Chương 11: Between Ale and Rudy?

"I know the perfect candidate for you!"- offered Ale with a cheery disposition.

The Holy Relic was about to offer Ale the ownership of the relic when he disrupted her words and said those words.

But of course, it wasn't as if Ale didn't know that. He knew exactly what she was about to say and he also desperately wanted to stop those words from being voiced.

Afterall, it was never his intention to own something like that. Something 'Holy' at least. He had a long past and way too many memories, bad memories, with Holy Relics to not have the will or intention to own one again.

More than anything, it didn't suit him. And he knew the person, the perfect candidate for that relic.

Right at that moment, when the relic was temporarily stunned by Ale's words, a huge sound rang from the entrance to the underground floor and the figure of a few people dashing forward came into their view.

The next moment, Ale was grabbed by the shoulder and the arms by two fairly big and strong people, male, guards, knights, Phil and Gary actually.

They were the first two to arrive, followed by Rudy who also appeared right behind them and was standing face to face with Ale.

"Young master! You! You!"

"How could you do that?!"

The two of them complained/whined while checking every part of Ale's body for any possible injuries, which there was. And not just one.

"B-blood!"

"And cuts!"

As the two knights panicked noticing the numerous cuts and wounds on Ale's body, Rudy also had a serious frown on his face as he checked Ale's condition.

"You're injured.. Why would you do that? It was going to be fine even without you."

He spoke in a voice deeper than usual yet at the same time, also gentler than usual. There was care and worry latched on every word he spoke but even without those, just his face full of concern was enough to convey his feelings.

"Oh I'm fine. These are just papercuts. They don't hurt."

Ale said while removing Phil and Gary's arm from his body. The two guys were literally latching themselves onto him.

"Papercuts? Those are some serious injuries, Ale. You shouldn't-"

"Yes yes. Now forget about that and look what we have here!"

He interrupted Rudy again while he was in the middle of his rambling and pointed towards the Holy Relic and the people behind him.

"Yes. I can see them. But your health is no less important, you know?"

But Rudy persisted, just like how Ale remembered him to be in his last life. It was the same Rudy who never gave up, even when he had to fight against an army of demons all by himself.

'See? He's such a great guy, right?'

Ale looked at the Holy Relic and signalled with his eyes. The Holy Relic could also understand to some point why Ale was pointing towards Rudy so weirdly, although it couldn't read Ale's mind.

And to her surprise, it was indeed true that Rudy was also a great candidate for handling her powers.

Just considering the amount of power and will he showed off during the fight with the disaster a while ago was already enough to consider him a worthy candidate. And it also looked like he was persistent, strong willed and a person with a good heart.

It was perfect. Rudy was the one most capable of handling her powers. The one she probably had been waiting for for decades and centuries. Yet, she was still hesitating.

There was no doubt about Rudy's capabilities in her mind, yet, she just couldn't let go of the thought of Ale being another possible candidate, although, comparatively, he was slightly less superior.

"Young master, were you inside this place the whole time?"

"Who are those people, unconscious?"

"And the lady...?"

The three of them asked simultaneously as they took a proper look at their surroundings, the unconscious people and the unbelievably beautiful lady standing in front of them.

"It's a long story but.. you have the time right?"

Ale asked the three of them and they all nodded their heads together, too curious to focus on anything else.

And Rudy specially, with his god-gifted powers and insticts, could feel it all too well, the power that this women held, her connection to this palace and even future possibilities.

After that, Ale spent the next few minutes explaining the whole thing to the three of them, starting from how she was working so hard all by herself to protect the people all while suppressing the other 'Artifact', (He called it an artifact since he didn't want the sword to garner too much attention).

The others were speechless as they heard the whole story and how Ale 'coincidentally' came down just in time to stop something worse from happening.

"I should be thanking you instead, Mr. Ale. If it weren't for you coming down here, it probably would've been me..."

She meant to say that it probably, no, for sure, would've been her getting gobbled up by the other relic. Although she was just a relic, she did have her own emotions and that included the fear of disappearance as well.

So she was truly grateful to Ale for deciding to come down even at the expense of getting seriously hurt, which he thankfully didn't.

"Now now.. It's all in the past so let's not think about that anymore."

Ale wanted to divert the others from focusing on the sword so he intentionally made an 'ouch' sound while he was moving his arm. It wasn't entirely fake either since he really did feel pain when the fabric of his shirt rubbed against one or two of his papercut wounds.

"Not your injuries."

Gary whined from the back, making others focus on Ale's wound instead of the sword once again.

"You should sit down first, young master. Aren't you tired?"

Phil suggested while rummaging through his pouch. Ale took the suggestion to heart and just plopped down on the floor, the quicker he moved, the less it hurt.

"Here. Medicine. Thankfully I had some with me."

Phil handed him a small jar of ointment as he also sat down carefully beside him. As Phil helped Ale apply the medicine on his arms and back, Ale decided it was time to bring up the important stuff as he looked up.

"Rudy, I need your help."

He said as he looked up at Rudy. He was already looking down on Ale, or rather, observing him closely with a small frown on his face. But as he met eyes with Ale, the frown disappeared, and an answer came out without him even realizing what was happening.

"Sure. What do you need?"

He had agreed to helping the guy without even asking what he needed first. It was somewhat unlike him, but Rudy paid it no mind.

"We need to safely transport all these people back to the shore. She can help. But she needs an owner to do so."

Ale pointed towards the Holy Relic and explained. Rudy was confused by Ale's words in the beginning, so he kept looking at Ale instead of looking at the relic, waiting for him to finish.

"I think you're the perfect candidate. So why don't you talk it out with her while Phil helps me with this?"

He offered nonchalantly and even added a priceless smile at the end of his sentence, making Rudy wonder what was wrong with this guy.

"Why me...? Why not you?"

That was the question that was going through the Holy Relics mind as well, only that she couldn't voice it out loud. As the two of them waited for some sort of clarification for their confusion, Ale tilted his head and made an expression that screamed 'Isn't that obvious?!'

"Come on, man. You and I? We don't even compare. You're so much more capable and strong, and just .. perfect for the job, y'know!"

He said those words as if they were written on stone, some unquestionable truth, and something more obvious than the sun rising in the east.

Yet, unlike Ale who was confident in his beliefs and answer, everyone else present in that room seemed to disagree, starting with Phil and Gary, who knew him best, to Rudy and the Relic, who only knew him for a while.

They all seemed to have the same thought going through their head at the moment 'Is he serious?'

Was Ale serious? He was indeed serious. Since, the version of himself he always viewed him as, was the version from his future life, a useless failure, a bastard that didn't even deserved to be born, someone completely and utterly unworthy of living and breathing.

That was him. That was who 'Ale' was to himself.

It was decided through Ale's unbreakable confidence that Rudy was the perfect person capable of wielding the Holy Relic and the ownership claiming ritual was on its way.

The Relic took him to another room where a spell was engraved on the floor. Rudy had to activate that spell by supplying it with some of his blood. It was a pretty simple procedure, so Ale and the rest decided to just stay back and relax.

"Did I miss any place?"

Phil asked as he checked every inch of Ale's body. He was done applying medicine to the numerous small yet hurtful wounds on Ale's body and wanted to double check.

Gary was there, sitting on the opposite side, doing the same thing. Ale simply let them do whatever they pleased since he was in a good mood.

"All clear. They've started to heal."

Gary reported. Phil sighed in relief and put the balm back in his pouch. But even after doing all that, he still couldn't get rid of the frown on his face as he looked at the tattered state of Ale's clothes.

Everywhere there was a cut, the cloth was also ripped there. And just like that, there were more than a hundred cut on Ale's clothes. Those hundreds of cuts also represented the hundreds of wounds that there was on Ale's body.

He simply wasn't satisfied with the way things ended. It was true that they also had to fight tirelessly for a long time above water, and their life was also in danger dozens of times.

But that was fine. They were trained to fight. Their body was one made to tackle attacks like that and they had their superhuman regeneration power to cover any leaks.

But Ale was different. There was no doubt about his strength, at least to Phil and Gary. They knew he was strong, strong enough to blow them away with a single move (Exaggerated).

Yet, they also knew how fragile Ale was. After staying by his side, always stuck to him for two years, they knew at least that much. And within those two years, and even before that, the suffering that Ale went through was something that only the people closest to him, people like them or Kevin, only they knew.

"You're gonna add another hole in my body if you keep staring like that."

"Sorry? Oh.. Sorry." Phil lowered his gaze as he was deep in thought and didn't realize that he was staring.

"Pfft.. what's with that?!" Ale laughed hard as he watched Phil reply like a robot.

How could someone look at that face and guess how broken and battered the soul inside was?

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