‘Get lost. Do you think I don’t know you’re trying to drag innocent people into this?’
At the voice, the boy covered his ears and lowered his head for an instant. “Child?” The two people who had remained some distance away to honor their promise expressed confusion, but he was in no position to concern himself with them. The boy clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.
‘I will never trust anything you say.’
The incident with the Inquisitors had taught him. No matter how sweetly the demon spoke or how plausible its words sounded, he could never obey. Before believing anything it said, he had to stop, reconsider it, and then do the opposite.
Growl.
Was it because proper food had been placed before him for the first time in so long? His stomach, which had not felt hungry, growled like a starving beast.
Clatter.
But rather than satisfy the hunger inside him, the boy abandoned the food and rose. “Child?” The two people called him again at his sudden action. The boy did not answer.
“Wait, where are you—?”
“…I have to go. Now.”
He did not know exactly why the demon had told him not to leave. But even with the boy’s limited reasoning, it seemed self-evident that nothing good would come of remaining here.
That was all the more true when he considered that the site of the incident was not very far from this cabin.
Whether the pursuers found his tracks or not, this place would fall within the search radius because of the distance. In other words, if he remained for…