For the next two hours, Lee tried his best to rid himself of his new problem—a problem much higher level, deadly, and immune to emotional pleas. A problem that was making Lee regret wasting his prior time alone.

“Regina, in the five minuites I’ll be away, I’m not going to be assassinated—For gods sake.” Lee held his head in his hands as he stood on the nearby forest's bounty.

Regina stood by his side, scanning the forest for danger. Her hands were clasped politely around her midsection, and if Lee didn’t know any better, he would assume she was some random on-threatening maid. Well, that is, if she wasn’t near a forest.

“Why do you need to be alone?” She asked.

Lee narrowed his eyes as he dropped his hands. “That’s my business. Do you want me to teach your people healing or not? You do know that I could easily just go to Bardum, right? Just give me five minutes. You left me alone in camp to sleep, this is no different.”

Lee felt the hairs on his arms stand on end as Regina blew slightly more air than needed out of her nose. Subconsciously, he took a step back.

“You have five minutes.”

Lee took another step back, then turned and walked off into the forest. After walking far enough to ensure Regina wasn’t near, he collapsed next to a nearby tree.

Jesus Christ, she was pissed.

He rubbed down the hairs on his arms, slightly shaken by the raw hostility that came from Regina. She hadn’t even moved—Her placid face didn’t budge an inch, and outwardly, she appeared to be understanding.

She was well over triple his level, and as he swallowed the lump that sat in his throat, he vowed to remember that for next time. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea to suggest he’d go to the kingdom they were at war with. Being surrounded by ‘nobodies’ really had changed how he acted, and now that he was aware, it would be easier to be prepared.

Lee scanned around one last time before settling down to use his Arcane Synthesis cooldown. For the first time, he was going to make a spell. He wasn’t sure if the creation of the spell could fail, so to increase his odds of success, he was planning to use two of his most used spells—Create Water and Mend Wounds.

He figured a non-combat spell would be wise for a first attempt—If he combined Death Bolt and Void Sphere, who knows what could happen to the forest around him. Actually, now that he thought about it, how could a void have death mana? Wasn’t the whole point of a void to have nothing inside?

He shook his head to rid himself of distracting thoughts and nervousness. Then, he used Arcane Synthesis while casting his tried and true Create Water. Water materialized above his outstretched hand and fell down to the forest floor, just like that of a running faucet. Arcane Synthesis wanted another spell. He didn’t know his god-given ability could want in the first place.

As Lee thought about pairing Create Water with Mend Wounds, his left hand started to glow in Mend Wounds's all too familiar silvery white mana. Lee stared at his hands in shock, as for the first time in Lee’s short existence on Pallesia, he was casting two spells at once.

Lee barely got to skim the new skill’s description as Arcane Synthesis itself started to pull both spells into one another. The water falling towards the ground began to shift and spray parallel to the ground, and the life mana of Mend Wounds whipped itself towards the spraying water.

Once the whisps of life mana touched the main deluge of water, a bright phantasmagoria of rainbow colors flashed and erupted in front of his eyes. Lee twisted his neck to face away and clenched his eyes closed, afraid that moving his hands away from the ongoing spell-creation process would ruin everything.

Lee felt both Create Water and Mend Wounds cease and felt a large chunk of mana get ruthlessly ripped out of his core. It was so sudden that Lee soundlessly gasped for breath. Once the bone-chilling, sudden mana expenditure was over, Lee felt something wet on his right hand.

When Lee casts Create Water, he usually creates the faucet to keep his hands dry. If he was being honest with himself, he knew that he didn’t even need to use his hands and could cast the spell anywhere outside of his immediate body. He used his hands mostly because it felt natural. So, when a single glowing drop, white and silver, pooled in his palm, he noticed.

Lee hurriedly searched through his Hidden Cache to find a small vial or some sort of container that could hold this Drop of Life, but the only thing he had was a waterskin he had bought in Neldam and never used. With his left hand, he cast Create Water and began to awkwardly fill up the waterskin with one hand. It was a messy ordeal, causing his legs to become soaked, but eventually he succeeded.

Lee slid the small droplet in his right hand into the mouth of the waterskin, and watched as the silvery-white slow suffused with the water within. Out of curiosity, Lee Identified the water.

Water of Life - Epic (Unique): Healing water created by the Genesis of Healing.
Capable of restoring 50% of your maximum HP.

Lee quickly stashed the waterskin back into his Hidden Cache and cringed.

I hope I didn’t just put the alchemists out of business… Fuck.

Knowing that Regina was bound to be on her way to snoop, Lee got up, and speed walked back out of the forest, catching Regina as she was about to enter.

“All done! See, it wasn’t that bad.” Lee said with what he thought was a reassuring smile.

Regina lowered her eyes to stare at Lee’s wet robes. “That better be water.”

Lee didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he began to storm off back to their camp, dreading having to deal with this woman for the foreseeable future. After a few steps, his frustration fell to the wayside as he heard an all too familiar and haunting sound from deep within the forest.

*Chirp Chirp*

Lee twisted and scanned the treetops for the forever unseen birds with narrowed eyes. At first, Lee thought that just maybe he was being a little silly. He had developed a personal grudge against these unseen adversaries, and a little competition had taken root. Nowadays, Lee was just trying to get a glimpse to see if the birds were familiar with the ones back on Earth.

All ideas of silly competition fell to the wayside as Regina held two daggers and stood before him, scanning the treetops as well.

“Lee, go back to the camp. Now.” Regina said calmly, eyes never moving from the forest as she slid in front of him in a defensive stance.

Lee was caught off guard by the sudden seriousness of the situation and mustered a timeless classic. “Uh…”

“Now…” Regina said as she took weightless steps backward, grabbing his arm along the way to drag him with her.

More high-pitched tweets and chirps were heard as Regina and Lee both warily left the edge of the forest. After a few minutes of tense silence, Regina took a deep breath and finally relaxed.

Lee couldn’t hold in his question anymore. An answer had finally fallen onto his lap. Since the very first minute of his arrival on Pallesia, Lee had heard birds within the Shadowgrove but never once seen any. It was time for answers.

“What was that? Are the birds dangerous?” Lee asked.

Regina tried her best not to look at him like he was an idiot, but she failed. “You reacted the the danger but don’t know what it is?”

Lee, feelings slightly hurt from the look Regina gave him, responded. “I’ve been hearing those birds ever since I set foot on this continent. For months, I've heard them in the trees, but I've never got a glimpse of them.”

Regina’s normally stoic and blank mask was pierced by his statement. Her face paled slightly, and her eyes widened minutely. “Lee, those are the luring sounds of the fae.”

Not wanting to get the ‘Is this guy an idiot’ look again, Lee nodded as if he understood. Regina wasn’t used to him not knowing information, and this seemed like one of those things that everyone supposedly knew.

Regina gave him a long look but either believed him or decided to let it go. They began their walk back to camp, and Regina only said one thing along the way. She mocked him. “It’s only five minutes. I won’t be assassinated, Regina. Nothing bad will happen.”

“To be fair, nothing bad happened while I was in the forest.” Lee defended.

Regina wasn’t impressed and mocked him again. This time in a higher-pitched voice. “It’s okay Regina, the fae have been following me, trying to lure me for months and they haven’t gotten me yet! It’s no big deal!”

She stopped her mocking and looked him in the eyes with a shocking amount of disappointment apparent on her normally blank face. In her typical monotone voice, she put the final nail into the coffin.

“Really?”

Full of hurt feelings and shame, Lee kept walking back to camp. He would work on his enchanting and pretend she didn’t exist for the rest of the day. No, for the rest of the week. As soon as the adventurers finished learning life mana, he would teach them and then be on his way. Hopefully, the whole statue and dog situation will be over by then. If not, he still might leave.