Chp 5: The Way Back

Chp 5: The way back

“Thank you, I personally will make sure to inform the king of your preferred reward the second we arrive at Cuntersia,” Selestina told him. She didn’t want to anger someone with the strength to destroy whole armies.

“Nice, I will return to my hideout to bring my personal belongings with me, I’ll be back in 5 minutes,” Bob replied

Bob disappeared from her eyes and leaving a trail of dark matter as he made his way into his hideout.

“Holy Shit! I can’t believe they invited me to their country!” Bob was screaming internally, he couldn’t control his excitement. He began to grab his duffel bag and began filling it with his clothes, his favourite handkerchief which had a cat design on it, he stitched it himself. And most importantly a small bag of Kokaine. “You never know, it might come in handy,” Bob talked to himself, it was the first bag of Kokaine he got from his first time stealing it. It was like a lucky charm for him.

“ I guess that’s all, I should bring. I have all my weapons and armour with me, this should be enough.”

Bob stepped out of his cave and looked at the view of the Cuntersia Nation, such an exciting beautiful place. He looked behind, and faced his cave, he felt much grief knowing that he is going to leave his home. This was his only home after his village was destroyed and his family killed when he was 4 years old. He was 19 now, but nobody knew that except him.

“I guess this should be about the time where I leave home and go on a journey, it is just too bad that there is nobody seeing me off or nobody I can go back to if things don’t work out,” Bob said with a tinge of sadness in his voice.

“Time to go, I guess,” Bob looked back realising he is leaving his home where he lived for 16 years, he burned the image of home in his mind as he might not know when he will get back.

Bob took a deep breath and made his way down the mountain carrying his duffel bag, The ShadowChasers were at the foot of the mountain waiting for him. They were feeling calmer now and hardened their resolve to communicate with Bob as equals, they didn’t want to feel inferior to him.

Bob arrived in front of the ShadowChasers. Rindwom made his way towards him and started to introduce himself with a miniscule hint of nervousness. “Greetings Shadow Rogue, I believe we did not have the pleasure of introducing ourselves earlier, my name is Rindwom. Nice to meet you,”

“Is it really nice to meet me?” Bob sarcastically thought to himself. But obviously, he did not make those thoughts known to the others. “Ah, Rindwom was it? Nice to meet you. You don’t have to call me “Shadow Rogue”, just “Shadow” should suffice,” Bob replied.

Obviously, he’s not going to tell them his real name anytime soon as it was a pretty anti-climatic name for someone like him.

Next up was, Blarggh, “Yo, I’m Blarggh. Nice to meet you. Shadow.”

“Hello Blarggh, nice to meet you,” Bob said while yawning, he was wearing a mask and a hood so they couldn’t see his facial expression at all. He could leave his tongue hanging from his mouth in front of them and not of them would notice it. That was one of the main reason he wore a mask, aside from the fact that it created a barrier between him and other people so he could communicate without the fear of people judging him as they could not see his true face.

Eleonora then came to him and said, “ My name is Eleonora, I am the protector of the Eldreal forest in front of this mountain. Nice to meet you,”

“You are the one who protects the forest? No wonder there is rarely any trouble over here, good work, Eleonora” Bob complimented her.

Eleonora cheeks turned slightly red and tried her best to maintain composure. “Thank you” She quietly muttered.

Lastly was Selestina, the one who was the first to talk to Bob. “Um, I’m Selestina. Can I request you to take off your mask? It feels weird talking to someone in person without seeing their face. It’s okay if you don’t want to!” She summoned her courage to ask Bob.

Bob was aghast, he was really against revealing his face to others so he replied to Selestina “Sorry Selestina, I can’t reveal my full face but I can take out the top half of my mask so that you can at least see my eyes. That should be enough, no?” Bob began to take off the top of his mask revealing his eyes and eyebrows although his nose and mouth was completely covered. Everyone stared at his face in awe which made Bob feel embarrassed, he felt almost naked without his full mask.

His eyes were jet-black and were very sharp, the top half of his face was well-defined. In other words, he looked like a really attractive person. But the most shocking trait of all was, he looked young. Going by logic, someone who was as powerful as him should at least be of a mature age.

“Isn’t he a little too young?” Eleonora voiced out

“Well going by your standards, I might look like a brat to you since you’re probably a few hundred years old,” Bob said to himself

“How old are you, Shadow?” Rindwom asked inquisitively.

“Uhm, I’ll be 19 this year?” He replied

“The legend of The Shadow Rogue began around 3 years ago, which meant that he was 15 years old when he destroyed 100 Wankeryl Soldiers by himself!” Selestina exclaimed.

“ No matter, let’s head back to the carriage,” Selestina told them

“Yo, Shadow. Let me carry your bag for you,” Blarggh kindly offered.

“Ah sure go ahead,” Bob handed him his bag.

Blarggh received it and started walking to the carriage first.

Blarggh placed Bob’s bag at the back of the carriage and sat next to the driver’s seat, while Rindwom sat at the driver’s seat. Selestina and Eleonora both sat in the back since they both sat in the front with Eleonora as the driver and Selestina as the lookout on the way to meet Bob. Now was their turn to take a break.

“Come sit with us Shadow,” Eleonora told him. If he was anybody else, she might have even told him to sit on her lap. However, she did not want to incur Shadow’s Wrath.

“Huh? Sure,” Bob made his way and sat in between Eleonora and Selestina. He was feeling very uncomfortable sitting beside the two very attractive and beautiful ladies. He just hung his head low and hoped for the best

Selestina looked at Shadow and smiled to herself. “As expected, he probably had no experience talking to women or even other people.” I guess you can say that this is one of Bob’s biggest weakness.

Eleonora probably noticed it too. “Shadow, have you ever been to Cuntersia before?” Eleonora asked.

“Nope, the only place I have been to is the Eldreal Forest, The mountain , and Balcross Village.” He answered quickly.

“Balcross village huh? I heard it was destroyed a few years ago? Was that your original home?” She questioned further.

“Yeah, someBODY decided to lightning strike everyone except me and my village was destroyed and I had to live in the Edreal forest to survive.” Bob answered longingly. He clearly missed his family and his village.

Selestina and Eleonora looked at him and understood. They understood that the Shadow Rogue was not just somebody who became strong for no reason, he was forced to grow up at a really young age. To fend for himself, to survive. He had no choice but to get stronger since he had nobody to rely on, nobody to protect him. They were impressed that Shadow was able to get through life by himself, abandoning his childhood and relying on no one but himself. At the same time, they felt pity for him. He was someone who lost so much, his home, family, friends, childhood. They had only just met less than an hour ago, yet, they wanted to be friends with him. Beyond his mask of strength was a face of loneliness, they wanted to change that face.

Bob, while seated beside Eleonora and Selestina, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

[ A few hours later…]

“Bob! Wake up! We’re under attack by Wankeryl forces!” Eleonora was shaking my head wildly.

I opened my eyes and look at my surroundings, Selestina, Blarggh, and Rindwom were outside facing a few squadrons of Wankers. They were doing well but there might be too many enemies for them to handle. I looked downwards, and realised that I had been sleeping on Eleonora’s lap all this while! Funny, I don’t remember falling asleep on her though. “Sorry for sleeping on you, it was not on purpose,” I apologised genuinely.

“No you did not fall asleep on me, I was the one who rested your head on my lap. You looked quite uncomfortable sleeping while seated upright,” Eleonora replied with a motherly smile.

“Ah she’s actually a nice person,” Bob thought.

“ I’ll guard the carriage, won’t you help the others out, Shadow?” Eleonora asked me.

I just replied with a nod and made my way out of the carriage.

Rindwom looked at me and said “Good that you’re awake, we need some help over here!”

We were surrounded by about 120 Wankeryl soldiers. I looked at them calmly and said: “Leave it to me,”. I activated one of my spells ‘FAST AS FUCK BOI’, everything around me started to move slowly. Now all the enemies can be killed easily, I took out my dagger and started to assassinate the enemies while taking my sweet time.

All the others could only see was that I turned into a black, dense shadow that was picking the enemy off one by one with extreme speed and slicing them apart. Before the first guy I killed fell to the ground, all of them were dead.

The ShadowChasers were standing in the middle of a group of 120 soldiers corpses before they even knew it.

“How the…?” Selestina mouthed to herself as she had just seen a glimpse of a dark shadow that killed 120 men in a split second.

“Shadow is indeed very strong” Rindwom acknowledged.

Blarggh could only nod in agreement.

They all went back into the carriage and started to move off. “That was fast, usually a fight like should last at least for 2 hours but it was completed in less than a second,” Seeing the display earlier Eleonora wondered how did the Shadow get so strong. But now was not the time to ask him that, she should get closer to him if she wanted to know the answer.

Although it was night time, they continued making their journey to Cuntersia and arrived at the gates next morning.