An unheard warning.

Once again, the cabin. The same dream. The same damn wooden cabin in the forest.
I could even predict what was going to happen next. It was always the same.

The guy wearing the red mask in front of an open door.

Guy wearing a red mask- save static noise everyone dies static noise

This time, the dream was shorter than usual. And I wasn't getting any closer to understanding what it meant.
I woke up in our room in the Golden Honeypot Inn.
The girls were still sleeping. It made sense, considering they had worked really hard until late last night, especially Faylinn.

But... we had to get ready to travel to the town of Rida.

Leonel: "Girls! Wake up! We need to get ready to leave!"

I was being loud on purpose.
I wanted both of them to wake up at the same time; otherwise, there was a chance that whoever woke up first would play a prank on the other one.

Astra: "Is it morning already?" Astra sounded really tired.

Faylinn: "Ehhhh, are we waking up already?" Faylinn's voice resembled that of a zombie from a B-grade movie...

Leonel: "Yes, it's morning. And we are supposed to go to the town of Rida. But this time, we are taking a land dragon."

Faylinn: "We're riding one of those giant creatures again? I wonder if I can actually sleep while riding it..."

Leonel: "I'll go to the western gate to rent a land dragon while you girls get ready. I'll be waiting for you."

Faylinn: "Fiiiiine." Faylinn was clearly still half-asleep.

Astra: "We won't take long, I promise."

I went out, heading directly to the little place near the western gate where they keep a few land dragons for those who want to rent one.
There were two land dragons available.
But the land dragons were not the only thing I saw.
One of my classmates, Mateo, was there, looking down at the ground.
I certainly didn't expect to see him in town. But more importantly, it was weird seeing him alone when he was always around Alejandro.
Something must have happened.

Leonel: "Mateo! Over here! What are you doing here alone? Where is Alejandro?"

Mateo: "He stayed behind. He is protecting the girls, so I came here on my own."

Leonel: "Wait, what happened? I thought Agustin was protecting them. Why did you come here?"

Mateo: "I came here to stop you..." Mateo said with the most depressing voice I'd ever heard.

He then quickly lifted his right fist toward the sky and proceeded to swing his arm downwards, hitting my left shoulder with his fist.
His fist hit my shoulder with such force that it instantly broke my shoulder bones. It felt as if I had been hit by a massive iron hammer.
I screamed in pain while trying to step away from him.
This much strength was not normal. He must have been using magic. Then I remembered... "Burden," that was the name of his magic skill.
It allowed him to "affect weight." Those were his words back when he obtained the skill.
He must have increased the weight of his arm and fist when swinging down to hit harder. No wonder he broke my shoulder in one hit.
I had to stop him. I needed to find out what happened.

Leonel: "Mateo! Stop! What's going on!?" I yelled at him.

Mateo: "Don't play dumb. We know what you did..."

Mateo kept lifting his fist and swinging it down with full force while I had to constantly dodge his attacks.
I noticed that he was constantly switching fists after attacking. He never performed two consecutive attacks with the same fist.

Leonel: "Then tell me what exactly I did!? Why are you attacking me!?"

He just ignored my questions and kept trying to hit me.
Luckily for me, he wasn't moving very fast, so it was easy to dodge his attacks.
If his first attack hadn't caught me by surprise, my shoulder wouldn't be in pain now.
But there was going to be a problem if this fight kept going...
Mateo was increasing the weight of his arm when swinging it down to deal more damage, but this constant movement while enduring increased weight was probably going to break his joints at some point.
I needed to end this fight before he could hurt himself.

I couldn't move my left arm, so I used fire-strengthening magic on my right arm, not to punch him, but to grab him and take him down.
It wasn't hard.
I managed to grab his left arm, but then he probably used his weight magic on his left leg because he stomped on my right foot with his ankle with insane force, breaking some of my bones right away.
But it wasn't just my right foot that was damaged in the process.
I could hear his own ankle shattering at the moment of impact.

I heard him screaming in pain, but that didn't stop him.
Before I could move away, he lifted his left fist and tried to hit my right shoulder.
I barely dodged it by a few centimeters, but I still heard some bones cracking.
It was his left wrist.
As expected, the increased weight ended up damaging his own joints.
He probably went too far with his magic.

I jumped away with the one leg that was still in perfect shape.
Mateo clearly didn't know about strengthening magic, and now, with one of his ankles broken, he had no way of chasing me.
I could easily keep a safe distance.

Leonel: "Mateo! It's over! You can barely walk now! Just answer my question: what the hell happened!?"

He didn't answer. He was clearly in pain with all those broken bones, but he could have answered my questions if he had wanted to.

Leonel: "If you're not answering, then I'm leaving you here! I will get my answers from our other classmates!"

I knew he could easily find a healer in town, but it was going to take some time—enough time for me to leave.
I decided to go back to the inn to hopefully get healed by Astra, then get a land dragon from the gate on the other side of town.
That's when the gate guards nearby noticed that Mateo was crying in pain.
They knew something must have happened. I had to leave quickly.
Once again, I used fire magic strengthening on my left leg and left the place by doing short leaps since my right foot was not in good shape.

I eventually ran into the girls on my way to the inn.
I had no time to explain; we had to leave.

Leonel: "Girls! We are heading to the eastern gate!"

Astra: "Wait! What happened!? Why is your right foot broken!?"

Faylinn: "Were you attacked!? Is the bald bastard here!?"

Leonel: "That's not it! Let's run for now!"

The girls didn't understand anything, but they knew my right foot was broken, and I was relying on my left leg and my fire-strengthening magic to move around.
Astra suddenly grabbed me and carried me in her arms as if I was just a weakling who had no chance of surviving alone in this world.
I felt like a seriously pathetic weakling.

Astra: "You better explain what's going on, Leo."

Faylinn: "Yeah! I don't even see any enemies behind us. Why are we running!? And why are you wounded!?"

Leonel: "I'll explain on the way to Rida. Now let's get on a land dragon and leave this town quickly."

We reached the eastern gate, and Faylinn quickly threw a bunch of gold coins at the owner of the land dragons.

Faylinn: "We're renting one of these! It's an emergency!" Faylinn told the owner.

We got on the land dragon, but this time, Faylinn was in charge. I was sitting right behind her, and Astra was behind me, casting her regeneration spell.

We circled the town and headed west, directly to the town of Rida, while I tried to explain what had happened with Mateo at the western gate.
I had the feeling that something bigger was happening behind the scenes, and maybe, just maybe, the bald bastard was involved.