Chapter 78 - Meeting Him

"You blokes better run or else!" In Vicar's hand was a wooden club, he points to the group in the alleyway. Seeing this, all the men there started walking away angrily.

Aliss tears starts to fall down as she went through something horrible again, Vicar then comes closer and pats Aliss's head as he said that an adventurer shouldn't cry and that they are supposed to be tough. After hearing this, my owner slowly stops crying and she gradually regained her composure.

"What are you doing here anyways? This is a dangerous place for you... The city guards never go here unless there's something important happening. You're quite lucky that I was just walking by." 

She wiped her tears, "We're here to find you..."

"We? Is there another person here with you?" Vicar asked with a puzzled face.

Vicar should've noticed that I'm the other person as he knows me but I think he already had forgotten about me. Besides I'm a ring and therefore I don't count as a person, still I really wish that people would notice my presence as I am a legendary ring after all. I guess they had not taken their history lessons yet.

Aliss then shows me to Vicar, "This is the other individual with me. You know him, right?"

Vicar looks at me closely and he realized something, "Wait a minute! Is that the talking ring..."?

"Yes, it is..." Before Aliss could finish talking, she catches sight of her two father's guardsmen behind Vicar. Aliss quickly pulled Vicar's arm and dragged him into the shadows. I could see Vicar's reaction when Aliss pulled him, he was visibly confused by Aliss's actions.

"Aliss why are you..." Aliss then places her hand on top of Vicar's mouth.

"Shhh! Shut up will you, Vicar... if they spot us, we both will be in trouble..."

After a few minutes has passed, Aliss slowly peaks out and notices that the guardsmen already left the area. She then pulled Vicar up and said that the vicinity was clear. This situation made Vicar more confused than before.

"Aliss! You better tell me what's happening, there must be a reason why you're here right?" Vicar asked.

"There are two reasons but first, we must move away from these slums and then we can talk."

"Please just tell me now, is it about the necklace you gave me?" He then pulled out the necklace from his pocket and gave it back to Aliss.

"No! This isn't about this necklace, I don't even care about that... I promise that I will tell you everything but please, not here."

"Fine... I have a place that we could go to..."

"Vicar, we cannot be seen by my family's guardsmen or else we will be in trouble."

"Why?..." Vicar looked at Aliss but he knows for a fact that Aliss would not tell him unless they are out of the slums. "Okay... Follow me!"

Once again, we are on the move to the place where there will be no guardsmen lurking around. We follow Vicars lead to the place and when we finally arrive after a few minutes of avoiding all the guardsmen and mostly everyone.

The place that he mentioned about was somehow a place which both of us have been too and that was the adventurer's guild. We thought that it was the safest place but it was not. When we entered, all of the adventurers there were looking at us. They might've heard about the incident in the Forest Dalagueil from the bronze knight, he did report back to the guild after all.

"This is your place? This isn't safe from the guardsmen at all."

"You're wrong there, the guardsmen will never enter here... this is the safest place from all of the places."

"Still I have some doubts in this place... are you sure that this place is safe?"

"I'm 100% sure... I first thought about taking you to the central district but when you said that you wanted to avoid the guards, the only place that I could think about was here. So, will you tell me everything now."

They both sat down on the bench and Aliss started to explain it all to Vicar.

"Actually, my father is looking for you..." Aliss feel very guilty about this problem that she has made.

"Your father? What does he want from us again, hasn't he had enough... after all those things he has done." Vicar tears fall from his eyes. I've never seen him crying before, did something happen to him. I then remember another reason to why I searched for Vicar, which was to know the truth of the past. Is this something related to that. 

"What has my father done to you and your mother?"

"You really don't know... Of course, you don't know about it, your father hid it from you..." Vicar looked genuinely sad.

But what sort of secrets did Sir Allen hide from Aliss, this is becoming more and more like a drama in a television show. I wonder about it, could the secret be that Aliss and Vicar are siblings or that Aliss is not Sir Allen daughter. My curiosity was at its peak but all I can do now is to just listen in.

"Something he hid from me? What could it be..." I could see that my owner also wanted to know about it.

"The truth was that your father made my mother suffer when she rejected his love."

Of course, the problem was about love, after all, love can make people happy but also at the same time sad. I know how miserable it is to be rejected but really, to think that Sir Allen would make the life of someone he loved suffer just because of rejection.

"W-wait a minute! You say that my father loves your mother... but my father always loved my mother even after she passed away."

"Would you believe me if I said that my mother told me everything after your father banished us and placed us both in the slums... hoping that we would die by starvation." Behind Vicar's sadness was a wave of anger.

"Is that the reason why you both disappeared without saying goodbye to me..."

Now that we know the other side of the story, either one of them is telling the truth or one of them is lying.

In this situation, it seems like Vicar was telling the truth. Her mother might be lying but I doubt that, as she was the kind of person that wouldn't lie, she seems kind and sincerely.

"Yes... it was such shocking news to me that we were suddenly getting kicked out from the manor and our home were bought by some random noble. We had no place to go and the only option left was the slums."

"I believe you Vicar, you never cry unless it's about your mother... How is she doing? Can I meet her?"

That question made Vicar's tears fall much more, he shakes his head as he said something that stunned us.

"You can't meet her anymore... She's already dead."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing from Vicar, just a few days ago I saw his mother and she was still doing fine. I then remember that she was quite sick when I was there.

"I'm sorry Vicar, if only that...."

"It isn't your fault Aliss, it was mine. I shouldn't have listened to her, I should've sold the ring and bought my mother the medicine she needed."

Vicar's mother needed the medicine, why did she choose to tell Vicar to return me back. I would've gladly chosen to be sold if I knew that she needed money for her medicine. With that information, I'm sure that Sir Allen was the one who has been telling lies and keeping it to himself.

Suddenly one of Sir Allen's guardsmen enter the guild, Aliss notices it once again and quickly told Vicar to hide. They both hid under a table and hoping that the guardsmen wouldn't see them. The guardsman started to read a decree out loud and were holding a painting of someone's face.

"Sir Allen Steenswis will reward anyone 1000 gold if he or she manages to get this young man alive captured. He lives in the slums and his name is Vicar. Bring him to Sir Allen Steenswis 'alive' and he or she will get an additional reward." He then hangs the painting in the quest board and leaves the guild after finishing.

Vicar and Aliss then gets out of their hiding place. And my owner thought that the people around here would've taken Vicar straight away but none of them were doing so. Aliss then approached the painting herself so that she could tear it apart but when she saw the painting, she realized why there were no people here wanting to capture Vicar.

Vicar's face on the painting was totally different from the real Vicar face, it seems like the artist who drew this might've drawn it wrongly. We are just glad that the painting did not portray Vicar's face correctly or else we would've been in big trouble.

"Again! Why does your father want to find me..."