“Why?! This village is the only place I know. How am I going to survive?” Saiph was flabbergasted, he even felt that Khaila knew the truth. 

 

“I can tell you from the bloodstains on your clothes that you killed someone, I have seen much and can easily tell, if I'm guessing correctly who it was, then it will bring a lot of trouble to the village. Also, the villagers may blame you for what happened to their families, even though it may not be true. It's already difficult for you to survive in this village considering the past, but, once they start seeing you as the cause of such a tragedy, then it will be impossible to survive here.”

 

“Also, you have a Mygan in your mouth.” 

 

Saiph was startled, Khaila knew of his biggest reward from that experience. He did not know what to say.

 

“Look, I don't know what exactly happened but if the Azfar family knew you took one of their Mygans or killed one of their stewards. Then not only will you be killed, but everyone related to you will be killed. The Azfar family does this in order to send a message to anyone that even thinks about going against them. If you think about it, in such a situation, you will really be a curse on this village.”

 

Saiph's face lost all color. Before today, he would have doubted such a claim, how could people kill indiscriminately as if human life meant nothing, but he no longer doubts such things. 

 

He looked down, he did not believe the situation he was in, after surviving multiple near-death experiences, he hoped the bad things were over. But now the villagers he lived with his entire life despise him and he must leave everything he knew, otherwise he would die.

 

His thoughts were cut short when a bowl of meat was placed beside him.

 

“Eat. you are going to need the energy.” Khaila tried to comfort him as much as she could, considering the situation.

 

Once Saiph saw the bowl, it was as though his body remembered its exhaustion and hunger. Luckily, this time it was his natural hunger, it was amplified by the exertion the body endured, but at least it was not that un-natural urge coming from the black ooze Mygan. He snatched it and started munching down. The meat meals were rare in this village, every time he had it, it brought joy to him, but now could not enjoy it. It may be because of his damaged mouth, but he had a feeling that even if it was healed, that the meals won't have a taste.

 

He just was not in the right mental state, too many horrible things happened and he had no time to digest everything. He wanted to jump in a whole and forget everything, just for a bit, just so he can better get accustomed.

“Hey Saiph, do you know what Mygans are?” Khaila asked.

 

“Yeah, I heard the stewards talking about it.”

 

“I see, then do you know what a Mygan user is?”

 

This time Saiph shook his head while eating. “I don't know. Unless you mean the stewards?”

 

“Not all the stewards are Mygan users, but they are all body modifiers.”

 

Saiph was perplexed but waited and listened.

 

“Everyone can have Mygans implanted into their body, those are called body modifiers. Generally, you're only able to add more Mygans to your body when you reach a higher rank. So rank 1 can have one implanted Mygan, rank 2 can have two, and so on. Also, the most common type of mygan to implant is the physical type, since we humans are more familiar with this type of ability.”

 

“So how do you reach a higher rank?” Asked Saiph, he wondered if he could implant another Mygan, other than the one he already has in his mouth.

 

Khaila shook her head. “Only Mygan users are able to reach higher ranks.”

 

“Then how do I become a Mygan user?”

 

Khaila had a wry smile. “It's too hard to become one without a powerful backing. The Stewards that were stationed in our village, there were only three that are Mygan users. I don’t know much but I know Mygan users are able to store Mygans in the phantom form in their bodies. They can use more Mygans and of different types more easily.”

 

Saiph was slowly lifted from his downstate, if he was able to become a Mygan user, then would he be able to master multiple abilities. It seems there is light in the darkest of caves.

 

Then he thought of the three stewards that were fighting the floating head, those three must be the ones that are Mygan users, they did seem to be strong.

 

“But Khaila, where am I meant to go. It's too hard to survive in the wild and I don't know anywhere else to go.”

 

She gave him a small black bottle. “Here take this, once you spray it on yourself, the beast will run away from you. It contains the scent of a rank 3 beast. However, if you are found by any creature of rank 3 or higher, they will be more aggressive against you.”

 

“Then isn’t this even more dangerous to use?”

“Just follow the directions I’ll tell you and you shouldn’t run to any territory belonging to rank 3.”

 

“Directions to where?”

 

“Lopal Town. I have an old acquaintance that can help you.”

 

“But what about the Azfar family?”

 

“Don’t worry about them, I’ll handle it.”

 

After that, Khaila began to give instructions about what to do next.

 

“Now pack your stuff, quickly before the villagers come back, there is only a few hours distance between here and the mining shaft”

 

Saiph quickly got up to prepare, his body was still aching but luckily did not have much to pack. Fortunately, though he did not have a lot of stuff, he always struggled to survive on his own and what little help the kind villagers were able to afford to give. So he never had many things he could call valuable, only things that bring back memories from his childhood when his parents were still alive.

 

“Here, I asked Michael to prepare this before, I thought something like this would happen. Go ahead and open it.” while packing things, Khaila brought him a bag, from its smell he could tell it was a bag full of food.

 

After taking it, he opened the bag to see a lot of dried food and a number of copper coins.

 

He looked up to quickly reject it, the village had barely enough wealth to feed itself, but he saw Khaila put up her hand as a way to stop him from talking.

 

“There is no time for this, I just want you to know that a number of villagers still care for you, so don't reject this farewell gift.”

 

At this moment, Saiph could not help tear and sob while still trying to follow Khaila’s orders and pack. 

 

After all the hardships he faced recently, those words were like a sun that illuminated the dark skies.