“I hope we aren’t interrupting anything, but we got the blankets and pillows.”

“It’s fine, Madam Ray.” The others sidestep to let the two into the room and prepare.

“I made some food if you like just some basic curry.” Emil Ray offers.

“Don’t be modest. Her cooking is the best you will ever taste!” Edward Ray corrects causing his wife to blush slightly and chuckle.

“Thank you! We would love to have some if it’s fine.” The gentle one eagerly jumps forward causing the women to laugh harder.

“Of course! I wouldn’t be offering if it wasn’t fine. But I wanted to ask. I never caught any of your names.”

“I’m Cael! It’s nice to meet you two.” The gentle one shook both of their hands.

“My name is Mira. It is nice to meet you.” The blue one shakes their hands next.

“I am Liora. It is nice to meet you two and you have my gratitude for housing us.” The calm one bows her head lightly.

“Aylin. Nice to meet you.” The judgmental one nods her head at the couple. All eyes fall to Rue now who frowns lightly. They grip the necklace tightly once again.

“Don’t be shy, sweetheart, we don’t bite. Promise.” The wife reassures her smile is soft. Rue sighs, it’s not like they can get out of this ruse.

“My name is Rue. It’s nice to meet you two.” Rue lightly bows their head. All four heads from the hero’s party snap to them. The blue one looks offended, the gentle and calm one looks proud and the judgmental one looks mildly contemplative.

“What a lovely name you have.” Compliments mister Ray. Rue mumbles a thanks.

“Well, I would say that it is time for supper now that we are all acquainted.” Miss Ray goes downstairs to get everything ready downstairs dragging her husband along.

“What the fu-” The gentle one slaps a hand over the blue ones mouth.

“Language!”

“She isn’t wrong. You even refused to tell the emperor you name and us but cave when two strangers do the same.” The judgmental one points out their voice clearly judging Rue. Though something was wrong with the tone.

“You weren’t even half as nice as them.” Rue huffs.

“I’m glad that you decided to share your name.” The calm one’s smile appears strained and Rue frowns. Apparently, the gentle one does not notice this since he was enthusiastically nodding along holding two thumps up.

“We shouldn’t make our host wait any longer.” Rue turns around and leaves without looking back, not noticing the concerned expression send their way.

“You came just in time, sweetheart!” Ma’am Ray exclaims once Rue reached the kitchen. She was beaming but there was obvious sadness in her gaze.

“The food looks delicious.”

“Thank you!” She coos at Rue pinching their cheek again. The rest of the hero’s party joins shortly after and they all eat. There are some conversations which Rue does not pay attention to. The food does taste heavenly though. After everyone is done eating they say good night and leave each to their room. Upon entering Rue notices a bed on the left side. It had a cow and cat plush on it which looked extremely soft and self-made. In the middle was a window. On the right side was a closet and a desk which had a lot of drawings on it.

“Nice room. Ain’t it, mate?” Nyx says appearing besides Rue.

“Yup.” They answer popping the p. Nyx flies to the cat plush admiring. It had white fur just like them.

“How hard do you think the girl, Rum or whatever, will cry if I snatch this.”

Smack

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Geez I was just joking :( Lighten up, mate- What are you doing?” Rue ignores Nyx questions and opens the window further. Looking down they see that while they are on the second floor the drop isn’t too dramatic. Dropping their messenger bag on the floor they lean forward.

“Hey, wait a second!!!”

Rue jumps and sprints to the forest. Once they reach the edge they stop.

“What are you doing? I told you that you can’t leave, mate!”

“Don’t worry I will go back before the others wake up.”

“Are you planning on rescuing the girl? Truly the heart of a hero!” Nyx titls their head their demeanor now more chipper.

“Cut the bullshit. I’m just returning the favor since they are letting us stay and feeding us.” Rue moves deeper into the forest.

“You know this would be a great opportunity to train your powers.” Rue side eyes Nyx.

“I thought that my powers are summoning weapons. I’m pretty good at that. Though I meant to ask if I could summon other things like poison.” At that Nyx started to back away a bit from Rue. “Rude.”

“No, you cannot. Only weapons like a bow and arrows, sword, dagger, Bo staff and so on.”

“I see. So, what else do you want me to train. I remember you mention something else previously but then acting like I was crazy when I asked.”

“Well! Usually, the hero has the power to heal and seal! People, monsters and threats!”

“’Usually’” Rue does air quotes repeating what Nyx just said.

“Yes, usually though I don’t know if you can do these things. After all the power to summon weapons comes from me to simplify it however those other things come from the fact that the hero is a reincarnation which retains their power from their first live.” While Nyx explains this Rue starts to slow down in thought.

“Those are some pretty weird powers. I mean healing isn’t that unusual nor is sealing but normal healing and sealing magic doesn’t work on monsters, especially threats. The most people who can mess with those threats are seers who can see them. What was the first hero?” Rue now turns their full attention to Nyx.

“What do you mean?” The cat started to act clueless, basically having question marks floating around it.

“You know what I mean. They definitely weren’t human. Mage, Seer, Elve, dwarf, mermaid or anything else doesn’t fit. There isn’t anything known about the first hero. Not their age, gender or where they are from. Why is that?”

“Why should anyone care about the hero? They are the hero and that is all that is known about any hero.” Rue opens their mouth but closes it. Nothing is known about previous heroes. Rue keeps moving forward until they hear voices. There in a small clearing are a group of people. They are wearing cult like cults and are standing in a circle chanting about some god, entity or whatever.

“What a nice little place you found yourself…” Nyx comments.

“Shouldn’t you have fucked off at this point?” Rue snaps back their voice drowned out by the chanting of the weird people.

“This seems like it will be interesting :D”

“You are so weird.”

“:(”