Seeing that his opponent was lying on the ground without moving, the monster reared up and charged in to finish off the enemy and dig his fangs into her flesh.
Elaine didn’t see what happened next, but the wolf-bull didn’t reach her. Or rather, only half of him reached her. His horned head stopped at her feet, and the green clearing was drenched in crimson.
Hadjar stood in the distance. He swung his blade a couple of times and sheathed it.
“You are too impulsive, my Princess,” he said, helping the girl stand up.
Once again appreciating how rough the former General’s palms were, Elaine managed to get back on her feet, but not without difficulty. She saw the wolf-bull’s dead body in front of her. An experienced warrior would’ve managed to make a single slash, but the Mad General had managed four. He’d cut the wolf-bull along his spine, separated his head from his body, and then sliced off all four of his legs in just two strikes. The monster must’ve died before it had fallen to the ground.
“I wasn’t ready for his ability.”
“All animals at the Alpha Stage have the ability to control energy,” Hadjar reminded her.
“I know,” Elaine could barely stop herself from snarling. Not from anger, but rather, shame. “The Master taught me that.”
Hadjar didn’t doubt that the Master was the only one who had guided Elaine along the path of cultivation and the sword. Her Technique was a mirror image of the Master’s own. Her every movement, every swing, every breath was an exact copy of what the old man was capable of. The only difference was that Elaine was several times stronger than the Master.
“Since I did the work this time, you, my Princess, will have to make our dinner. I hope they taught you how to cook. ”
Hadjar turned around and walked over to a boulder. Settling down on it, he took out his pipe, filled it with tobacco, and started smoking. The Princess stood in the clearing for some time, silent. She looked hatefully at the carcass and at the General. Despite that, she started a fire and began cutting the meat. She was bad at it. But that had been the deal.
By now, they’d spent three days climbing down from this damned mountain, and didn’t want to eat only grass and berries. Hadjar had wanted to eat meat, Elaine had wanted to try out her new knowledge about the Way of the Sword. So, they had agreed that Elaine would hunt and Hadjar would cook dinner.
This time, the Princess, confident in her power, had decided to try and fight a beast that wasn’t at the Stage of the Awakening of Power or Mind, but at the Alpha Stage. In the end, if it hadn’t been for Hadjar’s intervention, she would’ve gone to meet her forefathers or would’ve been severely injured.
Hadjar smoked and looked at his sister as she worked. The Princess wasn’t afraid of dirty work. For such a greenhouse flower as Elaine, that was truly admirable, showing she had a strong character.
The only thing that confused Hadjar were the thin scars on Elaine’s body. He’d noticed them in the cave. They were too thin and too old to be immediately apparent. Nevertheless, her arms, torso, and right leg were covered in these ‘decorations’. Noticing the General’s gaze, Elaine covered the long scar on her right forearm immediately.
“Please forgive me for my ignorance, Princess,” Hadjar breathed out a little cloud of smoke. “But how does the King tolerate the Master giving you these scars?”
“The Master didn’t do this!” Elaine replied heatedly. Her hand trembled and the tendon that she’d been trying to cut hit her fingers. The Princess swore. Very colorfully. Hadjar mentally apologized to their parents for his pernicious influence on his sister.
“I would’ve surely heard about a person being executed for assaulting the Princess.”
Elaine’s eyes flashed with rage. Their mother had looked the same when she was angry. Unlike Elizabeth, Elaine came to her senses quickly. She handed Hadjar the knife.
“Help me, please, General.”
Hadjar could’ve said that they had a strict division of labor worked out, but he didn’t. He came down from the boulder and began to cut up the carcass. For a while, they worked in silence.
“I have memory lapses sometimes,” Elaine whispered softly. “Ever since my childhood. It happens and then it goes like this: when I wake up, I see I’m covered in bandages and ointments. My father, a sad expression on his face, is sitting nearby. That’s when I know that my mind has let me down again.”
Hadjar’s knife bounced off the tendon and cut off a piece of his skin. Cursing and ignoring Elaine’s contented smirk, he sent a stream of energy toward the wound and it immediately began to heal.
“How often do you have these lapses, my Princess?”
“In recent years, I’ve had none, but...” Elaine’s eyes became stern again. “You see, General, nobody knows about my illness except the King and the head Palace healer. Even my brother, your friend, has no idea.”
“I’m sorry, my Princess,” Hadjar nodded and continued to work.
A few more minutes of silence passed.
“Since I was ten years old,” Elaine whispered again. She didn’t know why, but she felt that she could trust this man. It was a silly, irrational feeling.
“And before that?”
Elaine laid the knife down and wiped her palm on the grass. She didn’t look like a little princess at that moment.
“I don’t remember anything from before I was 10 years old…”
The girl got up and went to the forest to get some more firewood. Hadjar stayed back at their makeshift camp.
It was funny, but if not for Nehen’s stories, he would never have learned about the existence of Techniques that could influence a person’s mind and he would’ve never known how Primus kept Elaine blissfully ignorant.
The usurper had tampered with his sister’s brain!
But, gods
