Slowly opening his eyes, Alex found a roof over his head.
He was confused. After all, mere moments ago, he was battling to the death with a bear.
His head ached, but he tried to remember what happened after the monster dropped dead.
He had vague memories of rolling into the river, then remembered taking out his two last healing potions from the pocket watch and gulping them both in succession.
The last thing he remembered was himself being dragged downstream by the water and trying weakly to push himself to the shore so he didn't drown. Then, the moment he reached the shore, he fainted.
With a groan, he lifted himself into a sitting position.
His body still hurt from the last battle.
He looked around and found his pocket watch placed on a nightstand, and on the floor lay his bag.
Everything seemed untouched, which was strange since his bag was filled with valuable herbs and the objects that didn't fit in the watch, the ones he stole from the mansion that damned night.
As he was thinking, small noises came from the door of the room he was in.
As the door opened, a woman in her late twenties and a girl around eight or nine entered.
The woman had purplish hair that had a slight shine under the sunlight, tied neatly in a high ponytail. She stood at 177 cm, a head taller than average. With green eyes resembling a forest in summer, the way she carried herself gave her an air of motherly gentleness.
She was thin, but not too much, a consequence of her circumstances, but that couldn't take away from her beauty. It wasn't blinding, but she was far from average.
She had a natural, mature charm that drew attention without demanding it, with a face that had no particularly striking feature but was well-balanced overall, and a body with curves in all the right places, not generous but not lacking either.
The little girl could be mistaken for her sister. She was like two drops of water compared to her mother, the difference being that she had a cute bob cut neatly tied in twin ponytails and baby fat on her cheeks that gave her a youthful feeling. With one look, one could easily say she would grow up to be as pretty as her mother.
After the woman looked at the already-awake Alex, she froze for a split second, then hurried next to him.
"You're finally awake, I'm glad!" she said, a smile on her face.
The little girl, on the other hand, didn't say anything but stared at him curiously.
"Yes, thank you for helping me," Alex said gratefully to the lady, a small smile on his face.
"No worries, you gave us quite a fright when we found you on the riverside all covered in blood," she said.
"I'm Susan, by the way, and this is my daughter, Evelyn," Susan introduced herself and the girl.
"Who might you be?"
Alex looked the woman in the eyes, thought for a bit, then opened his mouth and introduced himself.
"I'm Alexander. Alex for short," he said.
"Nice to meet you, Alex. Well, at least it's nice meeting you not half-dead," Susan joked a little.
"You look young. How old are you, if I may ask?" asked the woman.
"I'm… I'm fourteen," he said, deciding to trust the woman some more.
"Fourteen!? How did a teenager like you end up with those kinds of wounds!?" Susan was utterly shocked. A kid like him shouldn't have been anywhere near the forest to begin with, much less mangled as he was.
"Well… I was collecting some plants to sell to the alchemist, and I was attacked by a bear. Then I jumped into the river, and that's the last thing I remember before fainting," he said. Of course, he lied.
He couldn't tell her that he fought the bear and almost died trying, since that would arouse suspicion about his capabilities, which in turn would lead to other kinds of questions, so he preferred to lie and dodge an insane amount of headaches.
Also, the fact that the woman asked him how he ended up with such severe wounds meant that the potions didn't fully heal him.
He looked down at himself and saw that he was bare-chested. He felt no pain, but there was a bandage around his chest and stomach. He also felt a light stretching sensation from his back, which meant that the wound there wasn't fully healed either.
Luckily, the bite on his shoulder was completely gone; otherwise, the woman would have asked how he survived the bear's bite instead of how he ended up injured.
"I guess you're lucky then. I still shudder remembering how I found you, all that blood… I thought you were dead, but when I approached, you were breathing, even though you were a bit cold," Susan explained how she found him.
"I had to throw away the shirt you had on; it was barely hanging together. I sewed this one for you so you can wear something," she said afterward.
"Oh, thank you, you're really kind." Alex didn't refuse the shirt, as he didn't actually have anything else. His pajamas had turned into bandages days ago.
"Now, you must be hungry, right? Actually, you should eat something. You're so skinny all your bones are showing," Susan said.
Alex knew he had grown even skinnier than before. After all, he had barely eaten in the forest since he had to stretch his food quite thinly to make it last.
"Ye-Yeah…" He didn't lie to her. He was indeed famished.
"Well then, I'll leave you to rest some more while I make food. Evelyn, come help me," she said, beaming a smile as she stood up.
After Susan left, Alex struggled to reach his bag, then checked the interior.
Nothing was touched. No plants, no grass, nothing.
He tried to get up, but his legs failed him.
So he remained seated.
After twenty minutes, Susan came in again, carrying a bowl with some kind of soup inside. It had mostly greens and little bits of meat.
Still, Alex devoured the food like it was the last supper of his life.
After finishing it, he returned the bowl to Susan and said, "Thank you, it was delicious."
He didn't want to ask where they were, since Susan would probably only reply after a barrage of questions he didn't want to answer.
Besides, knowing he had been dragged downstream, he was pretty sure he was at Perrin's Gate.
"May I ask a favor?" Alex suddenly asked.
"Sure, what is it? Do you want me to find your parents?" Susan guessed.
"No, I'm an orphan…" Alex replied.
"O-oh, I'm sorry…" Susan didn't know how to respond to such a statement.
"Don't worry, you can't miss what you never had, right? Actually, the thing I wanted to ask was if I could stay here a few more days. Not for free, of course, I'll pay," Alex said.
"Haha, if you're paying, then it's not a favor but a request, dear," Susan let out a melodious laugh and replied.
"Of course you can stay, no need to pay me anything," Susan continued.
"I insist. It's not like I'm homeless or something."
Alex didn't want to leech off her, knowing he probably had more money than the woman. Looking at the house, it was clear that she wasn't rich by any stretch of the imagination.
Reaching to grab his bag, Alex placed the pocket watch in as if he was storing it, then he withdrew a golden coin from it.
The golden coin could sustain a poor family's necessities for half a year or let them enjoy a lavish lifestyle for three months.
In exchange, there were a hundred silver coins, and a silver coin was worth ten copper ones.
Why one to ten instead of one to a hundred? Because after ten copper coins, the value of the copper itself surpassed that of a silver coin.
Susan's eyes widened at the sight of the golden coin.
"Are you rich or something?" asked Susan in bewilderment.
"Not really, but I've been working hard to get enough money to leave for the city and start anew," Alex replied.
"I guess now I can understand why you were risking your life to collect plants for selling," Susan said softly.
Her household wasn't doing that well since her late husband had died. And in the same forest whose river had carried Alex's battered body.
That's why she saved him. Because he reminded her of her husband and because he clearly looked really young.
So when he asked her to stay a few more days, she was internally nervous. She didn't know if she had the means to actually support Alex at all.
Now that he offered her a gold coin in exchange, she suddenly found herself wondering.
'I guess one's good deed does come to repay them back.'
But her repayment came just too fast, only a day after!
With a sigh, she grabbed the coin from him, not rejecting his generosity.
"Okay, Alex, it's a deal then," she said warmly with a soft smile on her face.
After she left, Alex started wondering about Marc.
"Two days left for our agreed time."
He hoped Marc was doing better than he was. In fact, he prayed for it.