On The Trail

Kies walked down the streets, thinking about what to do from here. There were two options he could go with. The first was to go back to the inn, which meant either going to sleep and waiting for tomorrow to come. Not exactly the most fun way to pass the night. The other option is to find something else to do, which is probably what he is going to choose.

The cold breeze slammed into his face, almost knocking his hood off. He caught it and held onto it, waiting for the wind to pass. The scent of the desert filled his nostrils. It was hard to describe the smell since it was a mixture of many things. From food to the sand, it changed with every passing second. The wind died down and Kies opened his eyes.

This entire place was like a new sensation to him... Or rather, it was an old one. He forgot how it felt like to be in a city after so long. The urban life... It was one that he hadn't experienced in a long time. He felt a sense of yearning and nostalgia, feelings that he also hasn't experienced since he left Silverfield.

It was unexpected. Emotions... It was a foreign thing to him. After so long, it had returned to him. But why?

Kies scratched his head, trying to figure out the cause for this strange occurrence. A certain red-haired girl popped into mind. Iris... That bratty princess was no doubt the cause of this... Laughter, shock, wonder, and so on, she made him feel things that he didn't think he would ever feel again.

Speaking of which, Kies wondered what kind of mischief she was up to now. She was probably at the inn, already sleeping, but just to make sure, Kies sent out a surge of magic around him in a large area to sense where the fragment was. His magic bounced off the fragment, pinging its location for him, somewhat like echolocation, but with magic instead. Just as he thought, she was at the inn- Wait... That wasn't the inn.

Kies pinged the location of the fragment again with his magic to confirm it. She wasn't at the inn. Well, this was certainly strange. What was that place that she was at? Shouldn't they be sleeping right now? It wasn't like they had to wake up early tomorrow for anything since it was only Kies fighting, but he was pretty sure that they didn't want to miss out on it.

The more that Kies thought about it, the more confused he got. If he remembered correctly, he passed by that location before and it was a marketplace. What were they doing there? Shopping in the middle of the night? That didn't make sense. Most of the shops and stalls have closed up by now since it was too cold to continue their business around this time. The rush hour was over, so what were they still doing out?

Kies sent a couple more magic waves and saw that she wasn't moving either, meaning that whatever place they were at, she wasn't going to the inn for some reason. "What?..."

*Pat* The sound of something landing softly on the sand surprised Kies and he quickly turned around to see what it was. He called out his black sword just in case as well.

The sharp blade startled the person and she called out to Kies, "Calm down! It's me!" It was Nyana's voice.

"Oh, it's you..." Kies put away his weapon and looked at the elf. "What are you doing?" he asked her. After the talk with Vistaken, the noble announced that he would be accepting challenges tomorrow and the two of them parted ways from there. What was she doing here again? Did she have more business with him?

"I should be asking you that question," the elf said. "Just what are you doing?"

"What am I doing? What do you mean?"

"I felt an influx of magic and I traced it to here, and since you're the only person here, I assume that it came from you."

"Wait, you can feel that?" Kies was very surprised. Normally, people wouldn't be able to feel his magic since it was a tiny amount.

"We elves are extremely sensitive when it comes to magic," Nyana explained. That was the reason why she was able to feel his magic.

"That's incredible..." Doing something like that was the equivalent of being able to find a needle in a haystack. That was the only thing that Kies could compare it to, and it was that impressive.

"Anyway, you still haven't answered my question," the elf said, waiting for Kies to explain himself. Just what was he doing, and why was he doing it?

Kies supposed that it couldn't hurt to tell Nyana considering how she already knew about the fragments, well sort of anyway. "That girl I'm helping, the red-head," he specified, seeing if Nyana remembered who she was.

"Her? I believe her name is Iris, am I correct?"

"Yes. She has a fragment on her which I need and I can sense it with my magic if I... Well, do what you just saw," he explained.

"I see..." So that was the reason why Kies was leaking his magic like that. "So you need to do it multiple times to find it?" she asked, seeing how Kies sent out multiple waves of magic.

"Um, no. I only need one, but I sensed the location of the fragment, and it's in a weird place," Kies explained to the elf.

"What do you mean by that?"

"They should be at the inn, but for some reason, they're not. So I was confused about that."

"So that's why..." Nyana looked towards the inn. Although they were blocks from it, the inn was the biggest building in this area. Towering at a magnificent twenty or so meters, it was twice the height of most of the buildings surrounding it, which were just simple one-story houses. The lights were still on, showing that it was still active during this time of the day, or rather, night.

"That window," Nyana pointed, "Third from the right on the second floor, that's your room, no?"

"Is it?" Kies didn't know. He had literally only been inside the room twice and didn't pay attention to small details like that.

"I think it is," the elf said. If her memory serves her right, which it usually did, that was their room. "The lights are on. Didn't that mean that they're home right now?"

"Are they?" His magic earlier told him otherwise. Something wasn't adding here and Kies really couldn't figure it out. Why would the lights be on if they weren't home? Perhaps they forgot to turn off the lights before they left? No, that made no sense. If they had gone to sleep last night, which they did, then they would've turned the lights off. The following morning the sun would've shone through the window, providing more than enough light so that they wouldn't need to turn on the artificial magic lights. And since they are on now, it meant that the group had returned back to their room.

"What?..." The only thing that Kies could think of is that they came back and left immediately afterward. But why would they do that? Or maybe it was something else entirely...

But whatever the case, there was only one to figure all of this out, and it was not by standing here and thinking about what may or may not have happened.

"It seems like something is wrong." Nyana saw from Kies' expression. Something was off.

"Maybe..." He really hoped that nothing bad happened, but it could just be the case. In a situation like this, splitting up would be the best idea.

Kies felt guilty about asking Nyana to do this for him, but it shouldn't be too much of a hassle since she was staying in the room right across from them. "I'm sorry, but can you please check in on the room?" he asked her for a favor.

"Of course," she answered almost immediately.

"Okay, thanks." Kies didn't wait a moment to see Nyana off or anything. He coated himself on a layer of wind and sped off into the night. While under the veil of the wind, he was almost invisible and no one could see him. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, he was almost like a phantom. Actually, more like a ninja. He made his way to the place where the fragment was and saw that it was indeed the marketplace. The area was empty, with no soul in sight.

Looks like his hunch was right, something was definitely wrong here. Without further ado, Kies sent out another wave of magic that was several times stronger than the previous ones to pinpoint the location of the fragment. A wave of magic bounced back to him and Kies snapped his head in the direction that it came from. Found it.

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