LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 7: Moving forward
It was morning now and Hanna was lazily laying in her bed next to the still sleeping Adeline, who‘s head she was stroking lightly. Adeline‘s chest fell and rose in an even pattern, her face showing contempt and relaxation. She was clearly having a really good sleep.
To many who knew her, this would be completely unthinkable. Everyone knew of the bond she had with her parents and the respect and love she had towards both Shirone and Frank, who were her aunt and uncle in anything but actually being related and all of them were dead, the only family she now had was her brother. Adeline however, didn’t care.
Who cares that these people were dead? She didn’t need those, all she needed was Hanna. Hanna was the one who gave her attention, Hanna was the one giving her love, Hanna was the one who was her family now, Hanna is the only other person who matters now. Her 'family' was the one who would have prevented her from feeling this very love she now received and it were Frank and Shirone that wanted to take it away from her.
These people were evil, they wanted to take her from Hanna away, but now? They were dead and she could wallow in the drowning love Hanna had for her. It was bliss incarnate and she wouldn’t allow anyone to take it away from her.
In The room next door a foul smell emitted, coming from the two corpses in the room. Both were mutilated, having many missing body parts, such as ears, fingers and the like. Those corpses were of course the adventurers Shirone and Frank, both of which were captured by Hanna.
Next to them, on the ground, sleeping in a puddle of blood and other bodily fluids laid Luisa. The young elf had an satisfied expression, as she slept peacefully and in bliss, in complete disregard to the foul stench of the two corpses. During her life on the streets she had witnessed way worse smells before.
Luisa was beaten by almost everything in her life and to finally have the opportunity to strike back? To be the one handing out the beatings and forcing others to do her bidding? To the persecuted girl it was like a drug and she never wanted to give it up again. She would never forget the time she had spent with Shirone, her screams as she had her way with her and how it felt to be the one in power. If she would follow her Master, Hanna, she could have this many more times, she looked forward to it.
Hanna, for her part, was deep in thought and she reflected on everything that happened the last few days. From Luisa she had learned that both Shirone and Frank were on a mission to actively look for Adelines family, the reason Luisa was even with them was out of sheer luck.
Luisa was on the way to be executed inside the High Elven Church of the capital and was brought there by Shirone and it was pure coincidence that the Guildmaster called for her to abandon her current mission. Shirone, however, insisted that she and only she was to bring Luisa to the church, something about religious purity or something. That was the only reason Luisa was here now and not a dead body.
From that story Hanna quickly figured out that, if the guild doesn’t receive news of the two Adventures, they would send mor people. Now at first that might be not a problem, annoying at best, but Hanna knew this would only be temporary and an never ending stream of adventures would be coming to her doorstep. Hanna wanted to avoid that at all cost, she was strong, but there was no guarantee that there wasn’t some adventurer stronger then her.
As much as she wanted to simply live out her life inside this cosy cabin, she at this was but a pipe dream, so she needed to come up with alternatives. The most obvious solution was to just move away, but there were multiple problems attached to that solution. For one she couldn’t guarantee that they would be save that way, also things like food and water might become an issue at one point, in all honesty though? Hanna just didn’t want to live on the streets for all eternity.
The next logical solution was to stay and hold out for as long as possible, but that was attached to uncertainty and didn’t promise a long time alive, so that went out of the window rather quickly. Hanna silently grumbled, this was far more difficult than it had any right to be.
She wanted to be close or maybe even live inside a settlement or the like, but knew as soon as she was discovered she would probably have to flee or destroy the whole settlement and then, again, she would be on the streets. In this situation she cursed both her being a monster and her need to feed of negative emotions. Her gaze wandered to the still soundly sleeping Adeline.
"When in doubt these two could still be my food…" She muttered.
She didn’t have a problem to use both Adeline and Luisa in such a way, after all they were her property, she could do whatever she wanted with them, but because they were her property she didn’t want to use them in such a way, her pride would never let her live it down, if she had to use her prized possession for survival.
It was then that Hanna had a sudden idea, she mentally slapped herself for not thinking about it sooner. She could just ask Adeline to be a cover for them. If she went to the Adventurers Guild, said that her parents, Frank and Shirone died in battle, but the threat was now eliminated, there would be no reason whatsoever to leave! Hanna smiled a devious smirk as more and more ideas came to her mind and how to use the incredible asset that was Adeline.
Around 30 minutes later and all three of them were sitting around a table, with both Luisa and Adeline having a bowl in front of them, which was filled with all kinds of fruits and meat mashed together into something which sort of resembled stew or something similar. Adeline was seated right next to Hanna and was glaring every second of the meal at Luisa, who under the strong gaze of Adeline started to sweat as she became somewhat nervous.
It created an akward situation which Hanna had tried to break multipul times, but her attempts were foiled again and again, by Adeline. At one point Hanna was close to snapping, yet no matter what she said she couldn't get to Adeline's brain, it was like Luisa was responsible for any and all bad things that ever happened to Adeline and she was slowly releasing all that pent up rage towards Luisa.
Luisa wasn't unfamiliar with these kind of stares, but the raw intensety and malice behind Adeline's gaze was so powerful, that even Luisa started to crack slowly, until she could not take it anymore.
"Ok PLEASE tell what I did to offend you! I can't take this anymore!" Luisa slammed her hand onto the table in frustration.
At first Adeline's gaze didn't waver, but after a few moments she finally said why she was looking at Luisa like she had just killed her dog by throwing it into a furnace.
"You are here and Hanna called you pet. You might steal her away."
That was all she said but it was all the other two needed to know and their reactions were very diffrent from one another. Hanna couldn't supress a snicker and an shit eating grin at the explanation, to think her tactics worked that well that she had created a obssession inside Adeline's mind was pretty amusing.
In contrast, Luisa stared at Adeline like she was crazy and she also felt a small shivver as she thought about how such an encounter with Hanna would end and it didn't take a lot to see that such an encounter would definetly not end good for her body or mind. But sadly she was an underling of this very monster right now and so was Adeline, so cooperation was necessary to function, as such she thought of ways to sooth Adeline's mind and worries.
"L-look, I can assure you that I do not attempt to take her away from you. But since I AM at her service she decided to call me pet as well. That’s all there is to it, I swear!"
Luisa looked at Adeline with pleading eyes, she wanted to get this particular misunderstanding to be over as quickly as possible, if she were ever to be send to do something together and the first thing Adeline would do is kill her out of jealousy, Luisa was no fan of that idea.
Adeline kept her intense gaze for a few more moments, before muttering a single "fine" under her breath, after which she returned vigorously to her bowl of food, Luisa felt a mountain being lifted from her shoulders and released a sigh, while Hanna was laughing her ass off.
"Hahahhaaa… Oh, that was good! God I haven’t felt alive like this ever since I killed Adeline‘s parents! Anyway if you two could spare some of your attention towards me, we have plans to make."
Both looked at Hanna with questioning gazes, Adeline seemingly ignoring the statement involving her parents completely. Hanna cleared her throat, mostly for the dramatic effect, and began to relay the plan she formed in her head earlier this morning.
Meanwhile inside the adventurers Guild
The guildmaster was walking circles inside his office, it had been almost 6 days since he had send Frank and Shirone to find the Strand family, their other two teammates were getting worried, as was he himself. He knew it would take some time before they would hear from them again, but this was getting a bit to long for his taste.
He didn’t want to think about it, but it slowly dawned on him that perhaps they couldn’t beat the Dark Margenko after all. He never wanted to admit it, but recently it was turning into the only solution to the disappearance of the two adventures. As much as he wants to believe they just decided to rest up at the Stand‘s home, 6 days was way to long a time to go silent for so long, especially since their complete team wasn’t even there.
Frantic knocking on his door awakened him out of his trance like state.
"Guildmaster, Adeline of the Strand family has returned! You have to talk with her!"
His secretary said loudly through the door, her happiness and amazement clearly audible. The Guildmastee himself stood still, shocked at the news. One minute ago, he had thought how both the Stand family and Frank and Shirone were dead and now Adeline Strand was here.
He quickly opened his office door, behind which stood his secretary, she tried to hide her surprise and enthusiasm behind a mask of professionalism, but couldn’t keep it up. She directed him towards the main hall of the guild, where Adeline was waiting, with a different small girl accompanying her.
His secretary described the girl to wear a red skirt and shirt, with and black vest over the shirt. She also wore red leather shoes and long black socks. Her hair was long, unkept and blond, her eyes were red crimson and two mounds pertruded from her hair, together with her black tail she was obviously some beast-men and judging from her cloths, she was probably a noble.
The Guildmaster thanked his secretary and then quickly made his way towards the main hall of the guild, walking down two set of stair before stopping in front of a large wooden door. Behind the door many voices could be heard, many adventures were probably upon Adeline, since the Strand family was quite famous, so their absence was quickly noticed by many adventures.
He opened the door to see around 30 Adventures surrounding a single place, the two receptionist tried to disperse the gathering, but to no avail. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the adventures were so curious about.
With a slam against one of the nearby tables, he both got the attention of the adventures, as well as made them all quite, as he spoke in a commanding voice.
"I know you all want answers and stories right now, but please remember Adeline had just recently reached adulthood in her life, let her have some space!“
His words had the desired effect, the sea of people cleared and revealed Adeline, holding onto a smaller girl‘s hand tightly, the girl looked just like his secretary had described her and she was trembling, seemingly overwhelmed with the situation. Adeline by contrast had a defensive posture and she seemed to protect the other girl from all the stares.
"Adeline, please come with me, we’ll find a quite place to calm you two down."
He held his hand towards the girl, but as the other adventures started to complain, how they wanted to hear the story as well, he shot them a deadly glare, shutting them up instantly. Soon they found themselves sitting at a wooden table in a backroom of the Guild, sipping some hot tea and across from them sat the Guildmaster patiently waiting for them to calm down and adjust to the situation.
After a few more moments, Adeline started to speak about just what happened these last few days, she told the Guildmaster that a Dark Margenko had attacked her family a few days ago, the battle was hard and long but in the end her parents had fallen to the beast. For some reason the beast had kept her alive, keeping her locked up in a room of the cabin. It wasn’t long before Frank and Shirone arrived and also fought the beast, since the beast was still wounded they won, but succumbed to the beasts poisons.
The Guildmaster listen attentively, never interrupting, at the end however he did ask a single question.
"And where did you pick up that girl next to you? She looks like a young noble of the beast-men you know.“ He eyed them intently, not out of suspicion but out of genuine interest and it was because of this intent stare he noticed the small sweat buds appearing on both their foreheads, as well as a small shake of their bodies. He took note of that but didn’t say anything.
After a few moments Adeline answered.
"She was taken along by the Dark Margenko, it seems like it had an interest in young women, it kept her on a leash and tugged her around everywhere."
"And if I‘m allowed, can you tell me just who you are?“ The question was directed at the girl next Adeline, his gaze intense and mysterious. His green eyes almost seemed to glow.
In return, scarlet red eyes greeted him back, as the small girl looked him dead in the eyes.
"My name is Hanna." That was all she said. And they stared at each other for a few moments, before the Guildmaster clapped his hands together and a small smile made his way on his lips.
"Very well, I welcome you Hanna. My name is Paulus and I‘m The Guildmaster of the Adventures Guild of Fahrnost. " He held his hand towards the young girl, who took it in her small own hand and shook it.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance." Hanna said.
After talking a bit more with one another both Adeline and Hanna asked the Guildmaster for anything related to housing, they used the excuse of being to afraid to stay in the old house and wanted to move into the city. The Guildmaster offered them that he would look for a suitable small house for the duo.
They thanked him and then excused themselves by saying that Hanna wanted to learn a bit about her new home city, so they would leave for now. The Guildmaster lead them towards the door of the guild and send them on their way, but as soon as they were out of earshot he turned to the adventurers standing around, a dark expression on his face.
I want you all to know that the young girl accompanying Adeline is not what she claims to be, I want all Adventures to keep an eye out for the two of them, this is not a Quest but an Guild Executive Order." And with that he left for his office as the adventurers around him had expressions of shock on their face, after all.
This was the first Guild Executive Order in over 70 years.
