CHAPTER 48

  THE HIDDEN VILLAGE

  Hans cursed as he crashed into an unknown area. “I’ll burn that woman and melt the ashes into water to make ice… and then crush it with a hammer. I’ll make her pay for daring to mess with me…”

  He vented silently, unable to put his thoughts into words. Though conscious, his body felt as if in a deep slumber. For a moment during their battle, he feared the worst, until Bernard's timely intervention spared him. He wondered why Chris's father was in the Deadlands—was it to save him or the lady he served? Questions swirled in his mind, but all he wanted in that moment was rest.

  He could feel someone carrying him, his lone arm and legs dangling. He struggled opening his eyes to see his rescuer, but found his eyes imprisoned behind closed lids.

  In this fight with Reina, he had lost a lot of blood. When she destroyed his Elder form, it impacted him as a mental shock, and if that wasn’t enough, he also lost his dominant hand. It was a total defeat. He tried cursing aloud, but his mouth joined the team with his eyelids; it was tight shut too. Deadlands was a dangerous place to be passed out, but as hard as he tried, the impact soon rendered him unconscious.

  After a while, he managed to open his eyes several times, but he felt like dreaming since all he could see were the red demons, walking around him leisurely all night. So, he kept sleeping, not believing the scenario.

  When he regained consciousness, he felt his body was still not listening to him, but his mind had rested enough. “Paradise Garden.” He murmured, and as if the word was hard-coded for a command, fine-haired vines started slithering towards him, covering him like a fungus on food.

  His onlookers were startled and almost jumped out. They had seen many bizarre things in the Deadlands, but the regrowing of a severed hand was the weirdest. The cuts and nicks that had made Hans pale started to fill themselves. His skin started healing, and the red hue returned to his pale body.

  All of his wounds healed at a visible pace, like a thirsty man had found water after drifting in the desert. The people there surrounded him in curiosity, and Hans finally opened his eyes to see the red demons looking at him with expected eyes.

  “Fuck, I’m still dreaming.” He muttered and closed his eyes again. He remained in this position and suddenly jumped out from the makeshift bed, only to hit his head on the cave ceiling.

  Grabbing the back of his head, he whimpered. “Two… four-hands. Darn, there are several captains among this horde.” He whined, activating his ManaVision in full swing. He started searching for anything other than the Red demons, but the place was filled with them, and there was only a single way of entering and exiting.

  “Just what face I had seen waking up yesterday. Nothing is going right!” He fell on his bottom. All the hope in his eyes vanished like water in the hot oil as he saw a ten-feet-tall, six-handed Red demon looking at him with malevolent eyes. He kept cursing his luck but soon stopped since it became hard to breathe as the strong presence closed the distance.

  However, he was alive, that meant his life was of some value to these people, so with all his might, he lifted his head to see the enormous entity, a red demon commander. A bulky existence in which at least three Rudolf could fit.

  He laughed at himself, thinking, Reina did manage to kill him, even after he escaped.

  Someone spoke up, and the six-hand put down his hostility against the boy. Hans, even with linguistic mastery back at Genas, was not able to understand this race’s language, but what he had heard was clearly the common tongue. And as the pressure vanished, the words became clearer.

  “Leader, stop it, the kid might die.”

  The red demon commander responded with a heavy voice, “If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t have rescued him.”

  One infantryman, a Two-hand, came to the panting boy, but Hans just pushed him away in fear. This race was the enemy, which he must eradicate. He didn’t need their sympathy, but the compassion he felt from the woman who came to pick him up was genuine. Like a tamer taming the beast and calming him by showing his hand on his face.

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  “Shit!, not your day, Hans, you fucking idiot. The deli told you not to do something stupid, but no, you just have to save your pride; you shouldn’t have bothered testing Zephyr.” He regretted it inside while the red demon woman remained patient and kept showing her will not to harm Hans. So he cautiously let the woman help him up, and as he stood, he heard the most ridiculous thing to date.

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  “WE ARE NOT BAKRANS.”

  Hans jumped back again, hearing the utter nonsense of a two-hand claiming that she was not a red demon. Sharing the same sentiments, the commander-grade red demon with six huge hands scoffed at the woman, “Who would believe you if you looked like that?”

  He turned to the boy and said, “We saved you, and in return, we only ask for your discretion.”

  Hans asked cautiously, “So I'm allowed to leave?”

  “You want to live here? We don’t need your kind here, Parvian.”

  Hans was stunned by those words. The Six-hands referred to him as Parvian, not human. The only reason for someone to call him that meant they knew his father, but the idea made him even more confused.

  The woman who was checking Hans's health from a distance said to the Six-hands, “So there was a reason for you to bring him here? You know the lad, leader?”

  “I owed a debt to his father, and with this, it is settled,” The Six-hands turned to Hans with the same menace he was emitting earlier and added, “Even with your father's backstabbing, I returned what I owed him. Now leave this place.”

  Those words made Hans forget the pressure commander grade red demon was emitting. “Take that back. My father may have been many things, but backstabber wasn’t one of them.

  As he spoke, he focussed all of his concentration into the day seed inside him. He only treated himself to physical condition, but he needed much more to face this behemoth in front of him.

  “Photonise.” The little particles of energy came converging to Hans in many directions, and his whole body lit up in a second. He was at his peak once again, ready to open his sunfield sanctuary.

  But the female red demon who had been caring for Hans since he came to this place stopped the Six-hands from escalating things further. She raised her voice and spoke, “Since you saved him first, take responsibility and send the boy back. It’s no place for him.”

  However, the commander was stubborn and was affixed to his place. So, seeing him not moving from his stance, she turned to the boy and pointed him to the exit.

  Hans went there in a jiffy. He was just a few steps away from claiming his freedom, but his stubbornness stopped him. “Fuck! I will regret this, ” he muttered. He could understand if someone called Samson a monster or reincarnation of evil, but he was not a betrayer. Taking a long breath, he asked the Six-hands, “My father was arrogant in everything he did. Arrogant people do not need to lie. They see it is beneath them to use underhanded things. Hence, you are wrong.”

  “Then call your father here, boy. I will show you what angering me can do to you.”

  Thinking about the recent events, Hans thought, if Samson was with him, no one in the world would have dared mess with him. The words spoken by that ugly red demon broke the bounds stopping him. He bellowed, “How can I resurrect the dead, you bastard?”

  But the impact of those words was clear in the ugly face of commander-grade red demon. It was like he was surprised, even out cold. He asked, not believing the child, “This is impossible. That man cannot die. He is the epitome of power.”

  “Yeah, a man blinded by a woman is as idiotic as an ostrich that lives in water.”

  The Six-hand remained silent. All the words from this child’s mouth felt utter nonsense, but he humoured him, “So in the end, Reina was the reason for his downfall.”

  “Yes, the same woman who sent me flying here. So what did my father do to you?” Hans asked, nodding up. The anger and rage had already vanished from the six-hand's eyes, so Hans had regained some confidence.

  “We made a deal, or more of a favour. I asked him.” The commander-grade sat cross-legged. Even then, he was way taller than an average human.

  “I’m not following.” Hans stared confused, so the red demon commander explained.

  “I asked him if I couldn’t return in two years. He had to come for me. Ehh… so he ended up dead, fuck. This is all wrong. He shouldn’t have died. I can take his betrayal over his death, shit!”

  The red demon commander looked like his world had been robbed from him by the news of Samson’s death. He was even more depressed than Hans.

  Taking a brief pause, the commander said to Hans, “Leave now, kid. There is no hope left for this forsaken world of yours.”

  “What do you mean?” Hans asked. He just couldn’t leave after hearing anything half.

  “Ignorance is bliss, kid. Let it be and enjoy the remaining time this world has.”

  “These are very big words. You expect me to just follow your advice. Its not in my nature.” Hans sat cross-legged too, showing that he wasn’t going to leave until he heard the end of it. Everything this man or whatever was talking about was going way above his understanding levels, but he just couldn't leave after hearing so much nonsense. So he asked, “Then what are you? The two-han...the woman there said you were not red demons.”

  “Can you handle the truth? I told you, ignorance is bliss.”

  “I just don't want to die without knowing why?”

  “Fine. Since you are his child, I can at least tell you about us.” Taking a long breath, the commander continued, “We were like you at some point, then got converted into this, a red demon for harvesting the sunstones. The people who caught and tortured us into becoming Bakrans found a way to harvest the sunstone without killing us. We were part of a farm, a farm of people.”

  Hans didn’t even finish listening to him and started looking at the commander with more detailed ManaVision. He was searching for the similarities with his doubts. Since his defeat in his first year by some guy called Lux, he had toned down the ManaVision, only needed for combat. But as he let the ability loose, the result confirmed his doubts.

  He turned to look at the woman and said, “This might hurt.”