Chapter 163: Running Alone - Part 3: Two Out Of Four

"But, where is master?", Alira asked.

The elves that were sitting nearby on trees and on the ground, Terran and Kaily, all just kept glancing at each other.

"Doesn't anyone know?", Terran added.

Some shook their heads while others continued to stare at each other.

'This is weird…'

'Where did master go without informing anyone?'

Terran suspected that Shin had indeed gone quite far and the reason was to search for Aella.

Just a day earlier, he had been asking Kaily about her and upon getting a hint, he couldn't contain himself.

However Terran had absolutely no proof to prove his point.

"Did no one see him leaving the place?"

"Was everyone sleeping?", he asked.

While that seemed to be the case, with a majority of them, there was someone who had spotted him leaving.

Yes, Shin had missed the person, or rather the being who was in the middle of a transformation.

"I saw…", amidst the silence, an old and shaky voice was heard.

There was no one who didn't recognize the voice.

All of them turned their heads towards the old tree Mo whose transformation was soon to be completed. He would soon get back to his real form.

"I saw him going towards the same place as earlier…"

"The same place as earlier?", Kaily wanted to know if the tree was talking about the route that led to her home because that's the only route via which Shin had traveled for the past couple of hours.

"Yes, he went that way.", the tree moved one of its large branches as if it were his hands and pointed out the path.

Now there was no doubt at all, Terran finally figured out that Shin had literally gone on his own to find Aella.

It was not just Terran that had realized this, even Kaily had concluded the same thing.

"Did he go in search of his sister?", Mo asked.

"Wha-"

Terran was utterly surprised to see Mo know about that. It was because Shin had never revealed or told anyone other than his familia members about his story.

Of course, Mo might have heard if they had gossiped about it after arriving, but that didn't happen either. They never once talked about it.

"How?"

"How do you know about that?", Terran asked.

"Well…"

"Last night…"

( The previous night )

The good feast of fruits prepared by the elves was splendid, The soft juicy texture made all of them satisfied.

Other than Shin, everyone ate the fruits – Shin took just a single bite so that others could start eating.

He then stood up and walked till he arrived near Mo.

While Mo had his eyes closed and had been awaiting the change in his form, he sensed Shin approaching him.

Of course, he was a tree after all and was connected to the ground, so he could easily sense the slight fluctuations of mana that would happen even when someone walks – he uses his roots to detect that.

But Mo had no idea about the reason for which Shin approached him. He continued to close his eyes and feign innocence while waiting for Shin to speak first.

And Shin spoke right away as if he realized what Mo wanted, "Hey Old man Mo, are you awake?"

Responding immediately would be too weird. It would be like he was waiting for Shi to approach him due to which Mo kept his mouth shut and decided to answer his call only when he would call a few more times.

"Sigh, I know you aren't asleep…"

"You are just acting, so just open your eyes and talk to me." – Shin did sound rude but he had a lot of thoughts going on his mind.

Mo opened his eyes almost immediately while asking, "How did you…?"

Well, his questioning was interrupted by Shin with an answer even before he could ask.

"I could tell that by sensing your mana."

'Well no, I could tell that thanks to the system.' – this was the truth.

Shin had ended up checking his status again among which, there was a weird status that popped up suddenly.

[ Acting ]

Shin was kinda pissed already and had no time to think about those things.

He decided to ask directly without beating around the bush.

"Now to the main topic."

"Tell me about the white wolf that stole the fruit…", Shin asked.

His real reason for asking that was to know if the said white wolf was Aella or not.

If she was, then without a doubt, she would have been healed completely and her leg would be back.

That would without a doubt be a good thing because her chances of survival would increase tremendously.

However, at the same time, she would have gone too far since after healing, she wouldn't have that great of a problem in running and doing other sorts of things – such as hunting.

"As you know, we trees are sensitive while we bear fruits so we remain extremely cautious of almost everything…"

"However I became a little careless because I saw this injured wolf walk towards me…", Mo added.

"Injured?", Shin asked as if he was stressing out that.

"Yes."

This was clearly the mention of Aella, however, Shin still had to confirm if the injuries that he had been thinking about were the same or not. 

'What are the chances that some other lone wolf would be injured?', Shin questioned himself.

"What were the injuries?" – he decided that he must know about this.

"Uh…"

"If I recall…"

"The wolf's body was covered in bruises…"

"It had signs of being attacked by various beasts…"

"The wolf had some foam-like white stuff coming out of its mouth as if it was drooling but that was by no means drool!"

As Mo continued to tell all this, Shin felt as if his heart was getting stabbed again and again.

A weird sense of anger was being built inside his body.

"Oh, and the main thing!"

"The wolf did not have…", Mo paused here for a moment.

It seemed as if he had to rethink something.

"Did not have…?"

"Did not have what!?", Shin seemed to be anxious.

"It did not have two of its four legs…", Mo concluded.

"…"

To be continued…