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That was a surprise. It was the first time Loren had seen anyone do any damage to Caster at all. The man had since recovered, but it hadn’t been as quick as it should’ve been. Caster had barely been able to move his arm for days, and there was now a lingering scar on the right side of his neck.

Loren wasn’t even sure how it had all gone down, precisely. Everything had happened so fast, and there’d been such blindingly bright lights...

But one thing he did know was that Caster had saved his life. In a blink, the fight had been over, but only afterwards had Loren noticed that the woman was standing right there next to him with a thin, fiery knife mere centimeters away from Rezolo’s intangible body.

If Caster hadn’t already been standing next to her, having apparently crushed her skull in his bloody hand, then Loren was certain that he and Rezolo would both be dead, right now.

When Loren had asked him later why she’d tried to kill them, the man did not tell him much.

“It’s difficult to explain,” Caster had said. “Let’s just say... you reminded her of someone she hates.”

Loren hadn’t much cared for that reasoning, but he’d gained no further elaboration on the matter since then. Caster was being even more evasive than usual. Rezolo had tried asking Kalikos instead, but that hadn’t turned out any better.

‘The Hollow Witch hated children to the bone. Or so she claimed, for many years, until she eventually had one of her own. But due to her capricious nature, the boy grew to despise her; and when he was a man grown, he left her all alone. Now she wiles away her time in silent misery, imagining worldly wonders and dreaming of wealth; but in the end, the one she hates most of all will always be herself.’

Whatever the case was, Loren and Rezolo had given up trying to figure it out. They’d both begun to realize that traveling with Caster Egmond and Kalikos was not going to be the journey of fantastic discovery that they might’ve hoped it would be.

Now they were wondering if they’d made a mistake in deciding to follow them. It was hard to tell what Rezolo’s true feelings were on the matter, as the reaper also happened to be someone who did not enjoy explaining himself, but for his part, at least, Loren was just trying to pay attention to everything he could.