The moment Rohan started laughing, Soren looked at him with a confused look on his face and asked:
"What is it so funny right now, Rohan?"
The moment Rohan saw Soren asking with his face stuffed with food, Rohan started laughing even harder and then said:
"Ahahahaha. You look... haha... Like a... ahahahahaha... Like a... *wheeze* A stuffed pufferfish.. Ahahahahaha *wheeze* *cough* *cough* Oh god, I'm going to... Ahahahaha... *cough*" At that point Rohan fell of his chair and was laughing uncontrolably on the ground.
In the next moment, Lavenza took out her head from the big bowl and she looked like a squirrel with its cheeks stuffed full of nuts. At that moment Soren also started to laugh and so did Lavenza after seeing Soren's face full of noodles. The three of them were laughing uncontrolably and the only thing Shaun was thinking while hearing them was: 'Ah it's for nights like these that i enjoy working late at night.'
After Soren and Lavenza finished the special bowl, Rohan paid for his bowl with a few copper coins and the three of them left the stall in a happy mood.
"Alright, now that we have eaten our dinner, let's get going to my place, don't worry I'll let you stay the night at my place." Rohan said happily.
The three of them were swimming through the streets with Rohan leading the way. The streets themselves were bustling with activity. Many people were swimming through the roads, in and out of shops and resaurants, there were even some that were swimming over the shorter buildings. The shops themselves were shining brightly and they were full of people with some of them having people waiting outside. It was then that Soren decided to ask:
"Rohan, may I ask why are the streets looking to busy?" Soren felt that he may have been asking a stupid question, but he still felt that this street was a bit too bussy for a street that isn't one of the main ones. But Rohan's answer completely suprised him.
"Well it's not suprising, considering the fact that the hero summoning ceremony is going to happen in a couple of days."
"Hero Summoning!?" Soren asked with a shocked face.
"Kyuu~?" Lavenza seemed interested as well.
"It is exactly as it sounds. It is a ceremony that summons a hero from another world. Nothing too hard or complicated. It is an even that happens every four years and although the summoning doesn't always work, it never had any casualties as far as I know." Rohan explained.
Soren couldn't believe the fact that such a thing even existed. He didn't have much of a problem believing that transfering into another was possible, since he expiriened it first hand. But the fact that people from other worlds are bring brought here through ceremonies completely shocked him. He then thanked his lucky stars that he came to through this world without the need of a ceremony, otherwise he would have to deal much more troublesome problems, including the lack of freedom.
"Then who is the one that performs the summoning ceremony?" Soren asked curiously.
"That would be the current Arch-Priest or Arch-Priestess, which in this case would be the Arch-Priestess Laventhign."
'Lavenza's biological mother.' was Soren's thought.
"So what do you intend to do? Do you want to see the summoning ceremony?" Rohan asked then.
"Yeah, I want to see the ceremony. I'm rather curious." Soren answered back with a happy expression.
The trio continued swimming through the busy streets until they made it to a house without lights. The house itself was two stories high and had a small garden with a coral tree on the left side. Then Rohan went to the door, took out a pair of keys and opened the door for the three of them to enter.
After Rohan pressed the light switch on the left side of the door, he said:
"Welcome to my personal hideout. Don't forget to clean yourselves before calling it a day guys. After all we broke quite a bit of sweat in today's little skirmish."
The interior of the house looked pretty basic. The walls were light blue and the floor was made of some sort of dark colored wood. There were also a number of furniture with simple designs, such as chairs, tables, a blue sofa and even a small bookcase filled with books.
"Come on guys, follow me to the second floor to take a shower." Rohan said.
After going to the second floor, they went into the first door to the right. The bathroom itself was a bit small. Just a toilet, a sink and a shower head with a horizontal switch with red and blue sides. Then, all of a sudden Rohan tossed to Soren a bottle with a white liquid.
"Don't tell me you don't know how to take shower." Rohan said a bit jokingly.
"Hey! I wasn't born under a rock you know. I know how to take a shower myself." Soren said a bit heated.
"Just don't take to long." After that Rohan left.
Soren then started taking off the clothes he was wearing, then both Soren and Lavenza went under the shower. Soren was wondering how would it be possible for the shower head to work, considering the fact that they were underwater. The moment Soren checked the shower head he got a message.
[Magical shower head: A tool made from alchemists through the use of magic and technology. The way the water comes out is through a Lesser Water Stone that can be easily created with the use of Water Magic. The water itself also has a higher density than pure water that is found in the wild and is also a thin coating of mana that prevents it from mixing with the pure water.]
"Talking about wicked man! This is so cool!" Soren said excitedly. A shower that worked underwater was definitely the best tool he has seen so far in this world and it made him pretty excited.
"Kyuu~?" Lavenza was confused with Soren's sudden outburst and immidiately after, Soren turned on the switch immidiately.
"WOAH! WOAH! TOO COLD!! TOO COLD!!"
"KYAAAA~!"
Both of them screamed from the cold water that came and then he immidiately turned the switch towards the red.
"OWOWOW! HOT! HOT! HOT!"
"KYAYAYA~!!"
Again the same situation happened but with hot water instead. Then Soren instantly put the swutch in the middle and lukewarm water came out where Soren breathed out a sigh of relief. After that little mess, they both started to clean themselves. After around thirty minutes the left the shower and then put on again the old clothes. Those might be old but they aren't dirty thankfully.
After both of them left the bathroom, Rohan came with a change of clothes for himself and went to take a shower. While he was taking a shower, Soren and Lavenza went to the living room to sit and wait untill he finishes.
For Soren, it was a surreal thing to wait alone in a stranger's house that he happened to meet today. He felt a bit anxious so he decided to read a book from the library. The book he grabbed, seemed to be some sort of bestiary that had information on monsters and living creatures, as well as some illustrations of them. The first entry of the book was the Sea Wolf monster, something both of them had fought quite a few times and the illustration was quite accurate as well. The next few entries showed quite the variety of monsters, from giant crabs to piranhas.
While the two of them were reading the book, Rohan came to the living room looking clean and refreshed and the moment he saw the two of them reading the monster manual, he felt like he was warming up inside and said:
"It's pretty important to know your opponent before your fight, since that way, you will always have the upper hand on the enemy, in terms of knowledge."
"Oh, Rohan. Sorry for reading your book without permission." Then Soren immidiately closed the book and went to put it back in its place, but just as he was about to get up, Rohan then said:
"Feel free to read and keep that book. After all I have already memorised all the entries inside it and nothing in that book poses a threat to me anymore."
"Thanks, but I want to ask something."
"Go ahead then, ask me anything."
Soren hesitated for a bit, then he gathered his courage and asked: "Why are you helping us?"
That question took Rohan by suprise, he did expect that he would have to deal with that question but he didn't exexpect it so soon. 'Didn't expect that question this early, but the kid at least knows that there is no free meal in the world.' was what Rohan thought and then he answered: "Because you two remind me of myself when my brother, when we first started as adventurers. At the time we were also alone at the big city, without a coin to our names and with only our sword skills that we had learned even since we were young, we had to survive. At that time, a famous adventurer also helped us, the same I helped you. He provided us food, a place to rest and words of wisdom until we had the ability to stand on our own feet. At the time, we asked the same question you asked me and his answer suprised me. He said that he spent his entire life becoming stronger so he could fight those that wronged him, but by the time he obtained that strength, all of them had already passed away. Seeing that he chased the ghosts of his past for years, only to realise that they may have never existed in the first place, made him feel like he wasted his entire life away. He had no family, no loved ones, no kids to share his stories or friends to have fun with. He was alone and for him it was too late to start a new family. And then, he met us and he felt that this was his chance to be able to pass his stories, his expiriences and his abilities. At the time, my brother cried at his story and honestly, even now it still makes me to tear up a bit. But just as he wanted to live up to its fullest but he couldn't, he said that we should live it, make connections and relationships with people so when the time comes to retire, we should still have people around us to able to tell these stories and expiriences." After Rohan said his story, he paused for a bit before saying:
"Live life to its fullest and pass on your stories so other can hear them and feel inspired to do something in life. That was what he taught me a few months before he passed away in battle. He won, but it came at a big cost. I have been following my teacher's advice ever since, teaching the newbies they way things go in the guild, ways to stay safe in the wild and I even teach them a few combat techniques at times. That is what i have been doing for 4 years at least and that is what i am going to be doing for quite some time."
After Rohan finished his long story, Soren felt like he asked something that he shouldn't have, while Lavenza was crying on Soren's shirt for a little while.
"Sorry if I asked something that I shouldn't have." Soren tried to apologize for having to remember all of that painful stuff, but the Rohan said:
"You shouldn't feel sorry for asking something. You had your suspicions and you had for the right reasons. You can't just trust a random stranger after all, but that doesn't mean that you should always refuse a hand of help from other when it's needed, just because someone is a stranger. You need to take chances in life and you can't do that if you say no to everything and if something doesn't work out, find a way to make it work. After all the saying: " Where there's a will, there's a way." exists for a reason. So don't make yourself feel so down, just because of a bit of goodwill that was showed from someone else."
After hearing that, Soren felt a weight was lifted from his heart. But just before he said anything, Rohan said:
"It's better if you go and take a rest. After all, this story took quite a while and I'm quite drained as well, so it's better to call it a day and get some rest. If you still feel like you can't accept someone else's goodwill, you are free to leave tomorrow morning, but for today, at least rest here since the streets are dangerous during this time period."
"Alright then." Soren agreed to Rohan's offer. He knew that it would be impossible for him to survive alone without knowing anything and the fact that he had to take care of Lavenza would make it even more so. For now, he had to learn the way this world worked, he had to gain strength to protect her, he had a lot of goals in front of him, so he needed a place where he would be able to rest for a little while and since Rohan gave him an opportunity, he had no reason to turn it down.
"Alright, let me take you to the guest room guys. I can't have you sleep in my brother's room, since he tends to be a bit overprotective with his stuff." Rohan said happily.
Both of them went to the guest room, which had a couch, a table with decorations, a couple of paintings on the wall and a window that had a decent view of Crystalia City. Rohan then brought a pillow and a couple of blankets and turned the couch into a bed after opening it up. After that, Soren and Lavenza lied down on the couch-bed said said:
"Goodnight, Rohan."
"Kyuu~ Kyu~."
"Sleep well guys." Rohan said before leaving the room. After Rohan left the room, Lavenza fell immidiately asleep on Soren's torso while Soren had some alone time to finally work on the information he had learned these couple of days. The things he definitely knew were some of the events that led to the Border East Garrison, the fact that the as far as he knows, the entire merman race lives in underwater caverns, although there were definitely ways out of the cave, thanks to the existance of the moon stones and the fact that Lavenza was the daughter of an Arch-Priestess, of course for this, he wasn't sure if she was still alive. There were also other pieces of information such as the way identification works and Sword Aura that but he felt like there wasn't much point on thinking about them. after sorting his thoughts for a bit, he finally fell asleep.
...
After Rohan left the guest room, he went picked up his shell phone and dialed a certain number. The man who answered from the other side was near an abandoned fort. That man was Matt and the moment his shell phone rang, he heard his brother's voice.
"Hey Matt, how's your mission going?" Rohan was the first to talk.
"Just fine for now, but not much progress was done, since this is the first day and I just found the fort. The only unexpected that I have found up until this point is the existence of the monsters in this zone."
"This is unexpected, I thought that was a dead zone."
"Well turns out it needs an update for sure."
"Anyways , the reason I called was if you met with a young merman today? Blue hair, green eyes, a blue tail with sharp scales and a sea serpent as his companion that went by the name of Lavenza? Does it ring any bells?"
"You mean that greehorn kid and his pet? What about them? Did you let them stay at our place or something?"
"..."
"You seriously did that, didn't you?"
"Old habits, die hard. Hehe."
*sigh* "Brother, you know that one day you are going to get yourself killed that way, don't you? Anyways, what about them, since you are calling this late?"
Then Rohan started saying Soren's story abd the info he had got from him.
...
"I see, that this info will definitely save me some time, but it's better to make a full check just in case he left out anything else. I can't believe he didn't say anything to me." Matt said angrily.
"Why should he? You were a stranger who had whatever job he had to do. I think that was a pretty natural reaction for him." Rohan said calmly.
"You have a point on that one. Do you have anything else to say or should i continue investigating?"
"Actually, I do have one final piece of information but for that one, i need you go bring something from the area if you can."
"What is it?"
"Bring me a shard of the serpent's egg. He said that he hatched her near the fort so the pieces should still be there."
"But why do you want me to bring you a shard of the egg if you could just tell me in the first place."
"This piece of info is more of a suspicion but if you bring me the shard, I should be able to confirm it."
"Then what is it this suspicion of yours?"
"I am having doubts about Lavenza being a sea serpent and I think Soren definitely knows this but kept it hidden."
"I wonder what is the kid hiding? At this point, I might as well start doubting his little story as well."
"For now don't jump into conclusions. Don't forget that all of us have our little skeletons in our closets so don't expect anyone to be honest. Take care for now Matt."
"You too, Rohan." *click*