“Sir, that… it’s just that,” stammered a villager, but Renji paid him no mind. Instead, he approached the villagers, bent down to pick up the little girl’s package and the scattered food tickets, rewrapped them, and then came to the little girl’s front.
From the villagers’ attitude towards Renji, the little girl could tell that he must be the leader of the group. Facing such an important figure, she became extremely nervous, especially when she saw Renji walking towards her with the package, completely at a loss, filled with bewilderment and confusion.
“Take this.” Renji stuffed the package back into the little girl’s arms.
“But, but… no, no, please, my parents are very important to me, I, I…”
Tears welled up in the little girl’s eyes as she thought that Renji, returning the food ticket package, meant that they were unwilling to accept the commission to help find her parents. She was about to cry out in desperation.
If she missed this group of kind-hearted people, she didn’t know when the next opportunity would be. By then, her parents…
“If you want to find your parents, follow us. It’s on the way. If we encounter them, you can go to them yourself.”
Renji’s words were brief and to the point. The little girl was first startled, then quickly showed surprise, but soon became anxious again. She hesitantly asked in an uncertain voice, “Can I… follow you?”
The villagers Renji was leading, essentially refugees themselves, saw adding a child as nothing but a burden to their group. Nobody was willing to take on that responsibility.
Renji nodded, then without waiting for the girl to say anything more, returned to the group of villagers, ready to set off again.
The little girl hesitated but soon hurried to the end of the line. She didn’t dare approach Renji or the middle of the group, only daring to follow carefully at the tail, afraid of causing any trouble for the group.
As for the little girl, since Renji had spoken, and considering his previous actions, the villagers of Kano Village, even if they were dissatisfied, dared not say anything more or harbor any ill intentions towards her. They let her follow.
Thus, Renji and the group of villagers following him moved forward for about another quarter of an hour before the team stopped once again.
The reason was simple.
Renji looked ahead of them, where another little girl blocking their way had appeared.
No.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be described as “another”? .
It seemed like a repeat of their previous experience. The villagers, as if they had lost their memory, completely forgot that they had just been stopped by a little girl a quarter of an hour ago. They acted as if this was their first encounter, rushing forward to help Renji handle the situation.
Renji, stopping in place, turned his head to look towards the end of the villager’s line, only to find that the little girl who had been following the group was now nowhere to be seen.
“I’m sorry, could you spare a bit of your time?”
The appearance of this little girl was identical to the first one, but her hair was more disheveled, and her already ragged clothes were now dirtier, with traces of mud. It seemed like she had spent many nights in a cave.
But her eyes were still bright. As the villagers approached, she kept apologizing for blocking the way while saying, “I’m sorry, but please, can you help me? A few days ago, some kind people helped me look for my lost parents over there. They said they would come back soon, whether they had news or not, but… I’ve been waiting for so long, and they haven’t returned. I’m worried… I’m worried about them.”
“Woo… woo… It’s all my fault, they went to help me, so please, can you take me to find them? What if they are injured on the road and can’t come back, I… I can help treat them with my healing! If we hurry, maybe it’s not too late.”
Initially, the villagers were reluctant to take on another burden, especially just to find someone. But the girl’s subsequent words took them by surprise.
“Healing? You mean…”
“Yes, I… I don’t know how, but maybe it’s because I was so worried while waiting for everyone… I… I awakened the ability to heal others.”
As she spoke, the little girl demonstrated her abilities to the villagers, fearful that they wouldn’t believe her. A warm, soft white light emanated from her palms. Under the glow of this light, the little girl’s dirty appearance seemed almost holy, reminiscent of a nun from legends.
“Eclipse, she’s so young and already an Eclipse!”
“What do we do, should we help her?”
“No, we’re supposed to follow our savior to fight the Witch. We don’t have time to help her look for her parents and others”
“But healing abilities are useful, what if our savior gets hurt? Having her with us would be so convenient!”
“Right, right, she’s just a kid and doesn’t know anything. Let’s take her with us to find the Witch, and after we deal with the Witch, we can help her find her people.”
“Alright, that’s settled. My wife was injured by scavengers, her leg crippled. Let’s have this little girl look at it right away!”
“Yes, yes, my son too, he has a wound on his arm that won’t heal. Finally, there’s hope!”
“I wonder if she can heal my brother’s eyes.”
The villagers gathered together and quietly discussed the matter, quickly reaching a consensus. They agreed to the little girl’s request, and in exchange, they needed her to first use her healing abilities on the people in their group. Once everyone was healed, they would be stronger and better able to help the little girl.
“Thank you… Thank you so much. My parents were right, everyone, everyone here is good. I’ll come right over to heal everyone.”
The little girl bowed to the villagers, her words of gratitude not yet finished, when she suddenly felt as if someone had appeared in front of her.
“Eh? You, do you have a wound?”
The little girl looked at Renji somewhat puzzled, thinking he was one of the villagers coming for healing. But then she noticed the villagers around her becoming restrained and silent after Renji’s appearance. She quickly realized that Renji might be the village chief.
Such an important figure made the little girl nervous and flustered. Just as she opened her mouth several times to speak but couldn’t find the right words due to her nerves, and while she was scared of the way Renji was intently looking at her, Renji suddenly crouched down.
“Do you still have the package your parents gave you?”
Renji’s sudden and seemingly irrelevant question took the little girl aback. She instinctively replied, “The package… it’s gone. The kind people before said they would take the package to find my mom and dad, so that when my parents saw my package, they would know it was from me.”
“Big brother, how… how do you know?” The little girl was a bit puzzled. She didn’t remember ever seeing this ‘big brother’ before, but why would he suddenly ask about the package?
Meanwhile,
Renji seemed to finally understand something.
Next, as if to confirm something, he didn’t answer the little girl’s question but instead asked another.
“Can you tell me… your name?” Renji’s voice softened a bit.
“My name…”
The little girl clenched the dirty and torn clothes on her body a bit tighter, and in a voice filled with a bit of fear and nervousness, she whispered softly, “Artius”
𝘳𝘦.𝒸𝑜𝘮