Chapter 8
The Werewolf KIng's Wise Words
Some time before Alystar had found Kuda and Kyra.
He moved like the wind. No. The wind wished it could blow as fast as Alystar at top speed. If he actually ran as fast as he could, he might accidentally end up back at Orario, which was three days away by carriage. However, for the sake of his goal of finding his two wandering familia members, as well as so the boy hanging on his back didn't fall off, he only moved fast enough to move quickly enough around the village so that he could find them. Unfortunately, he was not having any luck.
He must've ran around the streets five times over by now, even going to the more out of the way part of the village, but still, they were not there. Occasionally, villagers who heard him coming could only see a blur as he had already ran past them when they opened their doors to see. Occasionally, he jumped sky high to see if he could find their figures through rain and darkness, but he found nothing. Apparently, Alystar was the only one dumb enough to be out in the pouring rain after dark.
"Wheee! Whooo! Faster! Faster!"
Meanwhile, Bell was having the time of his life. Initially, he was frightened of the speed Alystar was moving him at, but he quickly got over that when he realized that Alystar would not let him fall and he could enjoy the ride. He was having the time of his life. He had on several occasions ridden on horseback at the local village ranches, but the horses had nothing on Alystar. It was the most fun he had had since his grandfather's death. He had an idea of what adventurers were capable of thanks to his grandfather's stories, but the reality was far greater than his fantasies.
"Would you stop cheering!" Alystar snapped. "I'm trying to find them!"
"But it's so fun riding on you!"
"We're not here to have fun!"
"You're such a grouch," Bell pouted.
"You're a cheeky little brat, huh? That's surprising," he muttered, stopping at random street. He wasn't tired, but he realized that running circles around the village was getting him nowhere. Since Kuda and Kyra weren't outside on the streets, they were either outside the village or they went indoors somewhere to get out of the rain. The former seemed unlikely because he knew no matter what they were feeling, those two wouldn't just cause them trouble by leaving the village without telling anybody, but the latter also seemed unlikely because what shelter could they find in a village they had never been in before today?
"It must be nice being in a familia," Bell suddenly said, breaking Alystar's focus. "You all really seem to care about each other. Like you're all family."
"...That might be a stretch. I'm just doing what I have to."
"But you're doing it to help this Kuda-san and Kyra-san, aren't you? Anyway, why is it so important for me to see them?"
"...I can't say. Sorry, you deserve to know, but it isn't my place to tell you."
"I see…" Bell could hear the guilt in the werewolf's voice. He wouldn't press Alystar for information he couldn't share. He wasn't that kind of kid. So, he decided to ask another question he wanted to know about. "Was my grandpa an adventurer?"
"No, he wasn't. He was what you'd call a non-combatant member. He didn't fight or go into the Dungeon, but he was, and this is between us, a great adviser. To everyone in the familia, he was something like a father figure."
"Wow, really?" Bell became impressed with the image of his grandfather acting like an advisor to those great adventurers, the modern day heroes he looked up to. "But did grandpa really know anything that could matter to an adventurer?"
"You'd be surprised," he smirked. "Besides, it wasn't always about dungeon diving. How about you? I can only imagine what it was like for you living with that crazy old coot would be like."
"Grandpa taught me lots of things. He read me lots of heroic epics!"
"Epics, eh…?" Alystar sighed, sounding nostalgic. "The old man drove us nuts talking about those darn things. So, do you want to be an adventurer?"
"...I don't know," Bell admitted. "Grandpa said that if I went to Orario and became an adventurer, then all my dreams would come true."
"And? What are your dreams?"
"Um, I…" He hesitated to say his dream aloud. In a normal situation, he'd be reluctant to say his dream aloud. Saying his dream to a real live adventurer like Alystar only tripled his anxiety. Still, he felt like he should say it. "I want to be a hero."
He braced himself for the laughter he expected to hear once he uttered his childish dream, but it never came. Alystar only sighed as if he expected nothing less.
"I see. That's a very difficult dream you have. Difficult to achieve, and even more difficult to believe in as you follow the path. It may sound childish, but in truth it's probably the grandest and most lofty aspiration in the world. There are many types of heroes. Real ones and fake ones alike. However, there is only one true kind of hero. Unfortunately, their rarer than the rarest drop items."
"Uh…"
"Sorry, I guess that's all a bit too complicated for a brat like you. All I'm saying is that it's not easy to be a hero. Oh, and if you're afraid to be laughed at just for saying your dream, then it's down right impossible."
Bell gasped. Did Alystar read his mind?
"I didn't read your mind. You're as easy to read as a picture book, and I'm not even able to look at you with you on my back. You were afraid I'd laugh at you if you told me your dream, weren't you?"
"Well, yeah."
"Listen, kid. You can't be afraid to say your dreams. If you get laughed at, brush it off. Any punk who dares to laugh at another man's aspiration isn't worth the time it takes to get embarrassed. It devalues your dreams if you let people like that get to you. If you worry about what others think, then you'll never become any kind of hero, or any kind of man."
Bell looked down at the ground. He felt ashamed that he acted so wimpy in the presence of a real adventurer. He'd rather have been laughed at then be viewed as a coward by a real man like Alystar.
"So good job."
"Huh?"
"What? Are you dense? You passed a hero test."
"A-A hero test?"
"It was something the old man made up. Life is filled with tests that determine whether or not you can be a hero or not. Saving a random stranger, doing the right thing, putting someone else first, and all that other heroic rubbish. You were afraid I'd laugh at you for wanting to be a hero, but you still went and said it. That was brave."
"A hero test…" Bell said in awe of such a thing. "Grandpa never told me about them."
Alystar shrugged. "Who knows what goes on in the old guy's head. Trust me. The more you know about him the more you realize you didn't know him at all. That aside, I am impressed with you. To be honest, when I first laid eyes on you, I couldn't help but think that there was no way a spoiled little brat like you could've had the guts to step in front of a bunch of wild goblins and take the beating for a girl like I heard, but looks like you proved me wrong. You may make a half decent man yet."
"Alystar-san…" Bell whispered, a hot feeling forming in his throat. He almost cried, but he held back the tears. He didn't want to ruin the image that Alystar was forming of him by weeping like a girl.
"And," he said softly. "For what it's worth, I will never laugh at your dreams."
"I have another," Bell blurted. After what Alystar had just told him, he wanted to show courage by stating his other dream that he inherited from his grandfather.
"Hm?"
"I have another dream!"
"Oh, what is it?"
"Grandpa told me that a real man should go to the Dungeon and pick up girls there by saving them from vicious monsters and then build a harem. I want to try that."
It took Alystar a few seconds to process what Bell had just said. Once he did, he laughed. He laughed so hard, he practically destroyed his image as "Me. Cool".
"Hahahahahahahahaha…!"
"Alystar-san?!" Bell said incredulously. Alystar was laughing uncontrollably. His face grew red from the exertion and he was stumbling around like an old drunkard. It was as if he had heard the punch line for a really long joke and the punchline was worth the wait.
"Hahaha…! He did it!" Alystar declared. "He finally did it! That perverted old man finally brainwashed some poor brat into actually believing in that ridiculous fantasy of picking up girls in the Dungeon! For gods sake, that's a freaking riot!"
Bell, however, was not laughing. In fact, it was fair to say he was quite livid. In the course of his short time knowing the one known as the Werewolf King, he had felt a variety of feelings from excitement to sadness and shame to pride and joy. Now, he felt something he had never truly felt before tonight. At least, not to such a degree. He felt frustrated. More frustrated than he ever had before. So, to take out his frustration, he did what any little kid would do.
He bit him.
"Owww!" Alystar howled in pain when the ten year old bit him on his neck with full force. "The hell?! You bit me! Why would you do that?!"
"You said you wouldn't laugh at my dreams!"
"Anybody would laugh at that ridiculous excuse for a dream, you stupid brat! I mean picking up girls in a monster infested Dungeon? Do I really need to say how stupid that is!"
"That's the dream my grandpa gave me! Don't call it stupid! Old man!"
"Old?! That's it! You are dead!"
"Eeek!" Bell screeched, terrified. "Help me! Help me!"
It was a comical sight. Alystar, the top class adventurer, being provoked by the likes of a ten year old boy with a hero complex. He stumbled as he reached out to punish the boy. To defend himself, Bell took full advantage of his position and yanked hard on Alystar's hair, angering him more. If his familia saw him, both surviving and deceased, they would either be laughing as hard as he had moments ago or they would stare agape at seeing their normally cool headed wolf acting so foolishly. It was a sight normally reserved for more clownish members of the familia, like Kuda.
Naturally, when two people are making such a scene, screaming and shout, out after dark in the midst of rain, anybody would go out see what the commotion was about when it was outside their front door.
"Shit!" Alystar cursed when he saw several doors begin to open. He wasn't an idiot. He knew perfectly well how bad it would look if anybody saw him trying to strike a child at night in the middle of the rain. Not to mention, Bell was the local charity case because of the old man's death. He had no desire to receive the label that was given to men in such a situation. He acted quickly. He crouched down and prepared to leap. "Hold on, kid!"
"Wha-whoooah!" Bell instinctively clung tightly onto Alystar's back when he made a sudden leap into the sky, perhaps his highest jump yet since he took Bell away from Dr. Oleson's home. Bell could almost swear that he blew away the clouds with this action. They were suspended in air for what felt like several moments before gravity did its job to pull them back to earth. If things were left as is, then they would certainly die from the fall, but Bell knew not to worry since Alystar could stick the landing easily. Of course, he thought, since they just had a big fight, he might just be inclined to allow him to plummet to his death. Bell silently prayed that Alystar was not that petty.
The Werewolf King, on the other hand, was far too focused on the two figures he saw as they descended back to the ground. It was Kuda and Kyra. He was sure of that. It could only be them and as they got closer to the earth, he was more and more certain of that. Alystar veered his body to land on their position, which was on the other side of the village from where he and Bell were before.
"Hey, we're going to land by my house!" Bell called. He couldn't see the figures of Kuda and Kyra, but he could see his home thanks to the magic stone street lamps that illuminated the streets.
'His house?' Alystar thought as he realized what happened. They must've stumbled onto the Cranel home and let themselves in out of curiosity and to get out of the rain. 'I should've known! Damn those two. When I get my hands on them, I'll wring their necks till they die!'
He landed hard on the ground, several feet away from Kuda and Kyra. The two top class adventurers instinctively shielded their faces with their arms to protect themselves from the cloud of dust and debris that shot at them when Alystar landed.
"Bout time you two showed yourselves," the werewolf growled. "Do you two appreciate how long I've been searching for you both? In the damn rain when your scents are gone? Do you?!"
"Al?!" Kuda snapped when he realized who it was that dropped from the sky. "What the hell are-"
Kuda's voice fell when he saw Bell under Alystar's cloak. Bell also forgot his feelings of frustration earlier when he saw the two new adventurers. Even if Alystar hadn't called out to them, he instantly surmised that they were the Kuda Zeldon and Kyra Slavis that they were looking for. And when he saw their faces, a strange feeling of familiarity crept up inside of him and he couldn't find the words to say.
It was as if, without knowing it himself, he was waiting to meet them his entire life.