Mob no Longer

Ch.2 | The Lost Item

I didn't get any nightmares for the first time in a few days. I was sleeping quite peacefully until the voices came. 

I tried really hard to open my eyes.

"You are saying five people did this?! We found over one hundred fifty corpses in the forest, all decapitated!" I could feel my eyes fluttering, but not opening.

If these guys were enemies I was in a serious pinch. My body wouldn't move, it felt so heavy, like lead. 

"Is that him?!"

"He fits the description."

I heard the footsteps get closer. With some effort, I was able to open my eyes barely. I saw our kingdom's insignia on their shoulders. They were on my side.

"He is still awake!" he yelled. I closed my eyes and winced in pain, my head rung. It took some effort to open my eyes again.

"Please no yelling," I told the soldier. He nodded and put my arm over his shoulder. "My head hurts like crazy."

"Where are the other four? The Duke said you were supposed to bring four other companions with you to this island."

"I didn't bring anyone else," I told him tiredly. His face paled as he looked around the room.

"That's an earth dragon." I heard one of the other soldiers whisper.

"Are you going to keep holding that pipe?" He questioned.

"Pipe?" I looked at my hand, the one around the man's shoulder. It was true, I was holding a steel pipe. "Oh yeah... I'm keeping this."

"... If you say so." He spoke softly, which I appreciated. 

He dragged me upstairs and when we crawled outside, I saw a large ship with the Redgrave insignia proudly shining on its side. The soldier carried me slowly inside.

We walked -- more as he walked and I dragged my feet across the ground -- through the halls of the ship, everything was neat and tidy, hell the floor had a nice red carpet with golden embroidered details. We came across a room whose door abruptly opened.

A beautiful girl with bright brown eyes -- practically red -- and beautiful silky blond hair tied into a bun walked out. 

She looked familiar.

When I looked at her the image of a television screen appeared in my mind. 

She looked just like the villainess from that Otome game.

What was her name?

I couldn't remember.

She closed the door and made space for the knight and his bag of potatoes -- me -- to walk through the halls. The knight opened a door with a wooden plaque hanging from a small pin. It read "guest."

The room inside was luxurious, full of expensive-looking furniture that I thought could only exist in fiction and pretty paintings. The knight put me on the bed, which was soft -- unlike the hard ground I was used to in the soldier barracks and dirty tents. Even the room itself smelled good, like fresh air and citrus, unlike the muddy humid smell in the barracks or in the storage house Zola made us live in.

"... So this is a duke's power," I said, as the knight put a blanket over me. It was so incredibly comfortable that I felt myself instantly fall asleep.

Even while sleeping, I could hear their voices. I was probably not that deep in my subconscious. 

"Father, why did we come to this remote island?" A foreign, female voice. "Why is that boy so important? What happened to him? What aren't you telling me."