THE next day, I finished my go at the Citadel of the Ancient Gods early. I’d promised to see my parents, Rhea and Darius.
I went to my family’s home, the Gilberto mansion. While I did say I’d finished up in the Citadel early, it was still past ten at night, so the twins, my brother Sirius and sister Alicia, were already asleep.
I ate the dinner Rhea cooked for me. The table was loaded with my favorite kinds of food, mostly meat dishes.
“It’s been so long since I had your cooking, Mom. It really is good,” I complimented.
“There’s more where that came from, so eat up,” she replied, looking happy. By this time of day, the few maids of the Gilberto household were already resting, so Rhea was taking care of me.
“Arius, are you always in dungeons until this late at night? I don’t mean to tell you what to do, but I’m not sure how I feel about that,” she said with a sigh.
Darius finished off the alcohol in his glass and added, “I heard about what’s going on with the hero’s party from Prince Eric. If you need any help, let us know.”
I knew that if I told Eric something, it would get passed to Darius. Eric was using the people from the Royal Intelligence Ministry with King Albert’s permission, and Darius was the chief minister.
“I’m sure you know, Arius, but the hero is a tricky opponent since they say he’s the one who will defeat the demon king, the enemy of all humanity. If you fight him, you’ll make enemies of a lot of people,” stressed Rhea.
Her only official title was wife of the chief minister, but she worked with the Intelligence Ministry. I was sure Darius had told her what was going on. I bet that was part of why they asked me to come home today.
“I’m sorry for making you two worry over this, but if they come at me, I figure I have no option but to fight the hero.”
I knew if it came down to that, it would cause trouble for my family, so I was planning to give up the Gilberto name.
“Arius, I’m fairly certain I know what you’re thinking,” Darius jumped in. “That’s exactly why I’m telling you to ask for our help. Like your mother says, the hero is a tricky opponent, but there are ways to fight him.”
“Your father’s right. We might have retired from adventuring, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still fight. You’re underestimating us,” said Rhea with a confident smile.
Darius and Rhea had been in a party with Grey and Selena, and the four of them had taken on the Citadel of the Ancient Gods before. They stopped adventuring when they married. Darius stopped so he could protect his home country of Ronaudia, while Rhea stopped so she could support him.
“I appreciate it. If it comes down to me fighting the hero, I’ll come talk to you first.”
“Not just us. You can get help from Grey and Selena too,” reminded Rhea. “I’m absolutely certain they’ll complain if you don’t let them help you.”
I hadn’t told Grey or Selena about the hero’s party, but they had their ways of getting information. The fact that they hadn’t even sent me a Message told me they trusted me to handle it.
“If things get really bad, then I will talk to Grey and Selena too,” I promised. “But right now, I want to handle things myself, as much as I can.”
I had been thinking about nothing but getting stronger while I kept going through fights in an extreme-difficulty dungeon that were right down to the wire. That’s why I hadn’t thought the hero or demon king had anything to do with me, but if they were going to come after me, then I wasn’t going to stay quiet. I was going to continue living in this world in my own way.
“I understand now what your thoughts are on the hero. Considering your personality, I won’t ask you not to do anything extreme, but please at least talk to us before doing something extreme,” Darius sighed.
“And I won’t be having any excuses that you didn’t think it was extreme. Use some common sense,” chastised Rhea.
You could expect my parents to understand it was pointless to try to stop me.
“I understand,” I replied. “I promise I’ll talk to you.
I was willing to make this promise when it came to Abel because it was possible it could cause others trouble. If you used common sense, you’d probably think going solo into an extreme-difficulty dungeon was insane. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to try to insist to them that it just wasn’t extreme to me.
“Do you plan to get involved with Duke Jordan?” Darius asked. “Prince Eric has the upper hand now, but it’s hard to know what the duke will do if backed into a corner. He has connections abroad and in the criminal world, so he is not someone to take lightly.”
“I’m taking a support role for Eric in that. You should be careful too, Father.”
Eric was far better than the duke at gathering information and laying plans, and he seemed intent on defeating him himself. I would only help him if needed.