Guardian's Farm 22

When the consciousness returned, Eli expected to encounter the edge of a blade once more, just like how it did several other times when he fainted in the hands of his torturers. Every time, they punished him for fainting before they continued to ask their questions. Did he mention the location of the diseased patch to anyone else, who he was working for…

And, who taught him his spear technique.

Eli kept his eyes closed, praying that they wouldn’t notice that he was awake. Not because he could do anything … but he wanted the absence of pain to continue for a few more seconds. But, footsteps echoed from the corridor, telling him that his hopes were about to be dashed away.

Too bad he couldn’t stay in his dreams, where his master had come to save him, destroying his torturers. Not even a believable dream, Eli thought. No one could move that fast, nor could show such power, and certainly not his master, who had retired from a low-level adventuring career because of his injuries.

He gulped, his back pressing against the cold stone, doing his best not to move his chains. Then, Eli noticed he couldn’t feel the weight of them anymore. He wanted to move his arms to check their presence, but he could not do so without alerting them and letting them know he was already awake.

He didn’t want to think, but his thoughts were impossible to calm down, bouncing between the reason for his capture, and why they were so interested in his technique.

At first, he was sure that his capture was a misunderstanding. After all, he had just brought a piece of diseased sample, that hardly made him a cultist. Anyone who even thought for a second would realize that. Or, that was what he thought when the guards took him to the town. But, he ended up in the dungeon, beaten down as he was forced to repeat everyone he had mentioned the location of the diseased spot to, with no exception, all the while being told to admit that he was a cultist.

That had been bad, but what followed had been even worse: two nameless assassins, their mere words enough to make the guards empty the dungeon and leave him to their tender mercies.

At that point, Eli had already lost the hope of being freed. As an orphan that grew up at the edge of the village, he could recognize when he was being made a scapegoat.

To his surprise, however, their torture had targeted something else. His technique … which, apparently wasn’t Ember Jab as he had believed, but something else. Something valuable enough to make the two coax it out of him.

They didn’t start with torture. No, at first, they did their best to convince him that the only reason they had thought that he was a cultist was the technique he had used, and all he needed was to reveal the truth, and he would be let go.

Eli didn’t know if he would have believed them if they opened with that. But, after being beaten black and blue for hours by the guards with no mention of his technique until these two arrived … and their focus on acquiring the full manuscript above everything, he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that it was their intent in the first place.

If only that made the pain more bearable.

He tensed as the footsteps got closer. “You can open your eyes, kid. They are gone.”

His eyes opened, and fear filled him when he noticed the dark clothes before he noticed his master’s familiar face … and his shoulders, barely fitting into them. “M-master,” Eli gasped as he moved, only then noticing that the chains were gone. “That wasn’t a dream?”

“It was not,” he replied, his tone softer than he had ever heard. “How are you feeling? Good enough to move?”

Eli moved his arms, and, much to his shock, he was feeling good. The pain wasn’t gone, but he didn’t feel like being stabbed whenever he waved his arms. “I can walk,” he assured.

“Good,” he said.

“How —” Eli opened his mouth, about to ask how he did what he did, but his master silenced him with a gesture.

“Not now,” he said as he threw a set of black clothes on the ground. “Put them on. It’s already dark outside, we need to get away before they get suspicious.”

“Escaping?” Eli asked, unable to believe that he would survive. Then, a realization hit. “But, what if they search me in my village?”

His master took a deep breath. “It won’t be a problem, not when they believe you to be dead,” he said as he pointed at the side, showing another body with a cloak covering a bloodied face. “All we have to do is walk out. You won’t be able to return to your village for a while, but that’s a fair exchange.”

Eli nodded. As an orphan, his feelings toward his village were complicated at best. He didn’t want them to suffer due to whatever this situation was, but that didn’t mean he was burning with a desire to return, not when he was planning to leave it forever the moment he was confident he could survive on his own.

If he needed to sleep in the wilderness for a few months to avoid being tortured, he would take it.

“Do you need help changing?” he asked.

“No, master. I can handle it,” Eli replied, desperate to do it on his own, one small way to exert control. His clothes were already removed, replaced by bandages, so he wasn’t able to see how bad his scars were. His arms were stiff, but he was able to pull his shirt on.

While Eli changed, his master disappeared for a moment, and returned just as fast. “The coast is clear,” he said. “Now, while leaving, keep your hood up and eyes down. We’re just going to walk out.”

“That’ll work?” Eli asked, shocked.

“There’s no reason for it not to,” his master replied confidently. “They expect two spies to leave the dungeon, two spies that they are scared of enough to stay away for hours despite receiving no words from,” he said. Eli looked at him, confused. “You have been sleeping for almost twelve hours while recovering,” he said.

“Sorry —” he started, only to be silenced with a gesture again.

“It’s nothing to be sorry about, and darkness works to our benefit,” he said. “Just stand straight, walk calmly, and make no sound.”

Eli nodded. His master started to walk, and Eli’s eyes widened at the change in his aura. Suddenly, the exhausted, worn-out mercenary was gone, replaced by a statue radiating confidence and arrogance, one that could explode at the slightest mention. Eli had no idea how that was possible, but one thing was clear. It was not something an ordinary adventurer could do…

Those questions only got more intense when they walked out of the dungeons. “Sir, can we—” the guard started, but all his master needed was to raise his head slightly and peer from under his hood to make the guard take a step back, not daring to question them.

Even when his master was a head taller than the deceased spy, and considerably more muscular.

Eli wanted to ask his master about it, but considering what was at risk, he kept his mouth shut, following him silently. He didn’t ask him why he was walking toward the inner part of the town instead of the gates. He didn’t ask why they took a sharp turn to an alley several streets away. He didn’t ask where he found two new sets of clothes by disappearing just for two minutes, or what was in the weird herb mixture he rubbed over them before stuffing it with the dark clothes, and burning them.

He didn’t ask questions when he brought them to the walls and climbed them with the elegance of a spider while carrying him, or when they took a very complicated route back to the farm, taking breaks to snap various herbs, while explaining how those could be used to hide their smell from hounds and rangers.

That didn’t prevent him from realizing that his master certainly wasn’t a washed-up adventurer like he had initially believed. No random adventurer could move like his master did when facing two spies, nor would they know even a fraction of those tricks.

But then, maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. He knew very little about his master. Excited by an opportunity to learn internal techniques, he hadn’t questioned him much, afraid that it would trigger a dangerous change.

Hell, he didn’t even know his master’s name…