Into the Unknown World

Chapter 16. Lost in time

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"T... T-Twig? I-is that you?!" She looked very surprised and had taken one step backwards.

"Cor...dola?" I stammered and looked at her very puzzled. So, that really is you? How did she grow up so fast?

"Y-Ye... Yes!" as if seeing a ghost, she added, "Where have you been? You look... the same!"

Yea. Tell me more about it. You look like your mother! Mother! Heck. I almost forgot about the reason why I am talking to you. I slowly recounted what I saw in the small house full of ashes and clouds of dust and asked her about their whereabouts.

"I apologize for eavesdropping, young child. However, I am your father's last companion when he ventured to the entrance of the Dungeons of Monsters along with Morning Dew's father." he tapped Dola's shoulder as he answered my question and wiped his face.

"Last... Companion?"

"That's because it's been twenty Luners that has passed, Twig. We thought that you and Morning Dew are already dead. The day that you were missing, the townspeople initiated a search party and we're looking everywhere for you." she paused while clenching her fist holding a towel.

"W-what?!?" I exclaimed.

"Master, is Luners the cycle of the entire months?" Sprigg once again whispered.

I moved my head sideways and talked to her using the telepathy, "Not now, Sprigg!"

"After that day, no one has claimed your bodies and everyone was afraid traversing the deeper portion of the forest." she positioned her hand to her chest and added, "Our lord assumed that you accidentally ventured inside the newly found dungeon and is expected to be dead. Your mother was overwhelmed and her condition deteriorated. I, I am sorry, Twig. I..." tears are rolling down her face, "I swear my mother helped as much as she could but the incident weakened her." She cried and I faltered about the next thing she said, "S-She died a week--"

I fell on my knees reaching at my heart as I reminisced how it feels to have them and after a long milder-hot breeze blew on our face, I wiped my face. I begged to the stars and the suns that I can still have the chance of embracing them. Just a touch will do. I covered my face with my bare hands and I couldn't even feel the non stop falling of the tears in my eyes as I looked at her crying too. She's beginning to embrace my childish body, to comfort me but... I feel like my world had just been torn to smaller pieces. Unattached by reality. The sound of silence replaced everything just as I was inside the artefact with anything but darkness flooding on me. I slowly wiped my tears and asked in a slow voice, "H-how about my fa-father, Dola? How is he not here and my siblings?"

Her father explained that after my mother died, father went inside the dungeon looking for me and Dew while leaving the other four children in the village. Our father didn't seem to make it too as they have never seen again. This is all my fault. I killed both of them. I killed everyone. Everything that I worked for shattered like it was for nothing. Thinking that I could go back to the way it was with my family. Now that's hard all my wishful thinking. He also said that life in this village has never been the same and our Lord has been transferred to another territory leaving our home under his younger brother who poorly supervised them. Some of the ladies were thrown at the whorehouse to the next city and the other lads were sold to be a slave, my siblings included.

I know I can't complain about this because this has been the widespread obsession this society has cultivated, sometimes even peddlers are ignored. Slavery is one of the trades of the other aristocrats and usually the source of income of one's territory, if not for our previous Lord.