Early in the morning, the female soldier was in front of the cabin where Slady and Ferinish were. Holding her spear firmly, she knocked on the door with some force.
"In the name of Fraizen, open this door!"
...
No one answered, so she knocked harder.
"If you don't open it, I'll break this door!"
...
No one answered, so the female soldier gave the door a strong kick, making its fragile and not very resistant material hit the wall and break into several pieces.
Walking through the cabin, the female soldier walked to the room, where there was no door. But when she entered the room...
There was no one.
Then, hearing the sound of footsteps behind her, the woman turned quickly, preparing to strike with her ice spear.
But the blow was stopped by Ferinish's sword, which she was holding and preventing the blow.
"..."
She just stared at the female soldier with a cold look. The female soldier prepared to kick her, kicking her right in the stomach... but Ferinish remained completely indifferent to the kick.
She quickly puts her hand on the female soldier's neck and slams her against the wall.
"Who are you...?"
"Ahhh..."
She chokes, trying to breathe, but she feels completely weak compared to Ferinish, who only loosens his grip a little so as not to block her air intake.
"I'll repeat just one more time, who are you?"
Ferinish's eyes become more intense and piercing, almost agonizing to look at them directly. The female soldier tries to maintain her pride, looking her straight in the eyes.
"I am... The guardian... Of your majesty..."
Ferinish drops her to the ground, making the female soldier try to recover her oxygen. She grabs the woman's spear and points it towards her neck.
"Don't move an inch from here."
She places the spear on the ground, walking away and leaving the cabin. As she walks through the forest, she observes the trees with fragments of ice around her, letting out a deep sigh, the cold smoke coming from her lips.
As she approaches a specific place, she meets Slady, who is sitting on a piece of wood and eating fish he had caught.
"Can I eat with you?"
"Yes."
Slady gives her a space, which she takes advantage of and sits next to him, taking some of his fish and putting it on her tongue, chewing and swallowing.
"It's been a long time since I've eaten something like this... it's delicious."
She closes her eyes, unconsciously leaning to the right, realizing that she ended up lying on Slady's lap, who just allows it and continues to eat.
"Sorry."
She tries to get up, but Slady presses her head against her legs, not letting her leave.
"Your body is less tense like this, it gives in a little."
Slady says, taking a piece of fish and placing it on Ferinish's lips. She opens her mouth and eats the food, trying to loosen up more and relax in his lap.
"It's still hard for me."
But then she ends up remembering.
"Slady, there's a woman in our cabin."
Slady remained expressionless, just eating her fish.
"Hmmmm..."
***
In the cabin, Slady puts the female soldier's arms up, tying them with a rope, leaving her in a vulnerable position.
"We're not going to hurt you, I just want your name and to understand why you're here."
Slady sits on the bed and Ferinish next to him, who remained silent.
"My name is Carolina Silver. And I was sent by Fraizen, your majesty, to bring you to our kingdom."
Said the female soldier, who felt imposing, feeling the cold hitting her belly, which was exposed due to her arms being raised, making her clothes rise.
"Kingdom? Which one?" -- Asks Slady.
"We are in the kingdom of Ice Storm, which is ruled by our queen, Fraizen."
"I see."
Slady lets out a sigh, looking at Ferinish, looking for more questions. Then the woman takes the lead.
"We can even go there, but we want you to give us a guaranteed place to live. Even if it's rented." -- Said Ferinish.
'She's good at that.' -- Thought Slady.
"Yes, we'll guarantee you a few days of free housing in a local tavern. But after that, you'll have to pay for it."
Slady and Ferinish look at each other for a few seconds and nod their heads positively.
***
As they walked through the kingdom, Slady and Ferinish looked around, memorizing the place they were in.
The kingdom was beautiful, its houses were made of wood to absorb some of the cold and be warmer, as were its commercial places. But despite being very well built, there were many thin people, not because of genetics or training, but because of hunger itself.
Despite being cold, Carolina was well received by the kingdom's community, many with respect, others with fear, but only out of curiosity.
Slady and Ferinish were seen with curious and even prejudiced looks, but they did not hesitate at all in front of the soldier.
When they entered a local tavern, there were many locals there, mostly drinking hot drinks. The manager of the place, an adult man of around 45 years old, with brown eyes, black hair, a muscular body and clothes that gave him an air of simplicity, looked at Carolina with respect and at the pair, with curiosity.
"Welcome, our guardian. Who do you bring here?" -- Asks the manager.
"They're two people I found lost in the neighborhood. They're good people, but they don't have a place to live or anything that can pay for rent. Can you offer me one of the rooms in your tavern, please?" -- Carolina answers in a calmer tone, considering the last interaction they had with the two. And asking politely.
The manager looks at both of them with an analytical look, wanting to see if they have weapons or bad intentions. But with Carolina's approval, he just nods.
"Sure. But then, they have to pay for the rent." -- Answered the manager.
"They agreed to that." -- Said Carolina
"Great... you'll go to room number fifteen." -- Said the manager, writing on a piece of paper with a pen.
Carolina nodded for Slady and Ferinish to go to a room, but not before she gave him a look that said: "Don't do anything stupid."
In silence, Slady and Ferinish walk to some doors in the tavern. People looked at them both strangely, but ignored it.
Upon entering the room, Slady and Ferinish found themselves in a clean place, with a double bed, a closet with some very simple men's and women's clothing, and a bathroom for bathing and necessities, with a sign on the door that said: "save water".
They both sighed at the same time, without having said a single word until now, so they lay down on the bed together, not really caring that they only had one bed to sleep in.
"We need a shower." -- Ferinish commented.
"Yes." -- Slady said.
"Do you want to go first?" -- Ferinish asked.
"No, you can go."
"Slady, we're not going to start this argument again." -- Ferinish said
So... The two of them started arguing among themselves about who would take a shower first. Normally, people would argue loudly, trying to show who was dominant in the relationship, whether it was friendship or something more. But in the case of Ferinish and Slady, it was just a very calm discussion that ended with Ferinish going to take a shower.
She picked up her women's clothes and walked to the bathroom, giving Slady a cold look, but without anger or malice.
"Don't look at me in the bathroom, Slady."
"I won't look."
Ferinish then entered the bathroom, Slady lay down on the bed, now lost in thoughts about everything, about her adopted daughters, her friends, her work...
'I miss them... Shaphira... Elisa... I wonder if they're okay?'
There wasn't much time for her thoughts to deepen, because Ferinish had already come out of the shower, wearing simpler and more humble clothes from the tavern.
"It's your turn." -- Ferinish said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Sure, rest for now."
"I'll try."
Ferinish's expression softens and he lies down on the bed, and Slady gets up from the bed and goes to the bathroom, starting to take off his clothes.
Seeing his bare chest, Slady looks at himself in the mirror, noticing his paleness due to the cold, the beard on his face starting to appear on his face, something that doesn't bother him so much, and, of course, his entire body marked with scars.
"..."
Upon entering the shower, Slady comes across Ferinish's kinomo on the floor. Upon picking up the fabric from the floor, he notices that there was not a single piece of underwear with it. In other words, Ferinish was not wearing anything underneath that kinomo.
"Do I need to help you buy women's underwear? It must be hard to be in society when most of your entire life has been spent in a simulation for years."
When turning on the shower, Slady begins to clean her own clothes and her friend's kinomo. And after finishing the entire process and cleaning herself, Slady puts on the humble clothes from the tavern and leaves the bathroom, seeing that Ferinish was curled up on the bed, shivering from the cold.
"What is it?"
Slady quickly puts the clean, dry clothes in the closet and covers Ferinish's body with the blanket she had.
"I don't have my kinomo with me, I always wear it."
"I see."
In an attempt to warm her up, Slady wrapped her arms around Ferinish's body, who felt quite uncomfortable with the initial touch. But when she realized that there was no malice and that it was specifically Slady who was wrapping her body in his arm, she calmed down more and curled up, seeing that gesture more as a cocoon of warmth than a real hug.
"Thank you."
She hid her face where Slady's beard was growing, finding a warm and comfortable place, despite being very close to him. Eventually, Slady began to lie down on the ground and ended up sleeping for the rest of the afternoon.
In the early morning, Slady woke up and got up, noticing the stars through the glass, the streets with plenty of snow on their sidewalks and, of course, the beautiful ice castle that stood out in the kingdom of Ice Storm.
He separated from Ferinish and stood up, remembering something he had to finish...
***
In the laboratory, where there was a lot of debris, there was still a specific area where Ferinish had not killed anyone with him. A place that had not been affected by the destruction.
In an underground part, Slady used a badge stolen from one of the scientists to open a containment room. Where the four scientists who had killed Raizer were.
"I almost forgot about you."
He adjusted his coat and began to prepare the torture equipment.
One of the scientists, the one who had experimented with Slady, finally spoke up.
"Stop it! We just want to make advances in science, it's nothing personal!"
One of the women...
"Please, we regret everything we did and, especially, abandoning you when we created you."
Slady looked at the quartet.
"Create, huh? I unfortunately ended up remembering that damn truth..."
He sits in a chair, in front of them.
"More than two hundred years ago, five years before you created Ferinish, you had the goal of creating a weapon that could fight the Inferius and could give you a lot of money."
With his bionic eye, he begins to read a document.
"You tried many times, but ended up creating those slimy humans condemned to suffer forever because of your experiments. When you managed to create me, project... you didn't even name me."
Slady frowned, looking at the scientists with a cold gaze and continued reading.
"You saw that my conscience had not awakened and threw me into a forest to die. You used the techniques you used on me to create Ferinish, a successful project. By making her stay for over a century in a simulation because of her fear of everything around her, making her afraid to relate to any kind of person, you destroyed her." -- Slady said.
"This was all for the good of humanity-"
"SHUT UP!"
Slady hit the table with his bionic hand, breaking its material.
"You used her as if she were a robot! Where when she lost her usefulness or created something even better, you would discard her as an object!"
The scientists were shocked by Slady, they had never seen someone so expressionless now so furious.
He throws the document away from the room and grabs syringes and some torture and experiment objects.
"I was a failure to you, where you discarded me. Ferinish was a success to you, where you abused she. And my daughter, Shaphira, would be a future experiment for you."
He filled the syringe with Renkai Energy and some substances.
"I want to see how you felt if this feeling was attributed to you. I want to see if your methods of reversing your age will be as powerful as my methods of making your night a living hell."
The scientists were in tears, shocked, terrified, but they knew one thing.
They could not escape their fate. After 200 years, the most unexpected thing for those scientists happened. All their cruel acts done by "humanity" will be paid tonight.
Hours later...
Slady was spreading gasoline around the laboratory, where the liquid was mixed with some substances that, when in contact with fire, would cause a large-scale explosion.
"Hmmm~hmmm..."
After finishing spreading the gasoline, Slady holds a lit cigarette in his hands and a document-shaped paper with the experiments he had done on the scientists.
"Maybe I'm worse than them, as cruel as they are, but this past will be erased..."
He throws the cigarette into the gasoline, which began to spread the fire around the laboratory. Slady walked away and stood near the trees, watching the sun rise over the horizon.
"A good morning explosion for the people of this kingdom? It will be interesting..."
Then the explosion occurs, destroying all evidence of what Slady had done, the lives that were created and abused by those scientists and their documents that would prove their existence.
"Goodbye, my creators... and may their works rest in peace."