The Alchemists

He moved very fast across carriage after carriage. His mind immediately became frantic. He was only gone for ten minutes, in the middle of a moving train... apparently nowhere was safe. He regretted not accepting Caspar's offer to provide bodyguards for his daughter.

Hmm... however, the kidnapper would not be able to escape the moving train. Lauriel was sure that he could easily catch him. No one could escape from him after touching Aleksis!

After passing three carriages, suddenly his eagle eyes saw the figure of the young man he was looking for. The carriage was almost empty and with a very delicate movement Lauriel suddenly reached the young man's back and yanked his shirt hard.

"Hey, you!"

The man almost fell over because of Lauriel's force and his shirt was torn. His face looked shocked and angry at the same time, and he quickly hit Lauriel who managed to dodge it in a split second. Out of curiosity, the young man continued to attack Lauriel and a moment later the two of them engaged in close range altercation.

Lauriel, who had a slightly larger built, exceptional fighting skills, and experience for hundreds of years, managed to hit the kidnapper several times and carefully avoided his attacks.

Deep in his heart he felt a little impressed, because it was very rare for anyone to hold themselves in close range fights with Lauriel for more than two minutes.

He almost pulled out the ceramic knife he kept under his shirt when suddenly Aleksis' cry stopped both men on their tracks.

"Uncle Roryyyy...!!!"

Lauriel gasped and immediately turned toward the voice. He saw Aleksis scream and her little hands held her cute cheeks. She looked shocked... just like Macaulay Culkin in his famous Home Alone movie.

"Gosh...! Aleksis...! I'm so worried about you...!!" He immediately jumped toward her and hugged Aleksis who was standing near in the corner. "Are you okay?"

"Where did you go? I woke up and I didn't see you... I was scared to be on my own. Luckily, that kind uncle took me to look for you, Uncle..." said Aleksis, sobbing.

She looked scared because she was separated from Lauriel and became even more frightened when she saw Lauriel fighting with the 'uncle' who saved her. The initial noise frightened her that she hid behind a seat and only dared to look after a few moments passed. She was shocked to see her Uncle Rory and that kind uncle fighting and she immediately screamed.

Lauriel was stunned to hear Aleksis' words. He only realized what had happened and immediately looked at the young man he had hit several times.

The man was rubbing his bleeding lips and snorting at him.

"You're like a barbarian with no manners," he chided, "I didn't kidnap the child. I felt pity to see her cry because you were not there, so I took her to look for you..."

Lauriel's heart sank. It turned out that he was just as bad as the child's biological father in terms of being too protective, he thought. He should have asked - not randomly hit now and question later...

"I'm sorry, I couldn't think clearly earlier. I will compensate you for all your losses. How much compensation do you want?" Lauriel asked quickly. He was not a man with small talk.

The young man smiled sarcastically, "Huh... do you think money can solve everything? All right. My compensation is one million dollars."

Without blinking Lauriel handed over his cellphone, "Write down your account details, I'll transfer it now."

The young man gasped, he did not expect Lauriel would take his challenge so casually.

"Hmm... I won't give you my account details. I will make you owe me forever." Finally, he answered lazily and waved his hand at Lauriel's cellphone. He wiped the blood off the corner of his lips and with a short sigh he took off his torn shirt. "Damn... I really like this shirt."

He took off his shirt and rolled it up and placed it on the seat. Lauriel was somewhat surprised to see that there were many scars on the young man's body and on his right chest was a scary-looking dragon tattoo.

"Hey, that's Prince Siegfried!" Aleksis exclaimed suddenly, pointing to the dragon tattoo on the young man's chest.

The man who heard Aleksis call him 'Prince Siegfried' could not help laughing, "Haha... Prince Siegfried. You are so funny, Little girl..."

He took a new shirt from his backpack and quickly put it on and tidied his belongings back in the bag. He seemed to think for a moment, then went to Aleksis and Lauriel.

"I now understand that you didn't have bad intentions. You just want to protect the child and you hit me because you thought I kidnapped her..." he said in a stern voice. "I will not prolong this problem and consider this just a misunderstanding between us."

Lauriel nodded. He usually hated humans, but this young man didn't seem too bad. In fact, inwardly Lauriel felt a sense of tenderness toward the strange young man in front of him. He looked like someone who was used to a hard life.

"Uhm... thank you for taking care of my goddaughter. Whenever you need help, whatever it is, you can contact me." Lauriel took out a paper and pen from his pocket, then wrote his cellphone number there. He then handed the paper along with a small bottle from his bag. "That's my personal cellphone number. I owe you one. Even if it's a million dollars, I'll pay it."

The young man gave a short snort, but no longer looked as sarcastic as before, "The rich man and his money. Hmm... okay. I keep your number. What is this bottle for?"

"There are a lot of scars on your body... so I suspect your life is pretty hard. Next time you get hurt, rub some of the medicinal oil from the bottle onto your wound to prevent infection. It will also heal the wound faster," Lauriel said nonchalantly. He then carried Aleksis. "Come on, Aleksis... let's go back to our carriage. You have to sleep so we don't get tired when we get to Chiang Mai. Tomorrow Uncle will rent a car. We don't need to take public transportation anymore..."

Aleksis turned towards the young man and waved warmly, "See you later, Prince Siegfried..."

'Prince Siegfried' smiled sweetly and waved back. "See you later, Little Princess."

Lauriel thought to ask for the name of the young man, but then he canceled his intention. After all, he had given him his cellphone number. Whenever the young man wanted to contact him to collect his debt or compensation, whatever it was, he would pay it. Aleksis was worth far more than all his wealth combined.

***