Beast Gacha System: All Mine

Chapter 305: Angel’s Bunny and The Forgotten Man

This man... handing him a bowl so nonchalantly, as if he had not just risked the wrath of a prince!

Arzhen took the bowl. The liquid was dark, almost black, and it steamed in the cooling air. He drank. The potion burned down his throat, spread through his chest, settled into his bones.

But it was not the burning of fire. It felt like the burning of something being cleansed. Something being healed.

His mind, which had been fogged with the particular haze of days spent unconscious, cleared. His limbs, which had been heavy with exhaustion, felt lighter.

This... this medicine was good. He felt it immediately.

"You..." Arzhen’s eyes widened. "I have never drunk anything like this before."

This man was valuable.

A healer who could cure madness, who could bring a man back from the edge of delirium, who could make a prince forget, for a moment, that he had seen the face of a god and been sent home like a child.

Rohan was already turning away. "This will be the last dose you require. Please rest a bit more before you leave the temple." He gestured for Bimo to follow. "Come."

"Yes, Father!"

The boy scampered after him, and Arzhen was left alone in the corridor, the empty bowl in his hands, the taste of the medicine still on his tongue.

Leaving Arzhen alone, Roarke looked at the setting sun.

The light was gold and red and the particular orange of a sky that was ending, the clouds painted in colors that would fade to grey, then black, then the particular blue of a night that had not yet decided whether it would be cold.

He stood at the edge of the temple courtyard, his hands clasped behind his back, his ears tracking the sounds of the evening. Birds settling in the eaves, acolytes lighting the evening lamps, the distant murmur of prayers that had been said at this hour for centuries.

The clay pot was cool in his hands now, empty.

That woman’s medicine could actually cure madness too? No. He did not think so. He had watched Arzhen drink it, had watched the clarity return to his eyes, and had watched the trembling in his hands still. But the madness was still there.

He knew madness. He was madness, though his own was a different kind from Arzhen’s.

The medicine had cured the physical symptoms. The trembling, the fever, the particular wasting of a body that had been pushed past its limits.

But Arzhen Vasiliev’s madness still lived in his head. It was just that his body no longer went awry from his mind’s predicament.

Perhaps in a couple of days, with the right triggers, Arzhen would fall into delirium again. Unless he could keep himself stable, or pull himself together. Unless he found something, someone, to hold onto.

Ruby Vaiva, perhaps.

It was good, at least, that Arzhen had forgotten about him. Or that the boy had never registered Roarke Raul, his uncle’s former right-hand man.

Well, their meetings could be counted on the fingers of one hand, after all. And that was before Roarke had been banished from the north. Perhaps he had forgotten.

The prince had been a teenager then but even now, he still did not notice people he deemed unimportant.

He had not noticed the man who stood behind his uncle, who carried his uncle’s orders, who had once been the closest thing the Dawnoro heir had to a brother. Of course he would not notice him now.

"You did well, Father."

Bimo’s voice came from beside him. He was walking beside Roarke, his steps matching him, his face turned up to catch the last of the light.

"I guess you are talented as a spy too."

This boy...

Roarke still could not understand how this boy could be the highest-ranked spy of the Princess.

He was just a human. Small, young, unremarkable in the shape of a child who could disappear into a crowd and never be seen again.

His face was the face of a hundred temple acolytes, his voice the voice of a thousand boys who had been given to the gods by families who could not feed them.

No one would look at him twice. No one would remember his face. No one would ever guess that he was anything but what he seemed.

Angel’s Bunny. That was his codename.

Roarke was released from Arkai’s underground cell days ago. He had been expecting to die under Arkai’s wrath. But then, a vial was pressed into his hands.

It was the potion that woman produced. He was surprised it could heal wounds that should not heal and cured sickness that should not be cured. That potion too had gave a man like him the credibility to walk into the temple and call himself a healer.

That woman. He did not know her name or where she came from, or how she was connected with the Princess, and why she had chosen him for this mission despite everything.

He only knew that she had given him a channel to enter the temple, a cover that would not be questioned, a purpose that would keep him alive. And her instructions had been simple. Keep an eye on the Saintess. Report what you see. Do not let anyone know who you are.

Again, he was surprised. She did not use Dawnoro’s power. She used the Princess’ channel, the one person in the empire who could move without being watched, who could place a man in the temple without anyone asking why despite she himself rotting in the Empire’s dungeon.

Who was she?

Roarke did not know. But he knew that she was trusted by Arkai. He knew that Rinne looked at her with the light of a child who had found someone to love.

He knew that she had chosen to free him, to use him, to give him a chance to be something other than the man who had fallen so far that he no longer expected to see the ground.

Perhaps she could be trusted. Roarke had learned not to trust easily. But he would watch and wait. He would see.

For now, he needed to focus on his mission.

He would walk through the corridors of the temple, and tend to the sick. Along with Bimo, he’d listen to the whispers that passed between acolytes and priests. He’d watch the Saintess who was bound to another man and the prince who could not let her go.

And he needed to do it with this little spy beside him, this boy who could act so naturally that no one would ever think he was anything important.

"You did well too, Bimo." Roarke’s voice was low, meant only for the child beside him. "The prince did not notice you. He will not remember your face."

Bimo smiled. After all, being forgettable was his greatest gift. "That is the point, Father."

Roarke looked ahead. The sun had completely set.

He would see Rinne again. He had to believe that. He had to believe that the woman who had freed him and given him a chance and a purpose was worth trusting.