Voyage Of The Villainess

"Yes," the priestess answered as well. "We will prevent anything that would make your memory disappear. However, the medicine he fed you was quite strong, you will lose your memory for an entire day before we manage to bring it back." She added.

"Losing my memory for a day," Malaya narrowed her gaze. "A whole day without my memories with that Siren, that doesn\'t sound good."

"Don\'t worry about that." A graceful smile escaped from the priestess\' lips. "Though he was a bit late, someone has already saved you from that Siren already."

"Someone?" Malaya asked.

"You will know when you wake up." The priestess said, her smile remaining on her face. 

***

Although a lot of things had happened. The next day finally came. Dorris hummed as she helped Hyun Jae cook for their breakfast.

"Dorris, this will soon be ready. Can you wake up, Malaya already?" Hyun Jae asked.

"Alright!" Dorris agreed as she dashed outside the kitchen. She ran towards the second floor and headed straight to Malaya\'s room. It had been a long time now since she was able to wake up Malaya on her own. And Dorris couldn\'t help but smile from ear to ear as she reminisced about those times.

She knocked three times on the door, "Lady Malaya, it\'s me Dorris."

However, there was a moment of silence. "Lady Malaya, Please excuse me, I\'m going to enter the room now."

Dorris opened the door and went joyfully to the bed. However, when she touched the blanket, she found it extremely soft inside. She immediately yanked it away only to find out that it was a bunch of pillows. Malaya was not in her bed at all.

This made Dorris extremely horrified, especially remembering that Malaya had lost her memories. She immediately ran out of the room to tell the others.

"Lady Malaya! She is missing!" She screamed completely horrified.

"What did you say?!" Hyun Jae, who was carrying the plates, dropped them off. She was also completely horrified as well.

Iris who just woke as well yawned looking at them. \'It\'s either she remembers everything and tries to run away from someone.\' She gave a sideways glance to Kayden who just arrived outside carrying some logs. Yesterday, Iris completely saw the back hug scene between them. \'Or something might have happened to her, like someone abducted her.\'

"Iris," Kayden\'s cold voice resounded.

Iris sighed. Then a crimson color glowed in her hands. Two moths started to emerge outside of her hand.

"I will also look for her," Iris said as the first moth flew in front of her.

Then the second moth flew towards Kayden, then it flew outside. Without saying anything, Kayden followed after it.

\'You always cause a lot of trouble for us, Captain.\' Iris said as she followed her moth. When she saw Dorris and Hyun Jae were going to follow after her, she stopped them.

"Please stay here," Iris said. "In case Malaya comes back, there must be someone left here to check on her."

Hyun Jae and Dorris with gloomy expressions agreed. And Iris went on her search as well.

***

Meanwhile, the person who was claimed missing sneezed. 

\'Was someone talking about me? Maybe Dorris and the others finally find out that I\'m not in my room.\' Malaya thought as she continued to walk in the endless desert. When she woke up, she finally remembered everything. It was as the priestess had told her, she would only lose her memory for a day.

But in that whole day where her memory was completely lost, a lot of things had happened. And she remembered it all. Especially all about the embarrassing thing with Kayden.

{"You said to me before that communication is very important. Tell me, Malaya, if I ask you just to stay by my side, will you stay?"

"When," Malaya was stuttering, however, she persevered to say her words. "When my memories return, I\'ll give you my answer."}

So while there was no one who noticed that she woke up, she immediately came up with two options. First, she wanted to pretend that she still had no memories. But she immediately put that thought back in her mind. There was no way she could act like that if she met Kayden. Her maiden heart would not let her do it. Just thinking about those things she spent with Kayden for that whole day, her heart was racing so crazy.

So she went for the second option. A foolish and cowardly option. She chose to run away from him so that she would be able to settle her rampaging feelings and her mind. She grabbed her satchel, her weapon, and used a teleportation talisman to teleport as far as possible from everyone so far. No, to teleport away from Kayden.

\'Ah!\' Malaya pulled some of her hair. "Why did I say those stupid things! If I haven\'t lost my memories none of this would happen! That Arnes! He would surely pay for this!" She kicked some rock to let out some of her frustrations.

\'Hah. I\'m going crazy just thinking all of this! I don\'t know that I\'m such a huge coward at such things.\' Malaya decided to continue ahead. Though she couldn\'t see completely anything other than cactuses, sands, and rock formations, she couldn\'t care less right now. She continued to walk and walk, not caring where she was now.

She stopped walking when she reached a certain huge curving rock that gave a nice shade from the scorching heat of the sun now. She drank a replenishing potion to ward off her thirst.

\'Knowing them, Iris must have used her moths to look for me. What a hateful skill she has. She should have used that when all of us got separated when we arrived here. Perhaps even he is already looking for me. This break is enough now. I should not stay in one place longer.\'

Malaya continued on her way, she used talismans from time to time to speed up her travel to places that had no shades. Two more hours had passed now, and she continued on her journey. 

\'How long until I reached some civilization? Should I just teleport to the capital? But the last time, it was still quite chaotic there. And there are chances that they might find me easily there, especially him.\' Malaya was already getting tired from the seemingly endless desert she could see. \'Now that I remember, Dorris is with them there now. Then does it mean, everyone in the group is united now? Is Lila with them as well.\'

Malaya tore another talisman to skip her walking directly to the places with no shades. When she reached the umpteenth number of shades and decided to rest for a while drinking some of her replenishing potions. \'Should I come back now? I\'m really such a child. It\'s not like Kayden did something terrible to me. He saves me multiple times already and he is a very reliable person. Why am I even running? Am I really such a coward for these kinds of things.\' She sighed contemplating whether to return or not.

Both in her past life and this life, Malaya had no experience when it came to romantic relationships. That was why she was partly scared and confused about her feelings. \'I know I can\'t run like this forever. And there are a lot of matters that I need to do.\' She sighed once again.

\'What should I do?\' Amidst her contemplation, the ground started to shake terribly.

\'An earthquake?!\' She held firmly on the rock she was resting in. After a few more minutes, the trembling finally came to a halt

\'What was that?\' Malaya tore a talisman, to teleport on the highest part of the rock formation she was using as shade earlier. She looked for anything suspicious that might have caused an earthquake. For her first observation, there was nothing out of the ordinary. However, a second tremor occurred. She fell on her knees and held on to the rock so that she would not fall over.

As she glanced ahead, her eyes widened. Large scorpions were spiraling in and out of the sounds. \'What?\' But as she narrowed her eyes, she saw something more.  It must be due to the mountain of sounds blocking the view, but as those large scorpions were crawling at an incredible speed forward to her direction, there was one creature that looked like a camel. And they were desperately running from the scorpions.

\'The first form of life.\' Malaya couldn\'t help but sigh in relief. \'Maybe I should give them a hand and they could lead to some good place where I can get good food and drink as well. Having replenishing potions is not really not satisfying since they have a bland taste.\'

\'I have storage items, but why do I not store some decent food and my treasures.\' Malaya glanced at the pearl that was attached now to the silver bracelet she was wearing.. \'Well enough of that, and let\'s just give this first glimpse of civilization a hand.\'