They’d stopped in a small village that Willow didn’t know the name of for supplies when an old woman hurriedly approached them. Her qi was panicked and frayed, and when he actually laid eyes on her she was completely drenched and covered in mud.

  “Master Wanderer!” She gasped, clearly out of breath from rushing over. “My grandson, you have to save him!”

  Mu quietly cursed under her breath before taking in the sight of the bedraggled grandmother.

  Her demeanor shifted immediately to one of a concerned professional.

  “Ma’am, what happened and where?”

  “By the river, he was playing in the mud, an-and some sort of beast came out and swallowed him whole! I tried! Really I did, but it got away!” Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and she broke down sobbing.

  Mu cursed again, much louder this time. “The eastern river, right?”

  The grieving grandmother nodded through her tears and Mu bolted while dragging her apprentice behind her, their supplies forgotten. “Hurry Willow, every moment counts!”

  Willow was tossed onto the back of Rotter, and his mentor soon followed, the snake beast began moving faster than the child had seen up to this point. Normally he would’ve enjoyed moving at such speeds, but the urgency of the situation prevented him from fully appreciating it.

  “Keep your senses sharp, and spread them out as wide as you can once we get to the river!” Mu called out over the wind whipping around them from the speed they were moving at.

  Willow was currently overwhelmed by the sudden change in situation, his mind blanking out and panicking for several moments before Harmony’s voice reached him.

  “Calm yourself, child. You can do this. You have faced worse.”

  That’s right. This wasn’t like the time with Aunt Jieun. This time there was a hero beside him to do the actual rescuing. All he had to do was help find the missing child.

  He could do that.

  They reached the river and the great viridian serpent tasted the air and moved its head around, trying to find any trace of the beast or the boy it grabbed. He seemed to get something and began heading upstream.

  “Have you got anything yet?” Mu yelled while scanning their surroundings with her eyes.

  “Not ye-“ He stopped as he sensed something odd pass beneath them in the river nearby. Two cores almost overlapping, one of them much smaller than the other.

  And the smaller one was dimming at a rapid pace.

  “Wait! Behind and below! It’s in the riverbed!” He called, as quick as he could.

  Rotter immediately turned around and dove into the river. Willow was almost thrown off from the shift in direction, but he gripped onto the rough scales of the snake for dear life.

  Thankfully the river was relatively shallow here so his mentor’s spirit beast didn’t have to dive down too deep to find their target, which turned out to be a large and slimy looking lizard thing.

  Stolen story; please report.

  It looked vaguely like a larger version of the newts and salamanders Mu had pointed out to him a couple of times in the region.

  Of course the main reason he could even see it right now was because the big lizard had fled from its hiding spot to try and prevent its inevitable demise at the hands of a beast king.

  As it escaped onto the bank of the river the reeds and grasses growing there grabbed ahold of the slippery creature and held it in place, though it continued to thrash as much as it was able. Mu then hopped down as they drew up to it and placed a glove hand on its head, sending a pulse of rotten qi into its brain.

  It very quickly ceased its thrashing and Willow felt the life leave the lizard's body. He wanted to feel sad for it, but he could feel another life that would soon meet the same fate if he took the time to mope. He jumped down and ran to the spot in the lizard’s belly that he still faintly felt the life of the captured boy hanging on by a thread.

  “He’s here!” He called to his mentor, urgently pointing to the beast’s midsection.

  Mu cursed once more and grabbed her utility knife and methodically started slicing into the creature’s stomach, trying to go as fast as she could without harming the boy trapped inside.

  Willow paled a bit at seeing the amount of viscera and blood coming out of the big lizard, but was more concerned about saving the life that remained. He helped in the few ways he was able, moving things aside so they weren’t in his mentor’s way or holding a piece so she could cut with more confidence.

  Until eventually a body was revealed, covered in the stomach’s other contents.

  He was about the same age as Willow, perhaps a little younger, though he wasn’t exactly a good judge of such things since he’d grown up so isolated from other children.

  His clothes were a sodden mess and his skin red and irritated from the acid in the beast’s stomach, but according to Willow’s senses the boy should still be alive.

  Yet he wasn’t breathing, and he hadn’t responded to any stimuli so far.

  “Damn it all!” Mu cursed as she placed a hand on the unmoving child, sending a pulse to scan and get a clearer picture of what’s wrong.

  “Stand back Willow, I need to pull out Ros.” She barked, and the boy scrambled to comply.

  She then drew out Restoration of Spring and despite the urgency of the situation Willow took a moment to marvel at his mentor’s final spirit. He’d met them before, of course, but every time he saw the ethereal being it took his breath away.

  They looked like a great and translucent emerald stag, and while the twinkling flower petals drifting off of them was impressive in its own way, the true beauty was in what Willow senses revealed to him.

  They were every flower blooming.

  The new growth on every tree.

  Every shoot emerging from the cold and barren earth after a harsh winter.

  Feeling their presence was a balm for all who beheld them.

  Hopefully it would be enough to save the injured child.

  The stag spirit placed their nose on the unresponsive boy’s forehead, and sent rejuvenating qi throughout his body. Meanwhile Mu used her qi to press out the water and other fluids trapped in his lungs, and afterwards she used her qi to try and stimulate the beating of the boy’s stopped heart.

  For several moments no words were spoken and Willow looked on with worry as he tried to keep track of everything his mentor was doing to try and save the dying child.

  He began to lose hope, would this sudden rescue end in failure? Was he too slow in finding him?

  Signs of life.

  A gasp.

  A wracking cough as air returned to his lungs.

  The boy started crying from his ordeal, and Willow joined him in his tears. Though his were tears of joy rather than fear or anguish.

  They returned to the village whose name Willow didn’t know and were hailed as heroes.

  And for the first time he felt that he might have done something wholly deserving of the title. No complications or setbacks, they’d set out to save a child, and save a child they had.

  He didn’t deserve all of the glory, as that honour went to his teacher of course, but he held on to the small piece he’d earned close to his heart.

  A first step on his goal.