After getting a full-body scan at the nearby hospital, Kyle hailed a taxi home.
Going back to the base meant sitting through another lengthy report, and he was far too exhausted for that. He decided to put it off until tomorrow.
Right now, he was on his way back to his haven.
Resting his head against the window frame, he let the cool breeze wash over his face.
It felt nice.
After leaving the hospital, he had tried calling Amanda, only to find her phone was still switched off.
He left her a message, asking her to call him when she was free.
Speaking of calls...
"I need to contact him too."
He scrolled through his contacts and dialed someone he had been talking to quite often lately.
Blake.
The call connected on the fourth ring.
{Yeah?}
"Busy?" Kyle asked.
{You could say that, but it’s nothing important. Tell me, where are you?}
"I just... got discharged, so I’m on my way home."
Kyle lied, not wanting to answer questions about everything that had happened.
Well, technically, it wasn’t a lie. He really had just left the hospital.
{Hm? But I got a call from the hospital saying you left much earlier.}
Shit.
He was far too well-informed.
{Well?}
Kyle let out a resigned sigh.
"I got caught up in another incident. I was at the Archery Academy, and... things happened. You’ll hear about it soon enough."
{..Are you hurt?}
"Not really. I had a full-body scan, and everything came back normal."
Silence lingered for a moment.
Kyle could almost picture the man pinching the bridge of his nose before he finally sighed.
{Just for one day... try not to get caught up in another disaster.}
Kyle gave a wry smile.
"You make it sound like I go looking for them."
{No. But I do get the feeling you don’t make much of an effort to avoid them either.}
"..."
More or less, the man had just called him a masochist.
{Forget about that. Did Uncle and Aunt come to see you?}
"Nah... I asked Adam to somehow get that plan canceled."
Kyle couldn’t help sounding a little guilty. They didn’t mean any harm or were they coming to taunt him for being weak.
His uncle and aunt had always been the mind of Kyle and yet he asked their own son to have that plan cancelled.
{Because of Mother and Father?}
Blake had guessed the reason immediately. He knew Kyle enough to tell it wasn’t actually their uncle and aunt who became the reason he went out of his way.
Kyle stayed silent.
That was answer enough.
{Well, I understand. I’ll talk to them tonight and see if Adam made a mess of things.}
They both knew how ridiculous Adam could be at times. If he had ended up making an absurd excuse to have the plan cancelled they might suspect that Kyle asked Adam to do so.
Kyle gave a wry smile.
"I hope not."
Adam was most probably spend time with Maya since he missed his chance this evening. His absence at the dining table would be beneficial for Blake to have the talk.
As the taxi passed a large mansion, Kyle remembered the real reason he had called.
"Right... Blake."
{Hmm?}
"Don’t interrupt me, man. I’m already nervous enough."
"..."
Kyle took a deep breath before finally saying,
"This Sunday, I’m going to meet Amanda’s father... as her boyfriend. It’ll be my first official meeting with her parents."
Another brief silence followed.
Then Blake finally spoke.
{So, you finally grew some?}
"Shut it, man. Just tell me what I should wear and what gift I should bring."
{Hmm, I could send Lara to help you with that. But if you really want to impress them, choose everything yourself. Trust me, people notice genuine effort when it comes from you.}
"Zero years of dating experience, yet you talk like a Casanova."
{I’m hanging up.}
"Okay, okay. I’m sorry." Kyle laughed. "Tell me more. What should I say? Should I bow when I greet him? You know he’s the patriarch... and my possible father-in-law."
{They don’t follow customs like that. Just meet him the same way you did at the celebration. From what I’ve seen, Maylith Hades loves his family more than anything. And you’re about to take away a piece of his heart. All he’ll want to know is whether the person standing before him is worthy of it.}
This time, Kyle didn’t joke.
He quietly thought over Blake’s words.
Right.
He had seen it at the celebration as well. The way Maylith Hades treated his daughter made it obvious how deeply he cherished her.
And despite already knowing they had been secretly dating, he had treated Kyle with nothing but warmth.
That alone told Kyle one thing.
Maylith Hades was willing to give the man his daughter had chosen a fair chance.
Kyle wasn’t about to let that chance go to waste.
{Don’t buy anything too extravagant. Get something you can genuinely afford.}
Kyle let out a sigh.
"At the moment, the best I can manage with the money I saved from my part-time job is probably a few scented candles."
{Then give them that. A stone earned through hard work is far more valuable than a luxury car bought with someone else’s money.}
Kyle chuckled.
"Man, have you been watching motivational videos or something-?"
The call ended.
Kyle shook his head with a smile and slipped his phone back into his pocket before turning his attention to the view outside the window.
It had been a long day.
It had started with Adam suddenly introducing him to that strange girl, followed by the System unveiling its new feature.
But in the end...
He had still walked away with something truly valuable.
Back in the arena, the way he had dodged those spikes had been flawless.
Staggering, even.
He hadn’t been using God’s Eye during those moments.
His body had simply reacted on its own, moving with such precision that every spike missed the exact parts he didn’t want them to touch.
A casual swat of his hand had sent them flying away, almost as if he possessed psychokinesis.
It was truly incredible.
"Speaking of that skill..."
The man who had taught it to him, that knight, was a strange individual.
The way he spoke was unusual, and so was his very reason for existing.
Kyle still found it hard to believe that the knight had defeated the Sentinels and reached the temple’s core.
Yet after fighting that warrior himself, he realized something.
Even after being stripped of his true strength and reduced to nothing more than a fragment of his former self, the knight had still been as powerful as Ava.
Just what kind of monster had he been in his prime?
"And that flag..."
Kyle recalled the emblem he had seen back then.
The moment he returned home, he decided to look into both the flag...
...and the warrior who carried it.
Hashu.
°°°°°°°
A/N:- Thanks for reading. I hope you have been enjoying the story so far. I believe this story wouldn’t be too long, maybe two hundred Chapters more?
I don’t intend to make too long and then rush ending.