Re: Elf Prince—A Degenerate’s Second Chance

35. Return To The Cottage

Going back to the cottage was harder than he expected, the injuries he had sustained were too overbearing for his weak frame. Aside from that there was still the wound on his shoulder, he had lost soo much blood.

The only thing keeping him alive was the body tempering art of his. He weakly pulled his legs through the snow, occasionally stopping before a tree to rest from time to time. Minutes passed and soon an hour, the warm rays of the shining sun now bathed the world.

He was now within the range of the cottage surroundings, he held a weak smile that soon faded as he winced in pain. Still clutching to his broken arm he walked forwards, behind him was a trail of blood that climbed all the way up the mountain.

As he got closer he paused to think what his uncle would say about his recklessness, unfortunately he was not given much time to dwell on it. The door to the cottage flew open wildly and out of it came the huge elf that went by the cinder king. Instead of seeing the angry face of his uncle he noticed the look of confusion and perhaps fear on his face.

Eryndor knew he must have looked pitiful so he e stopped and said in a low tone. "I sorry."

In a few quick strides Thalvarin was in him and throwing his huge arms around the young prince. The next thing he knew he was being swept off his feet and taken into the house. "At least you're okay you little rascal, do you want your father to start a war." From his tone he did not seem to be playing.

Eryndor opened his mouth to speak but the memories of the night before came rushing back accompanied by tears. The remembrance of transversing the cold mountain night with no source of light, the thought of being chased the entire night, the fight, the avalanche. All these things seemed to leave a scar on his young mind, he was never used to any physical activity frin start so this was assured to leave a mark.

Eryndor allowed himself to slip into a deep slumber, he had never thought he would be surprised to see the cottage he had once hated and called his prison. There was not much to be done and he was deeply grateful to get a well deserved rest after everything he had been through.

He slept knowing that he would have to face Thalvarin's rage after, there would be questions and a lot of yelling. But who really cared about such things, he had already gotten what he wanted and for that he would replay the entire night countless time.

Thalvarin cleaned up all of his nephew's wounds and dressed them, for the bite mark on his shoulder he made a move to disintifect it and wrap up more than half of his body in bandage. He could not help but he could sense that his nephew's mana had grown significantly in a short while. And that was nothing short of remarkable.

Leaving Eryndor to sleep he blamed himself for his poor care over the boy, if something worse had happen to him his brother would have had his head. Even if the boy went out of his own volition.

Thalvarin stopped to think of his nephew had been planning to run away from the mountain. Since Eryndor seemed like he would sleep for a long time, Thalvarin went outside to investigate. Following the trail of red still visible on the bed of snow he left the vicinity of his cottage and soon reached a bloody battlefield. The corpses of five normal beasts, bloody, mangled and butchered. It looked like the work of a wild animal or a mad man.

Thalvarin who was experienced in the field noticed the sloppy work in the beasts, at first glance he could tell it was an amateurs work. He noticed the signs of fire on the burnt furs of the beasts and also the remains of the beast blown apart. He crouched down near to the closest corpse and confirmed his thoughts, their beast cores had been removed. The work was sloppy but accurate, it was like the person that had maimed them knew just where to did for the beast core despite it being their first time.

Thalvarin rose to his feet and looked at the expanse, there were signs of an avalanche, since he was high in the mountains the phenomenon was not anything new so he did not feel threatened. His dwelling was sure to be safe from any bad weather, or at least to some extent.

After a short while Thalvarin thought to himself. "Did that little boy really do all this? With his flawed body constitution it's impossible." He had accessed Eryndor multiple times before so there was no way he could have hidden his true strength. He sensed something was amiss.

There was no way someone as weak as his nephew could kill a normal beast by his lone self and survive let alone five. Honestly speaking compared to the wolves or what remained of them his foolish nephew was in a far better state.

"Could that little runt be a powerhouse?" Thalvarin muttered as he picked up the remains of a number of wolves which would end up becoming their breakfast for the day. The turned around and started to head back to the cottage, not before giving the expanse of the mountain one more look.

Another thing that troubled Thalvarin was the fact that he could not find the beast cores, which meant that his nephew had already consumed it. "That fool, does he really want to die? What will I tell his damn father now." As he contemplated all these facts and tried to come to a conclusion as to how to arrange for his poor nephew's funeral he reached the cottage and entered into it, what he saw had him amazed.

There on the chair sitting before the fire place was his nosy nephew wrapped in thick fur blankets. As he shut the door and thought of what to say, Eryndor turned to him and spoke first.

"I'm sorry for running away." He started in a calm tone that threw off his uncle. After he had spoken a weak grin appeared on his face and his eyebrows tensed as he spoke. "When do we start training again?"