BXBX NOVEL Chapter 173: Letting Alan Know
Alicia also shone with her supportive archery; however, she felt a little unsatisfied with how the crowd would now boo or heckle Ryuji.
"Murderer!"
"Get out of our city, heartless outsider!"
Ryuji\'s eyes flicked towards Maki and then towards the royal box. Once again, Alan and the brown-haired Anne watched his every movement.
\'It feels like she wants to kill me...\'
He wondered where Liana was, which made him a little disappointed at being unable to see her. At the same time, he already won the battle, so Ryuji planned to speak with Alan—there were many things that he wanted to say and tell his friend.
\'It feels like Alan has been a little busy lately.\'
"Come on, Yumi, Eri, Alicia, we should head back and rest. The easy matches should be over now."
Many groans and muttered words came from the crowd as the group left.
However, Ryuji and the others didn\'t seem to care. They got the win, and now they would relax or train depending on what they felt like.
"Ryuji, are you going to meet with Alan?" Yumiko asked, her two tails swaying slowly behind her while she gave a faint smile, trying to ignore the situation and how much the people\'s attitudes changed because of one battle.
"Yeah, there are a few things I need to tell him." Ryuji turned back to the women. His atmosphere seemed a little different from usual. "Do you three mind going home first?"
"No problem, Ryu~ I\'ll let the maids know to make something extra delicious." Erika skipped forward, stroking his hand before she winked at him and kissed his cheek. "See you later, handsome."
Alicia looked wistfully at how open and free Erika seemed about kissing him while Yumiko walked forward with a confident stride. Her round hips swayed as she kissed the opposite cheek and followed Erika, swishing both her tails across Ryuji\'s body when she passed. "I love you, Ryuji. Don\'t be too upset about them."
"I won\'t, thanks Yumi. Love you too." His lips lifted slightly after letting them leave.
"Uhm..." Alicia and her beautiful glossy brown figure stepped forward, looking at both sides of his cheeks, before she darted forward and kissed his lips with a slight peck. Her soft, squishy lips felt wet to the touch before she pulled away. "Ah... because they kissed the other sides..."
The lovely elf then skittered away, her head turning back several times as a soft voice echoed down the quiet and lonely tunnel. "See you later... Ryuji."
\'She really is quite the adorable woman...\'
"Well, it\'s about time I went to meet Alan..."
With a serious face, Ryuji headed in the opposite direction from the group. He looked towards the sky and felt the grey, miserable clouds reflecting how the city felt for him right now and made him feel even more gloomy about the things he wanted to talk about.
***
Ryuji walked along the long curved hallway, these parts were only used by the people competing and the royal family to avoid any issues regarding safety or danger to the royal family and higher nobles.
\'Well, that\'s because we are meant to be weak...\'
In reality, Ryuji was irritated, angry and frustrated with how he needed to hold back. It felt like something inside him continuously whispered for him to destroy, to kill when he fought and although people would tell him not to listen to it or say stuff like it wasn\'t the true him.
The reality would shock them... because it was.
He wanted to crush anyone who stood against him or insulted his women.
"It\'s not like I can\'t go to the dungeon and crush some monsters. I need to become stronger, so let\'s do that after meeting Alan."
His feet increased their pace the moment he found something to do. Ryuji\'s lips started curling into a smile from the moment he began to think about it. With light steps, he dashed towards the meeting place, where he could see Alan\'s miserable face brooding away.
"Oi, Alan!" He called out—the duke just sat there for several moments before he finally seemed to register the sound.
"Ah... Ryuji..." Alan\'s voice, tone and demeanour felt like an office worker who lost his job and needed to pretend he was promoted back home. "Sorry, I\'m a little..."
"It\'s fine. We all have a bad day sometimes."
"Thanks, it makes me feel relaxed to hear you aren\'t going to mind. You wanted to speak to me, right? Shall we move somewhere else?" Alan looked around. The room was a vast curling sphere with various useless items and a desk, but it felt more like a room where the arena dumped unwanted props and items left behind over the years.
"Here should be fine, no one comes here, right?"
"Yeah, I think Anne is waiting on the other side, and the only people coming from your side would be competitors. I think I could sense your classmates from a mile away, haha."
"Good, well let me sit down then."
Ryuji sat beside Alan and looked up. The room might have been dirty and a mess, but the roof was made of beautiful blue glass, allowing him to see the horrible grey sky, now tinted blue.
It might have felt stupid, but he couldn\'t help but smirk.
\'How do I start... Hey Alan, your brother\'s wife is a little slut! No... that feels quite annoying and stupid.\'
"Before you speak, Ryuji, can I tell you something first? Maybe it might make my chest feel lighter if I can tell you... The only friend that doesn\'t ask me for anything but food."
"Delicious food, don\'t get it twisted."
Alan\'s bitter face smiled for a moment, used to his friend\'s dumb sense of humour and importance. However, his eyes widened because suddenly, a barrier of darkness began to form around them both and when it solidified, a voice echoed inside Ryuji\'s mind.
The nostalgic voice he heard often in the past.
[You can thank me later...]
[The goddess of Darkness has cloaked your presence—even the most useless light cannot observe you for the next two hours!]
[Serena\'s favourite food is Lasagne]
"Eh... Ryuji... are you?" Alan looked at him with a shocked gaze. It made Ryuji feel like this message or somehow Alan also felt something.
"I guess I am blessed a little, huh?" Ryuji could only be cryptic because he knew what happened last time with the goddess and could only rely on her help.
"It\'s good... Now, I don\'t have to hide things from you. What a great feeling. It\'s about the enemy we face and the true existence of the curse our bloodline suffers from."
Alan seemed different the moment the barrier appeared. His breathing and posture more relaxed, and his lips curled into a faint smile before turning to Ryuji.
"Our enemy, the one that is currently crushing our knights who fight in the north... Her true identity I don\'t know, but her origins and power I do."
Ryuji looked at his friend, to be honest, although he felt that something like this might happen one day, with the fact there being a demon queen and his class being a demon lord, which he presumed would upgrade to king, eventually.
\'I was hoping for her to be an ally. Maybe that was wishful thinking.\'
"So, what do you have to tell me, dear friend?"
"It all started in the past, roughly twenty years ago, maybe a few months less."
Alan seemed to look into the distance, his mind moving back to the past before he learned the true hardships of the world and a time when his eldest sister Linda and Avandar\'s first wife were still alive.
The four of them were close, while Alice would chase them but was too young to join them in battle, and back then, she resembled Liana before meeting Ryuji.
Alan the young hero, with long blonde hair, silver armour and a confidence that any handsome man would have at his age in his late teens.
Linda, the blonde beauty, with the same genes as her mother and quite similar to Anne now, with firm muscles but with an aptitude for wind magic.
Avandar, with his looks back then, was almost equal to Ryuji\'s. A youthful prince who would eventually become the next king because of their eldest sister\'s absolving.
Then, the last person was a lovely woman with black hair and a small beauty spot beneath her purple eyes. She was not only Avandar\'s young wife but the mother of Liana and Anne, who would become his pride and joy, Lydia.
"At this time, our mother recently passed, and father started to become strange; his hair fell out, and he began to turn against the most loyal knights. The same happened to our senior nobles; suddenly, they started to betray or side with the opposite members of the council who wanted me to take the crown next... As if to start a war with my brother."
Alan\'s face looked bleak, while Ryuji found it strange that the time it started was a little after his birth, or rather the time he would have been conceived.
\'No, this world doesn\'t work on the same time axis as my previous world, I cannot assume.\'
"So?"
"It was that moment, we learned about the \'Curse\' from our father for the first time. A curse was caused because of our grandfather and mother\'s actions. They helped a hero and his beloved woman, who was pregnant, to return to his world."