Chapter 113:

  **The next day**

  I woke up next to Belle once again in my gothic quarters around 0635. Apparently, I was extremely tired after the events yesterday, so when I had woken up, I had found us… still connected…

  I proceeded to go for a morning round, but I felt a tug on my bare leg from under the covers, and it felt like a tail…

  “Ugh… Could you two keep it down, please… So nasty,” Jo said as she pulled the covers from over us, leaving me and Belle open to the cold. I clicked my tongue at her, because once again she had made it in here with us without me knowing. I really should start locking my door… but then she and the other girls would just find another way in.

  Seriously, it was a pain…

  Belle and I proceeded to fuck in silence next to her anyway. She had gotten used to the random entries from the Black Wolves girls, but I had also craved the quiet time we got without a surprise guest most mornings.

  As I finished, I felt Jo’s tail grip my ankle tightly. When I had turned around to check on her, she was breathing heavily and shivering faintly; the covers over her had trailed down past her shoulders. And as I pulled it back up over her, I noticed her hand looked wet and sticky… “Fuckin’ sleep addict, drooling all over my bed.” I said naively.

  Afterward, I got up, left the girls there, got dressed, and headed off to train with the guys. The usual routine.

  I made it out of my room, down the stairs, and entered the landing on my own. No Code in sight as I walked down to our double doors and opened them, expecting to see them all there waiting for me. But there was no one outside.

  As I stepped out onto the clearing, I checked the training watch that I had on, and the time was 0650. I thought I had just missed them.

  It was then; Alice knocked on the open double doors behind me.

  For once, she wasn’t already dressed in uniform like usual. Instead, she was in casual house attire: black tank, pink fuzzy short shorts, and light gray socks with an ice cream cone in her hand—desert in the mornings were her guilty pleasure it seemed.

  Her focus was on her comm as she said, “You’re early.” Nearly baffled that she had uttered the words to me.

  “Early? I’m usually the last one here. Where is everyone?”

  “Why don’t you ask them yourself?” she said as Code casually made his way down the stairs and onto the entrance hall, leading to the wide open double doors.

  “Ah, would you look at that? You’re actually the first one here,” he said.

  “We starting late today or what?” I asked him.

  “Someone’s eager. I figured we get at least one day to sleep in after yesterday's events… we did this too after the incident last month—oh wait, you didn’t come to training the day after.” Code joked as he pointed with his thumb up to my quarters where Belle still was.

  I twitched an eyebrow at him.

  “Well, shall we wait for the others then?”

  “Unless you want to wait till noon, I wouldn’t recommend it. I came out here to train on my own. I’m actually surprised to see you out here, Captain. Since you’re here, we can train ourselves,” he said.

  We went on our normal jog, and when we came back, he and I had begun sparring.

  I threw a left jab and then a right hook as he dodged the first and blocked the second with the hilt of his blade.

  “So, a Zion Orb retrieval mission, huh? And you’re leading the brigade?” he asked casually as we exchanged blows.

  “Yeah… I don’t know how I feel about leading it. Now I’m thinking it’s a mistake on their part,” I replied as he threw a slash to my right, which I effortlessly dodged.

  “And why do you think that?” he asked, dodging my spin-kick, twirling back up and facing me head-on. He then unsheathed his other long sword and began throwing one slash after the other while I backed away from them.

  “Because. I’ll be leading other people. Not the crew,” I replied casually.

  “So? What’s the difference?” he asked as he threw down a cross slash and I flipped backward and away from it, landing on one knee.

  “The difference is, I haven’t led anything aside from the Black Wolves… and this position was pretty much handed to me by Asura. I didn’t earn this.”

  “I would argue that you have. And what’s happening to you now is something you earned as well—was just a long time coming. Quit being difficult and start seeing it as the fruit of your labor. Whether it’s good or bad, we all have things coming to us. It’s just the nature of this game we call life.”

  As he said this, he twisted his foot and his pentagram expanded. He then switched himself with a piece of dirt behind me and held one of his long swords to my neck. “That was a lame win… I know you saw that coming.”

  On the sidelines, Alice sat on a small pink roundtable drinking a cup of hot cocoa, and a stuffed wolfdog sitting across from her faced our direction. Little to my knowledge at the time, it had a pin on one of its ears with a cartoon version of my face… She yawned as she watched our spar come to an anticlimactic end.

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  I said nothing, remaining knelt, with his blade to my neck.

  I sighed and asked, “What would you do?”

  He retracted his blade, flipping it and then sheathing it behind him carefully. He then threw his hands in his pants pockets and walked around me. Back facing me as he said, “First, I’d stop overthinking it.”—he glanced over his shoulder to see me—“And then I’d stop comparing myself to how others lead.”

  I looked at him for a while, pondering, and then closed my eyes and smirked. “I knew I made the right decision coming to training today,” I said, getting up and putting my hands behind my head.

  “Idiot. You should come to training every day, lest you want to get rusty.” He sighed. “Whatever.” Code followed me back into the Den to make some breakfast. When he snapped his fingers again, the pillars went back to their normal, lined-up positions, leading to our double door entrance.

  I helped Code make breakfast while the others slowly began to make their way to the dining area, and I began thinking about how yesterday had concluded…

  ***

  **Yesterday. Hall of the Chosen**

  “Really?” Daz asked, intrigued by my sureness. “And here I was thinking you were still getting used to the spotlight.”

  “Don’t make me change my mind.” I replied.

  He chuckled. “Always so eager to dodge formalities.” He tilted his head down and pondered for moment before continuing, “So, who will be joining you?”

  “First, tell me why it has to be me leading this mission. This may come to a surprise to you, but I don’t like making rash decisions, especially when it involves the lives of others.”

  “See, it’s when you say things like this that prove evermore that you deserve to be here.”

  I stared at him blandly and he got the point.

  “Alright, alright… I can tell you’re not used to the spotlight. Well, to put it frankly, you’ve proven that you can lead a group of powerful mages and demonstrate your individual strength among them on a grand scale. I don’t know if you realize, but the people see you as a hero now, and what better way to keep their morale going than to put the hero at the center of this next important step to the Valley’s recovery?”

  “So it's for show? Yeah, I’m out,” I said, not giving it a second thought.

  “Hold on,” Daz said, “This is not just for show. It is for assurance. Two very different things. Whether you like it or not, your deeds have deemed you a light in the people’s eyes. You have become hope for them, and the people need hope to look forward to. Especially in times like this, when the enemies we face are uncertain, and hope is getting harder to come by. You have to understand… it’s not just about you anymore.”

  I understood after he said this. I had been looking at it from a shallow lens—popularity, power, clout. All things I cared not for. However, there was something I was still greatly unsure of…

  “Fine, I get it, but…” I focused my eyes on him, and they trailed from one gray eye to the other before going on. “How sure are we that after we retrieve a new Orb that another Apostle won’t just come back to take it—like how Pride so effortlessly infiltrated under our nose?”

  Daz deeply loosed a breath and took his time to answer that question. I could tell, there were still some things that were up in the air. “I don’t know.” A surprising answer.

  I waited with an unwavering look, sensing there was more.

  “Pride was a special case. He uses Tantra beyond levels we can comprehend. I don’t even think his ‘Sin magic’ is magic at all. It just does not follow the rules of magic… But the other Apostles are similar in strength only. They way Pride left made me think he was in a hurry, otherwise he would have attempted to eradicate the Valley right there and then. But he left it as a warning, giving us time to prepare. This might be a ploy, but we will take advantage of the limited time we have. Starting with reinforcing our troops, and solidifying our barricades. This is the best answer I can give you at this time. I apologize if it’s an unsatisfactory answer.”

  I broke my gaze and looked away, darting my eyes as if lost in thought. We have been thrown into a den of monsters without any consent and forced to build on the fly. It was the best reassurance I could get. And I had to do my part for the plan—whatever it may be…

  “So, with that… are you able to answer my previous question next?” he asked politely. There was a hidden dominance within his words. Like he had allowed me to ask first and speak over him, then letting me know who the bigger fish was by his dimpled smile alone.

  I humbled myself to him after instantly sensing this and answered plainly, “Yes. Four mages. One of them is in this room already.”

  Daz broke character and giddied over to me with a palm over his mouth as if to whisper—not noticeable at all… “Am I that ‘one’?”

  “What? No.”

  He slouched and began moping like a child. Idiot King…

  “Besides,” I said. “You need to be here in case something like Pride or Syemore happens again. You’ve been away for too long.”

  When I said this, he lifted his head and smiled half-smiled. “Good call.”

  “Also, there is a mound of paperwork waiting for you in your office.” King Ezkar interjected as he cleared his throat at the end. “Sirus told me to relay that information to you, since you won’t listen to him…”

  Daz groaned like a spoiled kid.

  I went on like I had skipped a commercial, “And as much as I would like to take my whole crew, not all of them are S rank mages. They may have S rank abilities, but by title, they are not S rank. Not even Code is an S rank mage in record.”

  “Keeper, we really got to do an intervention with the Black Wolves don’t we? I’m sure he qualifies. I’m sure most of your crew qualifies. We can certify them accordingly if you like?”

  “Yeah, but the process will take too long. And we don’t have time on our hands, do we?”

  Daz nodded to the point.

  “Usually I’d ignore that stupid rule, but it’s also an excuse for me to have them stay here and rest and grow stronger on their own while I’m away. So, I’ll play by the rules if it means keeping them safe. I want them here in case danger shows up at the Den again. And to get the chance to relax for once after everything that has happened.”

  Belle smiled the whole time I was speaking. She hadn’t said a word, but I knew she approved of my decisions.

  It was then; she said, “Then it is settled. I will go with you.”

  I smiled back to her, lovingly, and said, “Sorry, princess. I want you to stay here as well.”

  She was surprised at my response. “You have a whole Guild and a Sub-Kingdom to take care of. When the Valley needs you most, you must be here as well.”

  She seemed almost saddened with that response. “I understand. So then… if it’s not Daz or me, and not the Black Wolves… that could only mean…”

  When I finally looked at Ryo, we shared the same eyes. If he were in my position, he’d have chosen to do the same.

  “Very well. You will have two days to gather your troops. You seem to be already making the right choices. I knew I was right to give you this responsibility.” Daz encouraged me.

  But even though I knew my team, I still felt like I wasn’t meant to lead this… So, what better way than to fill that team with a bunch of leaders?

  ***

  **Two days later**

  As their doors opened from each of their respective Guild gates, I was already met with answers to my question: That was what I was supposed to ask, but the ones whom I had chosen had all relatively said the same thing.