— Fuck! — Ezkiel shouted as the alcohol-soaked cloth touched his open wound.
The burning was excruciating. The wound was ugly, and the more he looked at it, the more worried he became. He didn't know how things worked in this world, but from the state of his body, the deep lacerations and blood loss indicated that it wouldn't heal easily. He would need a transfusion, or maybe he'd even lose his arm to infection. His talent, Tortured, seemed to give him a new lease on life, but the spasms told him he was at his limit. He felt like his body could collapse at any moment.
"This talent seems linked to my will to continue, but it needs a specific state of mind to stay active. Now that things have calmed down, I feel its effect diminishing..."
These were purely empirical deductions, probably full of flaws, but Ezkiel needed to create certainties to build his foundations. One of them was to know his own limits, as he knew this wouldn't be the last time he'd be so injured.
— You have a shitty vocabulary for such an ancient prisoner. Someone your age should speak like the mages of the Empire, or the emissaries of the great churches. — The woman smiled, taking the cloth stained with dark blood and throwing it into a bucket before soaking a new one in alcohol.
— When you say emissaries, do you mean acolytes? — Ezkiel asked, still confused by the nomenclatures. The world seemed to have changed a lot since he was imprisoned.
— Acolytes? Must be the same thing. I don't know, I've never been very religious. My mother used to pray to the lesser moon when I was younger, but after she died, I never followed anything again.
Ezkiel tensed in pain as the alcohol invaded his wound once more.
— I see... — He paused, reflecting on the diversity of gods and how that must work. — And the Empire... is that where we are now?
— Yes and no. It's complicated. In name, this territory belongs to the Empire, but it's become a corrupted zone, a contaminated area, a death zone, whatever you prefer. The Others emerged here, and few forms of life survived. Only the exiled or explorers venture into this place.
— And why are you here? Is it worth risking your life to stay in this place?
— Some come for the wealth, others because they were expelled from their country. But most who live in the Bell Tower have no choice. They were born here and don't have the strength to leave. Their parents were explorers or exiles, and the Empire doesn't give a fuck about either. with enough money, you can enter a city and start a new life. The problem is getting the money... and getting there alive.
"So this world has a very diverse political system. I thought it would be just feudal, but there's already a context of citizenship and countries. I should have imagined, after seeing the clothes of the acolytes, emissaries. Whatever!"
— Is the Empire far from here?
— I don't know the exact distance, but it's about three months on a good horse. On foot, it's suicide. The Others have made this place their home. Not even the elites, like you, who have a unique gift, can survive out there. Not to mention the bandits and mages who roam these areas.
Ezkiel froze for a moment. Once again, he understood: this world was crueler than he thought. That girl, little older than him, had lived her whole life in this hell. Trying to get a large sum of money to have a minimum of comfort, but for that she would have to face horrendous creatures and fight for her life, or give up and resign herself to hell.
— What the fuck... I'm sorry you have to live through this.
The woman stared at him. She looked at his pitiful state—almost a corpse, malnourished, pale, bald, bound in chains worth more than gold—and couldn't contain herself. She laughed.
— By the Gods! You still feel sorry for me? Look at you! I should be the one feeling sorry. By the way, my name is Lavia. And yours?
The boy watched Lavia laugh. Her smile was beautiful when she wasn't holding it back. He understood why she wore that mask; she needed it to survive. She was forced to become a warrior to endure the cruel reality.
However, the words of the chained prisoner echoed in his mind.
"Names have power in this world. If I knew your name, I could have control over you."
— Just a prisoner.
Lavia looked at him. His face was distant, thoughtful. He was reliving a distant experience that had marked him deeply. She understood the refusal and felt a pang of shame for having insisted. They were still strangers.
— Okay, prisoner. I'm going to start sewing you up, so hold tight. Drink some of the alcohol, if you want, to ease the pain.
She handed him the bottle, stood up, and went to the fire, where the tip of a long needle glowed like an ember in the middle of the charcoal. Using a cloth, she picked it up, dipped it in water to cool it, and passed a thread through the eye.
The needle pierced his flesh, but the pain was nothing like he had imagined. Just another casual discomfort after everything he had been through.
— Your pain resistance reminds me of his. — Lavia let out a breath between her teeth, her hands precise but slow, piercing his skin. She had experience in this.
— Reminds you of who?
— Barton. He never grimaced when I stitched him up. Always the same stern face, even when I took care of his torn-out eye. Everyone thought he would die, but the bastard endured days of fever. He even came back and killed the creature. That's how he earned the title of Lion.
A slight smile appeared as she told the story. Her eyes seemed to see the memories of another time, perhaps a happier one.
— Lavia, why are you living here? You're not with the rest of your people in the Bell Tower.
— You're asking a lot for someone who won't even say his name.
Ezkiel felt the needle pierce deeper. He didn't know if it was intentional, but he couldn't disagree with her.
— You're right. I'm sorry.
Lavia looked at him, shook her head, and continued to sew, stopping only to tuck her hair behind her ears with the back of her hand. Ezkiel watched her again and, perhaps because of his situation, noticed that the girl was really beautiful. A natural and rustic beauty, different from the usual in his world.
— You're strange, prisoner. Really strange. — She noticed his gaze, but didn't stop her work. — I got into a fight with some people there. I decided to leave to not cause more conflict. There are good people in there who didn't deserve that fight.
— You don't seem like much of a fighter, to be honest.
— I'm not. But things heated up and I couldn't hold back. I know they wouldn't have done anything to me, but I felt betrayed and preferred to hide. — She took a deep breath. — Things were easier years ago, before the strongest left. I can't blame them for wanting to try to escape, but they left a lot of people behind, knowing we would die. Things only got worse in the following years: more people arrived, Barton took on more dangerous tasks, internal fights began... explorers were killed by the Others... children had to go to the streets to fight for their place for food.
She stopped, seeming to hold back a knot of sadness and anger in her throat.
— Years passed, and I came to accept things. Actually, I was forced to accept the situation. Barton became the leader of the exploration, teamed up with people who believed that the children needed to fight so the same thing wouldn't happen again, so no one would be left behind. But without training, they just died. The motherfuckers just wanted an excuse to fill their bellies more, divide less money, and get rid of dead weight. And Barton knew it! He always knew...
She stopped and her eyes met his. Ezkiel was immersed in the story, feeling the despair, anger, and compassion that emanated from her. Something was growing inside him, a hunger he couldn't name, a craving that filled his body.
— That's when we had our biggest fight. And we broke up. He looked at me with that milky eye, held his sword, and walked away. — Her expression changed, her posture straightened, her chin lifted. For a second, Ezkiel saw Barton in her. Lavia's voice came out different, imitating his:
— I am your only chance to get out of this place, Lavia. That's why you've accepted everything until today. You know there's no hope without me. When you stop playing the saint, I'll be waiting for you in the caravan.
Stubborn tears clung to her eyelashes. They both knew the reason for the pain: because it was true. Because deep down, she wanted to go back. She also wanted to live safely, but she refused to become a monster. However, there was no other way. Deep down, she wished there was an alternative.
" A Dream has been detected "
" 『Collect Dream』 can be activated "
Ezkiel's eyes glowed a shade of purple. The desire, the hunger, the craving... it wasn't for the crying girl in front of him, but for her dream. That's what he desired, in such a primitive way that euphoria took over his mind.
"A dream. I need..."
Before he could give in to the urge to take it for himself, to devour it until there was nothing left, to feel the sensation of a new power filling his body and the threads joining his dream filter.
He froze.
He remembered the terror in the former prisoner's eyes as his last spark of existence was consumed. He had devoured the only thing left of the man after years of imprisonment and oblivion. He didn't want the same for her. She didn't deserve it.
"I can't. I don't know how this works, I don't know the consequences of collecting the dream of a living person. And I'm not going to test it on her. Even though I want it so much, I can't."
The purple glow disappeared from his eyes, but the hunger remained, lurking. The urge came with a strange longing, making him see her not just as a person, but as a source of power to be collected. That scared him.
The girl composed herself, wiping the tears with the back of her hands. Luckily, she hadn't noticed his strange behavior and the change in his eyes. The two fell silent. Ezkiel fighting against his new anxiety, Lavia finishing the stitches. Almost half an hour passed in this deafening silence, enough time for Ezkiel to formulate an idea.
"Lavia said that the outside of this place is dangerous for her and other people from the Bell Tower, but I don't seem to be an ordinary person in this world. I don't even know if I am a person. I have unique abilities from the dream filter, and they don't seem to have the same system menu as I do, otherwise she would have said so. I need to use this advantage. I need to understand how these abilities work and how I can use them to escape this place before the acolytes find me."
A shiver ran up his spine. A confirmation from his own body.
They were getting closer. And they were near.