Chapter 160 – Journal Entry 10: Silent Mouth

The battle over the sewers was over. The cultists caught by the elvens were thoroughly interrogated. With the use of Hypnotism, the cultist spilled all the secrets. In the following, a captain of the city arrived within the sewers. The Elvens and the forces of Gann are quite friendly. They thanked each other without qualms.

As for Grom and I we were treated as if we were not seen in the first place. By request of Leona, we were spared in being investigated. This worked in favor for Leona who wanted to meet with the Fernery Island Mistress. Grom who was rather injured at first manage to recover.

Horrifying it was how his injuries heal. Describing it would be like how a snake sheds its skin, but Grom sheds his bones, his flesh and replaces as he discards the damage on his body. By the end of his regeneration process, the shredded meat and bones disappeared like ashes. It was smelly, disgusting and vomit inducing.

I could not care more about this. I stood up and looked away. I thought of going out only to feel like someone was following me. I look back to see Grom holding his stomach, trying to follow me. Ah, I almost forgot that Grom follows me wherever I go. I did remember him hanging around and doing all those things.

I never have affection for unfeeling monsters. Grom is what I call a beast. He doesn’t have what I call as humanity and him as reckless, suicidal to an extent that it just makes me sad and mad at the same time. Elena calls him a hound dog, and now I get why.

I observed Grom for a while. He was still holding on to his stomach, and as I walk I could him limping. He indeed got his bone wrecked, and his arms twisted, and his spine bent but that didn’t kill him. Usually, he would look big but with the metal on his body bracing him. I say that he doesn’t look good.

His eyes are wavering as if he would go out in any minutes. I thought he fully recovered but the way he stares vacantly and that creepy lunatic smile forming on him don't make me comfortable at all. My guts told me to take her Elena, so I dragged Grom up to the surface, back to the Inn.

Luckily Elena wasn’t sleeping or out. She was eating some food that looks sweet, and seeing Grom looking like he was beaten up, no, turned into a sad state made Elena drop her food. She immediately walked to Grom, inspected him, and brought something from her pocket, which she stabbed on Grom’s neck. Grom groaned for awhile before, his eyes turned blank, his arms fell down lifelessly and I could see him standing right up not minding his injuries.

Elena made a saddened expression as she touches Grom’s torso. What followed was a short chant, which made Grom stumble back. Grom then started to walk mindlessly to where his ‘room’ is located, leaving me and Elena alone.

...

Elena invited me to her room to talk privately. She asked me to explain which I did fully without any lies. I told her that Grom followed me. We went into the sewers along with Elvens who wanted to have a conversation with the Mistress of Fernery Island and then fought some nasty cultists that ended with Grom being heavily injured.

“This could potentially have you turn into a stone by the Mistress...so we are going to keep this quiet if you want to have a job in there.”

“Not my fault, I don’t even want to enter the sewers, but no, he grimly, gestured me to go out there with the elvens.”

“You probably misunderstand him, very well, like I was saying, it might not look like it, but Grom is actually a higher than me in the ranking scale. If there is anyone that the Mistress trusts, then it would be Grom. She is the mistress’s hound dog and her only companion.”

“Her only companion, are they really that close?”

“They are life partners, not lovers, but platonic life partners that want to keep company with each other. Well, the Mistress you see, met Grom wandering around the ashen wasteland, far from this continent. That wasteland was where the last dark lord came to power, and through there that the Mistress, who was looking for her own death, met Grom who is much unfortunate than her.”

“Is that so...”

Elena started telling their story.

“The Mistress, well she was turned into stone for five hundred years. She rested on the bottom of the ocean, until someone. Who was an earthen mate managed to recover her stone statue, revert her from her unstoned form. The mistress was quite a happy go lucky, arc-sorceress, but with as time passes, and how she realized that the one earthen mate that rescued her, would die soon, the Mistress despaired, she realized that most of Fernery Island would soon disappear at the passage of time, so at that time she ran away from the island, and ended up in the ashen wasteland where she thought could find her death, only to meet Grom, who was already covered in metal, suffering from his own damnation. The mistress thought he was quite pitiable, and knowing this, the Mistress took Grom in, and ever since then the two barely separated.”

“So they are really close...”

“Very close...in fact, if Grom wasn’t like that, I would be calling him my uncle. I was still a child, but Grom was already there, so yeah, telling the Mistress that we gave Grom this treatment would be trouble.”

“I get your point, though Miss Elena, I find it hard that despite growing up with Grom, and you seem to call him as a hound dog...why’s that?”

“Ramiel, when you see a bandit man, being ripped apart by Grom and him throwing a fit of rage against anyone that goes against the people he watched over along with the mistress...then you would call him a hound dog too. The mistress doesn’t really care for petty words, but oh boy, she would turn this city upside down if we report to her that Grom got in trouble, suffered like that and we didn’t avenge him.”

“Sounds like a lot of trouble...”

“Indeed, so if you still want to go to the island then please keep this a secret.”

“Okay, I will.”

A part of me wants to not go to the island but knowing that the Island has a lot of protection and the fact that I will get a house, and a job is enough for me to keep my mouth shut.