House Viewing

Ryo stirred as he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling above him, focusing on the familiar patterns of the ceiling of his inn room. The angle of the sunlight slipping into his room and the shadows being cast by it hinted at the time being quite early in the morning. Around 7:30 by his estimations, which was the average waking time for the city of adventurers in this season. They always did like getting up early so they could spend as much of the day as possible in the Dungeon.

At night, things became a bit more troublesome and dangerous as it got much darker in the dungeon and far more dangerous.

And surprise surprise, he'd had no memorable dreams last night about his adoptive grandfather or anyone else for that matter. His night was just as he liked them...sleeping in an ever black pitch darkness, with no concept of time flowing by in the abyss of his mind until he had slept enough that his body decided it was time to wake up. The silence of his imagination during his hours of rest brought a strange sense of comfort to him as no signs of dreams indicated no sign of any unfinished business or lingering thoughts from the day.

As someone who sought to live life without regrets, he was hard obligated to wipe out and cut the problem at the seed. The destruction of the old man's grave, and the disappearance of the last traces of his existence seemed to bring a morbid sense of closure to Ryo...though deep inside of him, there was still some tiny part of him asking himself if that was the right way of going about dealing with this. However, he clamped down on that thought inside him, quashing it with a heavy layer of indifference and a sense of priority towards the objectives of today.

He was hoping to land yet another easy employee and finally open up his restaurant. He made to throw the covers off of himself when he suddenly became aware of a weight on his chest. Pressing his chin down to his chest in his lying position, he felt his jaw brush against what clearly felt like long strands of hair and a tiny hand pushed into his chest above where his heart would be. Removing the blanket from his body revealed a sight that for once actually left him at a loss for words and immediate solutions.

Laid out on top of his body with her cheek pressed against his chest, and her knees locking his hips was Noel, breathing steadily and peacefully without a worry in the world. As if she had not just climbed into the bed of someone she'd not known for more than 12 hours at most and beyond that, was now sleeping atop a bloodthirsty monster of a spirit who had killed little girls like her before for much less than this clear violation of his privacy and his personal space.

He quickly sat up, so suddenly that Noel let out an involuntary yet slurry yelp as she was forcibly awoken from sleep by having her body fly backwards, landing on top of his still covered legs with an 'oof'. She stared up, wide-eyed for a moment and breathing heavily from the shock of such a wake-up call before she slowly sat up and rubbed her eye, picking the sleep out of it, her hair frizzled and split from sleep as she yawned.

"Good morning Master." She said sleepily. "Did I wake you?"

"You have 3 seconds to explain before I use Idle Transfiguration and turn you into a boy." Ryo said in a dangerously cool voice.

"Explain what Master?"

"What was the point of me paying for a separate room for you if you were just going to come and sleep on top of me in my bed? Forget the levels on inappropriacy, that's a whole lot of Valis just gone down the drain for nothing."

"I'm sorry Master." Noel said as she looked down. "I...the room was too big and empty...and lonely for me." She clenched her fists. "There were these big howling noises coming in from the fireplaces and there were so many loud creaks from the windows and the walls. It was too scary in there...so I asked Miss Uraume if she could take my room instead so I could come in here with you."

"And how did you get in? I locked the door before I went to sleep."

"I asked Miss Martha to open it for me." Noel admitted as she twiddled her thumbs.

"Wait, Martha let you in? She knows you're in here?"

"Yes." Noel looked up at him, and her eyes seemed a little bit bigger than normal as they watered a little. "I'm sorry if I angered you Master. I won't do it again...I just felt so lonely and cold. Sleeping with you made me feel...so much safer. If you're going to punish me, then I'll accept whatever it is." She squeezed her eyes shut as a couple of tears rolled down her cheek. "Just please...don't cast me aside...I don't have anyone else in the world."

Ryo stared at her cynically, letting the tension in their heighten before his anger just fizzed out and he sighed. He reached over and flicked her on the forehead a little harshly, making her yelp again as she clutched her forehead looking more shocked than hurt.

"I'm not going to punish you." He said. "But if you're afraid of sleeping in a room by yourself, just tell me next time instead of acting on your own. Understand?"

"Wait...you're not angry?" Noel asked, eyes wide.

"No." Ryo said as he stood and stretched, feeling his tendons popping and his bones cracking. "Being angry costs energy...energy I don't have because I'm hungry. And when I'm both hungry and angry, then I become nasty and other people don't get to have a good day." He looked back at her. "You want me to be nasty?"

"No." She hastily shook her head.

"Good." He replied in turn as he opened the window and let the fresh air in. "I suggest you get up now. We have work to do."

"Work?" Noel tilted her head.

"Yes." He turned to look at her. "We're going to sort a couple of squatters out."

...

A few minutes later had them both walking out of the door, to find Uraume standing outside faithfully waiting for her master to come out. Ryo locked eyes with her and held maintained eye contact while he turned the key in his door. After giving the door knob a few shakes to check it was secure, he stuck a long finger in her face.

"I'll deal with you later." He promised before he reached down to Noel.

The little spirit looked at the hand that was offered to her and stared between him and it. Then wordlessly, she reached up her own small hand and slipped it into his, his long warm fingers closing around her fist and making her hand completely disappear into his own as she used her other to smooth down the new dress he gave her.

"Are we heading off somewhere?" Uraume asked, ignoring his threat from earlier.

"To the place that will become my restaurant." He said. "You'd better roll up your sleeves...because you'll be having a hand in renovating the place...the only hand that is."

"...Whatever you say, Master Ryo." She replied coolly as she fell in line behind his step while Noel just stayed awkwardly silent, her locked hands with Ryo's gently swaying about as they walked down the stairs and out of the door.

---

"This is the place?" Uraume said with a small hint of disbelief in her voice as she stared up and down the derelict and collapsing structure overgrown with weeds and moss. "This dump is where you wish to open business?"

"This dump used to be a church." Ryo replied, still holding onto Noel's hand as the girl also looked the place up and down, looking unsure but nothing she wasn't used to. She'd slept in much worse places before. "Of course I have my own reasons for wanting to open everything up in this place...but let's just say that this is quite a...pivotal area for some parties. Of course the upkeep and the service charges for this district is also quite low, so there in itself is an added bonus."

"Hmm." Uraume narrowed her eyes as she stared at the heavy wooden door. "I sense something...familiar."

"And what would that be?" Ryo gave her a side-eye.

"There is a presence here." She said. "But it is odd...I would almost say it's like you Master Ryo...but you're right here next to me. Whatever this is feels something like you but...not you." Uraume put a finger on her chin. "For starters, it is so pathetically weak and yet it carries some resemblant trace of you. That would be possible if you had marked anyone somehow, Master. But I don't remember you doing that...unless..." She turned to look at Ryo, her eyes widening a little as she understood. "It's that boy isn't it? He's here."

"...How perceptive of you." He said after a pause before smiling. "Yes...this is where he lives with the goddess he serves."

"What kind of 'god' would live in such a disgraceful place such as this?" Uraume turned up her nose. "Such lofty titles and yet so far a fall from grace."

"Much like your previous master?" Ryo suggested.

The sorceress said nothing to that.

"Must have really angered you." He smirked. "The Calamity, The Imaginary Demon, The Fallen, The Disgraced, The King of Curses...all those fancy names...and in the end, he looked like something you'd step on with your shoe. Can't imagine anything more humiliating than that. What do you say about that then, Uraume?"

"There is...little else to compare to it." She muttered, refusing to look at him. "Much less considering what you did afterwards."

"Harvesting him was easy." Ryo said as he spied a large bluebottle buzzing around. A single thought had that insect bisected with absolute accuracy, with the added aftermath of a slash mark in the next building over. "As was harvesting his host. And his enemies."

"So why didn't you do the same for me?" She asked him, her voice a little more cool than it already usually was.

"I kept you as a trophy." He grinned.

Noel looked back and forth between the two, sensing the tumultuous tension bubbling beneath the calm facades and chose to say nothing. That being said, if something did breakout, she'd didn't need to think twice about whose side she was taking. Ryo looked down at her and urged her along by pulling on the hand that he had clasped.

"Go ahead." He said. "Why don't you go and open the door. You get to be the first to step into our new home."

"Uhm...thank you." Noel said, unsure of herself but nonetheless following his command and walking up the steps to the large heavy double-doors. Looking back, she got an affirmative nod from Ryo before she breathed a deep one, and pushed the door open.

Inside was rather dim, but the place's standing as a church became more obvious what with the benches and the stained glass windows. More prominently was the altar at the very front atop which was a lectern which Noel assumed was a place where a priest would give sermons from. No doubt that church housed a cozy little community at some point, considering that although it was run down, there was still a sense of tenderness and homeliness to it.

It was also very quiet, so much in fact that Noel could hear her own heartbeat. She approached the altar and climbed up so she could stand at the lectern. She was not tall enough that she could look over it completely, so she came to stand up in front of it and look over the contents of the room. Even with no one occupying the benches in front of her, she suddenly felt very self-conscious, almost like the ghosts of the people who once sat there were now also sitting there, judging her, sizing her up.

Sensations she'd never liked, ever. 

Then her spirit senses tickled a little bit as she spread her awareness a little bit more. Faintly she could detect the presence of something else in the room with her...in fact a whole lot of somethings. Things that felt like her master...but on a much lesser scale. It was quite reminiscent actually of that horrible creature that was sitting on Miss Martha's shoulders, the one she'd been told to leave alone and not speak a word of.

Looing around the room, she couldn't see anything though. There was nothing and no one occupying the benches, nothing hiding in any corners visible to her. The light that was let in from the door she'd opened illuminated the place a little bit more but enough for her to easily see if anything else was in the room. But she couldn't see anything ahead of her...and that left one place to look.

Slowly she turned her gaze up to the ceiling and there she found no light to be had. She was certain that the ceiling would be made out of stone and mortar just as the rest of the building but up there was nothing more than a blanket of shadow beneath which she couldn't see anything. With her eyes that is. Her senses were telling her something much different though, because even as she couldn't physically see something up there, she knew there was something in there staring right back at her with its own eyes.

Underneath her feet, the floor started to frost over a little as little bits of ice crystals started to grow out the stone in tandem with her rising fear and trepidation.

And the more this went on, the more that presence grew on her as her knees began to feel weak and her heart began to beat faster as she grew short of breath. For a moment it felt like the darkness was slowly descending upon her, and she, frozen with fear ironically enough, could do nothing but wait for an impending and imminent end.

...

"You okay?" A voice called out to her all of a sudden making her yelp and jump about a foot as she turned around to see who had addressed her. "Can I help you?"

She had been so taken by her strange fear that she hadn't noticed at all how a side door had opened in one of the walls besides the altar and someone had actually come out of it and was now staring at her with a confused expression on his face. And from the way he was positioned, it looked like he'd actually been standing there for more than just a moment which made Noel wander just how long she was actually standing at the lectern.

But that wonder was suddenly overcome with the familiarity of the face she was looking at. The same milky silver white hair, red eyes only a small shade lighter than she was used to seeing already and so small a change, she wouldn't have noticed had she not taken an extra moment to study this stranger. But nowhere was the immaculate jawline, or the sharp features of her master. Nor the cunning intelligence and cold indifference in his eyes.

This boy looked just like Ryo in everything except his age and most certainly the still present baby fat in his face. Not to mention, this boy was a whole lot shorter than her master and scrawny, nowhere close to how built and solid Ryo was...and she could tell since she'd had a hands-on experience the night before. Nevertheless, the similarities threw her through a loop and she could do nothing but point at Bell as he stared back at her with a tilted head and a question mark above his head.

"You look like Master Ryo!" She exclaimed. "But you can't be him, because you're much smaller and weaker than he is!"

"Master Ryo?" Bell said as he suddenly perked up and his grip on the straps of his pack tightened in his excitement. "You know Mister Ryo, miss?"

"I do." She replied. "How do you know him? Actually, why are you here? This is my master's church, not yours."

"Ryo's church?" Bell quirked an eyebrow. "Sorry, there must be a confusion. This is my goddess's church, not Ryo's. I've been living here for a few days now."

"Doesn't exactly make it yours." Ryo said as he and Uraume suddenly turned up beside the two children. "How've you been Bell?"

"I've been fine!" Bell said excitedly as his eyes lit up at seeing the older boy. "I was just about to head out to the Dungeon again...but this is great! I told Goddess Hestia about you yesterday and she really wants to meet you." Bell calmed down a little bit though as a question came to mind. "Wait, how did you find this place? How did you know where to find me?"

"It is how you would say...a coinkydink." Ryo joked, with a grin on his face. One that actually seemed genuine to Uraume's surprise. And she had spent the better part of three years with Ryo, so she knew this was actually out of character for him. "Go ahead Bell. If she's so eager to see me, perhaps it is time we actually met."

"O-Of course." Bell said as he opened the door wider. "Come on, come on in."

"You two go ahead." He said to Noel and Uraume. "I have a little something to take care of here first."

Uraume's eyes flickered up to the ceiling first before nodding. Noel looked like she was about to say something but the older woman just put a hand on her back and began pushing her along through the doorway and down the steps. Ryo waited until they were out of view before he looked up at the ceiling and frowned.

"A whole lot of bugs." He muttered as he lifted a hand. "Ao."

A blue orb of cursed energy, spinning into its own self formed over his palm and floated up to the ceiling. A moment later, all the collected shadows above began to get vacuumed into the orb, and daylight began to reach the now revealed wooden shafts and brick ceiling. Accompanying it was the sounds of thousands of little screams as Ryo could sense himself snuffing out little life forms. When the shadows were completely cleared, he dispelled Blue, and stood there waiting as he saw something fall towards him.

It was tiny, but with close to maybe a hundred little legs on its caterpillar-like body. It fell right into his palm on its back and wriggled about as it opened a tiny mouth at the end filled with rotating rows of sharp teeth, shrill little screams coming from its mouth. Ryo pinched it between two fingers and held it up to his face, not even remotely disgusted by its squirming which would have made a normal person's skin crawl.

"Inconsequential and harmless on your own." He said to it as he watched little wisps of shadows flowing off of its body. "But together with thousands of others of your kind, and you create a hive mind where you can harvest both flesh and fear. I do wonder why you didn't go after the boy though." He looked back to the door that his companions had left through. "I wonder..."

Without another thought, he crushed the ugly thing making it scream loudly as it died before then dissipating and breaking down into nothingness as its life was snuffed out. Ryo blew on his hand to get the dust off before turning around and walking to the stairs. He descended with measured and timed steps as he overheard Bell quickly explaining the situation to which he heard the response of another female in the room.

When he got to the last step, he made a point of dramatically making his footfall louder as he flared his spirit presence to the max, not even afraid of Bell sensing it because the boy was much too underdeveloped. It was necessary though.

He'd just entered the lair of a god. 

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