Chapter 42
The tower gate opened smoothly, without any obstruction.
Nelly raised an eyebrow in surprise. Normally, it would take some effort to open the door. How did they break in so easily? Could it be that Melissa’s luck stat is off the charts again?
Behind the door was the ground floor of the high tower, pitch black.
Melissa took out a torch and lit it, holding it up to illuminate the surroundings, but the monsters did not swarm them as expected.
A cold wind blew from nowhere, chilling them to the bone, and the torch almost went out. Melissa and Nelly couldn’t help but tense up. But besides the incessant whining of the wind, there was no other movement.
Nelly felt that something was even more wrong. She simply took out a torch as well, took two steps to the side, and after carefully examining the surroundings, she said softly, “The monsters that should be here are all gone. Let’s go upstairs.”
“What’s going on?” Melissa’s expectations were dashed. She swung her sword in the air a few times, walked around the hexagonal stone hall, and found nothing.
A moment later, the two of them ascended the narrow, winding stone staircase and stopped before the second floor. Melissa took a deep breath and raised her chin. “Let’s go!”
A blue fluorescent stone was placed in the center of the stone hall, emitting a faint glow, illuminating a dead silence.
Nelly couldn’t help but frown again. Where are the flower demons that should be singing in this blue light, bewitching the hero’s mind? After a careful inspection, she came to a conclusion: just like the ground floor, all the monsters had disappeared.
An idea gradually formed in her mind. Nelly bit her lip. “Should we just go straight up and see?”
The third floor was covered in gravel, which looked like the remains of the stone monsters that had been here.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors—the corpses of different monsters became more and more numerous, but the same dead silence remained. The fact was already obvious: someone had gone ahead and had already reached the top of the tower.
Nelly’s pace couldn’t help but quicken, and in the end, she was actually walking in front of Melissa.
Melissa also understood this and became anxious. Without looking around too much, she was about to ascend to the last floor.
Nelly took a closer look, pulled the hero back, and pointed at her feet. “There are bloodstains.”
A faint, barely visible red drop had fallen in front of the stone steps. Following its direction and carefully examining the smooth, black stone steps, the bright red wound its way up, becoming more and more numerous.
The crimson was still fresh, which meant that the owner of the bloodstains had not gone upstairs long ago.
Melissa’s lips tightened, and she gripped her sword, her steps slightly hesitant.
But Nelly became decisive again, directly ascending the last few steps and rushing into the top floor.
The high-angled windows at the top of the tower let in an ambiguous gray light, which fell on the floor in a pattern of light and shadow.
The first thing Nelly saw was the tree demon, which had been blasted beyond recognition. It was plastered to the wall opposite the door, as if it had been flattened, and the scattered branches and leaves all revealed the tragic nature of the battle that had just taken place. A glowing piece of armor floated faintly in front of the tree demon’s remains. It was a pale yellow armor with dark green, magnificent patterns—the Vine Armor.
But Nelly’s gaze was drawn by an invisible thread to the high-angled window on the left.
A person in a wide, black robe was leaning against the windowsill, curled up into a ball. His cloak hood had slipped to his shoulders, revealing snow-white hair stained with blood.
Melissa gasped.
The person heard the sound and struggled to turn his head. His red eyes were half-closed, and he slowly wiped the blood from the corner of his lips with the back of his hand.
Kal.
The first to react was Melissa. She strode over and skillfully took out a healing potion to feed him. Nelly stood in place for a moment, stunned, feeling as if her hands and feet were so stiff that she couldn’t move.
She didn’t know if she was more surprised or more afraid. Perhaps there was also an unspeakable, joy-like emotion slowly rising in her heart.
Her mind was a muddle. Nelly mechanically walked to the seriously injured mage, silently squatted down, and hugged her knees, watching as Melissa deftly treated the wounded, forgetting to move, and forgetting to continue thinking.
It took Nelly a long time to find her voice. “Why are you here?”
Kal had been force-fed five or six bottles of high-grade healing potion. He was panting slightly, and he closed his eyes to regulate his breathing for a moment before he said in a hoarse voice, “I thought I would find what I was looking for here.”
Nelly had wanted to ask more, but Melissa turned back and gave her an almost stern look.
Alright, interrogating a wounded person is indeed a bit inhumane.
She simply stood up, spun around like a lost comet, and in the end, squatted back down beside Kal, staring at her fingers in a daze.
At that moment, Melissa helped Kal up, supported him for two steps, and asked with concern, “Can you walk?”
The mage replied with a single word, “Mhm.” As he spoke, he opened his right hand, and the quill floating at his side instantly elongated into a staff. He steadied his steps, and with a shrug of his shoulders, he was about to break free from Melissa.
Melissa’s gaze dimmed slightly, and she insisted with a rather firm tone, “Don’t be stubborn!”
Kal glanced at her faintly, his voice light but weighty. “I can walk on my own.”
Nelly felt inexplicably awkward watching this scene and turned around again, holding the still-unclaimed Vine Armor in her hands, and broke the stalemate between the other two with a flat tone, “Let’s leave this place first. The armor…”
“We’ll talk about that later. Nelly, how many return scrolls do we have left?”
“Three.”
Return scrolls were expensive consumables, and they hadn’t been able to collect many even after completing quests along the way. Melissa said without hesitation, “Use a scroll to return to the nearest main city.”
Nelly glanced at the pale-faced Kal, didn’t object, and silently activated the scroll.
A white holy light immediately enveloped the three of them, and the scenery changed.
The Misty Coast was now rampant with pirates, and Renis was sparsely populated. For a while, they couldn’t even find a doctor. Melissa had no choice but to drag Kal back to the inn they were staying at with Nelly.
“I’ll go and ask Her Highness. She might have medicine and a doctor. I’ll leave Kal to you!” Melissa was not one to sit still and immediately decided to set off.
Nelly nodded. “I understand. Be careful.”
The hastily closed wooden door of the inn let out a shrill creak. Nelly sat down by the bed and saw that Kal was lying on his side with his back to her, in a posture of avoidance. She couldn’t help but feel awkward. She was thinking that if he passed out, she could relax a little and calm her complicated, churning emotions, but at that moment, Kal slowly and with difficulty turned back.
Nelly was caught off guard and met his gaze.
Kal’s gaze was still as cold and clear as ever, as if it could see through all her thoughts at a glance.
Nelly lowered her gaze in embarrassment and bit her lip. “Just now… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you. I shouldn’t have questioned your intentions when you were injured.”
There was no reply for a long time.
She became even more embarrassed, wringing her fingers at a loss, and simply asked the question that was on her mind. “That time with the bear monster… were you there too?”
Kal’s expression froze slightly. He lowered his pale lashes and didn’t answer, but he also didn’t deny it.
Nelly felt the pressure in the room grow even heavier, so much so that she could hardly breathe. While she was grateful that he had helped her again, she also felt a bitterness in her heart because of her suspicions. Two completely opposite tides clashed in the lake of her heart, and the splashing waves made her at a loss.
She quickly came back from her thoughts and noticed Kal’s cautious gaze on her.
“Thank you,” Nelly glanced at him quickly and thanked him in a low voice.
“I was just passing by.” Kal suddenly coughed twice. Nelly subconsciously stood up, but found that he had just raised his hand to cover the corner of his mouth and coughed dryly, clearly just feigning discomfort to cover up his unnaturalness.
She sat back down stiffly, her gaze wandering for a moment, wanting to wait for Kal to fall asleep to end this conversation. But the mage just looked at her silently, with a gaze so calm it was creepy, as if he could see through every ripple in her heart.
To avoid the unease of being scrutinized, Nelly took the initiative to ask another question. “In Halga’s Keep, why did you suddenly leave?”
Kal looked at the dusty roof of the inn and answered slowly, “I just went to the mages’ guild to ask for information after you entered the temple.” He paused. “I thought there might be some information about me there.”
Nelly remembered that on the beach, this white-haired young man had stubbornly repeated to her, “I just want to know who I am, that’s all.”
The expression on his face subtly overlapped with that moment. But now, these charming red eyes, perhaps because they were not reflecting the firelight, or perhaps because of the pain of his injuries, looked very dim. Nelly only felt as if her heart had been wrung by a warm hand, so sour that it was about to drip water.
Nelly forgot to continue to maintain her evasive posture and turned to lean slightly toward Kal. “What did you find out there?”
A pale smile appeared on Kal’s lips. “Nothing.”
He gazed into Nelly’s eyes, his tone calm, but the warmth in his eyes looked pained. “There were top mages from the eleven countries there, but no one could prove that I had ever existed. Of course, it might just be because I’m a nobody. But…”
He paused, and his already slightly hoarse voice dropped, but he didn’t stop, and instead continued to pour out his heart. “Every mage from Naxier who is allowed to travel has a detailed record in the guild. I didn’t reveal my origin and found a way to read the files, but I wasn’t in them.”
“And, my abilities are not weak, and even…” Kal slowed his voice shyly, but his expression held a hint of pride. “Even stronger than most mages on the continent.”
A mage who could fight his way to the top of the Misty Tower alone and kill monsters was probably a rare sight in all of Wildia. It was hard to believe that a great mage of this level was not registered.
Nelly was speechless, her palms sweating slightly. She stared at the lines in her palm, at a loss, trembling with excitement at the truth she was approaching, but also deeply afraid.
“So…” Kal met her gaze, his lips moving, and he uttered two weak syllables.
Nelly effortlessly completed the second half of his sentence. “You came to the Misty Tower.”
Kal smiled faintly at her, a look of relief at being understood in his eyes. This hint of a smile was still not enough to melt the darkness in his red eyes. He wanted to appear calm and composed, but these eyes betrayed his true feelings. The curve of his lips was gentle and sad, silently revealing the dejection of another fruitless search.
Nelly easily read another layer of meaning in his silence: he was asking for her opinion.
She trembled slightly in his half-pleading, half-desperate gaze.
This was the second time Kal had revealed his feelings to her. She didn’t know if he had ever explained his heart to others, but for the introverted, even autistic Kal, it was undoubtedly rare. Just this special treatment for Nelly alone made her feel terrified.
The young man before her was afraid of his unknown past, and all his hopes were pinned on her. With just one sentence, she could destroy him.
She had once made a choice in the face of a similar choice, a choice that she still couldn’t let go of. And this time, would she really not repeat her mistake? Looking at this face that was even etched into her most hazy dreams, Nelly was filled with confusion.
But at that moment, the young man’s cool voice sounded, a statement of a settled fact, without any wavering. “You do know the me from before.”