novelraw Chapter 151: A Friend
Chapter 151: A Friend
[Rubi Agnus]
Grandpa didn't answer my question right away. He looked off into the distance as his expression became a little complex.
"I've been far away," he said.
That wasn't a real answer. I can tell. I'm not a baby.
"Lies," I said, to which he looked stunned for a moment before chuckling.
"Your grandfather made a mistake many years ago and has been paying the price for it," he said. He looked in Mama's direction when he said that.
Does this have to do with the… the blood thing?
"I've realised my mistakes and have been trying to make up for them."
Feeling the sadness coming out of him, I decided to be a good girl and comfort him a bit by leaning into him. Just a little though. There are still many Rubi tests he has to pass in order to receive my love.
He froze when I did that. He must not have expected it.
But slowly, he relaxed and his hand returned to my head, stroking my hair very gently.
"You know I'm not a cat, right?" I asked him, pulling my head away to meet his eyes.
His face didn't change much. However, his eyes did. Just a little. Like the size of the space between my finger and thumb when I pinch them.
"I know," he chuckled.
I placed my head back on him, resting it there for a few seconds.
Glancing over at where Mama was, she was watching the two of us.
Papa then made his way over to us and stood next to Grandpa. It just came to my mind that Papa had his own Papa. Wow. Crazy.
"You got what you wanted. I let you meet my daughter. Now, it's time to give us what we want. How do we get in contact with my second son?"
Huh? Second son? That's… Bell? Big Brother Bell?!
My eyes darted over to Grandpa. I was looking at him with a new light. I know I was talking about the Rubi tests earlier, but if he can get us in contact with Big Brother, I don't care. I love him!
❖ ❖ ❖
[Bell]
"Even at the cost of your own life?"
Without hesitation, I answered, "Yes."
My answer seemed to interest him more than anything else I'd said so far.
Leaning his head back against the wall, his eyes were half-lidded as if thinking about something.
"Do you know what the most dangerous thing in this place is?" he asked me. I shrugged and he continued, "It wasn't the demons. It wasn't the labyrinth's mysterious nature. It wasn't the guests who came here searching for treasure. The most dangerous thing was the feeling of hopelessness."
There wasn't a hint of hesitation in his voice.
"Hopelessness erodes you. It's a quiet and slow process, but over time, it convinces you that nothing will change, that nothing can change. That resistance is meaningless. Luckily, I'm a strong person and that hasn't happened to me yet."
His gaze then shifted to the ground.
"But if I were to ever accept that feeling, if you accepted it… you stop trying."
Planting his palm on the ground, he stood up. "So if pretending to be a fool, if enduring their mockery, their attacks, their blatant disrespect of my character… if all of that allows me to preserve even a fragment of hope…"
He stared directly into my eyes. Past them. Into my soul.
"Then I will gladly be the greatest fool they have ever seen."
"..."
"I doubt you'd do the same if you were in my shoes."
"How are you sure? You barely know me."
"True. But I consider myself to be good at seeing into a person's true self. Just your answer from earlier told me everything that I needed to know."
"And what is it that you know?"
"That you would much rather go out in one giant explosion than bottle everything up, waiting for years like me."
"I mean… that's basically what I said."
"Hahaha," he laughed. "It's different for someone to say and for the other person to feel it to be true."
"I guess so."
"Bell, not to put any pressure on you, but you are the first variable since I've been trapped here that seems to be a positive in my eventual escape."
"...I don't think there's anything I can really do to help you escape. If you can't even solve how you're trapped here, I doubt I can. You have the advantage of wisdom by at least a couple of hundred years."
"I disagree," he said as he kneeled and offered me his palm to stand on.
I got on and he brought me back to his shoulder. He walked us over to his bookshelf. Reaching into the shelf, he pulled out a box and handed it over to me.
"What's this?" I asked. It had a hole in it on one side. I peeked into it and saw complete darkness. I was about to dig my hand into it when Tavros stopped me.
"Wait. Don't put your hand in there yet."
My fingernail was just at the very brink of entering the box.
"Before you decide whether or not to put your hand in there, let me explain to you what is inside there."
Seeing how tense Tavros was, I slowly and nervously pulled my hand away from the hole. Was this like that one box in that one sci-fi novel from Earth about a man who became worse than Hitler?
"Once you put your hand in there, you will begin to feel the most excruciating pain in your life."
So it is like that novel?
"But it won't be physical pain. It'll be emotional."
Or… maybe not.
"You will relive your worst emotions, the worst days in your life, over and over. A few seconds in the real world will feel like a dozen years to you. "
This reminded me of the dream that Quentin had put me in before.
"You need to last a minute."
"Or?"
"Or you die."
"...Then why would I put my hand in there?" I asked.
"If you succeed, I'll consider you my friend."
"..."
"..."
"And?" Surely there had to be more than just that.
"...What do you mean? That's it."
"...No thanks," I said as I prepared to hand Tavros back the box.
"Oh. Right. Of course, you wouldn't understand what it means to be my friend."
My hand stopped in its tracks. Perhaps there was some kind of buff that I would receive if I became his friend. This was a magical universe after all.
Tavros explained, "To be my friend is to be someone who I'm willing to die for. To be my friend means more to me than my own life. To be my friend is an honour I've only ever given to one person, and he is long gone from this world. Truthfully, I would never give you this opportunity if it were back when I was walking around freely. However, so much time has passed and none of my guests has intrigued me as remotely as you have. You're a human in the Underworld. Your values are interesting and there seems to be something dark hidden inside of you."
"I'm in the right place at the right time?"
"Don't feel bad about it. It's still an honour nevertheless and I'll treat you the exact same as I would if the circumstances of this offer had been different."
Nice. But it doesn't change the fact that you're trapped here. I have the benefit of your loyalty, but there won't be any opportunity to use it. What's the point?
Tavros laughed. "I can see what you're thinking, but trust me. I will be free someday. And when I am, your enemy will be my enemy. Your allies will be my allies. My strength will be yours."
"...I have to put my faith in that small sliver?" I asked, to which he nodded.
My brows furrowed as I sincerely began to weigh the pros and cons. This was high risk, high reward. But the reward was like finding a needle in a haystack.
"Fuck it," I muttered as I stabbed my hand into the box.
.
.
.
"You… you can pull your hand out now. It's already been ten minutes," a muffled voice that was both loud and quiet, slow and fast, said to me.
Pulling my hand back, I asked, "Does that mean we're friends now?"
"I… Yeah. H-How… Wha…"
I looked at my palm, then flipped it, then again, and again. There didn't seem to be any difference in my hand. It looked perfectly fine.
"What an interesting device that thing is," I said as I handed the box back to Tavros, who stared at it as if he was inspecting whether or not it was broken.
"I… I'm speechless. I take back what I said earlier," Tavros laughed. In fact, he was laughing so hard that he tilted his bull head backwards until it was facing the ceiling.
Feeling like I was about to fall off from how much he was shaking, I gripped and held onto his fur.
Tavros' laughter slowly died down, but the smile on his face didn't leave. If anything, it deepened and he looked at me very fondly. "I think if I were a free man, I would've still given you the chance to be my friend," he said with a happy tear in his eye.
"Thank you."
"Time to make it official." Putting me back down on the ground, I looked at him with a tilt in my head. I wonder what he meant by "official".
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he turned away from me and walked toward the center of the room.
Once he reached the center, he raised his hand and without hesitating, he dragged his sharp claws across his palm.
Shhk!
Blood began to spill from his palm; it was thick, dark, and not quite like human blood. It also had this faint glow to it.
"Blood?" I muttered to myself as I watched him kneel down and press his bleeding palm against the floor. Then, he mouthed something without saying it out loud.
Once he finished, a massive magic circle erupted behind him.
I took a few steps back.
It wasn't like anything I'd seen before. I've seen plenty of circles, but never one this large. The circle wasn't neat by any means. Magic circles were very geometric and consisted of multiple perfectly drawn shapes. The circle behind looked like it was drawn in a hurry and had this rough nature to it.
The circle was layered with a dozen rings that overlapped each other. Inside the rings were these jagged symbols that twisted and shifted around the circle.
"Tavros," I called out his name, "I didn't know that becoming your friend required a whole ritual."
He began speaking out loud, but not to me. The words that left his mouth weren't in any language I understood.
"Ghra'val… thren'kai… morath en'zul…"
The air around us suddenly grew heavy.
His voice got louder the more he chanted and the symbols behind him flared brighter as if to match his volume.
The blood on the ground rose up and stretched outward, forming patterns to match the magic circle behind him.
"...Tavros, no wonder I'm your second friend. Having to do this each time you want a friend must be very annoying."