Aura attacks were not nearly enough to destroy a user, but the pain of a soul attack, especially for someone who had probably never experienced one. It was all the damage he could cause her just then.

There were damn E grades guarding her, and they were well into the E grade. He could maybe escape if he was fighting one E grade user, but defeating them. Let alone more than twenty of them.

But the true issue was the mastermind behind Filoria and these traitorous guards. Even when the chosen was trying to hold back, Rafe couldn't so much as touch him. And yet how could he leave Primus without killing him now? How could he kill him?

"I've wasted too much time," he murmured to himself.

How many levels had he gained since leaving the trial months ago?

He wasted too much time feeling sorry for himself. And now he was held captive, and there was every chance he was going to take the fall for Helare's death. He was naked and covered in her blood.

He didn't even have time to react before one of his captors stepped forward and knocked him out.

****

With a gasp, Filoria shot up out of her bed. She coughed, unable to stop herself. Her whole body hurt like it never had before.

The last thing she remembered was Rafael running at her like a deranged beast. It had scared her half to death. It had felt like countless swords were pointed at her throat.

And then someone had intercepted him, but he still managed to send an invisible attack her way. She didn't feel any impact from the attack, only the pain. Unreasonable pain she had never felt before.

For a moment, she thought she was going to die. The next thing she remembered was waking up here.

"Well there," an old feminine voice said. Someone patted her back, and she could feel some kind of calming energy being fed into her body. "You're fine now, young miss. You're fine."

The coughs subsided, and her body calmed down. She breathed hard, once, twice. Slowly by slowly her body got back into her control. The pain was still unbearable though.

"How are you feeling, young miss?" a familiar voice asked.

She looked up to see the wisened face of her old mentor, her father's old mentor, Collab. The old woman next to her was a healer. A familiar one as well. Probably the most senior healer among the expedition to the Deufont dungeon.

So she was still in the dungeon.

"What happened?" she asked instead.

Her voice surprised her a bit, with how feeble it sounded.

Collab didn't say anything for a protracted moment. "The alien boy is said to have murdered the princess."

The confirmation did nothing for her. This was the plan she came up with before talking to her contacts among the E grade guards. They had asked why she needed to rush it. She had lied, saying her father had set a time limit, and that all of them would be punished if the princess didn't die as soon as possible.

She was rushing back then, and yet by the time she arrived at the scene, the princess and Rafael were well into it. She had arrived too late.

"You tried to save the princess," Collab said, his voice flat. The way it usually was when he said something he disapproved of. "But the boy is stronger than you, as everyone in the camp is well aware."

Filoria frowned, not quite understanding the reason for the bit of hostility and admonishment she felt in her mentor's voice.

"The princess, for some unfathomable reason," Collab continued, "was rather popular among the people in the camp. Even the workers loved her. Apparently they loved her earnestness. Right now you're quite the celebrity in Deufont. You're like a hero to them, for trying your best to fight someone overwhelmingly stronger than you.

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"Of course, most of these people don't know that a few of the princess's E grades guards didn't make it back. So in that sense, your achievement is even more amazing in my eyes."

And there it was again. Her mentor seemed unclear on how to treat her. With disgust, or with simple disapproval, or with hostility. His tone was torn. So many layered emotions could she parse from it.

It hurt a little, because he was like a parent to her. No, he was her father's mentor, so in that case, he was like a grand father to her.

But what was done was done. Her relationship with this great man might be broken, but her father was more important anyway. And she had placated him with the princess's death.

As for Rafael, he was hers. Surely her father wouldn't deny her this small boon, would he?

"What about Rafael?" she asked. "Where is he being kept?"

Collab only shrugged. "He is not here anymore."

Filoria's heart almost stopped. Then it started to gallop uncontrollably. Surely he didn't mean…

"We figured it wouldn't safe for him here," Collab continued. "So when the Chosen sent a letter asking to punish the criminal, how could we refuse?"

It was even worse than she had feared. When her father took things away, they would hardly ever see the light of day again.

"When?!" she asked. "When was this?! How long have I been out?"

Collab shrugged again, his expression not at all ruffled. "You've been out for roughly three days. The criminal was taken away more than twenty hours ago."

Then there was still time. Judging by how fast her father had acted, he really placed a lot of importance on acquiring Rafael.

How could she get the boy out of her father's clutches? Not violently, that was for sure. She had to use the one thing in which the chosen wasn't on top of the pyramid of Primus yet. Politics.

Since her father had ascended to his title, a former village girl had suddenly found herself in a nest of snakes. And all she had for protection was her father's almost non-existent love.

Once they noticed how indifferent the chosen was to his daughter, the courtiers would bite. She needed a way to protect herself. Luckily enough, the princess had volunteered to leave the royal court and come to this dungeon. So she did not need to use her claws then, but against her father she would. And in a way that wouldn't seem like she was deliberately going against him.

She struggled to her feet, ignoring the protests of the healer, not even paying them any mind.

A spell of dizziness hit her, but she only needed to stand still for a few moments to calm her self. Then she struggled toward the tent flap.

She was in the large tent Helare slept in previously. ow the princess was dead, although something weird had gone on with her corpse there in the end.

Filoria shook her head, deciding she would consider that later.

Then she stepped out of the tent. She blinked her eyes and raised her hands to block the light.

"The lady is awake," she heard someone whisper loudly.

She paused, not quite understanding why anyone needed to be informed of this.

"The lady is awake," someone else announced, and then someone else told their neighbor, and as Filoria watched the word spread to all people in the camp.

"The lady is awake!" someone finally decided to shout, and then many people shouted.

Filoria looked at the people of the camp.

A few days ago, she would have walked past them and none of them would have paid her any mind. But now they were looking at her the same way they looked at her father that time he came to the camp a few weeks ago.

Something in her chest fluttered. She took a step, and entered the press of bodies.

The people parted for her. They squeezed and jostled to be near the front, but they also fought to make sure they did not invade her private space.

For a long moment, Filoria forgot why she had rushed out of the tent. The worship of hundreds of people buoyed her, made her gait more and more steady.

****

Rafe woke up with a gasp.

The first thing he did was try to look around him, but there was no one there. If that wasn't suspicious, then he didn't know the meaning of the word.

He was alone in an abandoned room, and he wasn't even restrained. It did not look like a typical jail, but that was surely what it was. He was supposed to take the fall for the princess's murder, wasn't he?

He stood up from the cot on which he was resting, and the first thing he saw was his own face looking back at him.

He wondered why there was such an ostentatious mirror in jail. It was really a strange thing.

And then he saw the strange pods. They were like something out of a science fiction movie. One was open, and there was some kind of violet viscous fluid in it. There were all sorts of wires and cables connecting to it.

He went up to one, and there was a small window to the inside of it. And like he expected, there was a live person in the pod. All he could see was their face. And the person didn't seem to be native to Primus, based on their long ears. It was an elf.

He moved through about three other pods, seeing different people he was sure were not native to Primus in different states of semi-death.

Most of these people would not survive outside the pods, he reckoned. Then he came onto a tiny pod, barely big enough to fit a mouse.

'Ding': Emergency quest! Emergency quest!

Objective: Free them! Free them! Free them!

The system spammed him with confusing messages. Rafe stepped forward to check on these tiny pods, and he saw a small blue face in the first. A face he'd seen once, although not physically.

A sound from behind him had him turning around in a rush. The chosen stepped into the room, still looking like an average individual, quick to smile.

"Oh," the man said. "You're already awake. Welcome to your new permanent home

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