CHAPTER 61: The bar

"Well that went good. Didn't it?" the dwarf spoke with glee. To which I bared my teeth .

"Did you really have to do it that way?"

He shrugged. "No, but this was the most fun way. Now let's go, there are some people that I want you to meet."

Suddenly Alex sprung up. "Wait what time is it?!"

The dwarf rubbed his chin and stared into the distance. "I guess its three pm."

"Oh shit. I have to go now. bye!" Alex started to run through the hallways while trying to find the exit.

"Why did he have to leave so suddenly."

Allenya sighed in response to my question. "As it turned out. The girl he liked, I guess that her name was Stella, is here. And he somehow managed to get er on a date. How he managed to brainwash her enough to get this far is beyond me. But I better start following him now. otherwise he might never find the exit. Bye."

She started to run after him while waving at us.

The dwarf chuckled. "Kids these days."

We eventually left the building. Yohan needed to rest after walking for so long, so we dropped him off at the building he and Elisa were staying at until they found something better. Of course, Elisa wanted to stay with him, so we also said goodbye to her there.

When we were walking through the streets on our way to where the dwarf wanted to introduce me to some people, I picked up a rather familiar scent. I stopped and looked in the direction it was coming from.

The dwarf looked up.

"Something wrong kid?"

I grinned. "No, I'm just going to say Hi to a friend of mine."

Before the dwarf could stop me, I entered the bar where the scent found its origin.

The bar was quite large, and most people had almost passed out from the amount of alcohol they had been drinking. That's why they didn't really notice that I was a demon when I wore my cloak.

I could overhear the conversation that he was having when I walked towards the table where that certain person was sitting.

"No, I'm telling you. We were walking through a forest filled with spruce trees and then we found a trail of something wet. We followed it and after… after some time, we… we heard whimpering. You know, like a little child. So, we came to check it out. And you know what we saw? It was a small creature with wrinkly warty skin, it was the ugliest thing that I had ever seen. When it noticed us, it begun to make a terrible cry. We ran for our lives man. I still have nightmares about that thing. What if it followed us?"

the man proceeded to mumble. He was quite drunk, and his word were unrecognisable beyond that point.

"Heh, sounds to me like you met a squonk. It probably dissolved itself in its own tears after you found it. they know how ugly they are and are purely a bundle of depression, and sadness that would get worse after seeing itself or something else seeing it.

Now what I met on my way here was much, much worse. A demon with blood red skin, a tail, thick scales, wings wide enough to turn the day into night wherever its shadow falls. It had four horns on his head that were diagonally pointing upwards as if they were trying to rip open the skies. it was capable of illusions and entering one's mind. I'm not sure about this, but I think that each time it looked at me, its bright yellow eyes could look straight into my soul."

"aren't you exaggerating a bit? Well… the last part is true."

I grinned when he turned to me with a pale face.

"Hello Gert."

Gert sprung up what caused his chair to fall over. The person that he was talking to completely froze when he saw me.

"Gustave! What are you doing here!?"

"Well I just came back after my trip and I wanted to say hi."

Gert quickly tried to look as calm as possible. It would have fooled me if I hadn't seen his previous reaction. But it was good enough to fool his drinking buddy that now looked at him with admiration. Thinking that Gert must be so brave to be able to remain calm when face to face with a demon.

That was exactly what I had planned. I knew that Gert would stay calm, or at least pretend to stay calm. With a witness that was at least half drunk, tales of his 'bravery' would soon spread and would grand him a good reputation.

Afterall, I had come to see him as a friend, even if he didn't feel the same way. I was still grateful that he had played his part in defending me when Nathan started to try and leave me behind. And he was the reason why I could travel with them at all. Without the deal we made at Yeralds place, I doubt that the others would have trusted me as much as they did now.

I could hear the dwarf outside jellying that he wanted to keep going. I sighed and turned around to leave the bar.

"I think my time is up. See you later."

"Please don't just run off like that." The dwarf spoke like a parent scolding his kid.

"Sorry."

This time without wandering off I followed the dwarf back to the isolated building. The dwarf let me send the five broken humans away. Saying that the people that I was about to meet would not like it if I had a group of people around me that could be misunderstood as servants.

Standing in front of the entrance of the building were two men and one woman. The three of them were all human. The two men had long dark brown hair that was much like that of the elf I had met before apart from its colour. They nearly looked identical apart from their hight.

The woman was extremely beautiful with flawless skin, bright blue eyes that resembled jewels and long straight hair as dark as a starless night. But a ripple of ugliness could be found in the pond of beauty she embodied. The left side of her face was completely scarred, and she missed a large chunk of hair as well.

"the tallest one is Yorimitsu and the other one is Raiko, the girl is called Oiwa. Yorimitsu, Raiko, Oiwa, this is Rubedo, or Gustave. Whatever you want to call him."

"I prefer the name Gustave, if you don't mind."

"Nah, I don't care. Please try to get along.��