Chapter 05 - Bloodleaf

Lena moved to a place that looked like a restaurant 5 minutes from where she fought the bandits

it was quite large place, with 20 tables and one big reception with 7 receptionists, out of the 20 tables 17 were occupied, she was in the furthest table from the entrance, in right corner of the restaurant, she asked for a simple meal, wich was 2 silver, and nothing to drink, since it was 1 silver per drink, she didn't had any more money

she had the diary on the table, as she was reading it while eating, it had sevaral names crossed, most of them were female names, it also had an information on the side of the name

'[virgin] , this...monsters, they're abducting girls, not only that but they..they check the.. urgh'

she closed the diary

'i feel much better of the way that guy died now'

she opened the diary again, below the names it was more names, but this ones had price on the side, they were from 20 to 50 gold coins

'what is this nonsense, are they selling them? i should've guessed there were slaves in this..place'

she could hear a very cheerful girl delivering plates on the tables, a red hair girl with blue eyes, she seemed to be a waiter in the restaurant, Lena noticed the girl, wich seemed the age between 18 and 20 years, was dodging the hands of some mans who were aimed at her waist or butt, like she was used to it, Lena frowned for a second.

'of course the attitude of the people of this place are also.. disgusting'

she continued reading the diary, that was a note behind page with the names, 'sell and deliver all meat to the butcher on the bloodleaf building'

'bloodleaf? is this a place or the name of the organization? and they're calling the girls 'meat', do they eat the girls or thats just a form to mask the operation? who is the butcher? why kidnap so many girls, i have so many questions, this place is dangerous, maybe i should just leave the city'

she turned the page once again, there were symbols glowing on the pages, there were some names above each one of them, Lena could feel a bit of enchants coming from the symbols, she placed her index finger of her right hand on the symbol bellow the first name, it was 'Niki', at that moment she had a vision, no it was a memory in her head, she was in the body of the guy with the scar, raping the girl, Lena removed her finger instantly, she closed the diary, she wanted to throw it, but she held back, her insides were twisting, she wanted to vomit, her eyes had tears on it, she cleaned them very quickly, she opened again, and returned on page, the name Niki had a price at the side, it was 22 gold coins.

'.. so the names with the price are either prostitutes or kidnaped girls, 'that' did not looked to be a paid action, it was forced, so its probably the second option'

she ripped the page with the enchants and names, and crushed, and threw it at her bag

'i'll burn that later'

she finished her meal and left 2 silver coins by the empty plate, she did this because thats how the other clients were leaving the place, she stood up and walked to the entrance, a drunk guy on the table close to the door was cheerfuly drinking, he saw a girl coming to the door from the back of the restaurant, and tried to fall in front of her to look under her clothes, but before he fell completely he could see the girl staring at him with a hand on the scabbard of her sword, he gulped and regret thinking such thing, as the girl passed by him he said in a low voice.

"im sorry ma'am"

he could not look at her, she was young, but she had such a sharp gaze, as if saying that she would cut his head of if he tried that joke

Lena was quite angry, because of what she had readed in the diary so, she would actually do that, who knows. she just looked at him with the corners of her eyes and left the restaurant

as she stepped out of the restaurant she could feel somekind of enchant directed at her

'what is this feeling, am i being watched right now? is coming from that window'

she could feels where it was coming from, it was a small window, with a cat on the side of the window

'is coming from that cat'

she never stoped to think, why she could feel the magic of this place, called enchants, she just reconized the same feeling she had when the fairy named Eda turned them invisible, she just decided that it was probably natural

'should i keep going, what if they get me, i...'

at that moment she saw a familiar face entering a alley to the left side of the restaurant, about 10 meters away, a knight in full plate armor entering a very dark alley

'was that Albert?'

she start to move towards the alley and entered

it was very dark, for some reason, she could not feel enchants, but it was abnormaly dark

after walking with her hand on the walls, she saw a spark a bit far aways on the tunnel

"pah!"

she heard a loud noise, as if it was blowing up something made of plastic

as she could see more and more sparks, like fire hiting something really fast

she finally was at a distance there she could see what was going on

in the dark, Albert was in a area between buildings, in a circle empty space, it was a large space, about 20 meters in diameter, he was right at the middle of it, with fire in his hands, in fact, there was a faint flame covering his entire body, just his hands had a large amount of it, he remained pretty calm, blocking something from time to time, he would stay still and sometimes swing his hand in the air, blocking the projectiles, making the noise Lena could hear from time to time in her way there. after blocking one more time, Albert let out a short sigh, and asked

"haa.. are you gonna keep shooting until you run out of bullets? you should know this is meaningless"

he looked to the man in the walls who were shooting, every once in a while and moving to a differente place.

the man in the shadow noticed that his eyes were following him, everytime he moved, even though, it was close to pitch black in this alley

"..."

the man shot his silent crossbow again, without a single noise to be heard, and moved very fast to the wall behind Albert, he could see his eyes following him, while swinging his hands blocking the projectile

"ah.. i see, i know who you are"

"if you trully do, please, just surrender, and you won't die"

"you're the Flame knight Albert..isn't it?"

"can't say its a pleasure, since you are attacking me for a while now"

Lena thought at this moment

'flame knight? is Albert famous?is that why his hands are on fire?'

"no wonder you could see me in this pitch black alley"

"oh this was a trap? i apologize, i didnt even realised"

'he is mocking him, i can tell'

she could barely see Albert, that had his Helmet on

"i wont even fall into your talk, im leaving"

"are you gonna use such a expensive item just to run? i feel honored"

"hmpf"

Lena could not see the man in the dark, but he took a scroll out of his bag and riped in the middle, it start to glow and blew as the man body turned into particles and dipersed

"Teleportation scrolls cost so much, they sure have money"

Lena stood up and said

"Hello again, Sir Albert"

"hm"

he turned around and looked at her, he, who cold see as if it was quite bright, could see Lena walking toward him

"Oh hi Lady Lena, never expected to see you so soon"

he turned off the flames ni his hand and Lena said

"Can you please give me some light, i cant see anything"

"oh, forgive me"

as he said that a symbol that looked like the letter [C] but with 2 lines cutting horizontaly and with a smal circle on the right side of it appeared and glowed creating a ball of light, not flames, just light. it illuminated a lot, she could see all the surroundings, Albert asked

"forgive me if rude, but what are you doing in such a dangereous place Lady Lena?"

she removed the diary from her bag and handed to Albert

"i took this from a guy who attacked me a few hours ago"

there was a leaf on the front of the diary

"this..a diary of a member of the bloodleaf, you..did not steal this right?"

"you should know, right?"

"there is a bit of malice coming from you right now, im afraid you killed again, right?"

"they did attacked me again, so it was a consequence, and, a hope they do it again"

"Lady Lena please watch your words, im still a knight"

"read the diary, you will understand"

"i dont need to read, i know, its the reason i came to this city in the first place"

"i had a feeling it was something like this"

"let us leave this darkness so we can talk in a better place"

they walked toward the exit trought the alley Lena just entered

'he said 'bloodleaf' whitout even read the diary, he also said he came to this city for them, he probably knows a lot'

she was peaking at Albert every 2 seconds, he noticed this and said

"i dont know if is a good idea to drag you into this, if you really wanna know, i must hear from you that you'll take full rresponsibility for whatever happens to you, personaly i would prefere if you just stayed away, but just by looking at you i can see you want to know"

'he's worried that something may happen to me, but i feel much more safer close to him then alone'

"im ok with it, please tell"

'she really wanna know, its gonna be so bad, but here we go'

"Bloodleaf family, is a organization responsible of all sorts of problems in the Maramel kingdom, they are the leaders of inter-species trafic, scroll contraband, drugs, brothels and slavery. the knights of Filamore are their biggest problem since we can find them very easily, but they hide quite well too, i was sended to this city to remove the activities of the Bloodleaf from this place"

"so they tried to kidnap me for slavery or trafic?"

"precisely, im glad you are ok..Lena"

he stopped before saying only her name because he was starting to see her as a fellow warrior therefore 'lady'did not suited her

"can the knights do anything against the organization itself?"

"saddly not, we dont know the where they are, nor the main heads, so the best we can do so far is to remove the influence of them, from each town"

"cant we have more knights in each city for better protection? until a see you here, there wasn't a single knight in this city"

they reached the end of the alley

"the Knighthood of filamore have only 300 knights, there are close to 500 cities in the Maramel kingdom, we cant have a single knight in each smal city like this one"

'small? this is small, even with that big castle?'

"what about that castle? "

"thats where the mayor of the city lives, but on paper, is just one of many castles of King Valor"

'what did i just heard, thats just a summer house?'

she could feel the cat looking at her again, it was on the other side of the street right in front of her now

"what is that cat?"

Alberto looked at Lena and asked

"what cat?"

Lena pointed to the cat

"that"

Albert looked at the cat and said

"is just a cat"

'hm, is he serious, cant he sense this'

"i can feel he using enchants looking at me"

"hm?"

Albert was very confused

"what do you mean by feel?"

Lena also had a confused look in her face

"cant you feel it?"

"no...oh, i see"

'what does he see?'

"thats your singularity,you can feel the usage of enchantments, very useful"

"this is a singularity? are you saying that you cannot tell enchants being used?"

"im afraid i cannot, anyway you are saying this cat is using enchantments?"

"y-yes"

'i cant believe im the only one who can sense this'

the cat crossed the streets and walked towards Lena, she touched the scabbard of the sword an was about to unsheath it

"no needs to worry, it has no malice"

Lena relaxed a little and the cat, small white cat with one eye blue and the other green, jumped at her right shoulder

"you smell like a milim"

Lena's eyes opened as she was surprised with the cat speaking, Albert who saw and heard all of that said while bowing

"its a honor to meet a member of the felix race"

'honor? so the cat speaking is rare?'

"its the first time i see a member of Felix race"

"we dont usually talk to humans, but this one smells like a Milim, so i have to ask something"

the cat looked at Lena's hair and said

"what a hell are you doing in a human city, Milim!?"

"huh?!"