"Man… yeah, you are confused. Kid, be good and eat a mana berry, ok? Then touch my binding, please!"
Valentius stood up and went to the bush as if in a daze. It was madness to do the bidding of something you didn't know where the brain was, but it was better than being eaten.
He touched a mana berry, looked at the book still lying on the grass, and touched the backpack.
Valentius couldn't calm his racing heart.
It was touching the backpack… what if it stole the backpack?
All the loot was inside!
He tore the berry off the bush, taking some of the nicely smelling leaves along with it, and ate it, as if it had cursed his entire family tree!
He had never chewed food so many times as he did that berry.
The mana rush entered his bones.
He ran back to the book, pressing his finger to the binding.
"Ah, that hits the spot!" The book is written on the cover. "Now, you may open me! Behold: The Complete Collection of the Archdemon Amos!"
"Holy shit!" Valentius jumped up as if burned.
The book had drained him of his mana!
The book belonged to an Archdemon! He was going to end up eaten, his skull the Archdemon's next goblet!
"Look, kid," the book wrote on its cover, as Valentius tried to breathe in and out, repeating that simple mantra repeatedly… fighting for his survival. "You won't survive long if you are under so much stress! The Archdemon Amos is still young, yet to develop a taste for human flesh! Besides… I was won during an Honor Duel by the Archdemon Nicodemus, who sold it to his favorite boy-toy, Cloud…something."
"Sold?" Valentius didn't want to picture the lord as someone who had needed saving. There was little to do but vow eternal love when an Archdemon winked at you.
But… well, Valentius had to admit that the lord had not looked too old for his age.
And Archdemons were demons. They probably didn't have a big variety back home…
"Yes, sold! Man, first the father, then the son… wild guy," Valentius didn't understand, but he still sat by the book. "Ok, what do you want from life?"
It was a good question. One, he couldn't answer right at that moment. He needed to think, even though he knew he had little time.
On the one hand, he was hunted for murder. The logical answer would be a nice safe cave where no one, not even the officials and King Nero, would find him.
But on the other…
He sighed.
No, if a nice, quiet life had been offered to him, as he had run away from the academy on that fateful day, he would have taken it.
Wasn't that why he had taken to working in the kitchens at the castle?
Something that got him out of the cold. Put food in his belly. Gave him money, even if it was more of a pocket change, if he had to admit it.
"I want to be a hero," he blurted out.
He felt strange, as if someone had lost patience with him and given him a nudge.
"Oh… sign here, here, and here!"
The book began to write down a contract. It was too fast, with the pages flipping too quickly when Valentius tried to read them.
He wasn't buying what the book was selling! It was loot! It should start behaving as such!
"I don't want to take shortcuts," which was a lie. If he could have taken a shortcut, he would have! But selling his soul, one of the few things he truly owned, was not an option!
"Why, you little!" The contract disappeared, and the book stopped buzzing.
When it stopped, Valentius realized it had been buzzing before. It was too quiet for him to pick up on it, but it had!
"Well," he began to flip through the pages. "I'd like to learn more about mana theory," he mumbled.
He looked at the pen, which was more jewelry than a writing tool. Soon, he was writing down his findings with the berries.
Valentius was no healer. He didn't know the names of the bones or even where his organs were, precisely.
But he put it all into his own words:
"Eating a handful of mana berries is like eating a sack of chili peppers," he began. He didn't know why he was even writing it. He just wanted to write something down. Maybe he could fill up the book altogether! Oh, that would be the best! "You feel the desire for water bubbling up inside of you! But if there is no water, you run!"
"Is that so?" The letters weren't written in the book's script, of that much, Valentius was certain. "And why would you eat a handful of mana berries? Could you please draw me those… mana berries?"
Valentius shrugged.
Whatever it was, it wasn't offering him any contracts. He began to scratch the image of the red berries on the paper. All the while thinking about how he could answer.
When the drawing was done, he tapped the page three times.
Man… whatever was writing him now would think him stupid, but…
"Because… I was hungry and thought they were red berries."
He didn't get ha ha ha under his writings.
No, the page turned utterly blank!
Valentius sighed. … if nothing else, he could fill up the page with his scribbles. Try to sort out his life that way.
But he saw it before he could touch the pen to the paper! Writing, in that same elegant handwriting!
He began to read. That was… mana theory!
Valentius didn't spare a thought that he couldn't see the brain of whoever that was, either.
No! As he began to look at the simple way the flow of mana through the blood and heart, through his cells and bone marrow, was explained, he started to take notes on the page opposite the one filled with knowledge that would turn him into a hero…
Until it stopped, the page stayed the way it was, and there, under it all, was a simple:
Goodbye for now, Hero!
Valentius giggled.
"Goodbye!" He yelled, chuckling as his yell chased the birds off their perches.
Filling the forest with the sound of flapping wings.