Kingdom of battles ✓

Chapter 26

I was sitting by the small fire, with my hands held in it's direction and trying to warm them up. My clothes were still wet from the fall in the lake a while ago and my whole body was shaking because of the cold. The fact that there was wind, blowing from outside and making me even colder didn't really help, not to mention the way the wound on my leg stung like hell. And then there was the worst thing of all - I didn't even have any healing potions with me. If I would then I would be better in a second.  

And Karoku would be too. My eyes slowly travelled to my left, to the person that was making me feel like it was really crowded in the cave we were in. Karoku was calmly sleeping next to fire I started. He wasn't wearing his usual jacket, coat and other things that were completely covering him, the usual hoodie that was hiding his face was gone too, I took it of earlier so I could clean the blood of it and bandage his wounds. Even if I knew that I was probably going to hear some comments about my pervyness later, I was still glad that I took of Karoku's clothes because that made me realise two things. The first one was that he wasn't critically hit. He only had three major wounds, the ones that he got when he got stabbed by three different swords in his back, other were just smaller ones. All of them probably hurt really bad, but at least he was going to survive until he was going to get the healing potion that he needed. The second thing that I found out was a little bit more confusing and strange.  

Karoku looked exactly the same as the president of the NOA company.  

I kept staring at him with a suspicious frown on my face. He did look exactly the same as him, but I was staring at the actual photo of the president for so much time that I knew that they weren't the same person. Then who was Karoku really?  

I sighed and checked the documents that I stole from the headquarters of the Knights of the Kingdom. They got all wet and were almost ruined after Karoku and I fell in the lake, so I placed them next to the fireplace, hoping that they would dry. They still weren't in the best state, but I could at least read the writing on them, which was good enough for me.  

Suddenly I heard how my stomach started making sounds, demanding food. I cringed and looked down at it. It was about midnight, the last time I ate was during my breakfast and now I was starting to get really hungry, but the problem was that I had no food.  

A light-bulb appeared over my head and I smiled with happiness when I remembered my inventory. I quickly raised my hand, making a small screen appear in front of me. My eyes stopped on my inbox for a second, seeing that I got no messages from anyone, then I began scrolling through my inventory. I was so happy when I thought about checking it, because I remembered that it was full of different kind of junk. When I was still questing and killing monsters together with Riku he always wanted to collect every single price that we received for something. I kept telling him that he was some kind of hoarder, but it didn't really bother me until his inventory became full and he convinced me to allow him to start storing things in mine. Now I had things like old rags, torn pieces of cards, marbles, coffee powder and a chair with a broken leg.  

I pressed some buttons, making another screen appear next to the one that was already there, showing me only the food that I had in my inventory. My eyes quickly scanned the images and a thoughtful frown appeared on my face. Could I make something edible out of cinnamon, coffee powder, strawberries, apples, vanilla sticks and a bowl of honey?  

'' Mix it all together... Except for the coffee powder, '' I suddenly heard Karoku's voice. 

My eyes widened, then I turned at him with shock. '' You're awake? '' 

'' No, I'm talking to you in my sleep, '' he muttered, trying to sit up. 

I frowned, rolling my eyes. '' I see you still have that lovely sense of humour of yours, '' I hissed, then I pushed him back down. '' Stop moving you idiot, or it'll only hurt more. ''