Chapter 18 – Who are you?
Alan's POV
Enough! This is weird, I got out of the girls' grip, they gave me a sad look as I did that, I took a few steps back, Noir and Rubrum looked at me, probably wondering why I had done this.
"Who are you?" I asked.
The girls looked at me worriedly.
"Please tell us you remember! Tell us you don't have the same problem as our sister!" One exclaimed.
"I don't know what you're talking about, I've never seen you all in my life, and I don't know which sister you're talking about."
The girls looked at each other worriedly, not knowing what to do, it looked like they were going to cry, taking a deep breath, I tried to control the situation before any problem arose.
"Listen, this is so confusing, you guys broke into my house and act like you know me, I don't understand what's going on. So how about we calm down and talk about it?" I suggested.
That seemed to give the girls some sort of relief, I got them some chairs, other than the one Two broke on my back.
With everyone in their seats, we stood around the kitchen table, me with my hands together on top of the table with Noir and Rubrum beside me, and the girls on the other side, looking at me expectantly.
"Well, for starters, your names are One, Two, Three, Four and Five, right?"
I received a chorus of positive answers.
"Well, whoever your parents are, they're not creative with names. What kind of parents names their kids with numbers?"
"We… We don't know." One replied.
"What?"
"We have no memories about our parents." Four continued.
"It's like a blur, whenever we try to form a face, the image disappears." Three said.
"But you're not going to disappear, are you?" Two completed.
"No Two, he would never do that!" Five told her sister.
"Well, we have a problem here, I don't know who you are, you don't know who your parents are, but you know me. Is this not strange to you?"
I received another chorus of confirmation.
"For a long time, we've wondered what's wrong with our memories." One said.
"But in the end we learned that it didn't matter, as our sister was there to take care of us." Two spoke.
"That until… until what happened a few months ago." Four added, looking away.
"What happened to your sister?"
"Sister Zero has gone mad!" Five exclaimed.
"Five!" Four shouted to her sister.
"What? It's true!"
"But you don't yell that kind of thing around!"
Four and Five argued.
"Four, Five, enough!" One scolded her sisters, the two were silent, embarrassed.
"Can you tell me more about this sister Zero?" I asked.
"Sister Zero is the oldest of us all, she always treated us well, taught us, trained us…" Three spoke first.
"… But in one night, she was different, she… she…" Two didn't finish, sadness was in her eyes.
"… She tried to kill us." One ended.
I stiffened as I realized the seriousness of the situation, these aren't lost children playing a trick on me, it's something worse.
"Do you guys have any clue why your sister's sudden change?"
"No, we were hoping you would know, after all you knew her." Four spoke.
"Sorry, but I've never met a girl named Zero."
"I… I understand." One clasped her hands in her lap and looked down.
An uncomfortable silence filled the room.
"Excuse me Miss One, if it's not a problem, could you tell us more about Lord Alan and your sister's relationship?" Noir spoke.
This cheered the girls up a bit. Thank you Noir.
"Of course Noir." One smiled.
"Oh! Do you know who I am?" Noir asked.
"Yes, you are the Grimoire Noir, the magical book that always accompanied Alan, along with the Grimoire Rubrum, we remember you." Five continued.
"And what else can you tell us?" Noir asked.
"Well, we don't know much, after all you and Sister Zero knew each other long before we were born, but according to our sister, you saved her from the bad men in one night…" Five said.
"… Then you accompanied her to our parents' house, they were surprised to see a person with two magic books, but after Sister Zero explained what happened, our parents were grateful…" Four continued.
"… Time passed, you and sister Zero grew closer, she always had difficulty getting along with other people, you were her first friends, as time passed, we were born, and you were always there, helping us, playing and taking care of us together with Sister Zero, but then…" Three completed.
"… Then more evil men arrived, they broke into our house and tried to take Sister Zero away, but you saved us, we don't know what happened to our parents, everything seemed to be over…" This time Two spoke.
"… Only the bosses of the bad men put a bounty on you, you and Sister Zero got separated, you were taken to Cathedral City, and we fled to the forest with our sister. After that we took some hidden treasure and went to Doveport, where we lived until the day our sister lost her mind."
"Lord Alan, do you know what that means?" Noir asked with surprise in his voice.
Rubrum stared at me in silence.
"Yes Noir, and it's impossible, we saw her die, we buried her, whoever that sister Zero is, it can't be Rose." I said seriously.
"Ladies, do you mind answering any other questions?" Noir asked.
"No Noir, you may ask." One replied.
"Thank you very much. First, who are we? And by that I mean, do you know where Lord Alan, Rubrum and I come from? What did we do before reaching Midgard?"
"Alan is a mage from a distant land called Japan, which is suffering from various disasters, the main one being an illness, you came to Midgard, and now you are looking for a way to return home, to find Alan's brothers. Or at least that's what you told us." One said.
"And why do you say that?" Noir asked again.
"Well, Alan's appearance says otherwise."
"Explain please."
"Alan claims to be a mage, but he looks very different from what we remember, before he looked more… more…" One hesitated to answer.
"Human?" Noir asked.
"Yes, human…" One looked at me worriedly.
"Don't worry, I'm not offended." I said to One.
One sighed in relief.
"Continue, please." Noir spoke.
"Okay, with Alan's new appearance, I guess he's something else…"
"What exactly?" Noir asked curiously.
"An angel." One said in wonder.
"HAHAHA!" I laughed at that statement.
One looked offended by my laughter.
"Sorry, sorry, I have nothing against being called an angel, I actually take it as a compliment, but I'm not one, I honestly have no idea what I am." I shrugged.
"You can only be an angel, what else would you be?" One asked.
"You have wings!" Two spoke.
"You can use magic!" Three continued.
"You always show up on the right time!" Four said.
"And you are handsome as one!" Five flirted.
The last one took me by surprise, I'd like to see if she'd say the same if I looked like a biblically accurate angel.
"Okay, okay! I'm an angel, there's no need for us to discuss that." I closed the matter.
"Well, now I just want to ask one last question. Your sister Zero, what does she look like?" Noir asked.
"She has fair skin, white hair, pink eyes and a flower in her eye." One spoke.
Noir, Rubrum and I faced each other again.
"Lord Alan, this is not possible." Noir said in shock.
"I know Noir, or Rose has come back to life, or there's someone out there pretending to be her, I'm willing to believe the latter. But a flower in the eye?"
"Yes, Sister Zero has a flower in her eye, she always has!" Four spoke.
Magic is involved, for sure.
"You know, this conversation cleared up a lot of my doubts, but it also created new ones. Like, why are you here? Not at my home, I mean, but in the Land of the Forests." I asked the sisters.
"This… This… This has to do with our sister." One murmured.
"Listen, you don't have to tell if it's something painful to remember."
"No… Since you and Sister Zero know each other, I think you need to know… Of all my sisters, I have the most acute senses, one night I woke up to the sound of footsteps, when I opened my eyes, the sight I had could only have come from a nightmare… It was Sister Zero, covered in blood and staring at me with a knife in her hand, I didn't understand what was going on, that is until Sister Zero grabbed me and tried… And tried to kill me…"
One said with difficulty, her voice low and full of sadness, but she continued the story.
"With that I screamed, using my magic in an uncontrolled way, I threw Sister Zero away, I don't know how I knocked her unconscious, Sister Zero was always the strongest of us all… My scream woke up my sisters, I didn't stop to explain, we grabbed our things, we took the money and ran away from home. We wandered around for some time, trying to understand what happened, my sisters didn't want to believe it… But I managed to convince them of what I saw…"
"We walked through Midgard from city to city, and on the way we saw the cruelty of the Lords and the injustice that the people suffered, so we decided to use our powers for something good, we turned bandits over to the authorities, we stopped soldiers of the Lords who abused the people, we killed monsters that attacked villages, but it never seemed to end, so we decided to…"
"We have decided to defeat the lords!" The other sisters screamed in unison.
"WHAT?!" I yelled in surprise, Noir and Rubrum backed away as well upon hearing what these kids were planning to do.
"Sisters! You don't give out that kind of information all at once!" One scolded her sisters.
"Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Are you crazy?! Facing the Lords?! You know that each of them has an army, don't you?"
"Yes!" They answered.
"Mages?"
"Yes!"
"Golems?"
"Yes!"
"Tamed monsters?"
"Yes!"
"That every Lord knows how to use magic?"
"Yes!"
"Then why the hell do you want to face them?"
"To save the people of Midgard!" Four replied.
"And what makes you think you have any chance of winning?"
"If we work together, we are sure we will win!" Two said.
"And with your help, no Lord will stop us!" Five spoke.
"Hang on! I didn't say anything about helping you guys!"
The sisters were silent, surprised by my answer.
"Sisters, calm down and let me finish. As I was saying, we decided to defeat the Lords, the closest to us was Bass, the Lord of the Land of Sands, to get to him we decided to cross the Land of Forests, but we stopped here after hearing the stories of a monster terrorizing the place. "
"What stories?" I asked.
"From a monster dark as night that lurks among the trees and attacks anyone who enters the forest." One spoke.
Damn it! Apparently my method of driving the soldiers away created some rumors. "You don't need to worry, I've already dealt with this monster."
"Serious? That's good to hear." One sighed in relief.
Then we return to silence.
"So… Will you help us?" One asked.
"No." I replied.
All the sisters gave me a look of betrayal.
"Why?" One asked.
"Fighting the Lords is a mistake, you better go home." I replied.
"But people are suffering, we cannot ignore it, it is our duty to help them!" Four screamed.
"All the people who fought the Lords died horribly, I don't want the same to happen to you."
"But if we all fight, we can make it!" Two said.
"This is not an anime, the power of friendship doesn't work here."
"What is anime?" Three asked.
"Something the people of Midgard are not ready to know."
"But you've faced the Lords before! Why not do it again?" Five asked.
"I did that once and look how I ended up." I said, running my hands beside my face.
"But…" The sisters tried to speak, but One interrupted.
"Enough! He made his choice, the only thing we can do is respect it. We have our mission, we cannot force Alan to participate." One replied, getting up from her chair and approaching me.
One stared at me, despite trying to keep a smile on her face, I saw sadness in her eyes, looking at the sisters, they weren't doing very well to hide their feelings, they looked away.
"After everything, I'm glad to see you again, I hope someday you'll remember us." One gave me a hug and walked away.
The other girls followed One.
"Goodbye Mister Alan… I hope we can meet again." Four spoke.
"Send a letter if you want to talk." Five said.
"Please try to remember us." Two continued.
Three approached and stopped in front of me, staring at me. "A fallen angel, the past still haunts him, but he still seeks the light. Until we meet again."
With their goodbyes done, the sisters left my house, Two tried to put the door in place on the way out, only for the door to fall down again, giving me a nervous look, Two ran to her sister's side.
Now the house was silent, I leaned on the table and rubbed my eyes, I'm not good at this kind of thing, the drama only makes me more nervous, when I stopped I saw Noir and Rubrum looking at me.
"What?" I asked the books.
"You will go after them, don't you?" Noir asked, and Rubrum leaned to the side.
"No, why would I?"
"Because they asked for your help?" Noir replied.
I crossed my arms and leaned myself in the chair, "I have nothing to do with this, if they want to die that much then let it happen."
"I expected more from you, Lord Alan, leaving five helpless little girls to wander this cruel world." Noir said mockingly, Rubrum quickly nodded at Noir's statement.
"I know what your game is, and you're not going to convince me." But Noir and Rubrum continued to stare at me.
"You will go after them, don't you?" Noir asked again.
Letting out an irritated growl, I ran after the girls, found them walking towards the village, yelled as I ran "Wait!"
The girls turned towards me and I saw a smile forming on their faces.
TIMESKIP
"So how I look?" I asked the girls, showing the clothes I wore. The long white coat, white gloves, brown pants, my old black boots, and my gray backpack on my back.
"Hm! Looks good, but something is missing…" Five said walking around me.
"I know! A hat!" Five exclaimed.
"A hat?"
"Yes, one that matches your coat, am I right, sisters?" Five asked her sisters.
"Yes/Absolutely/You bet/I agree." The sisters responded.
"Well, if that's what's left then let's go to Lyllenas, there are a few things I'd like to sort out before we leave."
With a series of confirmations, we walked towards the elves' village, looking back, I saw the girls forming a line behind me, starting with One and ending with Five, adorable.
When we arrived in the village, we received looks from the elves on the way, some laughed at the sight, others gave curious looks, while the girls looked admired at the villagers.
"So, what did you think of the village of Lyllenas?"
"It's interesting/I like this place/Do you live here?"
"I like this village too, and I don't exactly live here, but I have a job as a teacher."
Our first stop was at the school, where I talked to the principal, I'm not resigning, I just asked for a few days to resolve "Family issues."
The next stop was Elyon and Thessalia's house, the elves had different reactions to seeing me with a group of children, Elyon was having a heart attack, Thessalia was spoiling the girls.
"Look at them! They are so cute! Where did you found them?" Thessaly asked, pinching One's cheeks, stroking Two's head and hugging Four, Five was eating a snack that Thessaly prepared and Three was sleeping in a corner.
"Young man, I know I joked about you giving us some grandchildren, but you didn't have to bring five kids here!" Elyon said, sitting in a rocking chair and clutching his heart.
"They are not my daughters, they are the sisters of a friend of mine, they were separated during a monster attack and ended up in the Land of Forests, I will take them to their home in the Land of Sands."
"I see, so will you be gone for a while?"
"Yes, but I intend to return when everything is solved, so no need to worry."
"But we are going to defeat the Lor… AAAHHH!" Two yelled as her sentence was interrupted by Four stomping on her foot.
I sweat with nervousness, Elyon took a look at Thessalia, seeing that she was distracted, he said "Are you going to do something dangerous?"
"Yes." I replied embarrassed.
"Please take care." Elyon sighed.
"Leave it with me." I smiled at Elyon.
With that rsolved, we left the house of the elves, it took a while to get the sisters out of Thessalia's arms, now all that was left was to get a hat. We stopped at a store and there I found what I was looking for, a white hat with two feathers, one black and one red.
"Is everyone ready?"
"Yes!" The sisters replied in unison, with that confirmation, we used an old cart that the sisters found near the village to transport the girls, they all got on it.
"Noir, you pull the cart." Said to the book.
"Why me?" Noir asked.
"Because it was your idea to take on this endeavor."
With his head down and a sigh, Noir created two hands, grabbed the wooden bar in front of the wagon and pulled it, while Rubrum played with the girls.
I checked my backpack supplies, food, money, map, water, extra clothes, the sisters also had a few things, mainly their money and water canteens.
Well, it's not that bad after all, maybe this trip will be fun in the end, I thought as we walked out of the village.
END OF CHAPTER