Dawn- An age of Darkness

We were done kissing but I received three glares of animosity. One from Dick, obviously. One from Alisa, I had no idea why. And one from Biteria. Aww, my little lovely bunny-wunny got jealous. 

My heart almost melted for a second. I never knew bunnies could pout like that. 

Lianne cleared her throat. "Alright, remember you're basically the second in command of Alfeim. Meaning, don't let anyone disrespect you or us. And feel free to abuse your position." She winked. 

I was definitely not going to do that. 

"Yeah, yeah, I got that." Was I just some political rag doll? I totally felt that way, no doubt. 

Lianne smiled. "Alright then. I wish you good luck. And-" She smiled a bit more. "I hope to see you soon." Her tone got a bit bashful towards the end. 

At this point, I wasn't sure, what to believe. 

"Don't know when but-" I tried to smile. "Me too." But I wanted to believe her. 

Lianne didn't take a crow and started to walk. "Till we meet again."

"Wait!" I hurried after her. "You don't have a weapon, right?" I pulled out the Ascan blade from my ring. 

"I can't take this."

"Well, it kind of belonged to Jowy since he was the one who defeated the undead at the last moment but he gave it to me. And now I'm giving it to. But don't worry, I'm just letting you borrow it. I'll be back for it." I winked and showed her my knife. She'd given this to me a long while ago and now I was giving something to her. Meaning, we were both bound.

It was kind of childish, but I didn't care. 

"Alright." She smiled. 

She took the sword and I started walking. 

There were no more words between us. There was nothing left to say. We already knew what we had to do.

With a sigh, I walked back. 

"You sure about that? That was a pretty good sword you know. And I could have just given her my normal sword. No offense but I can fight bare-handed but you can't."

"Dick, you're right. But this had to be done." I emphasized a bit too much on his name. 

"Hey, don't call me that! It feels weird when you call my name!"

"So you want me to call you Cock instead? If only you had feathers."

"Wait, his name is seriously, Dick? I thought you guys were just joking!" Ve was looking quite dumbfounded at us. 

"Yes, he's just joking! I go by Mig by the way! Ahahah!" Dick's weird laughter filled the air. But he wasn't convincing anyone.

Poor guy, even a little kid could act better than him. 

It was too much, I really couldn't control my laughter anymore. I hadn't laughed like this in a while. 

But deep down I was a bit sad to see Lianne go though. 

"Enough with the names, let's go." Alisa had Biteria in her arms and she was in a foul mood. 

"Ri-right."

We all exchanged glances until we finally decided it was better to get going. 

***

Alisa and Biteria flew together. This time, I really was alone. 

Sigh. 

But I had to look forward and into the future. After all, if I wanted to see Lianne again, I first had to defeat the emperor. But then, 'Do I really want to stay in this world?'

And more importantly, could I even hope to defeat that monster?

Well, I could always cross the bridge when I'd get there anyway. Or fall down from it. 

"Hey, I think we should get down now!" Dick yelled. 

"Yeah!" 

The first city of the Dwarven nations was Saram. In front of it was a small desert and with came the intense heat. It was the afternoon and yet, it was awfully hot.

"Tell me, why are we walking?" Alisa's voice was a tad high today. 

"Crows are associated with demons, so I don't think the dwarves would be happy to see us." 

Dick and Servesta were unfazed by the weather as usual. 

"Wait, people in Helsing didn't say anything about it!"

"Helsing is kind of a backwater country. It has only seen elves and men fighting. So demons never actually invaded. Dwarves, however, it's a different story," Servesta said, a bit of nostalgia in his voice. 

"Guess so." But boy was this hot. This armor did an excellent job of protecting me from the frost and even fire, but not the sticky heat. "Oh, and how are we going to get in?"

We didn't see any monsters yet though. It was almost as though the monsters were hiding from us. Not even a single goblin. Well, I couldn't blame them. This heat was pretty intense. 

"We have identities by the church, so we'll be fine. And if you just say you're the king of-" Dick started. 

"I'll use my adventurer's card. But-" I turned to the guys on my left. Ve and Alisa. 

The adventurer's card or rather the status plate came from the guild. They said something about promoting me to first-class and stuff like but I hadn't paid much attention to it before. 

"Well," Dick flung his arms around me. "We can just say, they're our slaves. I mean that's what I did with Servesta till now."

I threw his arms right back at him. "And I feel sorry for him already," I mumbled. "Anyway, I'll just say their cards were eaten. I think my card is supposed to be a top adventurer's card, so it'll work out. Probably."

Dick laughed. "Well, we'll find out soon."

And by soon, he wasn't pulling any punches. 

Even from two kilometers away I could see the massive city walls. 

It had two mountains on two sides and maybe a third one behind? From afar, it almost looked like a fortress. 

The sand was moving in the distance. Something was inside of those. 

"Think those are goblins hiding there?" I didn't know why but I was definitely paranoid of goblins at this point. 

"What is wrong with your eyes?" Dick squinted his eyes hard. "Not sure what type of monsters those are, but, I don't think they'll be able to come at us from that far."

"Well, you're the protagonist." If push came to shove, I could have just dumped all responsibility on him, and let him run the show anyway. 

Dick glistened in the spotlight with a smug face for a second. "Entry after dark would be tough. Let's hurry." He started to run. 

"Running in this weather?" I was tired already. 

But still ran anyway.

"Morons." Alisa frowned but she was also right behind us. 

***

"Halt!"

There were about five people in front of us and judging by how the dwarves were checking identities, needless to say, it was going to be very hard to get our friends in. 

"Next!" There were only three guards on duty. There were a lot more on top of the wall though. And boy was the door big. The wall was also pretty thick. 

It was our turn. 

Dick went first. "This is my card. He's my slave. A bull demi-" 

"Next!"

And the guy got in just like that. 

'Wow!' For the first time, I was actually impressed with the guy. 

I handed over my status plate. "These two are my companions. They had theirs eaten."

"Eaten? By what?"

"Goblins."

"Goblins?"

'Please tell me, there are goblins here.' For the first time ever I actually wanted to have some goblins around. 

Okay, maybe not. Those things were horrible. 

"I see." The guard took a look at my plate. "Wow, first-class!" His expression changed from nonchalant to exasperated.

"Another one?" The voice came from behind the soldier. And a well-decorated soldier came our way. Judging by his tone, he was awfully nonchalant too, he actually looked quite old. "And what is the purpose of your visit, sir?" His tone was oddly like an aristocrat. 

"I came to meet a person in Dracona. That's it."

"I see. Very well then, please enjoy your stay." He turned to the soldier. "Let them in."

And we got in. 

'Well, that was harmless.' I for sure thought they'd make a commotion if nothing else. 

But the moment they knew we were high-grade adventurers, they didn't even ask questions. It was almost as though, they wanted us in. 

***

"This place is wicked!" I looked around and in amazement. If the elves had elegance. These guys had craftsmanship. 

The heat was low but it was still here though. 

These people had actually made their houses inside the mountains, underground, and even normal homes on top of the soil. This place was wild! And the architecture was basically like medieval stuff I'd seen in Moire, just a bit less clean. 

There weren't any trees around and the soil was rock hard. So they didn't need additional roads either. 

There were mostly dwarves out here but I did see some humans, demi-humans, and even some elves. But one thing was troubling. It was that everyone had some sort of troubled look. No one was happy or had any kind of enthusiasm. Children weren't running around, playing and people weren't going on a frenzy in the markets. 

"Something is wrong with this city," Alisa whispered. 

"Yeah, let's go find an inn."

"I know a place." Dick led the way. 

We all followed. 

In three minutes we reached a small stone building with two floors. It looked ordinary from the outside but on the inside, things were different. All the staff were women, and all the customers were men. 

At least the air was cooler. 

"I'm getting the feeling, this might not be an inn." Alisa took the words right out of my mouth. 

"Uh-huh."

"What are you saying! This the best inn in town!" Dick was excited. 

Yeah, I had my doubts.