Hedin dove head first into the soft embrace of the mattress, feeling the softness on his cheek. He wasn't quite spent, or even tired. He had, after all, faced death for hours on end at a time.
But there was a lingering shadow of fatigue. Emotional fatigue.
Even he was surprised when he had somehow pulled out the greatest speech he had ever thought up. It stood to reason that he had had enough of socializing for the day.
And yet, as they moved into the village after taking care of the witch beasts, there happened something Hedin was quite surprised about.
The villagers thanked him.
All of them. They got out of their houses and offered their gratitude.
It was a peculiar situation for Hedin. He had never been thanked before.
Any normal person he saved was always scared of him; scared of the hunters. Order of the Hunt never had a very good reputation.
Of course, everyone realizes that the order protects them, but there was the fact that it rarely pulled any punches.
If any village or town or city was corrupted, everyone would be eliminated. Nobody would be spared. In hindsight, the Order was in fact quite scary.
Sigh!
Hedin sighed and a smile appeared on his face as he thought back to the villagers.
I'm quite thankful I accepted Emilia's offer now...
He thought of Emilia and Ram. Both were spooked when they both came back from the village. Suffice to say that Rem's bloodied state left them shocked. What followed was half an hour of explanations and checkups.
Another thing to mention was that Hedin had found out the name of the lion he had fought.
Apparently, it was called a Guiltylowe, also known as the Jet Black King of the Forest and was one of the most dangerous mabeasts found in Lugunica.
That girl... His eyes narrowed. The image of a purple haired child appeared in his hand and his fist instinctively clenched, imagining himself holding a cleaver. I dropped my guard again... I have to teach myself not to depend overtly on outer appearances now. Previously, I could tell the presence of blasphemy and corruption to find the enemy and danger. It's not so simple now. Even normal people might be hiding something.
Suddenly, he felt something sharp impact the back of his head.
He knew what it was.
"What is it, Raven?" His voice came out muffled due to the mattress.
The raven didn't reply. It continued to peck his head.
Time passed. And after two minutes, Hedin realized that Raven was simply messing around.
And so, he did the only logical thing. He backhanded the bird out of the window.
Crash!
The window shattered, throwing the poor bird outside.
"Hmph! I deal with blasphemy every day. What do you think a bird's worth in my eyes." He gave a cheeky smirk as he looked on at the window.
A moment later, the raven returned. It's eyes held the ever blank look; and yet, Hedin could tell that it was looking at him mockingly.
Hedin's head popped a vein.
"It seems I'll have to show you my true strength!"
And the night that passed included a certain hunter running amok in the garden of the mansion, fighting a bird.
Somewhere along the way, they also managed to smash the gazebo.
...
...
The morning came quickly. There was a tension in the morning breeze that carried over from the village and the scent of flowers mingled with that of wet grass.
Birds were chirping and there was the unmistakable freshness of a new day in the air.
A faint fog hung low on the ground and Hedin laid on it, facing the sky. Raven was similarly sprawled all over the grass.
He barely remembered the last time he had spent so much time messing around with Raven. Back in his own world, it was minor skirmishes at best. They had a job to do, after all. Here? He was able to play fight to his heart's desire. It didn't help that Raven was basically indestructible with the combined power of glory and cloning.
With the arrival of the morning, it was not long before he felt someone approach.
"It seems you had fun." He heard a cheerful voice to the side. He turned his head, and his eyes met two circles of smiling amethyst.
"Emilia." He greeted her. "Good morning."
"Good morning~" She chuckled and sat down next to him. "You know, I didn't think you'd have the energy to run around all night long after fighting so many wolgrams."
"Hunters have a strange constitution." Hedin shook his head. "We can go for more than a week without sleep and fight for hours without stop. We are simply different."
"Oh~ That's amazing!" Emilia exclaimed.
Suddenly, her eyes turned downcast.
"I was really worried you know. When I heard you and Rem were out there fighting the witch beasts. And to think you encountered a Guiltylowe!"
"Oh, yeah. The lion. I remember that thing."
"And to think I was here at the mansion... How am I supposed to lead a nation if I can't even take the initiative in such a situation?"
An alarm went off in Hedin's head.
Another emotional discussion? Man... everyone has problems in this mansion huh... Even Ram and Beatrice are in there. Not to mention the clown... I don't even wish to know what's wrong with his head.
Stealthily, he used glory to alleviate her mood before opening his mouth.
Just as he was about to speak, a flash of blue light emerged above her and a cat materialized from it!
"Yoooo!" Puck exclaimed, holding his hands out. "Did you miss me!? Glad to see you didn't die yet!"
"It takes a lot more to kill me."
Hedin got up from the ground and leaned back on his arms.
"I can see that pretty well." Puck nodded.
They talked for some time before they all headed inside.
A curious thing he learned from the short interaction - Roswaal would be coming back tomorrow morning.
...
...
Shhhhhhhh!
The evening brought up a faint drizzle from the heavens. Hedin would have liked to sit in the gazebo... if he had not smashed it a night prior.
Ram had chided him about it, but at that point, he was not too worried about it. Now, though, he was beginning to regret that action just a little bit. Just a bit.
Hedin sat on his desk, reading another book he had borrowed from the forbidden library - Water Magic Theory. Right next to it was a short pile of books, consisting of titles like Understanding Yin and Yang; Od Laguna and Divine Protections and finally Folk Tales of Old. Absently, he looked outside.
The sound of rain on wood and stone was almost a lullaby. Each droplet falling to the ground, making ripples in the water and bouncing off of each blade of grass. Hedin could sense it all if he wanted to.
Suddenly, his door opened and Ram walked in with a tray in hand.
"Rude to walk in without knocking."
"Here are some appas, dear guest." She ignored his words and set a small bowl filled with appas beside him. She glanced at the book he was reading.
"You're learning pretty advanced things."
"Advanced?" Hedin raised an eyebrow. "I mean, everything's pretty straightforward as far as I'm concerned. Heh. You should see some of the things people back in my country can think up. Now that's some real magic I'd say. Impossible to understand."
Ram's face remained impassive. It seemed Hedin's joke was ineffective.
I'm not very good at making jokes... Hedin quieted down, feeling the room descend into awkwardness.
Suddenly, to Hedin's surprise, Ram bowed her head. "Thank you."
Her words of gratitude stunned him. Mainly because of him not being familiar with the feeling.
"Um..."
"I really mean this." Ram interjected. "You've done me a great service. My sister... Rem had always been blaming herself for the loss of my horn. I don't know what you told her, but she's... she's back."
Hedin saw her lips stretch beyond her usual stoic self. A smile. A genuine smile on Ram's face.
"My sister's finally back. I thank you. Truly."
Hedin mimicked her smile and nodded.
"... don't mention it."
"Tch! What a flimsy way to receive gratitude."
"And there's the Ram I'm used to seeing."
A peal of laughter went off in the room before Ram turned and walked to the door. Twisting the doorknob, she opened the door in a single motion and stood in the way.
"Don't be late to the language class today. That is, if you feel you still need them. I'd be delighted to have more time off either way." Saying so, she closed the door.
Shhhhhhh!
The room was again swallowed by the sound of rain. Hedin looked to the corner where a black bird was perched.
It croaked.
"Here you go." He threw Raven an appa slice.
He looked outside again, observing the grey clouds moving above.
I still need to discuss things over with Roswaal... the failure of the barrier and a direct attack at his manse by a small child... it smells conspiracy all over. Now, the question is, should I keep involving myself or retract my steps before it's too late?
When he turned his head, he realized that Raven had already finished half of the bowl.
...
I've begun to read the original Journey to the West and I've gotta say, the original premise of cultivation has been so twisted in story format that it's not even the same thing anymore.
There's a heavy focus on magical spells, heaven's way, clever manipulations and the philosophy of life in JTTW, which is hardly ever seen in any cultivation novel these days.
...
(Image Here)
...
A/N: Read upto 10 advanced chapters on my patreon: patreon . c o m/Yesnth Just remove the spaces from between.
Cheers~