Chapter 14: Continue the Journey
x x x
SHIIIT, I can't BELIEVE I forgot Ragou would be here too! And I have to stand here and listen to him slime his way out of this! I kept my head bowed so that I stared at the floor, hands trembling at my sides, and tried very hard not to listen. When Rita yelled angrily about the people she'd seen that had been eaten by monsters, I wanted to scream even louder that I'd almost been eaten! But Ragou had never directly ordered me thrown down there, so he'd worm out of it anyway.
"It's settled then. I bid you all good day."
Keep your eyes DOWN, Letha. Look up and you'll do something you MAY regret. Though that was debatable, no matter what the consequences turned out to be for punching Ragou's monocle into his face.
"Who does that guy think he is?" Rita's losing it. "And who the hell is he?" That's the third time she's had to ask that. Somebody please tell her so I don't have to keep pretending I don't know.
"Settle down," Yuri ordered in...well, what I would call an authoritative tone befitting an officer of the knights. Huh.
Flynn started to introduce Ioder, "This is..." and indecisively trailed off. Fortunately for him, the nobles present took the situation into their own hands.
"This is His Royal Highness Ioder, candidate for the imperial throne."
Cue Karol's disbelieving laugh, "Yeah right, Estelle, good one..." A moment of awkward silence and some more disbelieving laughter... "...What?" There's a foot in your mouth Karol. You put it there.
"I am only one of the candidates."
Then they launched into the whole drama of Yuri figuring out that something fishy was up with the council, imperial heir candidates, Flynn's orders, and Estelle's little quest to find Flynn. He and Flynn had their testy little back and forth "what exactly have you been doing?" "what have you accomplished that's any better?" spat.
I continued to stare blankly at the floor, clenching and relaxing my hands. I was afraid that if I relaxed, I'd run out that door and chase Ragou down again. Paaatience, my dear, he'll get his...one way or another.
"How is anything different than it was before you joined the Knights?" Flynn sounds patient and reasonable, but he's probably just as pissed off inside as the rest of us. How could he not be, the only other person here who can rival his need for justice is Yuri and he's furious!
There was a tense moment of silence, then Yuri brushed past Rita and me, radiating anger as he slammed the door. The sound seemed to break the others from the stupefied bystander spell. Karol looked around uncertainly before trying to follow Yuri out the door, "W-wait, I'm coming too..."
I dropped a hand on his shoulder, "Give him a moment alone first, Ace, then you can follow."
Flynn raised a hand to his face in a gesture somewhere between a facepalm and someone trying to relieve a headache. "I've done it again..." he sighed, "I only want for him to move on with his life. To quit sitting around."
"Flynn, I..."
At Estelle's voice Flynn became the responsible knight figure again. "...My apologies for such an embarrassing scene." You know, I'd like to see Flynn being himself more often. It's kind of annoying seeing someone even talk a certain way to fit a persona that's expected of them.
Ioder came out from his place behind the table to ask his...cousin? How are he and Estelle related to each other exactly? "What do you intend to do next?" Dude, am I the only who thinks he and Flynn kinda look alike?
Brief part here about Estelle's wanting to keep running around outside the capitol to see how the real world worked. ...Yeah, my words, not hers.
Flynn clearly wanted to ship her off back home where she'd be "safe" (not bloody likely, considering what goes down later) but he was also deeply moved, like a father proud of his daughter starting to make her own way in the world. ...I'll stop making weird connections with them now...
"Lady Estellise... Understood." Flynn turned to where Karol, Rita, and I were waiting on stand by. "Miss Vitae," wait, what, WHAT? "Tell Yuri to take good care of Lady Estellise."
"Uh, yeah, sure," I managed despite feeling like a brick had been chucked at the back of my head. Doesn't he ask Karol to do that? Is it because he talked with me before, but not with the others?
"Is it really all right?" Estelle looked at Flynn like a little girl who'd just asked her father if she could really ride the merry-go-round by herself, cut that out, me.
"I would rather do the job myself, but I'm afraid my current duties won't allow it." Pretty sure he meant the job of escorting Estelle and not the job of telling Yuri to play babysitter. "And as long as you're with him, I can be certain you'll be safe."
"You believe in him, don't you." If Sodia were here she'd throw such a hissy-fit.
The knight glanced over at me briefly as he answered, "I do." He must have remembered me acting all I-know-you-better-than-you-do and telling him that what he really wanted to do was let Yuri go free.
"If you guys are finished, can we get going? We'll lose him if we don't hurry." At Rita's words I nodded and followed her out the door to find our swordsman again.
We didn't have to go far, just down the street from the inn we saw him talking to an older man in a baggy purple coat.
"Argh. I'll get you, old man!" Rita was gone in a flash of red, chasing after the man in purple who kicked his heels together, waved, and took off. Karol and Estelle tried to chase him too, but were left in the dust.
Oh...OH! Raven! Ah, yeah, I know what happens next! We go to that city that supposedly was destroyed by an earthquake! ...And fight an Entelexeia, shit.
"Who was that?" I asked when I caught up to them (I walked, so I was the only one not out of breath). Inwardly I was doing a song and dance Raven, Raven, Raven! Best old perv ever!
"That old man tricked us to use as a distraction back at Ragou's mansion!" Rita snarled and kicked at a loose piece from one of the stones the street was paved with.
"You know, if he hadn't taken the only lift that went up, we might not have made it to the basement in time to save Letha and Pauly." Estelle's musing made me feel very cold.
"...Shit, that man is now my favorite person in the whole world." I said with a shudder. I can almost feel those fangs on my arms again, and about to bite my neck...
"Maybe he really is misunderstood," said Karol, mercifully breaking me away from that morbid train of thought.
"No way he is! It's not like he knew she was down there!"
"We're not going to get anywhere like this, so let's go follow that lead on the Blood Alliance." Right, Yuri had probably just finished telling them before I got here, a rough looking guild was going north-west. He left out that it was Raven's intel though.
"To the northwest of here..." our living travel brochure mused, "the only city I can think of in that direction would be the one that was destroyed in an earthquake."
"What could they want to do in a place like that?" Estelle wondered.
"Hmm, good question." Topic had been successfully directed away from Raven.
"And yet you still want to go?" Rita questioned Yuri's vague response.
"I'm just saying we should go and check it out."
"Maybe they're hoping to find some blastia left behind there?" I suggested, though I knew full well that the guild we'd run into was the Hunting Blades, Karol's former guild.
"Any intact blastia would have been recovered after the danger was over, but I suppose that it's possible for some to have been overlooked," the mage begrudged my point.
"Oh, Letha, weren't you going to look around the city for someone who could open your aunt's note case?"
I shrugged, "If we wait, we might lose the trail. The notes won't suddenly disappear if I don't read them now. But the sooner you can get the aque blastia back for the Lower Quarter, the better."
Yuri thanked me for understanding, and we left Torim Harbor as soon as we'd bought more supplies. Again, Estelle bought me another bag (smaller than the one I'd been using) and a few gels. I feel like such a leech, I need to find a way to pay her back. But isn't this interesting, at what point did it just become a given that I would keep traveling with them?
I smiled to myself. Maybe I'm just on probation until they're sure I can go off on my own without getting myself half killed.
x x x
Destroyed by an Earthquake
Yuri: Hey Karol, do you know anything else about that city you said was destroyed by an earthquake?
Karol: Just rumors. Supposedly, it was some guild's headquarters about ten years ago.
Estelle: Which guild was that?
Karol: Sorry, I can't help you there.
Estelle: Letha? Did your uncle ever mention it?
Letha: Huh? Uh no, his guild disbanded five years before that, so he probably didn't know anything about it.
Rita: I've never heard of an earthquake that destroyed an entire city.
Karol: Well, Aspio is across the ocean... Maybe the information just never made it that far?
Rita: Hmm, I wonder...
x x x
My good mood from feeling like one of the group was stomped and spat on when bandits attacked.
Someone is really fucking with me! I'm not ready for this! I hadn't even finished coming to terms with killing the Blood Alliance man!
"Ugh!" I rushed a bandit, and tried to smash the hilts of both daggers into his face. Maybe I can surprise him and knock him out. Unfortunately he was quicker than me and I got a nasty cut from his sword on my arm. Shit! That almost feels like it cut to the bone!
I didn't look at my injury to see if it had, just jumped back a bit and held it out for Estelle to heal. Once she'd stopped the bleeding and closed the wound I ran back in again. My bandit was already fighting Karol by now, so I went for one of the female spell casters.
Shit, don't tell me these bandits are like family units? Kill one and the rest will hunger for your guts forever! I was not happy at all. I let my brain shut down and my body work on autopilot. Later I'd probably regret it, but whatever.
Not thinking can actually help you react better, so in a way I'd never fought as well as I did then. But I was also far more reckless, and had collected several cuts and bruises by the time we were done.
"You should be more careful! These could have been a lot worse than they are!" Estelle was scolding me as she fixed up a cut in my right shoulder. I was using my left hand to hold my hair and braid up and out of her way. "There, all done."
"Thanks Estelle." Instead of standing up right away, she sat quietly by my side. "Estelle?"
"Letha...was something wrong during the fight? You were...different."
"Oh, so you noticed..." I sighed, "I'm not so comfortable about killing. But I'll deal with it, so don't worry. I got over having to kill monsters, so this will just take a bit more time."
"What do you mean? That sounded like you feel bad about killing monsters." I blinked and looked over my shoulder at Karol.
"Umm, yeah. I feel bad about killing anything." The looks I received all asked for further explanation. "Well, anything alive has a right to live. And anything alive has a right to fight and protect itself." I didn't look up at any of them as I wiped the blood from daggers.
"Monsters, however, are easier to kill. Because to them that's just a natural part of survival. But people...people are never ready to die. Even if they say death doesn't scare them, they still don't really want to die. And when they die, other people suffer and hold grudges. Devote themselves to pointless things like revenge, and just make even more people miserable." I looked up, and everyone was staring at me. "Sorry?"
"...Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it." I think Yuri just got a bit of insight into why I was freaking out back on the ship.
"Aah, kinda..."
Happily, we didn't run into any more groups of bandits. Instead we fought a lot of these giant crab things and weird feathered lizards (...maybe closer to armored geckos with feathers?), and I concentrated on practicing strike artes to get through their tough exoskeletal shells.
I got pretty good at that weird move I did when fighting the Giant Doggie on Ehmead Hill. I named it Afterimage since the energy didn't actually get projected forward like with Yuri's Azure Edge or Estelle's Star Stroke. Estelle even showed me how to use Star Stroke. It wasn't all that different, just cut upwards with the sword instead of down, and channel the energy, umm, the aer further ahead.
But Afterimage and Star Stroke only worked when I used the dao. And I couldn't really pull off Repede's artes so I had to experiment with my daggers on my own. So far I only had the technique I used to climb the wall around Ragou's mansion, which I'd uncreatively named Pierce. Worked wonderfully on the crabs.
x x x
It was a day after we'd left Torim Harbor, and I'd been having attacks (the ones where I had trouble breathing) far more frequently. None were particularly bad, it was actual more like a constant dull ache in my chest that occasionally spiked a bit. To cover up for myself, I at times found myself acting even more...random.
"Huuug." I flopped over Karol's shoulders from behind and gave him a quick squeeze before darting off again.
He freaked a bit. "Wh-what was that about?"
"Huuug!" Gave Estelle a quick hug.
"Huh?"
"Flying Huuug!" I leaped up and wrapped my arms around Yuri's neck, hanging off of his back and making him stagger a bit. "Huh, funny, hugging you feels a lot like hugging Uncle Ludwig. But not quite as bulky in the shoulders." Actually, it was more like how I imagined it would feel if I dared to hug my second oldest brother like that.
"What are you doing?"
"Sometimes I really need to hug other people," I dropped down again. "If you don't like it, let me know and I won't jump you again." Not a lie really. But the momentary difficulty breathing had made me weak kneed for a moment, and I'd leaned on Karol for support. The impromptu hug fest was to cover that. I spun around and held my arms out in Rita's direction. "Hug?" No jumping her, she might roast me.
She looked outright scandalized. "What? No way!" I heaved a dramatic sigh as I dropped my arms and turned away.
"Your loss. Hugs are good for the soul."
"If you're done, can we go? How much farther, Captain Karol?"
"I think we're almost there."
"Oh! I can see it!"
x x x
It started raining not long before we reached the first building. I threw the hood of my green coat over my hair, and then stuck my hands under my arms to help keep my fingers warm.
"Man, this place is a total wreck," Yuri observed.
"They call places like this 'ruins' for a reason you know."
"Do you seriously think anybody would come to a place like this?" Rita looked back at Yuri, her doubtful expression speaking volumes for her opinion on his information. His next words didn't help.
"I wonder if we've been fed some false information again."
"Again...?" Karol might have clued in to the unspoken reference to the information being Raven's... Then again, probably not.
"That's far enough! This area is under the jurisdiction of the Hunting Blades." You know? I just realized I really don't like the first impression Nan gives. Bossy little brat.
"That voice...?"
"These measures have been taken to prevent the injury of innocent bystanders." Suuure, you guys just don't want anyone to get in your way!
"Nan!" Karol looked happy enough to climb up the wall she was standing on to hug her. "All right! I finally found you!" She, however, looked shocked enough to kick him off if he tried. "Are the chief and Tison with you? Have you guys been getting along okay without me?"
"Don't take that buddy-buddy tone with me."
"Aw, don't be like that. I only got a little lost." He totally doesn't get how ticked she is with him.
It escalated into a shouting match, Nan accusing Karol of being a coward and mocking him for being kicked out of all the guilds. She refused to listen to any of his denials or explanations, instead throwing, "Even we've already fired you!" in his face.
"W-wait!" But Nan wasn't even paying attention to him anymore.
"You have been warned by the Hunting Blades! Leave this area at once! If you fail to heed this warning, you do so at the risk of your own lives." She jumped down the other side of the wall and was gone.
"Nan!"
Estelle made a sympathetic sound, but apparently couldn't think of anything to say to comfort him.
After a moment of uneasy quiet no one wanted to break, Yuri tried to smooth things over like nothing had happened. "This still doesn't explain what the Hunting Blades are doing here."
"Hunting. What else would they be doing?" Hmm, I keep making smart ass responses like this. Should be careful I don't step on their toes so much. It was normal behavior for me, though, based on how I acted with friends back home.
Rita started walking through the ruined entrance into the devastated city. "Rita, wait. Are you forgetting about the warning?" Estelle innocently called.
"She never said we weren't allowed to enter." Rita was right about that. 'No lifeguard on duty, swim at your own risk' kind of situation.
"But what about the 'risking our lives' part?" the princess asked nervously.
Rita scoffed, "Are you implying that I should listen to that brat? Don't make me laugh."
"It's not like we weren't expecting to run into some danger here, right?" I tried pointing out. "Monsters and ruins and guilds, oh my." They looked at me weird (except Karol, he was moping), and then decided to let my randomness go without comment.
"At any rate, the Blood Alliance doesn't seem to be here. Let's have a look around." Again it was Yuri who got us moving along again, though Karol stood with his head hanging for a little longer. He eventually followed after us, Yuri hanging back a bit to walk near him.
x x x
Karol, Fired
Karol: Man...why did it have to end up like this... They said...they said I was f-f-fired...
Estelle: Karol, keep your spirits up!
Karol: I can't be happy anymore... It's like her words are a dagger in my heart...
Yuri: She was just worried that it'd be too dangerous for you. There's still hope.
Karol: Huh? Y-you think so? ...Uh, whatever. I don't care what she thinks!
Yuri: The problem is your guild, right? I get it.
Karol: R-right, yeah. I don't care about Nan...
Rita: This hurts to watch.
Estelle: I'm rooting for you, Karol!
Letha: Looks to me like his case needs more help than that...
Doesn't Seem Like an Earthquake
Estelle: Was this town really destroyed by an Earthquake? The buildings all look kind of strange.
Yuri: Yeah. They don't really look like they collapsed from the ground shaking... Something's weird.
Karol: Yeah, so...how were they destroyed, then?
Yuri: Got me. Maybe we can find out by asking someone who used to live in the town.
Letha: There was a war ten years ago, wasn't there? What if that had something to do with what happened here?
Estelle: But how?
Letha: I...can't really make a guess at this point.
Rita: That's not really why we're here though, so why should we care?
Yuri: You actually have a point there.
The Hunting Blades
Estelle: What do the Hunting Blades mainly do, as a guild?
Karol: Like their name says, they make their living hunting monsters.
Yuri: It's not like there's any shortage of monsters once you're outside the barriers. Business must be booming.
Karol: Yeah, they definitely get a lot of commissions. But the Hunting Blades aren't killing monsters just because someone asked them to. Monsters are evil. This evil must be punished. That's the creed of the Hunting Blades.
Letha: *whispers* Bull...
Yuri: I wonder if any of them are doing it just for their own personal grudges against monsters.
Karol: Oh yeah. A lot of people. Like, Nan's parents were killed right before her eyes when she was a kid.
Yuri: Huh. It'd be hard not to hold a grudge after something like that.
Letha: *to herself* Evil is a construct defined by people. From the monsters perspective, if there even is such a concept of evil, surely it would be us...
x x x
I was absorbed by my own thoughts while we explored the ruins. For some reason, I had a nagging feeling that someone was watching us. But I couldn't put my finger on why, and figured it could very well be my writer skills giving themselves a workout in the slightly creepy environment.
When my left hand flashed warm for a moment I thought I'd imagined that too. I stopped in my tracks and waved my hand around a bit, but got nothing... Puzzled, I continued following the group. Fortunately no one seemed to notice my brief stop.
This happened a few more times over the next hour or so we looked around. Once at the trap door where Yuri scared Karol by joking about monsters biting off his foot while climbing down, again while Rita was studying one of the warp blastia we found and activated. This is ridiculous. I'm fighting green owls, brown tadpole-totoro hybrids, and flying umbrellas while looking over my shoulder every five minutes! And my roommate would kill me if she ever found out I helped kill a giant tortoise!
We happened to see the Hunting Blades chief, Clint, kill a monster in one blow. Yuri whistled, impressed, and we got an explanation from Karol that having such a huge group of guild members following Clint was very unusual.
Hmm, the game gives some kind of tutorial here, right? About killing monsters in one hit? I guess nobody made a big deal about that because that's more like strategy in real life. If you've had any real training, you know how to look for opportunities for a critical hit.
I lost both the feeling of being watched and the occasional warm tingling alerts of my left hand once we started exploring deeper inside the buildings. On the other hand, the painful pressure inside my chest started to increase. Caught up in my own effort to breathe and keep walking forward, I didn't notice the others were showing signs of distress until Karol said something.
"Wh-what's up? I feel kind of sick all of a sudden."
"Even someone as dense as you can feel it?" Rita sounded as exhausted as if she'd just run a marathon.
"Who are you calling—Wait, does that mean you can feel it, too?"
"Ugh, what a feeling..." Yuri grunted.
Wait, if everyone's getting sick, then this is the place with really dense aer. Now that I was looking for it I could see small glowing green...droplets? Yes, they looked like drops of green water floating up from the ground. Oh, I thought, I've really been an idiot. And then I passed out again, like when I first came to Terca Lumireis.
x x x
This chapter...just wasn't as much fun to write as the last few. But the next ones should be good. I like devious plotting...