When Rafael woke up, something did not feel quite right, but he wasn't sure what at first.

He opened his eyes, and the image was blurrily, so he blinked them again.

There was some kind of weight on his midriff. And then he saw blue hair, a body on top of his own.

His first thought was Helare, but the shade was all wrong.

And then she lowered her face. Filoria!

"You woke?" she said, her voice breathy.

His eyes widened as the situation dawned on him. He intended to push her off, but his hands were stuck.

He looked to the side to see that her hands were holding his arms down in a vice grip. She moved up.

Rafe felt an existential dread he had never felt before. He had been asleep in his tent, and now… The situation made exactly no sense to him.

Filoria kept on moving. Sensations he had only felt with himself before racked his body.

And it hurt! For some reason, it hurt so bad.

It hurt so bad Rafe opened his mouth to scream.

"Mmph! Mmmph!"

He was gagged. Filoria knew what she was doing; had planned it out beforehand.

Rafe struggled, trying to use his heavy blow skill to augment his strength, but Filoria still had a higher stat than his. In a situation where he was trapped, where he couldn't bring out his technical fighting prowess, he was essentially powerless.

****

After Filoria left him, Rafe did not even attempt to get up for a long time. He left the gag in his mouth as well.

Tears streamed freely down his face as he remembered the events only a few minutes past.

Then he took the gag out and wiped at his eyes. There were things to be decided. Filoria was an enemy. But killing the Chosen's daughter while he was stuck on the planet was a bit suicidal.

And was dying right now worth it to kill her. Maybe. Maybe it was. In fact, it wouldn't even be the Chosen to destroy him.

The E grades in the camp would do for him.

But he needed to do something about it. It just felt so demeaning.

"Gah!" he cried, bile rising in his throat.

He supported himself with his hands, and the pain around his wrists filled him with such disgust.

Filoria had done this, but ultimately, it had been his own negligence. He should be focused on increasing his stats, on leveling up. He could not afford to be as defenseless as he had been that day.

His illusion of strength was quashed like it never existed.

The new smell of his tent reached his nose, and sent him reeling. He tried to crawl into a corner, but the shadows started moving, morphing into a girl with a cruel smile and vaguely aquamarine hair.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Rafe ran from his tent. He needed to see Helare, to talk to her. He didn't know if he was going to tell her what happened, but he needed to see her.

****

After a not so satisfying nap, Helare Clearsea decided to try and do her job one last time. Now that the trip to the capital was over, there was no reason to stay on Primus.

After attending to the bureaucrats in the camp she went to see Hestus.

"So?" she asked him.

He looked uncomfortable, but he nodded.

Her plan was simple. Anything was possible with credits, but still, there was a level of clearance needed to access that part of the store. Even someone like Hestus could not access it. He was just a D grade merchant.

What she could buy from Hestus, however, was employment. If she bought shares in him, in the license the system automatically gave anyone with a merchant profession, then she was technically a merchant.

And therefore Hestus could invite her and her caravan to the staging area of merchants connected to the tutorial sector.

And that was the only place in the multiverse that had access to every single planet in the tutorial sector. Merchants, after all, were fundamentally harmless as killing customers was bad for business.

Of course there were special cases, but the system did not like to deal with those kinds of merchants. So they couldn't get access to the tutorial sector anyway.

"We will be leaving in a few hours," she told him. "Get ready."

He looked like he wanted to say something, but he only shook his head.

Helare walked by Rafe's tent, but he was not there. She expected him to work on his smithing the moment he settled, but maybe he still needed a bit of a break?

She pushed the matter out of her mind temporarily and went to the training ground. He would surely come, wouldn't he?

He did not come, no matter how long she waited. With a frown, Helare went to look for him.

****

Filoria washed the blood away, but she couldn't contain her excitement. She could not believe she had done it. But she had. It was over. She had conquered him!

It was quite a bit painful to move, but what was pain after such a victory. She slept for hours, although she kept dreaming of the bliss she'd felt.

When she woke, she showered, happy with everything in the world. She even hummed as she dressed herself up.

She went to look for Rafael. Maybe now he would let her call him Rafe, she mused. And maybe she'd let him call her Filo or something like that.

But her excitement was cut short when she saw someone come out of Rafe's tent, and it was not Rafael.

A strange pang shot through her heart as she watched. Her eyes watered. She dived out of the way and hid behind some other tent, but her body trembled as that sight burnt itself into her memory.

The princess was going to die today! Die! How dare she enter where she was not wanted? How dare she try to take what belonged to Filoria now?

****

Apparently, Rafe came around earlier, looking for her, but she was busy at the time. He hadn't looked good, one of her attendants said. Indeed, that explained the state of his tent.

"He said he wouldn't be going back to his tent," the attendant continued. "He said there was a spring a half hour out to the West."

She might be a princess, but Helare didn't mind going after Rafe like this, for some reason. Chasing after him. It always seemed like she was chasing after him, and she did not mind.

She found the spring, but he wasn't exactly sitting at it. Instead he was standing a little away, in front of a dark cave. From behind, he seemed to be trembling.

And when she saw him from the front, all wide eyed horror and tears streaming down his face, Helare was shaken. She was scared.

Something had happened. Something huge. It couldn't be about going back to his home planet, could it?

Hadn't he lost all hope previously? What could it be this time?

"Rafe?!"

He didn't seem to see her, hear her.

She moved forward to hold him.

But he flinched from her, looked at her with eyes filled with panic. He took a clumsy step back, shaking more uncontrollably.

"Rafe? Rafe?!" she tried again. "What is it?! What's wrong? It's me, Helare."

But the panic gripping his face did not loosen at all.

"Rafael?!" Helare screamed, her voice a little too loud.

It was a familiar expression. Gripped by some emotion she could not see, Rafael was blind to everything around him, even her.

Last time, when his plan to return to his home planet failed, it had rent her heart to pieces. This time was no less painful.

But this time was different. Because she had finished saying goodbye. Because she did not need to stay on Primus anymore.

"Rafael!" she screamed as she forced herself into his personal space.

She held his face in her hands.

Rafael's breath caught. He trembled very violently, his hands fisted at his sides.

Helare once again wondered what in the world happened to him.

"I will take you home, Rafael!" she screamed at him, an involuntary tear running down her cheek. "I will take you home right now!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.