Chapter 226 - All A Mistake
Lance didn't waste any more time and stood. He walked over to the table Daniel was at and smiled at them.
"Hi, how can we help you?" A woman with a dark green hair asked. Her ears were pointed but her eyes weren't green, meaning she was only part elf.
"A little birdie told me, your friend here," Lance slung his arm around the boy's neck. "Did something to our friend."
Daniel was frozen in place. He looked at Lance in fear, seemingly having no recollection of getting in trouble.
"S-Sir, I don't know what you mean," Daniel creaked. His voice was cracking and it sounded like a shriek for help than actual words.
"Lance," Alice pulled Lance away from the scared boy. She leaned in to him and whispered, "He's half vampire. Their entire guild is composed of halflings. His magic is paper manipulation and he can't even land one on any of us. We invited them here after they tried to take over our guild's island."
"But he was the one Minos saw–"
"How many times have you seen Adventurers use clone magic? I bet a lot of times," Alice retorted. "Now, calm down and apologize. People might think you're bullying the weaker ones now."
Lance was speechless for a moment. It was just hard for him to calm down after seeing his friend's chest explode right in front of him. A lot of things had been going on lately and his judgement was clouded.
He took a couple of seconds to recover and bowed in front of the group, "I'm sorry. I must have mistaken you for someone else."
"No, it's okay," the boy smiled. "A lot of people mistake me for a lot of things. I'm used to it."
"Damn," Ed said and followed with a sizzling sound. "I don't know about you, but I do not know how to recover from that. He has a sad backstory with him."
"Let me buy you a drink," Lance said. "In fact, I'll treat everyone. It's not like I'm paying you to forgive me but–"
Elliot stepped in and leaned in front of the boy. "You have very beautiful eyes. They're scarlet, just like the guild name for Alice, right?"
The boy had a red tint in his cheeks, embarrassed by the sudden compliment. "They are."
"They go well with your skin," Elliot smiled. "I apologize for my friend here. He's not usually like this. In fact, we're in a complete role reversal right now. I'm in his position, and he's in mine. Please forgive him."
'Multiple non-humans detected.'
<< Lucy >>
<< Daniel >>
<< Rose >>
…
"Is your name Daniel?" Elliot asked the vampire boy. When he nodded Elliot smiled and clapped his hands. "I got it. Will you be my friend, Daniel?"
"S-Sure," Daniel responded, looking away in embarrassment.
Everything was calmed down, Elliot added Daniel in his Acquaintances list. Lance apologized again and now they were back to their seats.
"That was smooth, Elliot," Ed raised his glass. "You're the man."
"I genuinely want to be his friend though," Elliot said, landing his gaze to the group. "They reminded me of us when we we're just starting. We were lucky we had Lance to shelter us with his power, but those guy have no one."
"They're just starting their guild and they already faced so much hurdles," Elliot sighed. "I wanted to do something for them after this event is over."
"Like what?" Lance asked.
Elliot just shrugged and returned to his food. "I don't know. But, hey where is my pork?"
Hope opened his mouth with the pork mounted on the fork. When Elliot spotted this, Hope immediately eat the piece of meet, grinning in victory.
Elliot deadpanned, flattening his lips in disappointment, "I should've known."
–
The night ended and their rest day has come. Elliot was in his bed, tired of all the eating from the night before.
"You know, if you keep sulking, you'll start to turn into a potato."
He sat up immediately after hearing Aquarius's voice. Elliot turned to his side and saw the man sitting on a chair.
"We need to talk about what happened to Minos. We didn't got the chance yesterday, so I'd like to clear things up. How were you able to do it?" Aquarius said bluntly. "Minos died. I felt the blood in his body stop, I felt his heart stop. Yet…"
"It's something that I can't say," Elliot confessed. "But I'm not doing something wrong here."
"A life was taken," Aquarius said. His voice wasn't high but it was enough to put a shock on Elliot's face. "Yet, you pulled him down from the Afterlife."
"Aki, I'm sorry–"
"Thank you," Aquarius stood and bowed in front of Elliot. "You saved my best friend. I don't want my niece to lose both her parents. I can't– she doesn't even know why her mother's not around. I can't handle everything if something ever happens."
Elliot shook his head and stood in front of the taller man. Like Lance, Aquarius stood for almost six feet, making him more than half a foot taller than Elliot.
Yet even with their difference in height, Aquarius felt so little in front of him. After the miracle Elliot did, he could see that he was far beneath him. And his point was proven further when Elliot could solo Elizabeth's spawn.
"When I had almost nothing, the guild gave me everything," Elliot said. "A shelter, money, a family. It's my responsibility to give back."
Aquarius chuckled and ruffled his own hair. "We weren't even around when you started."
"Doesn't matter," Elliot grinned. "We're all family, right?"
Aquarius nodded, "Yeah. We all are."
"Elliot!" Connor yelled from outside the door. He knocked a few times before opening it, closing it back after seeing that Aquarius was also inside. "I'm sorry. I'll go back later."
"We're done talking," Elliot said and went after Connor. "What's up?"
"Polschk is here," Connor told him. "He's waiting for you at the door. We need to tell him about what the Twilight Bless actually does from the information we got from Marrietta."
For some reason, Elliot didn't want to tell the old man about what they learned from the demon spy. There was a pull inside him that tells him that they should keep it as a secret.
"Is it you, Irus?" Elliot whispered. He let Connor come down first while he waited for Irus's response.
A few seconds had passed and he still didn't hear from the voice. He sighed and took the flight down the stairs, still doubting their decision.
Lance greeted him when he got down, leading the way to the lobby where Polschk sat. His hand was morphed into the vine cage for the butterflies, letting them rest inside.
"They're still as pretty as ever," Elliot said, admiring the glowing butterflies and remembering the cocoon one in his Inventory.
He was also wondering why he needed a lot of Twilight Brew. And he was going to find out sooner or later
"Polschk," Lance started. "We need to tell you about something we learned about these Twilight Wings and the Twilight Bless."
He was standing there, listening to their conversation with one thing on his head.
This is all a mistake.