A few metres ahead, laid a young lady with ink black hair and a smooth fair skin. She looked lifeless as there was no sign of movement from her.

With his previous experience with Cecilia, Sato hesitated on helping her. Even though the lady looked quite different from Cecilia from far out. Sato didn’t want a repeat of what had happened the last time where he had ended up saving someone who wanted him dead.

Apart from that, he was finding it strange that he happened to encounter 2 young ladies within Maldora Canyon in the same day. Sato was even beginning to suspect whether the lady in front of him was of the same origin as Cecilia. If she was, then rescuing her would be dangerous. 

‘Not like i can leave her be either.’ Sato sighed.

Truthfully, he was quite perplexed as to why there were so many characters found within Maldora Canyon today. First was the wreckage sitw where Sato found Cecilia as well as the corpses of the guards of the Arnhaunt family. Now was the young lady with black hair before him.

Ignoring her might seem like the safest course of action but it didn’t rhyme well with Sato’s personality. However, their didn’t mean that he was a good Samaritan. Instead, Sato felt that if the person was worth saving then he might as well save them. As for how he would determine someone that was worth saving, the solution was very simple; so simple that Sato was disappointed at himself for not doing so the first time with Cecilia.

Walking towards the ‘corpse’, Sato finally got a clearer look at the lady. She was a pristine white beauty with small pink lips that were stained red by the blood bleeding from them. Her black hair, which went on tandem with her black adventurer’s gown, was scattered on the floor with part of it covering her face. Despite being in a lifeless state, she still exuded a kind of beauty that surpassed peers her age. 

When compared to Cecilia, the young lady wasn’t lacking in any manner, or area, and even surpassed Cecilia in that regard.

It was as Sato approached her that he realised there w as a faint breathing motion as her chest slightly heaved up and down. It was almost unnoticeable but because he was alert, Sato had managed to spot it.

‘Is she playing dead?’ was the first thought that passed through his mind but Sato eventually scrapped it. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe she could do that but her situation didn’t call for it. Even though there was no ghastly physical injury obvious at first sight, Sato knew that the young lady was not far from death. Her clothing was damaged in some area and if one didn’t pay attention, they would fail to spot a certain area that was bandaged underneath. If not for the damage in her leather armour, Sato wouldn’t have noticed it.

The bandage was already stained red meaning that the wound had opened up some time ago and she had been bleeding. Apart from that, the exposed flesh in that area has a purple hue; a sign that the injury was inflicted with a poisoned weapon. A heavy injury alone was already bad much less a poisoned one. These two alone were enough to send her to edge of the world of the living but Sato knew they weren’t all.

The nail in the coffin was the blood on her lips. 

While one would at first presume that the blood was as a result of an injury on her lips, careful scrutiny would show that it wasn’t so. On the contrary, the blood had escaped her mouth and had stained her lips. For one to spit out blood from the mouth simply implied one thing, an internal injury and a heavy one to boot.

3 serious wounds with each one being worse than the other was inflicted on the poor girl. Any one of them alone was enough to put one into a quandary much less all 3. Even Sato was shocked as how she had managed to stay alive for this long.

While he knew nothing about her internal injuries, Sato was very sure that the injury in the lady’s abdomen had been inflicted more than an hour or two ago. If it were simply a physical wound, bandaging it wouldn’t be an issue, but it was poisoned. Most poisons work within an hour or so but yet the girl still held fast. The bandaged injury opening up again didn’t help things.

Sato didn’t rush to help her despite her state. Seeing as she was still breathing, he felt that she had 30 minutes or so time left before she finally departed this world. This was more than enough time for him to make his move.

Coming closer, Sato whipped out a dagger from his storage ring and made a light cut on the young lady’s skin.

‘[Inspect]’

Sato called out in his head.

Immediately after, he was greeted by the information he desired. Perusing through the notification, Sato managed to confirm the race of the girl as well as her name. He was surprised to see that her level was in question marks, meaning it was too high for him to see through it.

Following that, Sato moved aside the strands of hair that covered the young lady’s face as he tried to get a good look at her.

A stunning face greeted him and while she wasn’t prettier than Cecilia, she was roughly on par with her. If Cecilia was like a blonde beauty capable of seizing the hearts of men at first sight, the black-haired girl was like a kingdom-toppling beauty. There was no doubt that she would have the attention of many focused on her once she appears in public.

‘As I had thought.’ Sato sighed with relief.

After he had escaped from Cecilia, Sato had received a mail containing a somewhat detailed description of the Arnhaunt family. Within it contained the pictures and info of some of the publicly recognised members of the family. Among them was the face before him, Layla Arnhaunt.

Sato had already seen the name after he had used [Inspect] on her but he decided to check her face to confirm her identity no matter how silly it sounded.

‘At least she’s not a fake.’

This fact made it easier for Sato to breathe out with relief but at the same time, it forced him to confront a problem he would have wished to avoid, saving the young lady.

Compared to the injuries Cecilia had, the one the black-haired lady had was worse and more serious. If Sato delayed in finding a solution or at least, lessen the severity of her injuries, she would die. Not that he was a good samaritan but Sato felt that there was a hidden plot amidst all of this and the key to figuring that out lied with his ‘patient’.. It was even possible for this plot to be related to a hidden quest or even the main storyline of the Fallen Heart kingdom.