed by and rescued us and brought us here. But he also had something to do, so he left. Don't worry, I have already thanked him."
"Eh? I thought you don't know what happened to us?"
"I lied to you."
Sigurd said lightly, taking a sip of hot water.
Kiana's eyes widened immediately, her mouth was agape.
God! How could there be such a bad person in this world? She tried so hard to save him just now, she was feeling so anxious that she literally cried, but he lied to her so easily in the blink of an eye?
"Sig!"
Kiana gave Sigurd a small slap angrily on the shoulder, got up, and made a face for him:
"Meanie!! I don't want to talk to you anymore. I'll go and see what's going on outside. You can just stay here and reflect on yourself!"
"Turn around and try to see clearly. But don't go too far, if you get lost, don't wander around and stand there and shout as loud as you can, just wait for me to come to you."
"Do you think I'm a fool?"
"You think you are not?"
Sigurd made a surprised expression.
Kiana suddenly took a breath, feeling that the blood had rushed to her brain, her face full of indignation.
'oh my god! I really shouldn't have saved him!'
Just when Kiana was about to explode, Sigurd suddenly laughed.
This is the first time Kiana has seen Sigurd have such a gentle and normal smile, rather than his normal blank and calculating face, his smile makes him seem more humane.
"I'm sorry. You're actually cute when you're angry. Sometimes I just can't help but want to bully you. Be safe out there. I'll wait patiently for you to come back here."
cute...
cute?
cute!
This guy, Sigurd, actually said that she is cute! ?
"Oh...um, okay. . ."
Kiana turned around and left the cave with hurried footsteps.
On the front that Sigurd couldn't see, the white and tender little face grinned uncontrollably, and her cheeks were already flushed.
...
After Kiana left, Sigurd put down the cup in his hand, let out a sigh of relief, and suddenly turned his head toward the entrance of the cave, the young man opened his mouth and said:
"Come out, Kiana is already out."
"Took her long enough."
A deep male voice suddenly came from above, and a figure fell and landed at the entrance of the cave.
Sigurd took a closer look at the adult male. He was tall, with silver-white hair, blue eyes, a thin white windbreaker, and a pair of exquisite white pistols around his waist. The most noticeable thing is that he is missing an arm.
'It really is you, Siegfried Kaslana. '
Sigurd swirled the hot water in the cup, feeling a little surprised at the fact that the older Kaslana was still in the vicinity, but also thought it was a reasonable thing.
"Your name is Sigurd, right? How did you know I was out there?"
Siegfried patted the ice and snow all over his body with one hand, and with a lazy and unrestrained smile on his bearded face, he spoke.
Sigurd spun the cup in his hand, took a sip, and said:
"It's just a guess, I'm not sure if you are here or not, so I tried calling out to you, turn out my guess is right."
Hearing his words, Siegfried's lazy smile froze.
"Tsk! Your appearance reminds me of a very annoying guy."
'Probably Otto' Sigurd thought to himself. Then, he replied without changing his expression: "What a pity. Anyway, thank you for saving me, random stranger, or should I say, Mr. Siegfried Kaslana."
"Kiana even told you about me?"
"She didn't, it's a random guess again, and it looks like my guess is right again."
"Hiss!"
Siegfried covered his mouth in shock, his eyes were wide in surprise.
Sigurd glanced at the older man briefly, and then said: "I think a large part of kiana's IQ can be attributed to your family education."
"That's impossible, I'm educating Kiana according to our Kaslana household traditions."
"Then she becomes like this because of you."
"You-!"
"Do you want to say that it's because Kiana is born stupid?"
"Of course not! My Kiana is the most perfect!"
"Then it's your fault."
"..."
Siegfried scratched his head, feeling speechless. Although there seems to be no problem with the reasoning that the boy had said, but he always felt that something seems off, it's as if the kid had some problem with him.
"Yes, I have a problem with you."
'This kid can read minds!' Siegfried looked at Sigurd in shock, his mouth agape.
"It's not mind reading, it's just that you are very similar to Kiana, i can tell what's going on in your heart just by looking at your face."
Siegfried: "..."
"In short, judging from the situation, you should not be too far away from Kiana. So, why didn't you see her or let her go to you?" Without any change in his blank expression, Sigurd asked such a crucial question, his eyes staring straight at the older man.
Of course Sigurd knew about the plot, but even if he knew, he couldn't understand such an irresponsible approach.
Siegfried clearly knew that Kiana's real age was younger than what she appeared on the surface. Her memory only began after he rescued her from the laboratory.
Leaving such Kiana behind alone and letting her wander in this strange world, this kind of decision made Sigurd uncomfortable.
"I..."
Siegfried opened his mouth. There are a lot of things he wants to explain, but no sound comes out of his mouth, the thing that he wants to say is something that couldn't be said.
Sigurd looked at Siegfried's distressed expression, feeling pity for the older man, he said:
"Perhaps being with Kiana will bring her danger? Or, your missing arm is related to her, and you don't know how to explain it to her without making her feel guilty?"
These two reasons given by Sigurd seemed to hit the truth, at least part of the truth, which made Siegfried change his expression and said in surprise:
"How do you know that!?"
"The former reason is a general inference that can be easily concluded with logical thinking. As for the latter reason, Kiana never said that you have a missing arm, when she talked about her missing father, she said that you are a healthy person with both of your limbs intact. In addition... Just like what I had told Kiana, I didn't completely lose consciousness at that time, so I also saw her sudden strange change in appearance."
When Sigurd was so feverish that he couldn't even make a sound in pain, for the first time, he really saw the power of Herrscher in person.
The cold wind flowed against the current, and the falling snowflakes solidified in the air, and time seemed to freeze, a fear originating from the instinct of life, made Sigurd's mind go blank, and he quickly lost his consciousness.
The next thing that his mind could comprehend was the sight of Siegfried arriving at their location just in time to give a chop to Kiana's neck, he didn't know whether those two end up fighting or not.
"Really? So you've seen the terror of a Herrscher then, Anyway, please believe me, Kiana is a good child. She didn't want to behave like that, it's more of a . . . curse, rather than a true or second personality, that made her end up that way."
Siegfried walked to the bonfire, squatted down beside the little boy, and heated his hand using the flame, and while barely maintaining a smile on his face, the older Kaslana looked at the little kid next to him and said such words with almost pleading eyes.
This is Kiana's first friend in her life, in any case, Siegfried doesn't want Kiana to lose her friendship with the kid due to fear, because it's truly not her fault.
Sigurd lowered his eyes, took a sip from the cup in his hand, and said:
"I just saw it momentarily, since I passed out soon afterward, I already understand what kind of person Kiana is, so what is a Herrscher?"
"Herrschers.. that's a long and difficult story to explain. A simple explanation is that they are the enemies of humankind."
Siegfried lit a cigarette with the fire, and let out a melancholic sigh while making some clouds using the smoke from the cigarettes..
'Where did he carry those cigarettes? His clothes are all wet with snow, how can the cigarettes remain dry? Is this a possible application of Honkai Energy? '
Sigurd had known the matter regarding the Honkai and the Herrscher from the very start, however, the knowledge that he got from are all coming from the game lore, in which he didn't know much about, due to often skipping the dialogue of the character, hence, hearing more in depth information about the world, coming from the people who are living in the said world is a beneficial thing for him.
Therefore, Sigurd put down the cup in his hand to the side, and said:
"Tell me more about Herrscher, and about the Kiana circumstance."
"Very well, you deserve to know. No point in trying to hide things now that you've been involved, and you'll probably learn more in the future regardless. First of all, you need to know a concept called Honkai..."
Honkai, the enemy of civilization, appears in different forms from natural disasters, plagues to powerful Honkai beasts, etc., but they are all dedicated to destroying civilization, and they are undoubtedly the enemy of mankind.
Herrscher, the humanoid Honkai messenger born in the large-scale Houkai disaster, has the power to destroy the world and has the possibility of destroying civilization. It can be said to be the most dangerous Houkai threat.
In Kiana's body, the soul of the Second Herrscher who was killed more than ten years ago is sleeping... Afterwards, the older Kaslana began to talk about Kiana's life experience, the reason why the Second Herrscher is in her body, etc.
From the very beginning till the end, Siegfried hid nothing from Sigurd, disclosing everything truthfully.
Sigurd listened to the older man's tale quietly, compared and integrated the information that he knew from his past life, and found that he hadn't gained much.
While Sigurd is busy pretended to be digesting the information, Siegfried his gazed turned towards the burning bonfire, exhaled some smoke from his mouth, and continued:
"The reason why I left Kiana is almost just like what you had said. If you have something bad to say about me regarding this, then I have nothing to say. I have indeed failed miserably as a father, whether it is for the Kiana here , or to the…..."
The unfinished words made this older man, who has a somewhat free and easy going aura when he confronted Sigurd, become depressed all of a sudden.
Sigurd raised his head at this time, and said in a firm, almost commanding voice:
"Go see her. Just be casual regarding your arm, because its you, she'd probably believe it even if you told her you ate it by accident. Also, even if you have to leave, make sure to give her a hug and tell her that you love her before you do. Tell her that you have to leave due to needing to do important things, not because of her."
"I... I-i can't…. That . . . That will only make her more worried about me."
"I'd rather have it that she would be worried than cry suddenly in the middle of the night, wondering if she had done something wrong to be abandoned by her own father." Hearing the older Kaslana excuse, Sigurd retorted coldly.
Sigurd felt anger start to appear in his heart, he doesn't understand why Siegfriend would choose to do such reasoning to leave her daughter behind when making such a decision is worse than leaving a ticking time bomb in your own pocket.
When Kiana knows she's just a clone, when she knows she's not his real daughter, when she knows her life is nothing more than an entertainment, does he truly not know what kind of harm his abandonment would do to the tuna? Does he really not know how much harm he caused?
At that time, Kiana's former self-doubt will be pushed to reality, the longing will turn into despair, and the small shadow that has accumulated for many years will instantly expand into the boundless darkness covering her entire mind - for someone as affectionate as Kiana, that kind of experience is undoubtedly hell.
Under Sigurd's stern gaze, Siegfried opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything. After a while, despite feeling full of guilt and helplessness, Siegfried said dejectedly:
"I-!. . . I can't do it. . . "
"..."
Sigurd turned his head away from the older male and stopped talking.
Sigurd knew he couldn't force Siegfried. Being able to question Siegfried while having the upper hand is because of Siegfried's own down-to-earth character, and secondly because of his relationship with Kiana.
However, Sigurd couldn't force Siegfried, he was a little weak even standing up now, so what could he use to force Siegfried?
What's more, Sigurd doesn't fully know what Siegfried has experienced and what he has undertaken. Even if he wanted to persuade the older man, he didn't know what he needed to say nor do to successfully persuade him.
"Anyway, I apologize for forcing this into you, but please, please take care of my daughter Kiana from now on."
Siegfried scratched his head dejectedly, and said apologetically.
Sigurd looked at the fire and said expressionlessly:
"Look at my age and physical condition, do you think I have the ability to protect her? Besides, even you, her own father, can be so cruel to abandon your own daughter. Why should I mix myself up into the mess that is Honkai and Herrscher just for Kiana, whom I just met for two days?"
"Young man, I may not be smart, but I still have a good eye for people. I have been paying attention to you in these past two days, including when you killed those people and when you both withdrew from the town last night, otherwise it would be impossible for me to come out in time to stop Kiana from turning. In short, my intuition tells me that you are quite reliable, and you are also not a timid person. I believe you can help Kiana. Also, in fact, I'm sorry, but even if I leave you alone for now, it's already too late…"
Siegfried said quietly, the expression on his face was dead serious, making Sigurd, who was originally calm and composed, froze.
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