36 Moving on

『Chronicles of the Blood Tower』

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Rasmus just looked at his hands as if they were holding something precious. His thoughts were scrambled but, what Gray had just said struck a chord with him.

'True friends… Yeah that wouldn't be such a bad thing.', Rasmus thought as he closed his eyes and put down his hands.

Gray kept silent and observed Rasmus as he sat directly opposite from him.

After a little bit of silence, Rasmus opened his eyes with a bit of a refreshed look in them and faced Gray with a more uprooted posture. His back was hunched up earlier, and after thinking a bit about Gray's words his entire demeanor seemed to improve slightly.

"You wanted to know more about each other yeah?", Rasmus spoke up this time with none of the previous hesitation in his voice apparent.

"Well I don't think it could hurt us at all to know each other better in terms of the future if we are going to rely on each other.", Gray replied sheepishly as he was a bit embarrassed answering such a forward question.

"Hm, well I don't see anything wrong with that logic. How much do you know about my position from Mathis?", Rasmus probed Gray to see if he could gauge how much Gray already knew.

"Honestly, not much. I just know you have some traces of family here but, you weren't born in the Tower since you're like me and entered from the outside. Otherwise you wouldn't also be an irregular",Gray replied, gathering his prior knowledge together.

"I don't actually know too much about my own situation really. There are some things I can tell you for sure and some things I can't explain even with all the knowledge and impossible sounding possibilities of the Tower.", Rasmus spoke.

Gray understandably so was a bit shocked to hear this. He too had been surprised at the incredible development of the Tower and the several and seemingly infinite possibilities of the Tower.

But something unexplainable by even the Tower's logic? Now that was clearly something unusual.

"...What exactly do you mean?", Gray asked carefully as he didn't want to pressure Rasmus into satisfying his curiosity.

"Well. It's a multitude of things. I'll start with what you first wanted to know. I don't have good terms with my family, if any terms to speak of at all really. My mother died when I was 10 and I don't like to remember it too much. I didn't get to see how she died or her body even after and it didn't feel good.

I was bullied from then on out and my father was an alcoholic. He drank but never really did anything physical to me. He was just emotionally unsupportive and had zero presence in my life after my mother died.

As for after that, I was sick with something that nobody in my world knew the cure to. It wasn't even a disease that was documented in the past. All of it sounds extremely fishy I know, but the next thing is something that confuses me the most.

I woke up after lying sick for almost a whole year in bed on a planet that had nothing but monsters inhabiting it. Or… to be more exact, I'm pretty sure I died then.", Rasmus replied recollecting his bitter memories.

Gray was incredibly confused. He could understand the first parts about Rasmus' quick summary of his life, but towards the end of his speech, it got more and more confusing. Especially dying and coming back to life on a desolate planet with nothing but monsters inhabiting it.

"Then what about the Tower?", Gray asked.

"What about it?", Rasmus redirected his attention back to Gray as he temporarily lost himself in his thoughts there.

"How did you get to the Tower?, And wait a second didn't you say your mother died? Then how was she in the Tower?", Gray quickly shut his mouth since the questions flew out like water.

"I don't really know anything about my mother's history in the Tower or if that was really her. The thing that scares me the most is the fact that it might really be her since I heard stories about a place literally called 'The Tower' when I was a child.

As for the Tower, I heard the same bells as you from a distance and followed it since it was a completely new presence I hadn't encountered on that planet. I was dragged in really, so I'm not sure if entered is the right word.

From what I can remember, I got close to the surface of it and several kind of murky and slimy hands grabbed me and dragged me inside.", Rasmus explained carefully.

"Oh, and I guess there's one other thing since you probably felt this before I might as well show you. But… if you do anything with this information to try and do something against me-", Rasmus' expression turned dark but Gray cut him off quickly.

"It's alright. Both of us probably have some secrets that we don't want others to know about even if we take it to our graves. I'll respect yours; it's better that way."

Rasmus' expression lightened up and sighed.

"Thanks", he sighed and shook his head with a relieved expression.

"By the way… tomorrow Mathis said he had something he wanted to talk to us about. Any clue about it?", Rasmus quickly asked while he was standing up and bringing his teacup to the sink.

Gray stood up as well and took his teacup in his hands and replied, "I'm not too sure, but I think if anything it'll probably be about the future or what he has planned for us. Not sure whether it will be good or bad for us, but it's unlikely it'll be anything terrible.", Gray responded by taking the last sip of his tea.

Chapter 35 - Fin