Chapter 254: Clueless friend.

No matter in how much pain Lee was in, he had been through worse. It was more like the knowledge of the intensity of pain that hurt, not the pain itself. More importantly, his movement wasn’t obstructed by the agony like it used to be a lifetime ago, when he swallowed the fire spark.The problem was – he was at his limit. He was deploying all the reserves of wind elemental particles he had in his Dantian, but he was still too slow despite his body rupturing under pressure. He was annoyed and upset at the damn bitch chasing him, and at the whole world as well.

He had passed so many hurdles to finally solve his predicament and was reluctant to die young again. He had met an overlord, and participated in killing a creature that was classified as an Old God! In fact, two of them!

’Idiot!’ Remembering the fight against the Scorpion King, Lee realized he had been looking at the whole elemental system in the wrong light.

The answer had been in front of him the whole time. He had four different sparks, and used the elements separately. But if the Scorpion King could use two at the same time ...

Lady Ponello was focusing on Lee’s charred back and couldn’t see the changes in his expression. She was about to cleave with the scythe across his thighs, when a burst of fire propelled him towards the rift. Her initial reaction was to block the incoming attack, but by the time she realized that Lee had used both wind and fire to boost his speed, it was already too late.

She stopped in her tracks, staring into the rift that a heartbeat later closed, and it took her few moments to process the implications. The kid managed to escape. Most likely he was crippled for life, but it was her loss nevertheless. Not only she had lost her son – his murderer didn’t die by her hand, and there was no way of finding out who he was or where was he from.

And putting her own vengeance to the side – there was a glaring problem. An overlord was set on opposing her master, and she failed to find out who.

***

Lee landed in the middle of Simone Lamart’s throne room, and battling the agony sat in a meditative position and closed his eyes.

He looked beyond terrible. His entire body was burnt black from head to toe, and the only things that were more or less intact were his pants, belt, and a couple of rings. His hair and eyebrows were completely gone, and his whole head, including his face, was covered in dark red blisters. His back looked like a slab of coal, but chest resembled a roasted pig over a campfire.

Before passing out, he weakly said, " ... dad ... what’s the difference between theory and practice ..."

Simone, Gerard, and Donk stared at him in confusion, but the best they could come up with was that the guy was mumbling nonsense while unconscious. They didn’t touch him, though. They had witnessed how Lee miraculously healed the last time around and, in fact, even if they wanted to help him at this stage, any sane person would think Lee was already halfway to the grave.

This time Lee was out for more than ten days. His presence in the hall caused some inconvenience, but Simone didn’t bother much. After hearing Gerard’s report it was a wonder Lee was alive, and he looked forward hearing about adventures the young man had gone through.

Lee waking up somewhat resembled a snake trying to shed its old skin, except the crust covering him began to crumble the moment he moved. Luckily, no one was present and couldn’t raise questions about his otherworldly recovering abilities when his pink skin became visible under the layer of coal.

It was later in the afternoon when the current leader of the Droskar Dominion arrived, along with his brother Daniel and the right hand man. As always, Donk was tailing Gerard, throwing clueless looks around. It took them few moments to recognize Lee in his bold look, dressed in a white linen shirt.

While waiting for the host, Lee cleaned up after himself, and gathered the remaining evidence of his latest embarrassment in one of his rings. If the four men didn’t know better, they would’ve thought the guy had just arrived, looking for an audience.

"Thank you!" The first thing Lee did was to bow his head and express gratitude, "I guess, I’m forever in your debt and that makes us even."

"I’m fine with that." Simone Lamart said, happily sitting back onto the throne he hadn’t used in days. The rest made themselves comfortable in the chairs across it, except for Lee, who remained politely standing.

"I still can’t believe I miscounted the days." Lee said, "If I ..."

"You didn’t." Gerard interrupted, "Donk was getting restless and suggested we should go look for you in case you got lost during the three months. We even brought flares so you could find us during the night. Little did we know that you had decided to provoke a monster before getting back."

"Ye, sorry about that." Lee said, "Good thing you didn’t try to be heroes ... what a crazy ass bitch ..."

"What exactly did you do?" Gerard asked, "Don’t say you were molesting her? Donk keeps asking about her shaggy tits ever since."

"Oh ... sorry you heard that." Lee blushed and awkwardly scratched his head, "That was only a taunt. I killed her son so she was mad at me ..."

"You killed a child!" Donk jumped to his feet, his bow already in hand.

"That child was probably older than you." Lee said, calming him down, "And a bigger asshole than Lucien Duvant."

"Phew, don’t scare me like that!" Donk sat down, heaving a sigh of relief, "I thought I hurt a grieving mother!"

"You injured her?!" Lee gawked at him in shock, ignoring the part that Donk actually did hurt the grieving mother.

"Yea ... but only a scratch ... and I lost five arrows ..." Donk said.

It was obvious the pain he felt over the loss of arrows was no less than Lady Panello’s grief over her son. The others could only helplessly shake their heads, but Lee thought for a bit and took of one of his rings.

"Take this. I can’t compensate you for the arrows, but I bet you’ll find this thing useful. Gerard will explain you how it works." Lee said, passing over the ring. Then turned to Simone, and said, "I’m not shameless enough to keep asking you to continue opening rifts around the world for me free of charge. I don’t have much, but ..."

"Lee!" Simone interrupted him. He did look amused seeing Lee’s serious expression. It was obvious what the youth had in mind, but he had a different outlook.

He said, "You’re probably too young to understand what a true friendship between men is. It’s not something children experience, playing around in the backyard. It’s the camaraderie that is born in battle, an unexplainable closeness that honorable men feel when putting their lives on the line for a common goal."

Lee was confused hearing the sudden lecture that was seemingly off-topic, but the next part made him blank out for a moment.

Simone continued, "You are a true friend of the House of Lamart! You’re a personal friend of mine – someone who risked his life for my son and my world. You don’t even realize that you have befriended us all. One doesn’t throw priceless artifacts away – you just gave a ring to your friend, but you’re completely clueless of what the gesture meant. Maybe it’s the age difference. Maybe something else. I don’t know. You’ll tell me when you figure it out."

Lee, of course, understood the words the elemental lord, the ruler of the Droskar Dominion, was saying, but Simone was right, he had no clue what they meant. He liked the bunch, but their relationship had always been that of a mutual benefit. They needed him, and he – them.

But now that there was no debt between the two parties he assumed he will have to pay for favors like it was with any other transaction. Strangely enough, all of the sudden the man proclaimed them to be friends.

Was this because of the overlord? Unlikely. They had good enough relationship, and knowing Lee, they had to realize that at some point he could piss off the Overlord of Whispers and the friendship with him could become a burden.

The problem was that Lee had no clue how to respond. To say he was flattered or thank for the generosity was rude and stupid. In fact, he suddenly felt it would’ve been better if Simone Lamart was angry at him for whatever reason.

"Daaaaamn ... so talented and so clueless." Gerard said, getting up, "Let’s leave it for now. I bet Lee is starving and so am I. What’s for dinner?"

***

Lee stepped through the rift, this time much closer to the mountain slopes, and at the east side of the mountains as well. Simone almost forcefully threw Lee in when he began to mumble something about him being grateful, and Donk cheered at the sight – now he wasn’t the only elemental master who had been thrown around like that.

Lee barely arrived at the mountain stream, and he didn’t even see the madam Seris come out from her hut yet, when the question What IS the difference between theory and practice?! echoed in his ears.