A Lone Man's Path: Powerful Enough to Fall

Chapter-2: Choices

'Eww, no, what? Nothing of the sort will happen.', she grossed out and covered her legs with her blue skirt and cramped to the wall as far as away from him.

He just laughed and said, 'I don't know what you mean by that, but if you are talking about me doing something indecent with you, then truly nothing of the sort will happen, I just want to touch the top of your finger with mine for just about five seconds or so. Please, it would help a lot to both you and me.'

For a second there she froze again, she thought she was again facing the same trauma, but then she realized it was something else, his laughter... it.... It was soothing, it was warm and rekindling.

'Weirdo.', she mumbled as she stood up and went near him. She raised her finger just enough for him to touch her.

He raised his finger and touched the top of her finger with as less contact as possible. Seriously what was this guy, true it was seriously hot in the small and cramped chamber but his touch was not sweaty, it was warm like the first breeze of summer.

He removed his finger but she was still standing there. When she realized what she was doing, she got flustered and immediately brought back her hand. She still couldn't make his face or his clothes due to the darkness.

'So, why did you do that?', she asked.

'Oh nothing, I was just understanding all that race stuff you just said. So, you are a Human, of the weakest race, aren't you?', He said.

That's more like it, that reaction, 'Wait, what do you mean you understood, I can see you are not human, but did you look at my memories or something?' this was enraging.

'Well, not quite, but something along those lines. I just saw some common sense that's all, I am not indecent enough to take a peek at someone else's memories. Just some knowledge, that's it.', he said with a lot of hand gestures.

'Well, as long as that's it, it's fine, but believe me, if you did any more than that I will kill you. So, what do you say? What race do you belong to?', extracting information from him was necessary, if he could perform magic like that, then he was a threat.

'Well let's see, so there are nine races in this world, nine different species of intelligent beings, then there are monsters. All of the eight races, excluding the God race, are ranked according to their strength and affinity to magic. While Humans rank the lowest, the Driome race ranks at the top. Wow I couldn't learn everything, but this certainly is a lot, thank you, Leika madam.', he mocked a bow.

'Did you live under a rock or something, how could you not know such common sense?', she sighed and continued, 'And the next request?'

'Hmm, now tell me why did you jump into the void despite knowing that it'll result in your demise?', he asked, his voice suddenly turned stern mid-sentence.

Even though she was acting tough, she was beyond scared. This unknown man who seemed friendly could do anything to her and nothing could be done about it, moreover, she was entirely dependent on him on how to get out.

'I don't see any reason to tell you that.', she muttered.

'Well, you are smart enough to know that you are in my mercy. Do not tell me and I will abandon you here.'

That hit and it hurt. The truth was straight and simple, she had to drop her act and accept whatever came her way, even death.

'It started badly; truth be told I am the daughter of the King of this country- '

'What? You are a princess?', he was back to his old cheery self, he chuckled as he said that.

'No, I am not a princess.', she blurted almost immediately, this was a common misunderstanding.