[POV: KiRA.]
-Gulp.
I sohow avoided those reporters back at the inn and sohow ca back after I promised them to have a eting once I return, but that was hectic.
I was already in news yesterday, and association has been contacting the people at ho as well as trying to get anything out of Ziggy and Izzy.
They want then to answer when they don't even know what I had been though.
'They have their predictions, things like since I was at the field for so long, I must have gone pretty deep.'
No one had crossed past the fourth sector of the desert fields, and even I did not go past the fifth sector.
But, just the fact that I was out there for so long ant I had so way to survive in that death zone for that long.
'The people wanted answers, and I ended up promising I would give them what they wanted.'
But not under their pressure. There will co a ti when I answer those questions and that ti was not today, just like how it wasn't yesterday.
'I want to rest a little with my family first.'
So, as soon as I ca back, after organising a few things, I asked the association to arrange for an aircraft.
They understood my reasoning and also got orders from above so they moved quickly. The jet was prepared soon and I am now back ho… taking a taxi ho.
"You were on the news, sir." The taxi driver had been quiet for a while now, but since he understood I was feeling uneasy, he asked that question in an attempt to help calm down.
"They said you vanished into the northern desert field? It must have been difficult in that place, right?" He was asking if I was alright now, sothing none of those reporters or association people had bothered with.
"It is hell, sir. The heat, the sand, the monsters… if not for human greed and my own misery, I would never have ventured into that place."
The driver wasn't a player, but he was old enough to have much more life experience than I will ever have anyti soon.
He understood what I wanted to say without needing the context, and nodded with understanding.
"Since this world turned into a hell, everyone has been doing inhuman things just to survive, just to keep their loved ones safe.
Players like you who look at the bigger picture are no exception, sir.
We common people will not understand what you go through, and why you do what you do.
There is a great need for resources nowadays, and if we don't face the hell head on, our kind might have to give up everything we have, everything we have lived for."
He didn't know what kind of things players go through, but he most certainly knew humans.
"We won't let that happen, sir. Humanity will not fall to the will of the tower." My eyes got a little cold when I said that, and the old driver who looked at my reflection in the mirror nodded with a soft smile.
"We should be thankful to have individuals like you instead of questioning your actions on the news." We had reached the destination, my neighbourhood, so he slowed down the car and I got out carefully, looking at him with a bitter smile.
"Humans also need so form of entertainnt, good sir. People will not have anything to look forward to if the reporters and heroes like you stop doing their work."
There were very limited taxi drivers in each of the cities throughout the world.
Being one of them was a flex in itself.
"Thank you for your great work." Handing him the fare as well as a small tip which he accepted gladly, I bid him farewell.
He did not say much, just a small smile, and went on his way, leaving right before Izzy's shop, the gate to the underground base.
'They already knew I was going to arrive when I landed in the city earlier.'
Aunt Su and Izzy's mom, aunt Lia were both waiting for right at the gate with a smile on their face.
Aunt Su seed especially happy to finally see back.
The happiness on her face was very unnatural, so, when it turned into a look of anger, and then an utter look of rage, I wasn't much surprised.
Instead, I just stood there, knowing my fate and prepared for any kind of beating I was going to get.
"You said three months," Aunt Su whispered as she walked up to , her steps slow.
She seed emotional. Uncle and Izzy were looking at us from behind, their expression showed how they were expecting so brushes as well.
"You're late."
But what happened surprised them both.
"You're late, you ungrateful child." She embraced first, and then a few tears slid down her eyes.
Aunt Lia walked up to as well, and hugged the two of them, a smile present on her face.
"Had you not kept in touch, she was going to lock you up in a special room we made." Aunt Lia had a sweet voice but those words were anything but sweet.
I was surprised as well so as I hugged them back, there was a bitter expression on my face.
If it wasn't for Uni, I wouldn't have been able to access the Forums either.
Thankfully I had her. She was the biggest blessing I had.
"Do you know how worried I was? Do you have any idea how many tis I didn't eat when you weren't around?" Aunt Su reluctantly let go of and looked at with her sweets but angry face.
"Do you know how many tis Izzy had to leave all her work and sit with just to show all the pictures you sent? Just to reassure you were, in fact, out there doing sothing important?"
Aunt Su was really worried, and… yes. I knew all the tis she had not eaten, all the tis she was worried, how she couldn't sleep for thirty nine nights when I wasn't around.
'She was not as worried about her own son who was fighting on the frontlines as she was about .'
How could I not call her my own mother if she does things like these?
If anything, she was more than just a mom for .
"Do you know what things we had to go through thanks to you? What Isah went through?"
Aunt Lia was nothing less than a mother to both Izzy and , which sounds strange but it is what it is.
We haven't been together for that long but she is more than a mother-in-law for .
'I was prepared for a good scolding and beating, but this much is better.'
But I don't think this would be the end. That room they were going to lock into? It wasn't going to go to waste… I knew my fate so I embraced this situation as long as it was going to last.
"I am late… I apologise." A simple apology wasn't going to work here, but it was needed.
So, after I gave my apology, and talked with them, told them I wasn't going anywhere for the ti being, and asked them to go and et the others, they let go after another long hug.
Izzy was there… so I nodded at my uncle with a bitter smile and hugged her first.
"Dummy…" She kissed before I could hug her though, not minding the family mbers around us.
It was only a few months but, for her who had spent most of that ti inside the tower clearing the floor and training the guild mbers or gathering resources, these few months had been much longer than the people at ho.
She was handling her well thanks to everyone else present, but once we are alone, I know what will happen to there as well.
'I didn't want to be late, but the unexpected dungeon and that damned ruin were not easy to deal with.'
Going there, crossing the desert, finding the ruins while dealing with threats like the sandwyrms and that vestige wasn't easy.
But, in the end, the two of us made it back.
"Wanna see all the fun things I brought back?" Hugging her warm body, I whispered in her ear. She was not crying… or at least trying not to.
The way she nodded without saying anything, her face buried in my shoulder, felt so peaceful I didn't ever want to go away by myself.
'But it might not be possible every ti.'
We were still on the lower floors. There were upper floors, the middle floors, the higher floors, the transcended realms, and then there's the top of the tower.
It was only the last ti, not even Unity could enter the final floor with .
But that was her choice the last ti…
'Will I be alone in the final battle this ti as well?'
I do not know.
There's no certainty we will make it to the last floor either.
'If we want to reach that place, however, we all will have to go our own way on different floors.'
Without gaining new powers, without finding ourselves, without the new help we need for the new higher floors, we won't make it to the higher floors.
And I don't want that…
"Shall we go in now, everyone?"
It won't be easy, obviously. I've said it countless tis but the tower is as cunning and as it is dangerous and fair.
It will do everything to slow us down while still being within the limits.
It will be up to us to deal with the challenges… be it alone, or together.
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