No Need to Ask

Whatever possibilities Vir could think of, he only knew that Aira must have gone through a very hard and very miserable life.

Vir might still be a little lucky that he was a man. Although, he was still a child at the time. But at least, he was stronger than Aira who was a little girl and had to continue her life by begging.

"Tell me," Vir said after one very long breath. "How did you find me? Don't tell me the incident at the market a few days ago was a coincidence!"

Aira flipped through a few pages of her book, then showed Vir a picture of a wyvern.

Vir frowned. "A Bald Wyvern?"

"A year ago."

"What are you talking about?"

"Yeah," the nine-year-old girl replied. "In the sea that separates the Southwestern Lands from the Eastern Lands."

"Damn it!" Vir grinned. "So, you found that damn dragon carcass, huh? Yeah, the only dragon mount I managed to shoot down but failed to get the heart from."

"Even though your harpoon pierced its body," Aira said, "the Bald Wyvern made it to the surface, and I met it by accident. And yes, I learned about you from the dragon's mind."

Well, Vir wasn't surprised by that. If it was true that the little girl was a descendant of Asurry, then she must have inherited that legendary ability.

"Then why aren't those people chasing me? Are they so hard to recognize and catch me?"

"That's not going to happen."

"Oh..." Vir grinned and nodded. But he was sure, the girl did not reveal his little secret to others. "Do I have to thank you?"

"For what?" said Aira. She unfolded sheet after sheet of various types of drawings of beasts and dragons. "After all, the dragon eventually died, and I let the animals on the beach eat its carcass."

"Then what?" Vir took a sip of his redbrew. "What is your purpose in following me?"

"Why don't you die every time you eat the hearts of dragons?"

"Hey!" Vir snorted and shook his head. "I asked you first. Don't repay me by asking me back!"

"Even though the flesh of dragons is very poisonous!"

"Oh my!" Vir really didn't understand the little girl's way of thinking who ignored his words and questions. "You damn girl!"

"Why?" Aira glanced at the man.

"You're so chatty!" Vir snorted. "I don't know why I have to listen to you!"

"I'm just curious," Aira said. "As far as I know, the Vulcher race is not immune to poison, especially the poison that flows in the bodies of dragons."

"Oh, God..." Vir let out a long, heavy sigh. "Looks like I'm really cursed with your presence!"

"You are already cursed because you killed about one thousand one hundred and one riders and their dragon mounts."

"What are you, huh?" Vir snorted again. "Angel of Death, is that it?"

"But this is getting really weird."

"Oh, God," Vir was at a loss for words in the presence of the nine-year-old girl. "What's on your mind, huh? You're ignoring me, you little brat!"

"Hemm... you only ate the hearts of the dragons?" Aira seemed to be muttering to herself, ignoring Vir's presence there. "And then, you only killed the riders' mounted dragons, but not the wild ones."

"Gosh, you're not listening to me at all!" Vir looked down while chuckling.

"What was your reason for doing all that?"

"'Goddamn it!" Vir snorted and pointed at the little girl. "Listen to me, you little punk! I won't say anything to you until you answer me, why you're always following me around? Do you hear me?!"

Aira pouted and shrugged her shoulders in such a way.

"Damn it!" Vir snorted again, then flopped down unceremoniously beside the campfire. "I'm wasting my time with you, you're annoying. You're just ruining my mood! You realize that, huh?"

***

Vir lifted his face, he had been asleep for a long time on top of his mother's body, his gaze was so wistful towards her pale face, with her eyes wide open in death.

He wanted to cry again, but his tears seemed dry.

With trembling hands, he closed his mother's eyes, but it was difficult since she had been dead for a long time.

The six-year-old boy rose to his feet, looking at the devastated surroundings, and some of the corpses had become targets for vultures.

Little Vir no longer knew what to do, there was no one alive that he could find around him.

In the end, not wanting to see his mother's corpse become food for the vultures or other wild animals later, he dragged her corpse to a hole, a hole where the dragon's fire had exploded previously.

With mixed feelings and no expression at all, Vir buried his mother's corpse there. Using only his hands, he dug the ground to bury his mother.

And after that, with unsteady steps, a dirty body, and a wide-eyed gaze, Vir walked away from his mother's grave.

He was looking for his father, who might have died in the neighborhood. After all, Vir had seen a wyvern snatch his father's body and carry it away amidst the chaos earlier.

But when the six-year-old boy arrived at the edge of his village, Vir did not find his father.

Perhaps, his father's body was among the piles of corpses that lay behind, or maybe he was buried under the ruins of a building.

Little Vir continued to walk aimlessly. Everywhere he looked, all he could see were puffs of black smoke from nearby villages that might have experienced the same thing that happened to his village.

He stopped his steps right on the bank of a large, rocky river and fell to his knees, and looked down. He began to sob again, then screamed at the top of his lungs, but it all became meaningless as the sound of the rushing river covered his screams.

He gasped as he heard the sound of something.

Vir cast his eyes this way and that. Then, from behind a bush to his left, a scary creature revealed its face.

The boy gulped. "Grass tiger!" he muttered with trembling lips.

Not only his lips, but his entire body was shivering with fear of the thickly-furred and heavily-marked creature.

The Grass Tiger, or as people know it by its other name: Tymen, is a carnivore twice the size of an adult dog, not much bigger than a Dire Wolf. Its two dagger-like upper canines protrude long beyond its lower jaw.

This predator has a body pattern similar to that of a cucumber, which is why many people also refer to them as Cucumber Tigers, with a lighter pattern on top of the darker pattern.

Little Vir shuffled over. Even as a child, he knew exactly how dangerous this creature was.

And the creature itself, snarling with a focused and intense look in its eyes, moved very slowly, getting closer to the boy.

And then...

Groar!

Little Vir screamed, but his reflexes were good enough to jump to the right. The tiger's sharp claws tore through his clothes.

The boy was knocked off his feet and rolled over, falling into the fast-flowing stream. The little body hit the rocks several times and continued to drift away.

The tiger could only stare at the boy as he drifted away, then it let out a loud roar as if it was upset about losing its lunch.

Vir woke up with many wounds on his body, as well as bruises on his face.

He tried to get up, but he couldn't. Forcing himself, he crawled away from the riverbank, into an area that was quite unfamiliar to him. He had no idea how far the river had carried him.

Not at all.

He was startled to find the carcass of a wyvern on the bank where he was headed, he also saw the corpse of a rider crushed by the wyvern carcass.

Little Vir stood up and observed the carcass. He saw a sword near the rider's corpse and rushed to grab it.

His breathing became labored as he grasped the sword. An instant later, the boy was screaming like someone possessed by a demon. Vir slashed at the wyvern carcass with the sword in his hand, repeatedly as his screams echoed in the area.

The boy continued slashing until he was exhausted, and fell to his knees, panting with his face and body soaked in wyvern blood.

The wyvern's chest was split open, the boy's gaze fixed on the creature's heart.

With all his fury, the boy crawled up the wyvern's carcass, and with a single slash, the creature's heart was removed from its position.

Vir grabbed the bloodied heart with trembling hands, and like a man venting his anger, little Vir ate the wyvern's heart raw.