Chapter 19.  I am back.

“Once we climb over that hill we will see the town.” I say while pointing to the lone hill still quite far away.

“You put up with me for long enough. I know that you are impatient to get home to your family.” Nestor looks ahead. “Since we are so close to the Landamot you can stop worrying about me and start running.” After saying this he turns back to me and gives a simple smile.

For a few seconds I have to admit, I was tempted. But remembering all the dead, which we passed on the road, I am kind of reluctant to leave this strange companion behind or maybe I am simply afraid to see what happened to my town...

Either way: “I have already suffered you for almost a few hours, so ten minutes more or less will hardly change a thing…” I state my intention to not leave him.

“He he he. You are a good person deep inside…” With a small snicker he says this.

“Ha ha. Is that a compliment I hea…” With a laugh I say back. And then it suddenly hit me.

“Wait what do you mean by ‘deep’. You sound like I am a bad person on the outside.” I give him a sharp look while saying that.

“Pfff… How can you think that badly about me?” He sounded almost insulted.

“Huh? Then why are you looking in the opposite direction from me?” I ask with one of my eyebrow lifted up.

“Oh I just think I saw a beautiful bird over there.” He says now in a completely serious tone.

“Bird… Ha ha ha ha ha!!!” I started laughing sincerely from the heart.

It didn’t take long before he also joined in.

I believe a little laugh is what both of us needed the most at the moment.

“Ahhh… I feel somewhat refreshed now.” I say this still wiping away  tears of laughter with my hand.

“Yes on days like this, the best medicine is laugh.” In his voice I hear a bitter experience. So I hold myself back from inquiring anything more.

“Now that I think about it. I didn’t finish asking you a question about that birthmark.” He looks at me with eyes full of curiosity.

“Ah you mean why I got so serious earlier?”

“Yes. That was a really strange reaction, which I got to admit made me somewhat interested.” Says Nestor in a calm voice.

“There is a story behind it.” I answer him.

“There is always a story. That’s what I am counting on.” He says with a small smile on his face.

‘Hmm… Lyru never mentioned that we should keep it a secret. But still… Ah who cares!’ For a few seconds I wonder what should I say.

“Fine I will tell you, only if you promise to keep it a secret.”

“Ha ha ha. Don’t worry I will tell no one.” From that laugh and his tone I get the feeling, he doesn’t take me seriously.

‘Oh this should be fun to watch.’ I muse myself a bit.

(Note: In many novels mc’s always hide their past even thought no one asked them to. It kind of gets on my nerves. Since you think they would tell at least to one person. And that’s how this talk was born.)

And so I started retelling my story from the beginning. “It all began on that day…”

With each sentence I tell him I can see, as his face change bit by bit from a smiling one to that of a pure shock. And as I come to the part of Lyru his jaw drop so low, to the point where I start thinking that it broke.

“Now we all live again in this new world.” With this I finish my story.

With a huge grin I look at him.

“A… Y… Wha…” He tries to say something but it just doesn’t get out.

‘Ha ha. He kind of looks like a fish, out of water, now. With his mouth opening and closing.’

‘I don’t want to sound weird but I am getting a lot of satisfaction from this.’ I think this while looking at Nestor’s facial expressions.

“Haaa…” He sights and looks straight at me. I think I can see a bit of fear in his eyes. “I would like to shout stop spouting bullshit. But strangely deep inside I believe what you said to be a complete truth.”

“Ha ha ha… Of course it’s a true story.” I say this while wiping away a few drops of sweat on my forehead. ‘Not counting the part where I acted like a hero with his broken legs and arms till the very end.’ I add in my head.

“But why do you need to meet the king Corbin?” He asks confused.

“I don’t really know myself. But I guess he will be expecting us. Since if a bump like me comes to the palace guards and says: ‘Yo, I here to meet the king.’ Their natural response will be: ‘Get the fuck out of here.’ And I highly doubt, I will have the skills needed to sneak inside.” Since I don’t want to lose my blessing, I have been thinking a lot about this.

“Maybe there will be a prophecy from church.” Wonders Nestor as he rubs his chin.

“Prophecy?” I ask lifting my eyebrow.

“Yes. Sometimes they announce about huge disasters weeks before they come and about droughts or floods which will come next year.” He answers me.

“But what is this disaster you heard from that spirit?” He adds in a worried voice.

“That bastard didn’t tell. But after today I have a feeling, that it got to do something with that wolf covered in a black mist.” I say with a frown on my face.

“Ah! That one! Yes, it was definitely a strange being.” Saying this he looked down, most likely trying to remember what happened.

“Oh we finally reached our destination!” I shout this since only few meters is left until we will get on top of the hill and will be able to see Landamot in full view.

“I think I got a bit too immersed in a story of your life. Since I kind of forgot anything else.” Says Nestor with a chuckle.

Normally I would have laughed also but at the moment to see what happened in town is more important.

Finally I start seeing houses and with each step I take, more and more of them come into my sight.

‘So far everything looks normal. But it’s hard to tell the real situation.’

Finally I spot a northern gate.

“What a view.” Says merchant with a bit of surprise in his voice.

It is understandable, since what we see is breath taking. Whole field, in front of the gates, is covered in bodies. To the point I can’t even see a green patch of grass between all that grey fur.

‘Looks like they were stopped.’ I think this while looking at a big number of people moving around the gate. Some are simply standing and some are already dragging bodies into the neat stacks.

“But what happened there?” I say a bit worried as a circle of about 10 meters in diameter caught my attention. Because in it land is completely red. It’s as if something squashed everything there.

Nestor noticing where I look says only one word: “Magic.”

‘Huh. So that was done by magic?’ I am a bit amazed.

For a moment I wonder who could have done that. ‘Most likely one of the white witches…’

“Ok! Enough of sightseeing, let’s go.” With these words I start walking down the hill.

It didn’t take long, until someone noticed us and started running in our direction.

‘It looks like a male but you never know. It might just be a small woman.’ I have been living here for some time already. So I kind of got used to them. At least to the point where I no longer want to vomit after seeing the beauties of the North.

As we continue to descend from the hill, that person got close enough for me to notice a beard on his face.

‘Yep it’s definitely a male. After all no matter how odd it sounds women don’t have even a smallest moustache. But they have extremely hairy arms and legs. From what I can see locals don’t mind it. On the contrary they call it being sexy, while I call it ‘look what I eat for a breakfast’. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.’ I got a bit of the track here.

As that person gets closer I start to notice a familiar traits.

“Dad?” I shout questioningly. Since I am still not 100% sure it’s him.

“I thought it might be you, Asger. Are you hurt?” He shouts back still from quite a distance.

‘Yep, it’s him.’ After hearing this I get reassured that it’s my dad.

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“Yes, I am perfectly fine!” I shout again.

‘Wow he’s fast.’ It doesn’t take long for my father to reach us.

As he gets near me he kneels on one knee. And after making sure that I am fine he hugs me tightly.

“Do you know how worried we were. Especially after hearing that you were on the road before wolves were spotted.” While breathing deeply from the running, he says in a worried voice..

“I would have ran to look for you myself but chief forbade everyone from leaving. So I stood all this time by the gate waiting for you to come back or for a patrol to leave and tag along.” Saying this he hugged me so tightly it even hurt a bit.

“Don’t worry, I got lucky. Since after feeling danger I had enough time to hide in a tree.”

He finally let go of me and stood up.

“That’s ma boy.” He said this now with a relieved smile while rubbing my hear with his big hand.

“That’s not all he even saved my life by killing three wolves.” Suddenly said Nestor.

My dad looked at him from ground till head as if only noticing the man just now and said: “And you might be?”

“Ah where are my manners. I am Nestor Yellott, a merchant from kingdom of Ramir. I have been traveling toward your town as three wolves attacked me and your son here saved my life.” Somehow  he looks and sounds different compared to how he was before.

“You managed to fight and win against three of them?” With a doubt father asks looking at me.

“Not really. I got first one by surprise. Second was confused and didn’t move. But the third regained it’s senses before I managed to kill it. So in the end I only fought with one wolf.” I try to explain.

“Ha ha ha!!! Now that I can believe.  But it still is a huge feat worth of celebrating over.” Say my father with a laugh, sounding extremely happy.

“May I ask… Um…” I look a bit at Nestor. ‘That’s one helluva of a poker face.’

“Gurd.” Says my father to the merchant.

“May I ask Mr. Gurd was there any damage to the town?”

My father frowned a bit. “We lost some… But what you Asger mentioned also happened here. In the middle of the battle all wolves simply stopped moving as if getting really confused. More over when they started moving again most of them lost their will to fight.”

“Lost their will to fight?” This part got me really interested.

“Yes a very strange thing. They suddenly turned around and ran back to the forest.” Explains father with a bit of astonished look.

“You mean some of them still got away?” I ask this while looking to the field littered with bodies.

“Some? Ha ha ha ha… What you see there just looks a lot. But in reality more than half ran back to the woods.” He says this hardly holding his laughter.

I am somewhat dumbfounded by this. It’s kinda hard to believe that lying down there isn’t even half of them.

I take a look at Nestor and notice that he is in a deep thought.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

“I am thinking why wolves would suddenly stop moving. And I am coming up with only one explanation for it. They stopped moving after you killed the black one.” He says with a worried face.

“Black one?” Interjects my father.

“Yeah from those three wolves one was really strange. It was completely covered in a dark mist…” Continues Nestor.

“Have you ever seen anything like that, dad?” I add this looking at him.

“I have never even heard about anything like that… We should probably report this to the chief.” Says my father with a huge frown on his face.

He turns around and starts to walk back towards the town with us following right behind him.

In the mean time we talk about many things. Like it was Osfrid and his group, who stopped wolves at the gates and similar ones…

It didn’t take much time before we finally reached the gate.

Here for me is waiting another surprise.

The moment I step into the town with a fast moves Elise emerges from the shadows and embraces me.

“I am so happy you are all right, Asger.” She whispers this in a kind of trembling voice, while holding me tightly, straight into my ear.

At this moment I am so lost that I don’t know what to do next. ‘Should I hug her back? Maybe I should say something?’

With eyes wide open I look at dad.

“She has been coming regularly to check on your status.” Bastard says this with almost an evil grin on his face.

“Ah! I need to go otherwise my mother will get really angry.” After saying this, Elise just dashes off.

Everything happened so fast that I didn’t manage to say anything or move even an inch.

“WTF?” Nothing more came to my mind.

“Looks like someone got a girl.” Says Nestor almost laughing.

But instead of a mock, his words act as if a force which pushes me in to a direction, that I kind of disregarded long ago.

‘It can’t be… But looking at the bigger picture it really looks like Elise likes me…’

‘Nobody before ever saw me as a boyfriend material… Ah what a nice person she is.’ I think this as a warm smile brightens my face.

But suddenly it disappears as a strange thought runs through my mind.

‘Wait…’

‘Wait…’

‘Something is wrong. I might have missed this earlier because I am constantly surrounded by gorillas, but now…’

‘I know Elise is a white witch so she might even become someone I see as beautiful. And having a person like her care for me, should put me on cloud nine. So why is my response so weak?’

‘More over as much as I remember, I never even had one lustful fantasy after being reborn in this world.’

While I continue with this monolog in my head, one simple answer dawns on me.

‘No no no no no… This can’t be the case! It just can’t… I don’t want to be a fucking impotent!’ Oh I am feeling that the tears will soon start to come out.

‘Especially since I still didn’t even got a chance to do anything… Or to do anybody!!!’ It’s official tears are coming out.

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“Let’s hurry to the chief. We shouldn't make your mother worry for too long at home.” Says father.

“Please, dad! I am in a middle of a huge crisis here.” I say this since I am now definitely not in the mood of meeting any chief.

“Asger?” He gets a bit worried seeing my expression of total despair.

“I just noticed that I can’t imagine having a wife at all…” I answer him in a voice without any emotion as if I have already given up on this world.

“Ha ha ha…” Suddenly I hear a rough voice from the side. So I turn to look and notice that there is quite a crowd looking at me and grinning.

“Boy every man from our race is like that while they are young.” Says a completely bold old man sitting on a barrel. I am only able to get his age from looking at his brown beard which has  a few strands turning grey.

“What do you expect boy, after all your vigor stat is still not active… So enjoy it while it lasts. Ha ha ha” And the whole crowd for some reason started to laugh really hard.

‘So this is normal. Haaaa… I worried for nothing.’ I am relieved to know that everything is functioning like it should, but why I am getting a bad feeling about my future?

“Enough chit chat, let’s go.” Says father after spotting that I got better.

“Well we will be parting here. I am going to look for an inn here. Come and find me when you are free.” Says Nestor with a small bow of his head.

“I will definitely come to visit you.” After saying this I turn around and follow my father.

== End of chapter 19 ==

The kitty had to go and take a nap, but it left a note: “I’ll be back”. In reality I removed it because of technical problems….