"Show me your chest."

Luke was very confused by this request, but was starting to make sense of this situation bit by bit.

‘The only reason she'd want to check my chest is probably for any tattoos, because it seems that when you obtain an elemental, you get one for each different one.’

Luke shrugged his shoulders.

“I didn't take you for a pervert...”

"I'll take that as a no, then", Alissia said.

She narrowed her eyes into a slit and glanced at Mark.

Mark, who was standing behind Luke, nodded, and wind started gathering around his body.

Luke, sensing a sudden pressure emanating from Mark, turned his head around, but at that point it was too late.

Mark’s fist appeared in front of Luke’s face in an instant, and before Luke even realized it, he was flying through the air, his ears ringing from the sudden impact.

Luke crashed into a tree and slid down to the rough ground, barely managing to stay conscious.

“Cough! Cough! …Damn it.”

Luke coughed up a mouthful of blood, and as he was trying to stagger up to his feet, Mark appeared in front of him and violently grabbed him by his collars, ramming him into the tree.

*Crash!*

“Cough!”

Luke coughed out even more blood, staining Mark’s silver robe.

As the tree wasn't that thick, it cracked from this second impact and crashed down to the ground.

Luke raised his powerless arms and started struggling against Mark, but he was just too strong for Luke to oppose.

Mark raised Luke even higher up in the air, getting annoyed by his pitiful attempt to put up a struggle.

*Rip!!*

Mark ripped Luke’s shirt off, revealing his chest.

“Ma’am, you might want to see this!”

Alissia appeared next to Mark, causing Luke to shudder and stop his struggle against Mark.

‘Did she just teleport?!’

Alissia stared at Luke’s chest.

“Indeed…”

Alissia made her way towards the helpless Luke and reached out her arm to touch his chest.

At that moment, Luke’s silver hourglass tattoo shone in a pulsating, bright blue hue, as if warning Alissia not to approach it.

Alissia ignored that light completely and started touching Luke's chest, more specifically the tattoo, studying even the most miniscule details of it.

‘Now!’

Something flew out of Luke’s right hand. It was a thin strip of wind, almost reaching the thinness of a proper, sharp blade.

Luke was slowly gathering wind in his right hand ever since Alissia appeared next to Mark, and he waited patiently for his chance to strike.

Seeing as Mark was still holding him up by the collar while Alissia was studying his tattoo, Luke thought that now was the perfect moment for a counter-attack while their guard was down.

The thin strip of wind was headed towards Mark’s forearms. It hardly had any momentum, as Luke could barely move his arms, but he was certain that the impact would at least make Mark loosen his grip on him for just a moment.

Just as the thin strip of wind was about to cut into Mark’s forearms, Alissia extended her right arm and caught the thin strip of wind with the tips of her fingers.

She then simply flicked the thin strip of wind back at Luke.

‘Oh…’

Luke stared at his right arm.

No, he stared at where his right arm used to be.

It was now cleanly severed off, rolling around on the reddish-brown dirt down below.

“WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Luke let out a piercing scream, echoing throughout the forest.

“AAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

Tears started flowing out of Luke’s eyes as he kept screaming.

He thrashed around with his legs and his one remaining arm, trying to get away from the pair of people.

Luke lost his voice soon enough, his mouth simply opening and closing, uttering not even a shred of sound.

Luke glared at both Alissia and Mark.

Mark simply stared at Luke, as if pitying him, while Alissia simply said:

“Stop moving around so much; I’m studying the tattoo.”

Something inside of Luke snapped at that moment.

He gathered wind in his left hand, and this time, Luke produced the thinnest strip of wind yet, truly deserving of being called a wind blade.

Luke didn’t throw it this time but instead swung it at Mark, confident in its sharpness.

But before he could fully finish the swinging motion, he lost control of his arm.

It was severed from his body after all.

Alissia glared at Luke.

“I told you to stop moving.”

Luke’s bloodshot eyes stared at both of his limp and bloodied arms, simply existing on the earth right below him.

Both his mind and body were in a state of deep trauma, and his cheeks rapidly lost their color.

He then started to hyperventilate.

Luke's body started shaking even harder than before, and his eyes started losing their shine.

His organs, and most important of all, his brain, couldn’t get enough oxygen or blood due to the massive trauma and shock that his body and mind just went through.

After managing to struggle for another minute or two, Luke's body finally gave out as he breathed his last.

Alissia smirked at Luke.

“Such a fragile man.”

She glanced at Mark and motioned with her hand to let go.

Mark nodded at her and let go of the now-lifeless Luke.

Alissia pulled out an odd-looking orb out of her robe as she waited for Luke's elementals to leave his body as he died.

"I am surprised. That old man had almost managed to trick us," Alissia said.

"Are you talking about how this guy obtained the elemental that the old man stole?"

Alissia nodded.

"It was merely a facade. There exists no one who is able to control that elemental after all, now that the old man is dead."

As if to prove Alissia wrong, the silver hourglass tattoo rotated upside down, causing the sand inside of it to start flowing in reverse.

Alissia’s face contorted as she alarmingly moved the orb towards Luke’s chest.

“Such a thing cannot be!!“

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Luke was inside the small house. He was currently sitting on a wooden chair, but then he suddenly jumped up.

“WAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”

Luke started screaming and rapidly looked around at the interior of the house.

He raised his hands in front of him and studied them.

“My arms… They’re back.”

His body was still shaking from the shock, and after breathing in and out for some time, Luke finally managed to calm down.

“Phew…”

'I've died again. But seeing how I'm still here, it seems like that elemental has saved me once again... That makes it my third death...'

Luke put a hand on his forehead and leaned against the table.

‘Who could’ve those people been though? They were seriously overpowered!’

Trying to cope with the shock that was still lingering in his mind, Luke remembered their appearances first.

'There was that middle-aged woman, Alissia.'

'She had this nasty look to her, reminding me of the witches from the fairytales that my parents used to read to me when I was little. She had pitch-black hair and was pretty scrawny. She was a little bit shorter than me. I didn’t think that people with black irises existed, but there she was.’

'Next, there was Mark.'

'A young guy, he appeared to be Alissia’s subordinate. He had blonde hair and dark blue eyes and was around the same height and age as me.'

'His looks were comparable, if not even better than Alex's, who was also blonde himself. That guy would’ve been a model back on Earth, that’s for sure.’

As for the other things that he remembered right off the bat, they wore the exact same silver robes that the old man wore, although they had golden embroidering, while the old man had some regular, albeit fancy, embroidering on his robe.

Similarly to the old man, they both used only wind elementals, and they were probably on a much higher level of strength compared to him.

Luke couldn’t be sure, though, because he never saw the old man actually fight. He only saw the aftermath of his strength, that being the massacred Gleem corpses.

‘But… According to Mark, the Gleems are 'one of the weakest monsters in existence'. Would killing three Gleems even suffice as anything more than miniscule strength in that case?’

Shaking those thoughts, Luke was thinking about the most important aspect of their visit.

‘They were looking for something that the old man had stolen.’

Luke touched his chest. He could feel his slightly out-of-rhythm heartbeat, but also a warm sensation enveloping his hand.

‘They appeared to be very interested in my elementals, as Alissia studied the tattoo on my chest very carefully. But I mustn't give myself up to them. I will need to find a way to either escape from them or somehow persuade them to leave.’

Luke stood up and walked to the door. He opened the door and peeked outside.

It was almost nighttime.

Luke remembered that the pair of people were there when he woke up, so they most likely made their way to him sometime during the night.

‘I don’t think escaping would work. This forest is simply too huge, so I doubt that I’d be able to escape it within a day, even if I were to somehow head in the right direction. But maybe I can simply hide in the forest when they come to the house. That way, I can avoid them altogether.’

Luke closed the door and sat back down on the chair.

‘But if I spend the night outside, I will almost certainly run into that huge bird-like creature.’

Not having much of a choice, Luke made up his mind.

'I should be able to more or less use my wind elemental for fighting the Gleems now. I'll just have to make the best use of the time I have before Mark and Alissia come and try to strengthen myself as much as possible. Of course, if I run into Mark and Alissia or into the huge bird-like creature, I will have to attempt fleeing, but the possibility of dying will also be quite high. Even though my elemental keeps saving me over and over, I still need to be very careful, as the pain is still all too very real...'

Luke stood up and grabbed a lantern, attaching it to his belt.

He smiled bitterly and made his way into the darkness.