This Hero is Sleeping!

Hyden was lost.

He couldn't believe it himself. There was no reason to believe it. There was no form to believe it either. Even though he was an apostle chosen by the goddess of fate Fortuna herself, even though that naturally meant that he was loved by spirits and still had a great degree of control and training on it.

Even though.

He was lost.

"So… shouldn't we be there already?"

"Marcus, what if he's lost and is not admitting it?"

"Puuun puuuuuun!"

"Haha! Nice one bagpipe."

And the three clowns with him didn't help in the slightest. What was that bagpipe guy even saying? Hyden was pissed. Half at himself and half at the clowns that were around him.

To be fair to poor Hyden, even the best of all monks would not be able to stand the words of the bastards that kept following him.

Hyden pushed his pants up, figuratively, he didn't wear loose enough pants to need to pull them up or push them up. There was no reason to sneak glances at his abs.

"Whatever, I am not lost. Just follow along you clowns."

"Rude, we're not clowns."

Hyden pulled his sword out at placed it on Marcus' neck. He had hit the limits of his patience.

The world was at stake here, he didn't have to leisure to entertain these bastards.

"What was that?" Hyden asked.

Afraid, Marcus slowly brought his hand to his nose and acted as if he was squeezing it.

"Honk honk!"

He muttered.

"What?" Hyden was far too shocked this time to say anything.

"I am a clown…?"

The man sheathed his sword back and covered his face. God fuck him.

As Hyden started walking ahead in frustration once more, his foot got stuck under a tree and he tipped forward.

"Woah! Mr. Hyden, are you alright?"

Tomas came running over to Hyden, but stopped in his tracks.

In front of them, was heavy, pellet-like rain. And sitting at the center of the rain right next to a gorgeous pond was an old hut of wood.

All that wasn't enough to make someone shocked. No. It was that they could see anything at all that surprised them.

"Maybe we are not lost after all…"

***

Claude and Tiana slid inside the encaving that they had found. They both didn't want to, it was very scary. But thankfully they had the hero of light with them.

Who was one of them.

"[Light]"

A small blob of light formed as soon as Claude muttered the chant.

"So since you are doing all this why not go in yourself?"

[I agree with the girl. Leave me here and go down.]

Claude was betrayed without a moment's delay.

"No," he said. "We go in together."

Then an idea flashed in his mind.

"Tiana, is there a rope here?"

Tiana quickly started to look for things. People were quick to follow intructions in fear, she knew better than to wonder what he would use it for.

Her job was to hand over a rope and hope that he falls into the hole himself.

Ignoring it was a possibility, but they didn't seem to have realized that. Moreover, it was an elf hut with a lot of elf vestiges splayed around, they had no choice but to look into things.

Tiana found a rope lying beneath the heaps of bags and handed to Claude.

After stretching it to test its strength, Claude pulled out his amulet and started wrapping the grass rope around it.

[Claude!? CLAUDE! What are you doing you bastard!!]

"We have a ghost, so it's alrigth to let him handle the scary stuff."

"You mean the guy in your head?" Tiana asked, beaming. "Ruler ruler told me that you… have… um what was it, something phrenia."

"That little bitch."

[That little bitch!]

Claude and Lord of Shadows had their thoughts in sync whenever it came to Elric.

"Its no disease, alright? The Lord of Shadows is a real dog living in this amulet."

[Who are you calling a dog?]

Claude took advantage of the Lord of Shadows' anger and slowly lowered him down the hole.

[Claude! CLAUDEE!! I'll kill you little shit!!]

"Just tell me what's down there."

As Claude lowered the amulet further along with his light spell, the Lord of Shadows' screams started to disappear.

When the light reached the bottom, marks of a crimson red entered Claude's gaze.

His eyes hardened.

And as if to confirm his suspicions, an ominous, ecstatic laugh rang out.

[BWAAHAHA! HAHAHAH!]

A slight chill ran down Claude's back.

The laugh of the Lord of Shadows told him more than words could. He started pulling the rope up.

"Stay here, Tiana. I have to see this myself."

"What? Wait—"

"I said stay here," Claude cut her off before she could say anything and hopped down the gap. He grabbed the amulet on his way down, the Lord of Shadows' laugh never dying.

A plop resounded as blood splashed around from his feet. A pool of blood that muddled around his feet, ticking his skin to let it in.

Floating around in the pool of blood like grotesque lilypads, were ears of elves from god knows when.

Claude could feel the contents of his stomach rise up.

Just what in the world was this sick thing?

What was this?

"C-claude…?"

"Stay up there," he said, summoning all his strength to sound as normal as he could. But his voice betrayed him.

This…

Was this why they had kept Tiana trapped?

Just what was this place…

—KABOOOM!

Before he could put those questions in words, a loud crash resounded. He turned up and noticed the sound of the rain growing louder than before.

"W-what, who are you!?"

Tiana screamed, the walls above must have been broken.

A sense of urgency took over Claude as he tried to grab the walls and run out of the hole, but time did not stop for him.

"I finally found you, elf…"

The sound of a sword.

"In the name of Goddess Fortuna. You must die here."