Chapter 134
Growing Sanctuary
Leo met a familiar gaze as soon as he stepped through the shrubbery and onto the open clearing around the longhouse. Azariel stopped meditating as his eyes began darting between the boy and Leo.
"I--"
"Not a word," A similar thing played out once again, causing Leo to sigh inwardly.
"I just--"
"You just nothing."
"But you--"
"But I nothing," he added rather firmly, ending the conversation. "Take him into the house, find him an empty room, and give him a change of clothes. I'll prepare us a meal. Where is Shui'er?"
"She's taking a nap," Azariel said. "With Blackie and Milky. Seriously--"
"I will beat you up."
"... room, clothes. Understood."
"Go on. He's not going to hurt you," Leo urged the boy who had hidden himself behind his legs, finally stepping out as though being allowed at last. He followed Azariel into the longhouse, all the while glancing back and prompting Leo to urge him further. The latter sank onto a boulder and exhaled as though he'd been holding in a breath for a decade.
There was a headache inbound, and to prevent it, he immediately purged his thoughts and started a fire, taking out the boar from the spatial ring. He didn't have his specialized cutters and butchers with him, so that would mean even less meat would be useable--rather, Leo garnered that he'd be able to cut it up just finely enough to extort a singular meal... from what looked to be about a four-hundred-pound boar.
Taking a small, sharp dagger from the ring, he slowly began the butchering process to the best of his knowledge (most of which came from watching the kids do it). In fairness, they did it so rapidly he could seldom remember a thing, but, by the end at least, there were a few slices of meat that should be edible once chopped up and finely boiled.
He started the fire, poured the pond's water, chopped the meat and the vegetables, and poured it all in as the steam arose in the billow of smoke.
It wasn't long before the tantalizing scent of the boiling meat began to escape the cauldron, which was when he added the finely chopped 'spices,' or at least herbs he considered spices. They were nowhere near as strong in their flavor, but at the very least they managed to add some taste to what would otherwise be rather flavorless and chewy cubes of meat.
He, however, grumbled soon after and started quite a few more fires; the scent must have drifted between the trees, as there were quite a few animals approaching. In the end, he took out the elk corpse and tried his best, though he quickly realized he'd have to be rather stingy with the meat per serving, and it would mostly just be used to seep some of it into the 'soup' itself.
Some five minutes later, Shui'er came out of the longhouse with Blackie and Milky stationed on either of her shoulders. The two panthers were licking themselves rather freely, and Shui'er herself seemed rather drowsy, her eyes half-closed.
"It smells... different," she said, walking over and leaning over one of the cauldrons, sniffing a few times.
"Uncle Leo went out and hunted," Leo said.
"... really?" She seemed to wake up rather rapidly, her head spinning toward him in such a comical manner that Leo nearly burst out into laughter.
"Really," he said, smiling.
"Really really?!" She raced over and stopped by his side, looking up with rather wide and beady eyes.
"Yes, really," he said. "I know I've been promising it for a while, so I figured it was time I lived up to that promise."
"Aah!! Thank you!!" She spun her arms around his leg and hugged tightly, letting go a moment later and breaking out into a dance. "Time to eat meat, time to eat meat, time to eat meat~," she reminded him somewhat of Liang. That man, too, seemed to have a strange desire for meat, for better or worse, though Shui'er's was expressed in a far more adorable manner.
Leo merely smiled as he quickly went around the cauldrons, dividing what little meat he had equally (stealthily adding a bit more to the portion that would be served to Shui'er and the boy). Luckily, though animals had gathered, they did so in much lower numbers than usual. There were just about twenty-five to thirty of them, and he had just barely enough food to satisfy them all.
It was then, also, that Azariel emerged from the longhouse, the young boy trailing him; he'd swapped over into a rather simple-looking black robe, a pair of equally black boots on his feet. He looked marginally better at best, but Leo figured that the eventual bath would do wonders.
"Ah, Shui'er," he called out to the girl that was still engaged in her little dance. "We have a new friend here. Why don't you go over and say hello?"
"Hm?" The girl stopped and spun until she faced the young boy. The latter looked away swiftly from her gaze, hiding behind Azariel with whom Leo exchanged quick looks.
Shui'er tapped over slowly, and the two played a rather strange game for a moment—she'd lean around Azariel legs trying to meet the boy's eyes while he did everything in his power to avoid her. Poor Azariel, on the other hand, became like a tree for a pair of playful squirrels, and all Leo could do was hold his laughter yet again.
"... does he hate me?" In the end, Shui'er asked, rather teary-eyed. Leo caught a glimpse of the boy nearly exclaiming something, a look of guilt flashing through his eyes, before turning to Shui'er.
"He doesn't hate you," Leo said. "He's just shy. Come, sit down, both of you. The meal's ready."
"Hm," she nodded, glancing at the boy who still wouldn't come out from behind Azariel.
While Leo distributed the remaining meals to the animals, the three sat in a circle around one of the flames and ate in silence. As with pretty much everyone else tasting Leo's food for the first time, he noticed, the boy started rather reservedly... for a brief second before he dug in like a century-starved beast. His serenity seemed to recover as he stared at the empty plate, his cheeks flushing red as he buried his head between his knees.
By the time Leo joined them, the three had finished eating; uncomfortable though he was, Azariel still acted as a wall between the two kids.
"Shui'er," Leo said. "Why don't you pour yourself and the boy some juice?"
"Ah! Can I?!" She jumped to her feet and, without waiting for confirmation, ran off to one of the two remaining mud huts.
Though Leo carried the vast majority of everything in the spatial right right now, he still kept a few courses of food and a couple of barrels of juice around the longhouse. Shui'er snuck a few gulps every morning, thinking she was being sneaky, but he hardly cared. He just never said anything because he found it funny.
She returned rather quickly, two cups in tow, and rather than trying to hand one over directly to the boy, she simply set it down on the makeshift table—another Leo original—and went back to her place.
Over the last few weeks, Leo had gotten a bit into woodworking. The system was rather cheap with gifting furniture blueprints and such, and considering just how much wood there was, he figured he may as well give it a whirl. He did manage to make a few chairs and tables and even improve their bed situation slightly, but that was about the limit of his skill. He didn't know the right way to process the wood and was fairly certain that the bed frames would rot out soon enough and would have to be swapped.
"What's his name?" Shui'er turned toward Leo and asked, taking a sip of juice.
"... I don't know," Leo considered lying but couldn't even come up with a believable lie, so he simply told the truth.
"You brought him here without even asking him his name?" Azariel said.
"I brought you here too, didn't I?"
"At least you'd asked my name."
"And I've been regretting it ever since." Azariel scoffed, taking out a jug of fruit juice and drinking. Silently and stealthily, his cultivation seemed to have improved rather massively ever since coming here, and Leo was convinced that the man would sooner die than leave this place now.
"Maybe he doesn't have a name," Shui'er said. "There were kids in my village that didn't have a name." Leo paused, though she didn't seem aware that it was the first time she ever mentioned her village since the first night here, it felt.
"Maybe," Leo said, glancing over at the boy who seemed to be enjoying the juice. He'd already developed a theory about the kid—there was a good chance he was part of one of the awakened Clans, and was either hidden or ran away himself when the pair of siblings stormed through... and was the Clan's last survivor. Perhaps he was always shy; perhaps seeing everyone he ever knew be butchered in front of him made him shy. At this point it didn't particularly matter. Whether he had a name or not, Leo wouldn't abandon the kid, after all. "So, be patient with him, okay?"
"I will," the girl nodded. "Ah! You have to meet Gray! He is sooooo funny! Just wait here a second; I will go find him!" Leo smiled as the girl rushed off to who knows where, seeking what was likely the most adventurous dog in the world. Gray and Whiskers would wander off and disappear for days at a time, and every time they returned, they seemed half a point wiser.
"Come on," Leo stood up when he saw that the boy had finished the juice. "I'll show you where you can take a bath."
The boy nodded and stood up, leaving Azariel's shadow at last and following Leo's footsteps silently. It wasn't long before they reached the ever-unchanging pond, though they had to wait for a moment as the ever-enigmatic black tiger was having a nice, relaxing swim.
"The water's really nice," Leo said, taking out a makeshift woolen towel from his ring and setting it down on the nearby boulder. "Do you know a way back? If not, just ask any of the animals, and they'll show you the way."
"... Hino." just as Leo was about to leave, he caught the faint buzzing behind him and turned around.
"Hm?"
"Hino," he wasn't wrong—the boy spoke. It was not even a whisper; in fact, had his ears not been improved through cultivation, it would have been impossible to hear. "My name."
"Oh," Leo said. "Alright, Hino. Do you want me to tell Shui'er not to bother you?"
"... no. She can."
"Have fun."
"..."
"Okay."
Leo headed back to the longhouse, ever as uncertain on how he came to be a caretaker to so many children (and likely many more after he would establish the Sect). It must have been his natural charms; yes, that was all. Not a carefully-woven tapestry by invisible threads of a system guiding him in a specific direction. It must have been his charms.