Re: Elf Prince—A Degenerate's Second Chance-Chapter 103. Warmth

103. Warmth

The sounds of blades clashing and the screams that was once pronounced were now starting grow more quieter. Merylin knew what this meant, the number of people needing saving was dropping and the hostiles would remain. As compelled as she was to abandon the elf boy she felt compelled to stay by his side not because she had compassion but because she still felt indebted to him and because she believed he could be a serious turning point in the battle.

"Just stay still." She said as she swung her sickle and cut the rope restraining his hand, she caught sight of Elise who just lay on the ground overwhelmed by shock and freedom her too, she was not much use in a fight but she was a healer. As for the third prisoner he was no where to be seen but this did not bother her much.

She walked up before Eryndor and crouched down before him, time was off the essence and she needed to know if he would help or not. Seeing his face filled her with an odd feeling that seemed familiar but also distant. She started to speak in a rush but not too fast as to confuse him. "Hey listen up I know my gramps did you dirty. I have heard of stories of the degenerate prince of the elf empire but I never cared since it had nothing to do with me. But you walked into my life and solved all of my problems, I don’t know if a degenerate was capable of that but you became my saviour. I am going to need you do that again."

In Eryndor’s mind the words flying around were cursed.

"After all this time I’m still a failure." He repeated to himself over and over again. "The world has no use for me."

He could see the beast girl before him and he could see her lips moving but the words were inaudible to him. He wondered why she was wasting her time with him, a good for nothing loser. It seemed he could never outrun what he truly was no matter how hard he tried and such was fate.

After realising her words were not getting to him he cursed under her breath. "Dammit, he’s too far gone." From the corner of her eye she caught another of the beast warriors charging at Eryndor from behind and thrusting a wooden spear with a metal tip forward.

Merylin moved swiftly and kicked back while grabbing Eryndor’s lifeless form and pulling him along with her to avoid the spear. They both fell down with her falling first and Eryndor falling on her, a second later the beast warrior was on them and thrusting his spea forward.

Merylin growled having realised that she had dropped her sickles during the rush, she raised her hand and caught the spear by she metal part just inches from piercing through Eryndor’s back. Instinctively she pressed him tighter to her, protecting him, the metal part of the spear was forced forwards as the beast warrior overpowered her. She screamed as the spear moved and inch further cutting through her hand and sending blood trickling down.

She cried at the top of her voice. "Wake up Metun lanquis!"

In Eryndor’s mind he felt something strange, causing his consciousness to wake up slightly. "W-- what is this warmth?" He asked himself.

It was a warm sensation he was feeling in his internal space, he could slowly start to feel the numbness in his body vanish and wake up. It felt like he was breaking through the ice itself, his eyes slowly regained life allwiif him to see clearly again. The first thing he could see was chin of the orange haired beast girl, he could tell he was lying on her chest but for what reason he was not sure. As his senses slowly returned he could hear the chaos of battle and it was deafening, not wanting to overwhelm himself he thought in his last moments frozen in shock and everything he saw and heard started to come back to him slowly.

Meryling could feel that Eryndor was awake because his body started to brim with warmth but for some reason he could not move. She screamed again as the blade of the spear cut deeper into her hand and was now touching the fabric of the cloth on his back.

The beast warrior laughed. "No witnesses princess." A second later his laughter turned into strained coughs as someone came in from behind and drove Merylin’s curved dagger into his skull from the side. It did not go fully throughout but it was enough to inflict serious injury and soon the warrior dropped down by Merylin’s side. The one who has killed him stood there in beautiful battle dress and a mages cape was a young woman.

Elise seeing the entire thing play out before her hand panicked and her hand moved to the blade and she struck the man when she had the chance to. It was the first time she had killed a person before and it shook her to realise how easy it was. She wondered if this was because she had seen Garult do it so many times. Feeling she the gravity of what she had done she froze and cried.

Merylin could not feel any more grateful as she sat up straight, still clutching Eryndor tight to her chest. She huffed repeatedly and tried to catch her breath while Elise bent down and tried to heal her hand but her magic failed to work.

Merylin turned her attention to Eryndor who just lay silent for some reason and said. "I know your awake and I don’t give a damn what others say about you. Degenerate or not, trespasser or not, you saved the whole damn village once and for no reason at all. I am begging you please save my village again and I will owe you."

Eryndor was starting to feel a semblance of control over every part of his body, he hesitated a bit and said. "I didn’t do it for no reason, I did it for you." In a way he wasn’t entirely telling the truth and he also wasn’t lying, she was involved in his actions at the time.

"Oh, is that so?" Merylin said in a low tone as she proceeded. "Will you do it again?"

Eryndor wondered which had snapped him out of his trance, was it perhaps the feeling of being needed or the warmth. What had the warmth to do with anything? It did not take long for him to come up with a reasonable conclusion.

His only answer was simple his life lacked warmth. He had grown up with his family back in the castle but he barely remembered them, they sheltered him because he was their problem. Thalvarin trained him because he became his problem, the beast people locked him up because he became their problem but the beast girl freed him and chose him to be what? Her salvation? Her hero?

Whatever the reason was, for the first time he felt desired by someone not because of his status but for his own abilities. She saw the person that endured pain within his mask, she saw him and that was all that mattered. His goal had always been to become someone he could be proud of, someone accepted and she was the first person to ever accept him. Even if the situations did call for it, she still chose to put her trust in him.

He pushed himself away from her and and looked at her face, her huge expressive eyes were as beautiful as ever before and as always they were strong and willful. He looked at her hand that bled and then back a her and said. "Fine I’ll help you but you better hold you end of the promise."

She nodded and climbed up to her feet, Eryndor did the same and was now standing next to her only that he was facing one way and she was having the other.

"You should arm yourself." Elise said as she handed Merylin her sickles. "I’ll make myself scarce I guess."

Merylin nodded and said nothing to her, in such a situation survival was based on ones individual activities. "What about you?" She asked Eryndor.

Eryndor gritted his teeth and said. "Id you can get your family over to one side I’ll handle the rest."

Merylin could not tell why but she trusted him, with them both there was a more acknowledgeable chance of winning, if only they had one more person. She hoped that the wild card in the room would participate in the fight. Though he had no reason to fight, she chose not to rely on him too much.

Somewhere in the chaos behind a cabinet was a secret passageway hidden well close to the wall, because of the chaos no one had noticed it yet. Soon a figure walked out of it covered in stains of blood, it was Ash Velarion. He smiled and thought to himself, "Well that was easy."