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"T... T-Twig? I-is that you?!" She looked very surprised and had taken one step backwards.
"Cor...dola?" I stammered and looked at her very puzzled. So, that really is you? How did she grow up so fast?
"Y-Ye... Yes!" as if seeing a ghost, she added, "Where have you been? You look... the same!"
Yea. Tell me more about it. You look like your mother! Mother! Heck. I almost forgot about the reason why I am talking to you. I slowly recounted what I saw in the small house full of ashes and clouds of dust and asked her about their whereabouts.
"I apologize for eavesdropping, young child. However, I am your father's last companion when he ventured to the entrance of the Dungeons of Monsters along with Morning Dew's father." he tapped Dola's shoulder as he answered my question and wiped his face.
"Last... Companion?"
"That's because it's been twenty Luners that has passed, Twig. We thought that you and Morning Dew are already dead. The day that you were missing, the townspeople initiated a search party and we're looking everywhere for you." she paused while clenching her fist holding a towel.
"W-what?!?" I exclaimed.
"Master, is Luners the cycle of the entire months?" Sprigg once again whispered.
I moved my head sideways and talked to her using the telepathy, "Not now, Sprigg!"
"After that day, no one has claimed your bodies and everyone was afraid traversing the deeper portion of the forest." she positioned her hand to her chest and added, "Our lord assumed that you accidentally ventured inside the newly found dungeon and is expected to be dead. Your mother was overwhelmed and her condition deteriorated. I, I am sorry, Twig. I..." tears are rolling down her face, "I swear my mother helped as much as she could but the incident weakened her." She cried and I faltered about the next thing she said, "S-She died a week--"
I fell on my knees reaching at my heart as I reminisced how it feels to have them and after a long milder-hot breeze blew on our face, I wiped my face. I begged to the stars and the suns that I can still have the chance of embracing them. Just a touch will do. I covered my face with my bare hands and I couldn't even feel the non stop falling of the tears in my eyes as I looked at her crying too. She's beginning to embrace my childish body, to comfort me but... I feel like my world had just been torn to smaller pieces. Unattached by reality. The sound of silence replaced everything just as I was inside the artefact with anything but darkness flooding on me. I slowly wiped my tears and asked in a slow voice, "H-how about my fa-father, Dola? How is he not here and my siblings?"
Her father explained that after my mother died, father went inside the dungeon looking for me and Dew while leaving the other four children in the village. Our father didn't seem to make it too as they have never seen again. This is all my fault. I killed both of them. I killed everyone. Everything that I worked for shattered like it was for nothing. Thinking that I could go back to the way it was with my family. Now that's hard all my wishful thinking. He also said that life in this village has never been the same and our Lord has been transferred to another territory leaving our home under his younger brother who poorly supervised them. Some of the ladies were thrown at the whorehouse to the next city and the other lads were sold to be a slave, my siblings included.
I know I can't complain about this because this has been the widespread obsession this society has cultivated, sometimes even peddlers are ignored. Slavery is one of the trades of the other aristocrats and usually the source of income of one's territory, if not for our previous Lord.
I went back to our old home looking for things that used to be my parents'. I embraced every little thing that I can find remembering that if I have been here, I could've felt their warmth and tenderness as I grew up. This feeling... This feeling that's like wearing a very tight-fitting pair of wooden shoes that you cannot take off. Just as you can reckon of nothing else but your stinging feet because of these shoes, and that grief can lead you to think of nothing else but your loss, you cannot run away from. Like having a heavy load on your chest, dragging it to nothing but sorrow and despair.
Next thing I know, stones, pebbles, and stones are spiralling around the top of my head with its circular motion. I felt Sprigg hugged my cheeks and I closed my eyes. Although I can't see them, I know my parents are hugging me too. I know they are looking out for me. I can feel them.
"Sprigg, let's find them. Let's find my family." I sighed heavily as he replied in my head, "Yes!"
I know it's not my place to question the action of a Lord's but I want them. I want to be with them. I thought of asking Sir Lyol if the new Lord of this territory can grant me an audience, for me to retrieve my siblings. I looked at the garrison to ask for someone that can help me find him but I guess he's not a squire anymore.
"A young boy looking for a Knight? That's completely preposterous!" said the man with a long thick orange beard holding up his chain mail, an armour consisting of small metal hoops linked together in a structure to form a mesh.
"Perhaps you're not in your right mind, child. He's not stationed here." answered the other man with brushed up long jet-black hair. I find this guy a more dignified Knight stationed at the garrison, I know him as the fellow squire as Sir Lyol. He's also kind and very refined.
These knights are stationed here long before the previous lord is overseeing these lands. He said he only needs a couple of knights to secure his safety while the other knights are strolling for any feasible assaults while most of them are stationed here. Sir Lyol always tells me to look for him here if I ever need his help and that's what happens if he doesn't meet up with me in the forest of Krane to train.
"I apologize for asking these respectable Knights but can you please tell where I can find him?" I ask them again.
"You! I know you!" said the other man with golden hair sitting at the wooden bench brandishing his hand across the people around, "You're that boy Lyol trained before. Aren't you dead?" he added.
"Can you even talk to an undead, Rad?" said the guy with an orange beard.
"Shut it, Cole! Do you want to know how it feels to be dead?" replied the sitting Knight. They call Rad as he slowly walked near the other knight but stopped as the knight with long black hair positioned his arms to stop him.
"Child, who are you?" he asked.
"I, I am Lemure, but Sir Lyol calls me Twig," I replied.
"Lemure, huh! Where did you get that name from?" asked the guy with the long thick orange beard called Cole.
"I, uh. No one gave it to me, Sir. I..."
"Stop teasing the kid, Cole," said Sir Rad who crossed his legs after he sat down. "Now, boy. You really look like the boy that Lyol is fond of. Where have you been?" he added.
I told him that I got lost inside the wilderness and apparently have been living alone. Of course, I can't just tell him that I was pulled inside the dungeon and transported to a pocket dimension where the ancient beings inhabited. Not that they will trust that story, though. Better keep it to myself. I was asked again and again until they stopped asking.
"I bet Lyol is inside the manor of the new Lord, as one of the primary guards. What's your purpose?" the knight with jet-black hair asked me.
"I only wish to greet him after being separated for too long. Gratitudes to you, respectable knights," I bowed as a gesture of respect and added, "I should be on my way now if that is fine."
He waved his hand as a sign that I can leave now. These unspoken ethics that should be followed are engraved to us commoners when talking to the knights and especially nobles. Well, not that every day you can converse with a noble. Lucky if you call it. I guess I am only like this since I usually talk to him before and being a commoner makes me an odd one to absorb all of it. Anyway, I immediately ran to the enormous huge stone house of the new Lord to see my long-awaited reunion with one of my friends and mentor, Sir Lyol.
When I arrived, the enormous stone house was differently decorated with a glorious order of flowers and wood carriages. It's only like this when the Lord is receiving a guest from other nobles. However, this is way lavished than the previous one. Showing one's wealth and precious adornment arranged outside the manor and a lot of foods that you can smell all around the town. Multiple beasts were to be brought from the butcher to prepare for such a luxurious event.
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