*poke* *poke*
"Kierul... do not touch him...! We need to tell somebody...!"
While a young red-haired girl was nudging an unmoving body of a black-haired boy with the tip of her shining black loafer, a green-haired girl was crying out for her to stop while hiding behind a tree.
"Do that, then. Didn't you bother me all the time with your message spell after you finally managed to learn it?"
The red-haired girl shrugged her shoulders and continued nudging the unmoving body.
"Kierul...! Pleeease stop it...! He's dead, we need to get away from here!"
The green-haired girl cried out, too afraid to actually look or even point at the black-haired boy that her friend was prodding with her foot.
"Oh, that's why you are so worried? He isn't dead."
"Eh...?!"
Kierul raised her brows, finally understanding why her friend was acting like that and shrugged her shoulders before waving her hand dismissively, taking the green-haired girl by surprise.
"How... how can you tell...?"
The fearful wind magician asked hesitantly although she did lean away form the tree a bit more and glanced at the body of the boy who must have been around their age.
"Fire magicians can use something called heat vision. Apparently, it's some difficult magic, but I – just like lord Grazio and lady Ehmi from the Victureo family – was born with it."
Kierul straightened her back and boasted pridefully puffing out her chest.
"His body isn't stopping generating heat and I can even faintly see the movement of his heart. He is weak but very much alive."
The red-haired girl smirked devilishly and crouched by the boy, poking the exposed left cheek of his cute face.
"Then... then that is even more reason for us to contact someone and get help!"
"And I clearly already told you to do just that. Seriously, Senria, I am going to stop being friends with you."
The green-haired girl trembled and muttered to which the red-haired one only rolled her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.
"Wha...?! K-Kierul, you don't mean it, right?! My parents would...!"
Senria gasped as Kierul's words terrified her more than the unknown unconscious boy.
But the red-haired girl stopped paying attention to her friend and instead decided it was okay to mess with the black-haired boy instead.
"Hmm~"
Kierul smiled devilishly and her body shone with the fire enchantments. She grabbed the boy's shoulder and pulled him up.
"KYAAAAH!"
By doing so, he ended up exposing a terrible wound – the whole right side of the boy's face was terribly burnt and basically, all of his teeth and jawbones were exposed and even charred a little bit – the mere sight of it caused Senria to let out a high-pitched scream and run away as fast as she could.
"...nngh...?"
The scream ended up acting like some sort of trigger and the boy twitched before letting out a painful noise.
"Oh...?"
Kierul, who didn't even budge at the sight of the wound smiled and leaned down just to have a better look at the boy's face.
"...?"
The scarred boy's eyelids trembled and he slowly opened them.
His obsidian eyes met the red eyes of Kierul and widened.
"Are you a shadow magician or darkness magician?"
The red-haired girl didn't waste any time and asked omitting the basic pleasantries.
"...? None...? I am not a magician..."
The black-haired boy furrowed his brows and informed, doing his best to sit upright.
He started to look around but from his expression, it was easy to figure out that he has no idea where he is.
"A commoner, huh? Well, it doesn't matter, you look messed up, but if you survived whatever happened to you it means that you are tough. Oh, and while we are at it, what happened to you? I've heard there is an outbreak of fire-breathing giant moles... Is that what got you?"
Kierul nodded her head with an amused expression before motioning with her chin towards the remains of a massive molehill that the boy must have crashed into.
"I... don't know...? Are... are fire-breathing giant moles... a common thing around here...? And... where is here? And... and... huh...?"
The boy tilted his head and wondered in confusion. He raised his hand to the right side of his face but instead of the soft skin of his cheek, his fingers met with exposed bones and teeth.
"Yeah, that's what I talked about by saying you look messed up. Moles or not, whatever got you, got you good."
"...?"
Kierul snickered, reaching out her hand and touching the boy's wound as if it was the most normal thing to do.
"Like I said... mister commoner, you must be tough to survive something like that... and that..."
She then added gently moving her fingers across the burnt tissue and finally pointing at the gaping hole in the sitting boy's thigh.
"What is your name, mister commoner? And how about a family? Do you have one?"
Kierul continued asking, greatly invested in the wounded boy for some reason.
"Name...? Family...?"
"Yeah."
The black-haired boy furrowed his brows, still trying to wrap his brain around the horrible wound and waking up in an unknown place.
"I am not sure about the family... I think I have one but... Maybe I don't...? My... my head is hazy..."
The boy tilted his head from side to side as if trying to stir his brain into working, but it didn't seem to want to cooperate with him at the moment.
"Oh, don't mind that, they must be commoners too, not to mention most likely dead."
Kierul scoffed dismissively, not caring in the slightest about being ignorant, cold, and way too blunt while speaking to an injured person.
"How about the name, at least? Even commoners have names, don't they?"
The red-haired girl shrugged her shoulders and asked.
"Name... Yes... I remember that much. I am Aku. Kuro Aku. Aku is the given name... I think..."
The black-haired boy frowned trying to remember even the most basic information about himself and finally nodded and said with remarkable confidence.