Ancient Chapter 25
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Chapter 25

Captain Darius was tired. The report about this afternoon was long to make and night already laid its deep dark veil on Swordhold city when he finally finished it. He stood up and checked the clock suspended beside his desk. The tool using a minor mana stone to power itself indicated him that he still had a bit of time to deliver his report to his superior, the general of the guard.

Darius sighed before heavily standing up. The minimalist armor he wore during office time made the typical sound of iron scraping against leather. 

Getting out of his office, he headed straight to his superior’s, his file at hand, and knocked twice against the heavy wooden door before coming in without waiting for an answer.

His superior greeted him lightly while continuing the paperwork he was doing. Contrary to what would assume from a general, the man wasn’t very tall nor full of muscles. If he was indeed muscular, it wasn’t of the usual ripped appearance knights wearing full plate armors all day long had. Indeed, he was from an experimental group that focused much more on swiftness and nimbleness than pure strength in order to take down the monsters before they even notice the smite that was falling on them. 

Darius waited until his superior had finished his form before speaking. “General Vordt, I have a peculiar report to submit to you, if you would allow me to speak it up, I would be really glad.”

Vordt took his gaze off the document he just finished and peeked deep in his subordinate’s eyes. “Then please say, captain Darius.”

“Earlier this afternoon, there had been an incident with some members of the Blood Flag and the Sleeping Giant inn. We rushed as soon as we heard passerbys talking about it, but we were kind of late to the party. A customer of the inn had already beaten all the fifteen something hoodlums.” 

Vordt was surprised. “Were you able to find out their motives?”

Darius sweated a bit while answering. “Said customer had killed all of them in less than five minutes, the time it took us to reach the inn.” His general’s face dropped, Vordt was expecting some clues concerning the Blood Flag. Darius resumed his explanation. “It’s the customer, Kyle-san that told us that they were affiliated with the Blood Flag. Not realizing that I was in presence of civilians, and an adventurer at that, I started complaining about the Blood Flag’s de-...”

“Wait, did you really said that the adventurer was named Kyle?” Vordt quickly foraged in his pile of files before handing one of them to his subordinate. The later took a quick look and caught his breath in surprise.

“What?! Is he really him?”

“Looks like it, Kyle Dawnstar, the Dusk’s Angel, the first S-ranked adventurer to reach this rank this quickly, the superiors of the adventurers guild are even considering making a SS rank in regard of his astounding performance.”

Darius was at a loss for words. “These poor guy never stood a chance. The moment they caught his attention, they were already in death row.”

“It is probably as you say. You were going to mention something before I interrupted you.”

“Ah! Yes, after I told him about the Blood Flag and their den, he proposed himself to help us definitely destroy it. And looking at his complexion when he said that, he was dead serious.”

“...Why an adventurer wants to mingle this much with the guards?”

“I wrote it in more details in the report, but he said being interested in the black mana stone the mage of the group was carrying and wanted to learn where he got it.”

“... I see, you may leave and take a well earned rest, I will tell you and the others captains about the future plans tomorrow evening.”

“Then I will take my leave, good night general Vordt!”

“Yeah, yeah, good night to you too.” The general of the guards was already plunged in deep reflections when Darius saw himself out.

*****

“So we finally got ourselves a track to follow.” Kyle was laying on his bed, his hands crossed behind his head. Yukina was sitting beside him, also on the bed.

“Yes, we just have to hope that it will lead to something. I don’t want to waste time that could be better employed.

“Are you me Yukina?” She smiled awkwardly. “More importantly, you seem a bit off today, what is it?”

“Ah, as always you are attentive to me. I… I don’t know what to think about this world. There are cheerful people like Ellie and his family, people who enjoy life in a dangerous world, and I can’t help but find them admirable. But… on the other hand, there are so much people that live off the other’s woe and that enjoy it. I realized that this world was really unjust earlier, when three men were pinning down Lila. SHe is a charming girl and doesn’t need this in her life. And I just want to come back to the time where we were simply high schoolers, I would like to not have lived everything I lived, I would have liked you to not be forced to give up on so many things to achieve your… our goal.”

“... In all honesty, I would have stayed here if it wasn’t for Esper. I don’t want my sister to lose the last family member she has even though I know she has excellent friends that will take care of her. This is a matter of order of priority. This world works a lot with the law of the strongest. And those without objectives get trampled by the others. It’s the sad reality. But it’s like this and we can’t help it.” Kyle took a deep breath. “In the end we have to steel ourselves, get strong, strong enough to achieve what we want to. And then get the hell outta here.”

Yukina chuckled at Kyle’s poor attempt at lightening her mood. She sighed a bit. “Well, we already agreed on our course of actions.”

“Yes, there is no place for a wavering will. We went through so much, we can’t stop on our tracks.”

Yukina snuggled her blurry form against Kyle’s size. She was recently able to take form longer and started to increase the density of her body, allowing them some physical time together. Kyle smiled and put his arm around  her, soothing gently his significant other.

A little hour later, Lila came knocking at his door, announcing that dinner was served. She knocked twice before announcing in a slightly shy voice. “K-Kyle-san? The dinner is ready!”

Kyle stood up before answering. “Alright, I’ll be here soon.” He heard her discreet footstep echoing through the walls of the inn. 

He put his mantle on and headed straight to the door, opening the later on a smooth motion and walked slowly down the hallway and the stairs. ‘I hope I will have my answer by tomorrow.’

*****

In a certain labyrinth, the gang leader Hendrick was playing dice with some of his close aids. The underground room they were in was dimly lighted by torches and a bonfire. A variety of weapons, ranging from blunt maces to piercing rapiers were ranging against the walls.

Hendrick threw his dices and let out a small cry of satisfaction. “Double six!”

One of his men sighed while smiling. “Looks like it’s you win boss.” While he was catching his breath, the room’s wooden door flew open, exposing a rather stressed out henchman.

“B-Boss Hendrick, bad new!”

“What? Can’t you see that you are interrupting me?” Hendrick replied in a harsh tone, stroking his short black beard.

His subordinate continued with a shaky voice. “Phal and his group. T-they are dead!”

“Say what?” Surprise had replaced anger in his leader’s voice.

“They weren’t able to perform their mission. One of the inn’s customer came back during the assault and totally destroyed them!”

“...How? Phal was pretty strong.”

“T-there are rumors that the new S-ranked adventurer, the Dusk’s Angel is in the capital. And his description matches the one from my agent who spied on the operation.”

“Tch… Looks like I will have to leave the Sleeping Giant alone for now. Their protector is too strong for most of us.” Hendrick was feeling a bit dejected. “Well, I should be able to stop him, if he really wanted to show up here.” He grinned evilly.

“I-I’m sorry but, my agent told me that the presumably Dusk’s Angel literally wiped  the floor with them. Everything was over in under five minutes.”

“Well, fuck.” Hendrick was starting to worry a bit. His gaze fell on his dices, reminding him of the emotional roller-coaster he just went through. And, like all the roller-coasters, at the end of the lap, it let him down, flat on the ground.

 

Hewwo, here is the second and probably last chapter of the week. If everything goes right with my schedule, Kyle and Yukina should get their clu by the end of last week.

I hope you enjoyed the release and I wish you pleasant week-end  \(^3^)/

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