Chapter 23:
A Dreaming Youth and The Slave

The next morning, I sat down with Alek to discuss. "Hey, Alek. Do you mind if we make a detour today?" I asked.

"Sure. Where to?" He replied.

Just how am I going to explain this?

I wanted to see where the advice to help out Ares would take me. Thanks to Mister Man-God, I managed to get Alek to help me out. As much as I hated admitting it, following his advice didn't hurt so far. As he said, this trip would almost certainly be arduous. But now I had to face the issue of telling people about him.

"Hm…What if I told you that…I got this information from a dream?" I gingerly said. Alek silently nodded.

"Go on." He said. Here goes nothing, I guess…

I begun to tell him about how I met Mister Man-God, and how he had given me bits of advice. Although I considered telling Alek about my previous life, I decided now wasn't the time to open that can of worms.

After my explanation was finished, he sat in silence. Does he think I'm crazy?

"I see. The slave market, you say? That shouldn't be much of an issue as long as we take a job today." He said.

"Huh? You believe me?" I asked, incredulous. If I had been in his place, I probably would have sent me to a mental hospital. If there were any here, of course.

"Certainly. I've heard many tales far less credible, but the ones worth listening to have always been the truth. This wouldn't be the first time I've heard of messages in dreams either." Alek explained.

I guess he's just used to hearing insane stories like this.

"Part of the reason why I am willing to believe you is because I wish for something nearly impossible to obtain." Alek continued.

"I understand that you are still young, but I ask you this. Have you ever seen someone so great, and wanted to become greater still?" Alek asked me, now staring into my eyes.

"...Can't say I have." I responded. Where was he going with this?

"Well, there is a great hero I wish to surpass, so that I may be the greatest hero that ever lived." Alek said.

…If Alek thinks that someone is great, I'm afraid to even hear about them. But how would he surpass this great hero if Alek were helping me out?

"Then, if you want to do that, how come you agreed to escort me back home?" I asked.

"In truth… Lumina, you're an excuse." He said with a sigh.

"An excuse? What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"I want to surpass this great hero, right? But then the problem becomes how I could surpass him. That question plagued me for quite some time, and I could never bring myself to leave this place." He said.

He averted his eyes. Hm…

"If you wanted to surpass him, why couldn't you just beat him in a fight?" I asked. I had seen many narratives similar to this in my past life. It seemed simple enough, so where was the problem?

"Well, yes, there's a logic in that. But that's not the way for me." He said.

It isn't? Alek hadn't shown himself to be a prideful person, so I doubted it had something to do with that. What, then?

"Great heroes can't stay in their prime for long. Battles are always swayed by certain conditions, and sometimes luck. Winning a fight won't do me any good if other people say I won by happenstance or by scoring a lucky hit. As much as I wouldn't discount a fight won by chance, the world isn't as forgiving. You only become great when people acknowledge you as so. Not a second sooner."

"That's why you're an excuse. I hope that, in our travels, I can scour the world for opportunities that I would never find here." Alek said.
So that was his goal, huh? Can't say I blame him for using me as an excuse, as I doubt that there were many people in this world who would drop everything just to escort me back home. I was grateful at least that he would take me home.

"I see. Thank you, Alek." I bowed low.

He patted my head. "I suppose it's the least I can do for you."

A few hours later, we set off toward where Mister Man-God had advised. The advice was extremely vague, so we were wandering around the area.

"Lumina, are you certain you know where to go?" Alek asked me as I pulled him along.

"...More or less," I answered, not looking at his face.

Rikarisu was a relatively massive place, and it had so many nooks and crannies. By the time we had spent two hours searching, I was just about to give up.

And then, we spotted it. It was a fairly inconspicuous building, and anyone could've missed it. It had a few cages in the front which at first glance didn't seem to be anything special. But upon inspection, they held several children in rags within them.

"This is it, Alek," I said in a low tone of voice.

Alek and I walked up to the establishment. A rough-looking man who had features suspiciously similar to that of a rat's came up to us. He glanced at me for a split second, then warmly greeted Alek. I was getting a bad feeling from this guy, but either way, we were going to be leaving swiftly after getting Ares out of trouble.

Alek said a few words to him, and he motioned for us to follow him inside the building. The interior of what I assumed was a slave market was fairly large. Several customers were checking out the slaves.

The slaves themselves weren't clean. The smell in the room was enough to make me crinkle my nose. Looking around, I noticed that they were all children. The majority of them were silent or just staring daggers at whoever passed them by, but there were a few weeping children.

The sight ruined my mood. It most likely wasn't their fault that they had to be here. I avoided looking into their eyes as we walked further into the establishment.

"Alek. We're looking for an intense-looking red-haired boy. Keep your eyes peeled."

"I'll see if I can find him, then," Alek said. I told him to relay it to the man we were following.

The man nodded, and silently led us to a corner of the building.

There, inside of a cage, was Ares. But not the Ares I remembered. He was dressed in filthy rags, and his formerly vibrant red hair was now a disheveled dull orange with strands of gray spread throughout. The thing that stood out the most to me, though, was his very apparent irritation.

"Been a while since someone came over here. Run off already, missie. I doubt this is a good place for– huh?" He cut off his sentence when he saw my face.

"Odd to see the skirt-chaser here of all places," I muttered.

"Skirt-chaser…Aren't you that noble girl? What are you even doing here? No, why are you here to begin with?" He interrogated, creeping right up to the bars of his cage.

"You need me to spell it out for you? I'm here to buy you." I responded, lowering my eyebrows.

"Really? You? Quit messing with me." Ares said in an unimpressed voice.

Alek came up to me, and whispered, "He's cheap. According to this man, he's very violent towards customers, so his price came down significantly. He costs three scrap iron coins. I'm not sure if purchasing him would be in our best interests, but it should be fine."

I nodded and turned to Ares.

"I'm not messing with you. I have the money to buy you right now." I explained.

"What? You haven't even answered my questions!" Ares said, exasperated.

"That really doesn't matter right now. So, could you kindly stop complaining and come along? I'm doing you a favor here." I responded.

He quieted down after that. We paid the man the money. We were now down to 158 stone coins in our wallet.

I walked over to his cage and brought Ares out of it.

"Welcome to the party, Ares," I said, smiling.

"...Right. So, do you mind telling me how you're here?" He asked, rubbing his head.

"Sure. But discussing can wait until after we find a place to settle down and talk." I said.

I felt a pair of eyes on my back as we walked out of the slave market, but when I turned back, I saw no one looking at me.

The sun was directly above us as we walked on the pathway.

Ares was pulling at his rags, looking unimpressed. It was clear to me that he wanted a change of clothes. I mean, I would as well. I didn't even know how long he had been in them.

"Ares. Do you want my hood?" I asked innocently, holding out the hood I had bought, the one with cat ears.

"Oh, sure. Thanks–" He began, but then looked down at the coat. He furrowed his eyebrows.

"Really now?" He said, holding out my hood. I stifled a laugh as the mental image of Ares wearing the hood entered my mind.

"S-Sorry about that." I looked away and covered my mouth.

We continued walking until we came across a clothing stall. It had rustic-colored clothes, which surprised me. They managed to make the color scheme that they had here into something decent.

"Ares, was it? What clothes do you want?" Alek asked him. "Hm?"

He walked over to the stall and glanced at the clothes. The person running the stall said something to Ares, but it fell on deaf ears as Ares continued to browse.

"Those, I guess." He pointed to a pair of red shorts with a black hem and a white shirt with a black-and-white striped cuff.

Alek grabbed the clothes along with a pair of underwear. He paid for the clothes, and we were down to 151 stone coins. I noticed a few people glancing at Ares's get-up, but Ares glared at them in response.

"You know, you seem a lot less rigid than you were before. Did anything happen?" I asked.

"...Not necessarily. Also, what do you mean by rigid?" Ares asked me.

"I kind of felt like being a skirt-chaser didn't fit you that well," I said, doubting what I knew about nobility from my past life. Ares looked and acted like a gentleman when we first met, so what was up?

"Oh, really?" He said, leering at me. I could feel his gaze in all of the wrong places.

"Hey!" I covered my body and slapped him in the face. There's nothing for you to even look at in the first place, I'm like ten!

I sighed as he rubbed his cheek.

We stopped by the Adventurer's Guild, and Alek picked up the quest that Mister Man-God had advised me to. The quest was simply to gather a bag full of sunstones around someplace called the Valley of Catakoni. According to Mister Man-God, we would hunt monsters, or more specifically the Biegoyan Doomsnakes to sell for money. It was like shooting two birds with one stone. We'd gain money for selling the monster remains, and we'd progress towards ranking up.

After that, Alek bought us food to eat in the inn. It was just after lunchtime, so I was getting a bit hungry myself.

Ares scarfed down the food, without complaining about the quality. If only I was that enthusiastic about eating the food here.

"Hey, Lumina," Ares said in between spoonfuls of his broth.

"What is it?"

"How are you here?" Ares asked, still engrossed in his food.

Ah, that again. I didn't want to drop the bomb on him so fast, but I guess I had to tell him something at least.

"Before that, did you have anyone important to you in Fittoa?" It was worth a shot. I'd sugarcoat what happened if he did happen to have his entire extended family living within the region.

"Ah, no. How come?" He said, munching on dried jerky.

A tourist, eh? "It's nothing. To answer your question bluntly, the Fittoa region's residents were teleported to places all around the world. It happened thanks to a mana calamity, one of which nobody knows the cause of. That's why we're both here."
Ares momentarily stopped eating his food.

"Is that really…true?" He asked.

"Yes." I responded.

"...So that's why Auber wasn't there with me when I woke up." He muttered to himself, as he began to eat again.

Alek instantly stopped his eating, and stared at Ares.

"Auber…you say?" he asked, his eyes wide open.

"You heard that? You have good hearing. Auber was my tutor and master in the North God style of swordsmanship." Ares explained.

"I see. If you were training under that man, you aren't qualified to call yourself a North God swordsman." Alek said with scorn in his voice. Huh…? What's going on?

"Ehh? Why not?" Ares said, glaring at Alek. "I worked my butt off to work for five years! Who are you to say that?"

"I am the North God Aleksander Ryback, also known as Kalmann the Third. If you are willing, I will take it upon myself to reeducate you in the art of the true North God style. Auber's style is merely an imitation." Alek said.

The North God? The strongest in the North God sword style in the entire world? Well, it doesn't surprise me that much…
Ares scoffed, but when he saw my face and the serious look on Alek's face, he widened his eyes.

"Are you…really the North God?" He asked.

"I swear it upon the blade of the King Dragon Sword Kajakuto," Alek responded.

"...Then what do you mean by Auber's style being an imitation?" Ares asked him.

"The previous North God threw away his title in favor of teaching his disciples a false branch of the North God Style. I'll repeat myself, If you are willing to let me, I will take it upon myself to train you as a true North Swordsman." Alek said.

Ares looked down and whispered something to himself. I could make out something along the lines of, "Forgive me, since I do this for my blade."

Ares looked up and said, "I…accept."

Once we finished up with said lunch, Alek and Ares went to the baths and left me in the room alone.

I sat down on my fur bed and sighed.

So… A new companion, huh?

I wondered what was so important about him that Mister Man-God had specifically told me to help him. I only found out about his existence at my party, so it wasn't as though I knew him very well. That had to mean there was something more to Ares.

Come to think of it, why was he at my party in the first place? I was curious as to who his parents were, considering how aptly dressed he was.

Anyways… Alek's more of a big shot than I thought he was. Being God or Divine-Ranked at anything instantly made you the best in your field, or so I had heard.

I looked out of the inn's window to see the same old shattered fortress.

It kind of… makes me wonder about how much more there is to learn about this world.

Author's Note: Sorry this chapter took so long. School and a small bout of writer's block hit me, so yeah. I can't promise a consistent upload schedule, but I will try to keep the quality of the chapter the same. Thank you for reading.