Heaven's Darkness (Book 2)

Chapter 14 - Jeriah

I was pissed.

First, Quint left me out of his plan to save the world. I was getting pretty sick of this whole, 'Exclude Jeriah' charade. Then, that old pervert from the train kept bugging me about seeing Ashura. As if that wasn't enough to grind my gears, I was now enduring a long lecture from Master Caelestis.

And these lectures, my friend, I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.

"Jeriah, where is over half of your party?" the master had demanded, stamping his small foot and sending a crack throughout the floorboards. This little guy could be unproportionally strong.

"They're off saving the world," I muttered, avoiding his eye contact. It wasn't like I was lying to him. They really were off somewhere solving some serious issue. The bad part was that Master wasn't really the type to accept that kind of an answer.

"That isn't enough information! Stop this childish behavior and just explain what happened! You're failing to live up to the Heaven's Light expectations in not telling..."

So that was basically how the conversation went. Very rude. Very loud. Very dangerous. Very magical.

Since Terra and I were the ones left behind, we decided to take this time to work on ourselves, especially since Quint won that bet on the train and told us not to do any further investigations. Terra was off training somewhere to improve her own strength to match that of a Legendary. I was hoping to train, too; I just had to find the motivation. It was hard to want to do anything after the way Quint spoke to me on the train.

He not only acted incredibly emotional for Quint, but he called me a sprite. A fucking sprite! I don't even know what that is! But it still hurt. Especially since I thought of him as a role model. There's no worse feeling than hearing the person you strive to be most like tell you you're incompetent. He was an incredibly insightful wizard, a spirit realm Legendary, with no temper to boot. Everything about him was admirable and I wanted to be just as respectable as he was.

I wasn't the only one that thought of him like that. Every wizard in Heaven's Light looked up to him. Main fans included the nine other members present in this guild hall: Sano, Yura, Nama, Max, Hubris, Virdigo, Zero, Drake, and even Master Caelestis. That old geezer showed extreme favoritism in this guild, probably because of how often he drank his stress away. The wizards in the background were his favorite ones. The ones that didn't ever do anything and just got by on what they could. The lazy ones. Plus Quint. And Terra. And maybe even Ashura.

It was so unfair.

So all of this left me sitting alone at the bar of Heaven's Light, swiveling absentmindedly in the light blue barstool, watching Virdigo polish plates and glasses. There was something calming about the motion of polishing a glass. It put me at ease.

"Hey, Jeriah, how'd the task go?" Virdigo politely inquired, smiling.

I waved a hand dismissively. "Fine. Could've been worse."

She cast me a concerned look, but decided not to press me. She understood the times when people wanted to talk and when they needed to be left alone, something that very few people could depict the difference between.

Unfortunately, most of the guild wasn't like her.

"What do you mean by that?" my white-haired friend asked, helping himself to a seat beside me. He signaled to Virdigo to get us another round of beer before poking me in the arm, reminding me to answer his question.

"I don't mean anything by it," I replied, slightly angry. "It was a task. We succeeded. We returned. What do you want me to say?"

Drake crossed his arms over his green tunic and stared at me defiantly. "C'mon, man. What's up? Obviously, something happened over there that we need to know about."