The woman before him wore a brown coarse linen robe, stained all over with blood—some of it dried into blackish crusts, some still flowing bright red.
Yet her clothes clearly did not fit her well. Through the loose collar, he could vaguely glimpse a stretch of snowy-white cleavage.
Obviously, the linen garment was more like a man's clothing.
Even so, it could not conceal her tall, stunning figure.
She was barefoot, her exposed ankles covered in bloody scrapes from jagged stones. That was the delicate skin of a pampered noble lady, not someone who frequently traveled the wilderness.
The woman's face was wrapped in a thick layer of damp cloth, probably a makeshift gas mask, preventing Rein from seeing what she looked like.
Her waterfall-like golden curls clung wetly to her cheeks, and she looked extremely weak.
Still, encountering a lone woman in the wilderness put Rein on high alert.
Especially since the woman's hands were covered in blood!
The smell was a heavy stench of human blood mixed with beast blood.
Everything about this woman was strange.
Alone, on the wasteland, covered in blood, dressed in thin clothes—none of it was normal.
Legend had it that there was a monster called the Wailing Banshee on the Ice Ridge Wasteland. It was a vengeful spirit corrupted by demonic energy and lethally dangerous. They disguised themselves as frail, helpless girls to lure passing travelers before devouring their brains.
Human or monster?
Rein did not dare make a move.
The masked blonde woman, meanwhile, was like a little deer that had suddenly run out of the woods and encountered a hunter, frozen where she stood.
The instant their eyes met, Rein clearly saw the light of hope in her eyes rapidly extinguish.
That gaze, which had seemed filled with immense expectation, abruptly turned into the dimness of despair.
"Not an Imperial Knight..."
The blonde woman murmured in a voice as faint as a thread, and her expression suddenly darkened.
Staggering, she could no longer keep herself upright.
Walking this far had already exhausted the last of her strength. Once that belief loosened, she could no longer hold on and finally collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
Ymir felt that her condition was dreadful.
Could anyone imagine how hopeful it was, in the depths of despair, to see the wheel tracks of an Oma Royal Mechanical Knights Steam Locomotive in a deserted wasteland?
The tracks were fresh, proving that an Imperial Knight had passed through here not long ago.
Ymir thought that whoever had been able to venture alone into the "Bakenya Highlands" was probably some formidable knight commander.
Perhaps she could be saved.
She could not remember how far she had staggered in her daze. The wheel tracks had been the only hope sustaining her.
Then the tracks vanished into thin air, and the locomotive knight was nowhere to be found.
Just as despair set in, she heard the sounds of fighting and saw firelight.
And so, with her last spark of hope rekindled, she came looking.
The moment she saw Rein, hope instantly became despair.
He was only an ordinary traveler who had gotten lost.
Perhaps her life was about to come to an end.
"She fainted?"
Rein frowned, his eyes filled with gravity and suspicion.
This was the Ice Ridge Wasteland. The odds of encountering a lone human here were as low as being struck by a meteorite.
Yet he had encountered one!
He watched from a distance for quite some time, but the woman lying on the ground still showed no sign of suddenly springing up to bite his throat.
In Rein's perception, though faint, the woman clearly had a heartbeat and was breathing.
At the very least, she should be human, not some banshee.
He felt that she had probably truly passed out.
It was already late at night. Dew on the muddy ground had frozen into white frost, and the temperature had dropped below freezing.
The woman, dressed in only a single layer of linen, lay quietly there. Alone and helpless, she shivered like a soaked kitten in winter.
This world was hardly a kind one. Rein had learned that deeply during his year with the Thieves' Guild.
Now, a heavily injured unconscious woman had suddenly appeared in the wasteland. Anyone could tell there was something wrong with it.
Had this unconscious woman been chased here by someone, or by magical beasts?
Or was there some other reason?
Rein did not approach in a hurry. Instead, he carefully observed her from afar.
He discovered that apart from the linen outer garment, she had nothing else that might reveal her identity. No Storage Ring, no jewelry, no coins, weapons, or hairpins.
Rein had learned professional tracking and counter-tracking in the Thieves' Guild. After observing her, his mind instantly made a calm analysis: "She has no belongings at all. Even this linen robe is not women's clothing. She probably stripped it off some corpse in a hurry. She likely threw away everything she carried to avoid being tracked."
He had already concluded that this woman was most likely being hunted.
Then, when Rein's eyes fell on the fresh bloodstains on her clothes, he confirmed, "She has an untreated wound on her chest. She fled in a hurry. Her pursuers should still be looking for her."
Then, seeing the crimson traces beneath her fingernails, his pupils suddenly contracted. "There are remnants of flesh, and they're still fresh!"
It was not hard to infer that, whether human or magical beast, this woman had probably killed some living creature barehanded on her way here, picking up those fragments of flesh in the process.
The magical beasts of this wasteland were all difficult to deal with. Earlier, three of the weakest Canine Rabbits had nearly sent him fleeing for his life.
This woman was unarmed, so how had she walked this deep into the wasteland?
The only explanation was that even badly wounded, this woman was far stronger than anything he could control!
Having reached that conclusion, Rein immediately became wary and decided not to meddle.
He had no intention of getting involved in any way with this stranger who looked like nothing but a huge problem.
The woman had collapsed unconscious in his camp. If Rein wanted to stay away from trouble, the best thing would be to keep his distance from her.
But crossing the wasteland in the dark was even more dangerous.
Abandoning this safe campsite, which he had only secured after killing three Canine Rabbits, and finding another place was clearly not wise.
"Forget it. Hopefully, this woman covered her tracks well enough that her pursuers won't find her anytime soon."
After weighing it for a moment, Rein decided to ignore the woman and leave her to fend for herself.
At daybreak, he would leave immediately.
Though he was only a half-baked doctor, Rein could tell that if no one treated her, this severely injured woman would never survive the night. She would either bleed to death or freeze to death in the wasteland.
It was also the simplest option, one that would keep him from getting tangled up in any trouble.
Besides, once the corpse went cold, it seemed he might gain another piece of material.
Having made his decision, Rein ignored her and closed his eyes to begin meditating.
The fire crackled beside him, unusually clear in the deathly silent night.
Because he had to remain alert to everything happening in the camp, Rein was meditating, but his senses did not relax in the slightest.
He did not know how long it had been like that.
Then he suddenly heard a human voice and immediately opened his eyes.
Looking closely, he realized it was the severely injured woman talking in her sleep.
"Father, I believe all people are born equal."
"What makes humanity great is not the ability to oppress their own kind, but the ability to live with dignity in the struggle against this Misty World."
"I dream that one day, whether commoners or nobles, everyone will enjoy the same freedom, equality, and justice beneath the sun."
"May the holy light spread forth and shine upon all mankind."
"..."
The weak voice came and went, but every word clearly entered Rein's ears.
Looking at the severely injured unconscious woman, listening to her dying murmurs, Rein's expression suddenly became very strange.
Having crossed over for a year, he had become accustomed to humanity's selfishness, ruthlessness, deceit, scheming, and malice.
Yet this was the first time he seemed to hear something different.
It was as though, in endless darkness, he had seen a solitary lighthouse. Its light was weak, yet it pierced through the dark.
Rein did not want to concern himself with it.
Experience had also taught him not to invite trouble.
But why was there a feeling in his heart that he could not shake?
Research in his previous life had already made this clear: people were at their least guarded in dreams, and most sleep-talking revealed their true nature without any false disguise.
Though he was reluctant to trust his own judgment, the Mind Core had already analyzed the result through microexpressions and speech patterns. Her rating had changed from "yellow" to "green"!
During his year in the Thieves' Guild, every person the Mind Core had rated around him had been a "bad person"—yellow, orange, or red!
And now, for the first time, there was actually a green rating?
Could there really be people in this world whom the system judged to be "kind"?
Thanks to '20200324184211394' for 500 coins, 'The World Owes Me a You' for 200 coins, 'Vanishing de Storms', 'Eternal rooter', and 'Lu Qi Ba'. Thanks to all five of you for your support and rewards.
Before you continue