The sequence of events following those system notifications was extremely confusing to me. It was like watching broken, disjointed pieces of a burned videotape.
First, I saw Blackpearl's corpse fall a few inches away, his eyes open and glazed like pearls.
Then, I saw my Summons disappear.
A new notification appeared in the darkness of my consciousness.
[All your class abilities have been disabled to conserve your mana.]
[Your MP will be drained to replenish your HP.]
After that, I felt the heat of the burning forest getting closer and closer to me. It was a scorching, suffocating heat.
However, I wasn't feeling regretful for returning to fight Blackpearl instead of running away when I had the chance. Given my experience with the multiple versions of this world I saw through Hunter Ruse's eyes, I knew that the future in which Blackpearl would kill my entire family would not be difficult to come about if I ran away.
Even in a world dominated by the ideology of an orthodox church like the Church of the Golden Halo, people were extremely cruel. Especially wanted assassins.
If I died there, burned by the forest I myself had ordered to be set on fire, I would be satisfied. Completely fulfilled for having managed to save my family.
As the heat grew closer and closer, I heard a distant voice screaming and echoing through the forest. The voice was beautiful, like that of an angel, and slightly lower than the crackling of the huge Burning Thorn Trees. The crackling of the trunks burning from the inside before falling was getting louder, but the voice I heard was also getting louder.
When the flames came close enough to dominate my vision, I heard the comforting voice call my name.
"Brandon!"
That voice reached the back of my mind, and the feeling was like hearing an angel's voice pulling my soul back into my body.
With great difficulty, I opened my eyes and saw Rosella. Her forehead was stained with a mixture of sweat and soot, and the despair on her face turned into a broad smile of relief when she saw my eyes open.
"It's okay! You don't have to worry anymore! I'll get you out of here!" she said confidently.
I probably believed her words with all my strength, because I only remember closing my eyes after hearing her. I couldn't say how much time passed after that, but when I woke up, all the heat, pain, and fatigue were gone.
I could still hear the crackling and popping of the wood, but it wasn't nearly as loud as before. Still on alert, I quickly got up from where I was lying, like someone waking up from a nightmare.
"Rosella, wait—" I exclaimed suddenly and stopped mid-sentence, because it was at that moment that I finally realized how much time had passed.
I was under the ceiling of a cave, with a fire two meters away from me, and around that fire were three people.
The first of these people was Kyle Barlow, who was hugging his legs. He was startled by the loud noise, but smiled right after.
"Brandon, you're awake!"
My eyes naturally moved from him to the person next to him.
To my confusion, that person was Anton Wilxes. My thoughts were completely tangled up in my brain, and I felt like I had definitely traveled through time. It made no sense that he was there.
Anton raised his eyebrows when our eyes met, and he looked away to the right, where the third person was warming herself by the fire — Sun.
"Hi!" she said, smiling cynically.
My immediate reaction was to put my hand on my waist to grab Hawklight's sword and cut off Sun's head with the weapon of the man she killed. However, when I made the quick movement, I felt an excruciating pain in my abdomen that spread throughout my body. Besides, the sword was gone.
"Argh... You bitch..." I cursed both the pain and Sun.
"Wait, Brandon, wait!" Kyle quickly approached and placed himself between me and Sun. "I used my magic to heal you, but you're not 100% yet. You'll need time."
My stomach was bandaged, as were parts of my arms and left shoulder. Given the burning sensation I felt under the bandages, I had probably burned myself.
However, I didn't care about that when one of the people responsible was right in front of me.
"Why are you protecting her now, Kyle? She wanted to kill us a few minutes ago! Don't you remember that?"
"Minutes?" Anton asked and laughed ironically. "It's been hours, you coward."
"What?" I looked at Anton in surprise. 'Hours? There's no way that much time has passed.'
Kyle took a deep breath and continued to hold me by the shoulders while explaining exactly what had happened.
When I decided to stay behind to buy time for Rosella and Kyle to escape, they kept running for a few minutes until they smelled something burning. At that moment, Rosella and Kyle realized my plan and understood that I was trying to make some kind of stupid sacrifice.
The mission had already failed, and they had a clear path back to the Star Shelter Region, but when they looked at each other and realized they weren't satisfied with that, they decided to go back and try to help me.
"I was ready to run back too, but Rosella said it was best if I stayed and saved my strength because the combat area was dangerous and you would need my healing if she managed to find you," Kyle explained.
"I remember her... her face. But that still doesn't explain how they got here?" I looked at Anton and then at Sun. "It also doesn't explain why Rosella isn't here. Where is she?"
"After she found you, she put you on her back and managed to carry you for a few hundred meters, but the fire was getting closer and closer, and she was tired. That's when a Paladin appeared."
"A Paladin?" I asked rhetorically.
In this world, a Paladin was not a Class, like the one that presented itself as one of my six Class options, but rather a Title.
Paladins were employees of the Church of the Golden Halo who were very high in rank compared to mere instructors like Mr. Hawklight. They were seen as heroes of humanity by many people, and although they did not belong to the most powerful and famous Guilds, because the Church did not have a Guild, there were always Paladins in decisive battles against the bosses of the upper floors.
To become a Paladin, it was not enough to be strong, but also to be handpicked by a priest of the Church.
Paladins did not wage war on behalf of the Church as they did on Earth, but it was believed that a single Paladin had enough strength to defeat a platoon of ten thousand men alone. This was one of the reasons why the Church of the Golden Halo was more influential now than it had ever been.
"A Paladin... saved me?" I asked.
Kyle nodded and continued. "She took you and Rosella out of the forest, brought you to me, and then went back into the forest on fire. Minutes later, she came out with Sun under one arm and Anton under the other."
"That bitch is really strong..." Sun muttered, raising her hands to show the handcuffs that bound her wrists.
Ordinary handcuffs couldn't hold a Rank-B Blessed like Sun, which meant that those handcuffs were made of Terminite. That was the rarest ore found in the Tower of Babel and the only one that nullified the magical and physical powers of a Blessed person.
At that moment, I began to believe the whole story, because only a Paladin would be crazy enough to carry a small fortune like a pair of Terminite handcuffs on the first floor.
"Did you call me a bitch?" A distinctive female voice came from the entrance of the cave. "You have a very foul mouth, woman, but I guess that fits your reputation as a con artist."
It was then that the light from the fire illuminated a person. She was tall and densely muscled. The clothes she wore were completely white, except for the gray overcoat that was characteristic of Paladins. Underneath the overcoat was a white sheath with a sheathed sword.
Her face was beautiful, apart from her long black hair, which was tied in a long ponytail.
"Oh, you're awake," she said, shifting her gaze from Sun to me. "I think your friend will really like this."
The Paladin turned slightly to the side and looked back. Moments later, the person illuminated by the fire was Rosella Tynes. She broke into a huge smile and immediately dropped all the sticks she was holding.
Rosella ran and practically threw herself on top of me, hugging me with relief.
"I knew you would recover! I knew it!"
A little awkward in reacting, I returned Rosella's hug and smiled.