Personal assistant (part 5)

"I never seen a woman be thirsty like that."

The young coachman added while shaking his head.

"...never...?"

Medea furrowed his brows and asked, with his mug stopping halfway to his mouth.

"Huh? I mean. Yeah. I definitely never seen a woman be thirsty like that in my life."

Mark flinched, and his eyes moved to the sides as if he tried to find a second meaning to Medea's words but failed and just doubled down on his declaration.

"..."

Medea gave him a taxing look from head to toe and back before reaching out his free hand and putting it on Mark's shoulder.

"Do better."

"Wh-what...? Huh...?"

The black-haired man looked the young coachman in the eyes and declared, completely confusing the younger male.

"..."

Explaining absolutely nothing about his statement, Medea leaned away from Mark and started drinking his concoction while checking whether Zorivia was enjoying herself.

This night Mark wasn't called by Medea for guard duty, so the young coachman assumed that the personal assistant of young Miss Zorivia had deemed the place safe, and he simply went to sleep.

He woke up before dawn and went to check on the carriage.

Mark took out the tools from the small compartment in the back and slid his way under the carriage to begin the maintenance.

"...hmm...? Hello...?"

As he was in the middle of the work, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps and the splashing of water, so he called out preemptively while leaning out to see who it was.

"Good morning. Is there something wrong with the carriage?"

The person turned out to be Medea. The black-haired man drew a bucket of water from the well and was washing off the blood from his hands and arms, drenched all the way up to his elbows while the completely ruined shirt was dripping with half-coagulated cloths by his feet.

"Mister Medea?! What happened?!" *WHAM* "OWWWW!"

Seeing him like that gave Mark chills, and the young coachman stood up rapidly, forgetting about the carriage above him, and ended up kneeling down as the meeting between his head and the bottom of the carriage ended up with his head losing the epic confrontation.

"..."

The black-haired man glanced over at the trembling coachman clenching his head while pressing his forehead to the ground while trying to hold back the urge to scream in pain.

"...are you okay...?"

After a couple of minutes, the cleaned-up Medea asked the still silently trembling Mark.

"...it thing I'm going to throw up..."

The young coachman twitched and yelped with his face barely above the ground.

"Haa... here, crush it."

Seeing him like that made Medea roll his eyes and sigh before taking out his pellet casket from his back pocket and selecting a green marble that he threw at Mark's head so it bounced off his hand.

"Mi... mister Medea...!" *crack*

The young coachman gasped in shock and didn't hesitate even for a moment to activate the healing pellet that recovered his injury within seconds.

"Now. What were you doing under the carriage? Is there some issue?"

Medea asked, rummaging through the baggage on the back of the carriage and pulling out a clean shirt.

Before he put it on, though, the black-haired man used leather belts to strap two knives to his forearms and only then donned the fresh clothes while the stunned coachman watched him in silence.

"..."

"Ah...!"

Medea stopped buttoning up the shirt and looked up expectantly at Mark, who flinched and gasped.

"Nothing seemed to be wrong, but since the carriage had been making those weird sounds, I decided to check the suspension. I thought that it must be either really worn out or broken since the whole thing rocks so much all the time... but as I said, nothing is actually wrong."

Mark explained with a troubled expression before his eyes wandered to the crumpled shirt that Medea dropped and which started turning into one massive scab by the side of the well.

"But that's not important now...! Mister Medea, what happened?! Were you in a fight? Were they bandits or thieves again? Why didn't you wake me up?"

The young man shook his head and gasped, pointing to the bloody shirt and the remains of the reddish water soaking into the soil after Medea's partial bath.

"Since the carriage didn't sustain any damage that could prevent us from continuing the travel, I will go fetch the young Miss. Wait for us at the front."

Medea shrugged his shoulders, appearing to stop listening at that point, and already started walking back to the inn.

-----

"..."

The carriage slowly came to a halt, and Mark gulped down his saliva, calming down his breath for what was about to come.

The young coachman looked around, furrowing his brows at the silent surroundings.

Mark has purposefully moved off the main road and steered the carriage into a rarely used forest path where the lack of potential witnesses made for a perfect spot for an ambush but with how things looked now... the place seemed to lack the second main ingredient necessary for a robbery.

The bandits.

Confused about the situation, Mark whistled, trying to get the attention of the people that should have been there...

"..."

...but the only response he got was the chirps and shrills of various birds perched atop the treetops swaying in the gentle wind.

Mark took a quick breath and felt his hands getting sweaty around the rain he was firmly grasping, feeling the anxiety settling in.

The emotions he managed to successfully suppress and mask started to surface, and he began to bite his lips as his shoulders trembled.

"...where are you... you must... you must be here...!"

The young coachman whispered in desperation before whistling once more, this time in a crude and easily recognizable pattern – clearly just to get someone's... anyone's... attention.

"Impossible... it is the spot...! It must be the spot...!"

Mark gritted his teeth on the verge of tears as if the peace and tranquility of the scenery were his worst nightmare coming true.

*click*

"...!"

The door of the carriage opened, causing the young man to flinch and try to pull himself together.

"Ah...! M-mister Medea, I just thought that maybe our young Miss would want to have a quick break since..."

"No one will show up."

Seeing the serious-faced black-haired man peeking out at him, Mark gasped and did his best to smile through the absolute misery he was feeling, but Medea merely propped up his thick glasses and said indifferently.