Tribal Sign-In: Immortal At The Start-Chapter 198: Waiting

Rion left Marin’s hut, and instead of making his way towards Zaelyane or his parents’ hut, he went to his own hut.

The door creaked as he pulled it open and stepped inside the hut.

The wooden floor screamed under his heavy steps. He closed the door behind himself, and his gaze stilled on the empty fur bed that was placed beside his.

Seeing the empty bed, his eyes turned heavy.

He slowly walked over to the empty bed and took a seat on it.

Placing his palms together, he remembered everything both of them had done here with a lowered head.

"I should have known..." he mumbled dejectedly.

Dora had always wanted Rion to seal the deal, but Rion wasn’t ready to do so. There were multiple reasons behind it, but none of them were above her...

And now that he was aware that her smiles weren’t just simple smiles but walls that kept the storm within her hidden from others he couldn’t help but blame himself.

After coming out of his strange half-awake state, he went to Granny Nena, asked her about the prophecy that had cursed Dora and even though she had refused to tell him after he pestered her for an hour or two, she finally gave in and told him everything that he wanted to know.

"It’s all because of me..." he mumbled weakly, his eyes hollow.

Finding out that the prophecy that had pushed Dora in her current state was related to him only made him blame himself even more.

But even within all of this, Rion knew that none of it had happened because of him.

He was neither the one who had made the prophecy nor the one who had spread it to Dora, and even though he knew that it wasn’t because of him, he blamed himself for not finding it out sooner.

However, Rion wasn’t the kind of person to trap himself in self-blame.

He pushed away all of his thoughts, fell into her bed and mumbled, "Blaming myself won’t cure her..."

He turned in the bed and whispered under his breath, "I will do everything I can to cure her..."

His gaze shifted towards the chain mark coiling his left arm, and he mumbled, "And once I learn to control this, I will make you an immortal just like me..."

His eyes turned heavy with obsession. "Then we will never have to worry about such things... we will stay together... forever."

A beautiful smile creased his lips. He finally closed his eyes and fell into the embrace of sleep.

The next few days passed much similarly to the last day.

In the morning, he went to help the Herbalist Camp, and with his knowledge of common to supreme herbs, he was able to identify herbs that even Zaelyane didn’t know about.

"This is a nectarine mint," Rion mumbled while pointing at a purple-blue mint leaf.

Zaelyane looked at him with a raised eyebrow and asked flatly, "How do you even know that?"

He smiled and said the same words that he had been repeating for the past hour. "It must be my bloodline."

Zaelyane stared at him with a deadpan look and focused on the other herbs.

A few hours passed while he helped them, and once the sun reached its highest, he left to learn the countless languages that Marin wanted to drill in his head within the short time of a month.

At first, Rion simply wanted to learn them as quickly as he could, but the way Marin explained the origins and how these languages were created made these lectures way more fun than he had imagined.

And because of that, his understanding of the outside world was also increasing a little.

When he was with Marin, hours seemed to fly by in an instant, and once the moon was high, Rion left the settlement and hunted the beasts.

He had told Marin that he wanted to help the warriors catch the needed game, but the warriors simply refused to let him do so.

For them, he was someone on the level of the Den Lord Varok, so how could they allow him to hunt for them when the whole celebratory feast was being held to honour them? It was like asking a god to help them prepare the ritual sacrifice for themself.

However, Rion knew how hard it had become to collect the needed meat after the evolution of the beasts, so even though they didn’t want him to help, he still did it.

By channelling his aura into his eyes, he was able to see in the dark, so nighttime was perfect for him.

Under moonlight, he tracked a stag with obsidian antlers that drank shadow; one clean thrust, and it fell without a sound.

A few hours passed as he caught a total of four edible beasts and made his way back.

After sneakingly placing the four beasts in the storage, he made his way towards Zaelyane’s hut and just like usual, he found Zaelyane sitting on her chair, absorbing ether.

Her forehead accessory was removed, and her spirit eye was gleaming faint blue.

’Its always fascinating to look at,’ he commented inwardly while staring at her spirit eye.

When he had seen it before, it was similar to an actual eye, but now it looked like a gemstone embedded into her forehead.

Tearing his gaze away from her, he walked over to Dora’s bed and caressed her sleeping face with a faint smile across his face.

"Why don’t you just wake up already? I am waiting for you..." he mumbled with a smile, sadness flickering across his eyes.

He watched her calm breath and planted a kiss on her cheek before slumping down on the chair placed beside the fur bed.

He grabbed her arm, threaded his fingers through hers, as if he could hold her here by sheer will.

There were two reasons behind why he was doing this — first, he didn’t want Dora to be alone when she woke up, and second, he didn’t want himself to be alone if she didn’t.