In Search of Kasena (ONC 2024) | ✓

Chapter 7

The next morning, Niel and Alarie were ready to divide and conquer. He couldn't go with her to the area reserved for participants, so he roamed around the audience that was slowly gathering. The first round of the tournament was scheduled to begin at noon, but they decided to rendezvous before that and update each other on their progress.

Standing in one spot wouldn't do him any good, so he kept walking, even though he wasn't sure where to go. There were a few food stalls scattered around the entrance, but he wasn't hungry. One of them sold some drinks, but he wasn't thirsty either. He had nothing to do except walk around and keep his eyes peeled.

He just passed one of the food stalls when he spotted her. The strange woman with the scar strolled around the venue in broad daylight. She hadn't spotted him yet. A rush of excitement coursed through his body like lightning.

She walked through the crowd with the same rigid posture and unfriendly look on her face that he saw before. Kasena wasn't with her—was she already among the participants? He could either follow her quietly and risk being discovered or catch her unprepared and demand answers. But if she was on her way to meet Kasena...

Before he could fully make up his mind, she turned around and froze when their eyes met. Even from a distance, he noticed it—the hint of recognition in her eyes.

Then she ran.

"Hey!" Niel yelled out as he started running after her. They both struggled to push through the crowd, but she was still faster. Somehow, he wasn't even surprised. "Stop!" People shouted and hurled insults at him as he pushed them out of the way, but he had no time to stop and apologize, not when the woman was increasing the distance between them.

She led him outside of the venue and sprinted even faster, while he slowly lost the energy. He seriously should've ran more when he had the chance. Now she was using the unfamiliar streets of Villart to shake him off as he struggled to keep up. After he turned a corner, he lost her out of sight.

A thousand curses laid at the tip of his tongue when he spotted something else ahead of him—a woman with wavy red hair crossing the street and going into a smaller alley on the right. He hadn't seen her face, so even if he was wrong, he still had to check. His legs ached, but he gathered the last remaining crumbs of his strength and ran after her, ignoring the screaming protests of his muscles.

But when he entered the alley, she was nowhere to be seen.

What the hell just happened? How did he manage to lose both of them? Well, the woman with the scar didn't surprise him in the slightest; she was a wickedly fast runner, after all, and she seemed to know the area better than he did. But the redhead... she probably entered one of the buildings. Most of them looked like small shops that would be easy to check, but a couple were ordinary houses. As he tried to catch his breath, he noticed a thin dirt path leading between two buildings. Great, another place where she could've gone.

The whole chase was pointless. He was exhausted and breathless, his only clue slipped away so easily, and the person who vaguely resembled Kasena from a distance disappeared before he even had the chance to take another look at her. For all he knew, that could've been some clueless villager or a visitor. The real Kasena was more likely to be hiding among the participants.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn't return to the venue right away. Instead, he took a few minutes for himself to catch some breath and rest his legs. Alarie was the one with a watch after his broke—although he desperately needed to get a new one now that they were separated—so he didn't know what time it was. They probably had at least another hour before the tournament began, but he had to meet with Alarie first.