novelraw Chapter 73: On The House
Chapter 73: On The House
Since I was coming home late into the night, I was hoping that Mother would've gone to sleep by the time I returned so that the inevitable would've been delayed by a few hours.
But with her legs crossed and a glass of wine in her hand, she had seated in a chair she had set up directly across the front door.
She greeted me with a smile that wasn't a smile.
"Welcome home," she said in a tired voice.
"...I'm back," I replied.
"Go take a shower. You reek of blood," she said. "Then when you're done, come back downstairs for our civilized talk."
She made sure to emphasize the word "civilized" as if to mock Father who was in the kitchen, giving me this look that I knew all too well.
He didn't need to say a thing for me to understand that he wanted me to comply with her wishes for the moment as she was extremely emotional.
It felt like talking to a wall. Everything I said was completely rational thinking as evidenced by Father who stood far away from us, nodding his head in agreement whenever I said something sensible.
Mother's head snapped back a few times whenever he was in the middle of agreeing with me and Father would immediately turn around, acting as if he wasn't paying attention to the conversation which was more like a one-way scolding.
When our "civilized" discussion was over, two hours had passed.
She expressed not only her anger at the fact that the church was involved and that Eloise was now at greater risk of being caught but although she didn't explicitly say it, I could tell that she was worried about the fact that I had placed myself in the mouth of danger again.
She must've thought that as I continue to put myself in dangerous situations, I would bite off more than I can chew one day.
She wasn't completely wrong to think that.
As I threw myself onto my bed, Father entered the bedroom a minute later to tell me that he was proud of me for what I did.
He was a man who often committed evil deeds to achieve his goals but that didn't make him an evil person.
I woke up the next day and Cyro still wasn't home.
'What trouble could've possibly troubled the paladins this much?' I wondered.
I had slept for over ten hours and it was already afternoon.
"Where are we heading today, young master?" asked Jerman as he placed his hands on the steering wheel.
He kept his usual poker face but I could tell by the tone of his voice that he wasn't satisfied with the fact that he wasn't by my side to protect me because I had forced him to take a vacation against his will.
"Do you remember that dungeon I went to with my classmates?" I asked.
Jerman nodded and without hesitation, he began driving without even needing to put the location into the GPS.
The dungeon wasn't available for reservation today and I didn't feel like abusing my family's name to force the issue so I just waited my turn in line with a simple but effective face mask on to keep attention away from me.
It was a popular dungeon so the line was quite long but the line moved fast because nobody wanted to stay inside longer than they needed so after the hundredth person exited the dungeon, it was my turn.
Using the same permission slip I used prior to bypass the underage restriction, I entered and immediately went down to the fifth floor where the hidden room was.
After making sure that no one was around, I allowed myself to fall down the trap once again, and without needing to consume anything this time around, I was able to tell that Apple had moved on to the afterlife even without consuming the pill needed to see ghosts.
In the novel, I didn't know if the shitty god simply forgot or if the main character was so overpowered by then that he didn't feel the need to check on the reward for completing the mission but he never went back to check on Apple.
In the middle of the room was a treasure chest with an emblem of an apple as if to inform who this was from.
Opening it up, I told Apple, "Thank you," even if he couldn't hear it.
Inside the chest were seven pills of the seven colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
I didn't know what these pills were because the main character never acquired them for himself but I could only assume that these had to be good for consumption.
'An innocent kind child wouldn't give me a pill that poison or weaken the consumer,' I thought to myself.
When I grabbed the pills out of the chest, it vanished as though it never existed. Then the floor began to rise.
When I returned to the dungeon floor, a group of three men who looked to be in their 30s licked their lips.
"Where did you come from, little boy?"
"Do you have something you'd like to share with the rest of the class?"
"That's a nice butt you have there."
The first two who asked me questions, I gave them an electrical shock powerful enough to put them to sleep.
The last one, I shocked him until his nerves were paralyzed.
Leaving the dungeon, I sat in the back of the car wondering if there was an order I needed to consume these pills. It wasn't like there was a note left for me.
There was a chance I was being overly cautious and that eating them randomly wouldn't matter but on the off chance that there was an order, I could only make an educated guess and assume that it had to be consumed in the order of the rainbow.
"Where now, young master?" asked Jerman.
"There's a restaurant in the southside city called Fine Thai Dining," I answered.
It was a Thai restaurant even though Thailand the country didn't exist in this world.
When the car began moving, I tossed the red pill into my mout; it took a few seconds but I could feel my strength increasing slightly.
"Not bad," I said.
I took the orange pill next and felt my agility increase.
The yellow pill increased my endurance.
If you're wondering how I can feel these attributes increasing even though I was sitting in the back of the car doing nothing, I don't really know how else to explain it other than I just knew.
Vitality, dexterity, and perception were the next three.
The last pill was the least useful for me because it increased my mana which was already plentiful but more is always better so I still appreciated it.
Just when I thought it was over, I heard a voice in my head.
"Thank you, hero. As a thank you for keeping your promise, I'll give you information about a treasure I overheard one of the other ghosts left behind."
It was Apple's voice he left for me, almost like a voicemail.
"What's... this?" I uttered.
It was like a map had formed in my head. It wasn't extremely detailed and you could almost claim it to be useless since it was outdated to modern geography but there was a riddle attached to it.
"Where the Dragons burned, home of the deceased souls, take south of the river till you meet a waterfall, behind the waterfall is a dungeon."
'Where the Dragons burned...'
That was the part of the riddle that stuck out to me the most because if you asked anyone about it, everyone would have the same answer.
Anwar Village.
A village that was burned to a crisp and now resides in the abandoned lands.
The geography of this world was split into two easily distinct features. Land that humans reside in and the abandoned lands that were overtaken by demonic creatures, monsters, and evil races.
I was confident that I was stronger than most adults and if I was to use all my cheats, perhaps even stronger than most adult warriors.
But the abandoned lands were ruthless and I was without a doubt not ready for it.
I had no choice but to put it off to the side for now and return to it later.
Going from one end of the city to the other end, it was a long drive especially as there was heavy traffic on the highway.
It was almost an hour and a half when I was finally able to get out of the car and stretch my body.
People in this area of the city weren't used to seeing such a luxurious vehicle driving on their streets. Some looked at it with greedy eyes but as I had Jerman stand by it to watch it, most of them kept their eyes off.
I reckoned that a few would try and mess with him but I had no worries about him losing in the conflict.
If they were powerful enough to deal with Jerman then they wouldn't be living here in the first place when they could be making more money elsewhere.
Why am I here?
Obviously to deal with the issue that came to my attention two days ago.
I entered the restaurant and the lady who owned and worked there gave me this strange look. She was confused about why a clearly rich person came all the way over here on the shitty side of the city to eat at her restaurant.
But she kept it professional and asked me, "What would you like?"
"Can you recommend me something light?" I asked.
"If you're good with spicy food, I recommend you get the Som Tum," she responded.
"Let me have that then."
I was surprised to see that she didn't recognize my face immediately considering that her daughter attended the same school as me and my face was shared everywhere during the sexual assault incident.
And also, humbly, my face was the most popular face in the world at the moment because of the situation with the baron and the church.
It took a few customers to start talking about me for the owner to come up to me with my food and say, "I didn't know I was in the presence of a hero."
She had a friendlier demeanor to her, approaching me with less caution and wary than before.
Whatever doubt she had in her mind about my reasoning to be here must've been overpowered by the good deed that I had done.
I shook my head with a smile. "I'm no hero," I responded.
"No need to downplay what you did," she said. "You know what. Whatever you want to eat is on the house."