Chapter 6 – Reward and Homecoming

“There you have it, Lucca-sama.”

“Ah, yes” – Answered while putting the emblem on his pants pocket and remembering he was having a conversation with the young woman – “Thanks for letting me know, Vera-san.”

“No, that much is nothing, after all you helped defeating the monsters too!”

“I did nothing compared to Vartre”

“That may be true…” – Said Vera with a puzzled face – “but, if it wasn’t for you holding the monsters and shifting their attention from the bridge, who knows how much people would have died before Vartre-sama arrived”

Then she come closer to Lucca, she was a young woman while Lucca was just a 14 y/o boy, despite he being taller than most people at this age, he had the same stature as her, making booth of them match their eyes, at this moment she clasped his hands and stared deeply at his eyes, then took a step back and bowed towards him.

“Lucca-sama, no matter what you think, you saved the lives of numerous people, including my family, for this you have my… no, our town gratitude.”

“I understand, I understand, please lift your head!” – Lucca clearly didn’t expect such a reason and was embarrassed.

After the air of room got a little awkward, Vera continued – “I’m thankful” – She lifted her head and moved towards the door – “I’m sure that after sleeping for a day you should be hungry, let’s move to the dining room and have breakfast?”

Lucca accepted the proposal and followed her. In the house he saw plenty of other people, each of those thanked him for protecting their town, their families and so on. Lucca was depended by his younger family in the orphanage and was kind used to this, but he couldn’t help but be shy when everybody was thanking him like that.

He ate the breakfast together with the others and then both of them moved to Vera’s study.

“Here are your backpack Lucca” – Said Vera while giving him his bag back – “Also there are those too” – Continued Vera while delivering three more bags to Lucca.

“Those aren’t mine”

“Yes, I know” – Said while pressing those bags on him and continued – “But you helped our town, right? Vartre said he didn’t want anything. Therefore you should take the rewards for helping us.”

Lucca accepted and looked inside the bags, there he saw ores that could be sold at high prices in the capital and some sacks of gold coins. Lucca frowned, it’s true that he helped the town, but most of the work wasn’t made by him, furthermore great part of the outskirts of the town were destroyed and there was a large hole in walls. This town, Azllud, was close to the capital, but they weren’t particularly rich as far as Lucca knew.

Lucca took one sack of gold from the backpacks and put them back on the nearby sofa – “This is enough for me” – Said while beaming – “After all I did all of that for self-satisfaction!”

“If you say so, Lucca-sama” – Vera understood that Lucca was somewhat worried at the town state, yet he just picked a sack of gold, that could barely count as anything near the lives he saved. Seeing his smiling mien, Vera couldn’t help but chuckle a little and continued – “Once more thank you for your assistance Lucca-sama, I will always remember your self-satisfaction.”

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Lucca took his things and exited the large house. Then he moved towards the center of the city and used the teleportation system to his hometown, the desert city. Lucca scanned his surroundings as if checking if there was an attack from monsters in the desert town too, but he saw people doing their business normally and quickly dispelled his fears.

He moved towards the northern part of the city, where his home, the orphanage, was located and while focusing mana in his legs rapidly arrived – “Ahhh, I wonder what Ann will do to me when she sees me…” – After murmuring those words he opened the door to his home and saw Ann, the beautiful blond sister who always taken care of him, she had a tired expression and marks on her face, one could easily understand that she cried for quite some time.

“Lucca!” – Hearing her voice Lucca clenched his teeth and expected for her usual learning chops, but he was assaulted by her arms that clung his body – “Lucca you’re finally back…” – Her voice was trembling in the end and she started crying again.

When Ann heard that Lucca had sneaked again she wasn’t particularly worried, since the little devil used to do this quite a few times, but when she heard from the monster attack in the capital and how he didn’t came back, she couldn’t help but worry and had passed the whole day crying, Lucca couldn’t help but feel guilty.

“I’m back” – He hugged her back, at this moment a lot of children started popping up in the room and jumped towards both while embracing them while saying that their Big brother was back.

Sometime after the confusion, things settled and Lucca and Ann moved to a private room, there he told her what happened in the last day and finally took the sack of gold and gave to her – “Ann, here it’s the reward for this time.”

Right when he was taking the reward he felt his left cheek being struck by Ann’s hand – “Who would money that came from you almost losing your life?!” – Ann couldn’t help but cry again when she heard the stories of how Lucca almost died over and over again until the point he collapsed in front of the monsters – “Promise me, promise me that will never to something so stupid again! What would we do if you abandoned us Lucca?”

Lucca felt his heart torn by Ann words and his guilty only augmented – “I’m sorry Ann, I’m sorry…”

Sometime later both settled down again, Lucca passed the money to Ann, with this the orphanage could go on for a couple of years without worrying about food. After the whole exhausting day he had yesterday and the whole emotional distress today, he felt tired and moved to his room, there he laid down in the bed.

“I thought I was somewhat stronger after those years, but compared to Vartre I am weak” – Then he took the emblem from his pocket and stared at the emblem.

Moments later he felt asleep. That night he had a dream, in this dream he felt like he was in the clouds and had a chat with the beautiful winged woman carved in the golden emblem. He tried remembering what he talked with her, but he couldn’t remember anything.