Chapter 110 Choices Which Change The Future.
Chapter 110 Choices Which Change The Future.
Alexis' unkind hands touching the half-wolf's body caused such strangeness that he laughed. "Haha! Alexis? Please let go of me. You're about to choke me." Luke pleaded.
After the plea, the sleeper hold was quickly undone and the half-dragon spoke, "I'm sorry, Luke. I didn't mean to..."
She tried to explain herself, her gaze averted and her face flushed. Luke realized that she pretended to be asleep, although he didn't understand why she hugged him.
"Don't worry about it. If you want a hug or some company at night, just let me know. You saved my life once, and I would never forget that I owe you a debt." Luke scoffed, as he got up from the bed.
At that instant, Alexis' eyes sparkled with vigor. 'He's kidding me, isn't he? Saying that just days after rejecting me...' She was almost angry with the half-wolf.
When Matthew opened the bedroom door and saw Luke the beautiful woman standing next to Luke, he was almost jealous, but he quickly scolded himself and was happy for his best friend.
"Can I come in?" Shyly, Matthew asked.
One thing Luke hadn't realized yet was that Alexis' senses weren't as sharp as his, so she didn't hear Matthew and Luke talking in the hallway while she slept. So when Matthew opened the door, to Alexis he was just a stranger in a black cloak that shadowed his face.
Luke slowly saw the gauntlet of light form around one of Alexis' hands. Before she could invest against Matthew and possibly kill him with just one punch, Luke held her forearm.
"It's okay...he's one of my friends."
The pressure emanating from the half-dragon was so strong that it almost made Matthew faint. Just at that moment, he noticed that the woman had horns sticking out of the sides of her head. When all the tension had calmed down, Luke sat each of them down in a corner of the room.
"Who is she, Luke, can she be trusted?" Matthew asked, smoothing his almost white goatee.
The half-wolf snorted. "Before I introduce her, I'll tell you everything that happened in Vasconcelos and why I came back earlier than planned."
"All right."
After that, Luke told about how his first mission for the Adventurers Guild was to investigate disappearances in Dungeon and how this ended up in the future becoming intertwined with real demons.
Matthew almost couldn't believe it when Luke told him that he faced real demons, but once Luke told him that the half-dragon in the room was an S-Class and that the beautiful ax he held was the fruit of a demon's death, he had no way not to believe it.
"And that's it... By the way, I almost forgot, Alexis works for the Cardinal Church and is very kind. Only I don't recommend staying near her."
"Why?" Matthew and Alexis asked simultaneously.
"She's mine." Luke teased her once again and smiled. The half-dragon blushed on the spot and turned her face away, nervous.
Matthew scratched his right temple and sighed, "Let me get this straight...you were only supposed to protect a teenage girl and ended up becoming the target of a demon who, besides not having an identity, has a lot of influence? Not to mention that apparently, these demons can control monsters too?"
Without pondering, Luke answered him with a nod.
"Sigh... So does that mean that those things that attacked the hospital and killed the guards were monsters, like real monsters?" Matthew, like most people who have never entered a Dungeon, has never seen a monster up close.
"Yes, the voice in my head said they were Shadow Ninjas and there was another monster called the Abyss Watcher."
"Besides the fact that you tricked me and went to the hospital alone, there were monsters and dead people, Luke? Couldn't you draw less attention?" Alexis brought her hand to her forehead and, stressed, she huffed just like Matthew.
"I got in and out without causing any fuss, and I didn't remove my hood at any time either. I believe we are safe still, and trust me, if I hadn't gone, Matthew probably wouldn't be alive."
"Maybe you are right, but somehow they located your friend exactly as soon as you showed up to help him? Isn't that too much of a coincidence? We have no way of knowing if it was through you, Luke, or if it was some other way, but we have to keep an eye out."
"So what should we do? Meredith and the others have been gone for a few weeks now, so they're safe, right?" Matthew questioned, sitting on the bed that was supposed to be the half-wolf.
Luke and Alexis didn't know what to say to Matthew, after all, if the rest of the gang had been missing for over a month, they might as well have been caught already or worse, be dead.
"Luke, I don't think the First Servant is omniscient. I just think he has all the pieces of a small chessboard. What if, by chance, your friends disappeared because they noticed something strange?"
Of all the possible event options, the idea that Meredith, Zack, Ynosuke, and John realized what was happening was the one that appealed to Luke the most.
"John and Meredith are smart, plus Ynosuke and Zack are pretty strong... If the First Servant underestimated them, they may indeed have run away, but where would they go?" Luke wondered.
The brown-haired man with white locks stood up, looked at the upset look on the half-wolf's face, and said:
"Man, why are you so worried? I think you are the one who is underestimating them. I don't have an arm, I'm the dumbest of the whole bunch and I didn't even hide and look at me, I'm alive. They should be fine."
Luke uncrossed his arms and looked at his friend. "Matthew...you're right, but I still have to look for them."
"I don't disagree with that, but just as happened when Shiro and Sarah disappeared, we don't have a single lead yet. Finding them could take months or even years... You know how big this world is and finding them won't be easy at all, not to mention that there's a creepy creature out to kill us..."
The half-wolf sat down next to the half-dragon and began to reflect. A few months ago, he would cause hell in Oukiwa if he had to find his friends, but now it was different. Now, he had other people who were quite important to him.
"Do you think that..." Luke was going to ask, but he saw his friend shaking his head to the side.
"I don't think anything, brother. I just think we should proceed very calmly, just as Meredith would."
Luke, resigned, understood that he could not search desperately for his friends. He nodded and spoke:
"You're right... I think it's time to pull the reins on this chariot and slow down a bit."