The man grabbed the girl and then began walking off. With the rain lighter now, I could see some woods in the distance, and he seemed to be heading back toward them. She tugged against him and complained a few times, desperately looking back to my position, but even when I called to her, she didn’t seem to hear anything.
The pair disappeared off into the dark. Actually, it was getting brighter now that the clouds were clearing up, but they still ended up out of my sight, and I was left alone in the field once again. Since there was nowhere to go but forward, I started to walk again. As I moved forward, I noticed the pathway starting to bend. It started to turn back on itself and I found myself walking back the way I had come.
However, the environment around me changed as well. Rather than a large field, I started to move into a forest. Would this be the equivalent of a new level? I didn’t know. However, this environment was completely different than the environment I had just been in. Soon, my vision was just as obscured as it was in the rain, except this time it was from a thick forest.
That’s when I finally came out into a large field. It was the first time the path opened up to something more than a corridor. This was a mansion that was buried within a forest. Compared to the mansion I had in Chalm, it was comparable, so it stood to reason that this was some lord’s manor. It made sense that Elaya was the daughter of some lord.
That was what I was thinking, but a moment later, I noticed a girl who seemed to be gathering water from a well near the side of the mansion. She was pulling up a bucket with her sleeves pulled up. What ultimately caused me to look twice was that she appeared to be the girl I had run into in the field. However, she was now several years older than she was before. She also didn’t appear to be a noble at all. She was wearing a maid uniform with a white bonnet.
“The maid hero…” I breathed out.
That was what she had been called. I had only ever known Elaya as a Queen, so it didn’t occur to me that she came from a life as a maid. Now that I realized it, it seemed painfully obvious.
“Girl! Hurry up!” A voice erupted from the doorway. “The master and mistress wouldn’t be happy if you took this long. Be lucky they are out today.”
“I’m coming!” The girl cried, hefting up two buckets full of water, one in each arm.
The woman at the door was old, and she looked to be a maid in her own right. She shook her head, making a clicking noise with her tongue. Suddenly, her eyes fell on me and widened.
“Who are you?” I blinked, not having expected to suddenly be part of the story once again.
I heard a gasp, and the maid who had been carrying the buckets dropped them. They fell to the ground and tipped over with a splash.
“Clumsy foolish girl!” The old woman chastised her, but she barely noticed the woman, her eyes locked on me.
“It’s you…” She spoke in disbelief. “The man from the field.”
The maid recognized me. Just what was going on with this dungeon?