When Kiro came to, he was standing in the middle of the village. Just where the tower had been. Viktor and Aeron stood on either side of him.
By their lack of questions and curiosity, he concluded that, no time had passed since he left this realm. Its always been like this when he had left Asgard — though it only happened once.
By the looks of things around the village, they'd lifted the curse or at least Kiro got what he came here for. The villagers were slowly leaving their hiding places with the fog gone.
Thin and sickly, it looked like their bones would break under their already reduced weight. Even the children dragged their feet, everyone was hurrying, as fast as they could, to the food storage.
"Aeron, we need to hurry back to our base. Sorry Viktor, but members only." He would've grabbed Aeron's arm if he didn't act quickly to follow him.
Ding!
[Congratulations on getting rid of the tower of death. You're rewarded with two billion EXP and hundred thousand coins. These rewards will be split three ways.]
Even with the 2 billion exp divided three ways, Kiro didn't level up, not even once. The expressions of the two though said otherwise.
"There was no tower!" He shouted to the system before he could stop himself.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Viktor didn't seem to take what Kiro said seriously because he was jogging right behind them. Not missing a step.
"Dude, don't make me knock you out again!" He didn't have the patience, not anymore.
"No need to be so rude Kiro, seriously. You can just lock me up in your cellar, I'll be fine to wait there."
He wanted to argue but took a deep breath instead. He'd be a guardian and soon enough, he'd have to know the truth behind it all. He may aswell share the burden right now.
"I'm not happy either buddy, but Kiro sounded serious about this. I don't know what it is, but he seemed very nervous too, now I know you know not many things can shake him up like that. So get your ass over here."
He hung up before he could even counter. He was also dragged away from his work, he wasn't in the mood to go back and forth with them.
"Kiro, what happened?"
He waited for a while for an answer, only to realise that he was fast asleep. He looked to Aeron and Viktor for answers, who shrugged.
"We only went to the market to buy some beast meat when this guy attacked us out of nowhere!"
"Hey, it's bad when you say it like that."
"Of course it was bad, because of his stunt we were almost arrested but the guard told us to take up a quest to make up for it."
They told him all about the village and the tower, but they couldn't remember how they managed to release the tower's curse. One moment they were fighting, the next they were outside the tower staring at each other.
Hiro nodded, there was no way this was what frightened Kiro to such an extent. Luckily, that's also when the rest of After Dark filed into the room.
He could feel them through vibrations, so he opened his eyes and yawned, stretching his limbs. He hadn't realised how mentally exhausting going back to the past would actually be.
He'd seen things, both good and bad. He was still a little bitter about Helena Waynworth betraying not just her husband and her kids, but the entirety of their family line. Kiro didn't even know her personally, but the disappointment he felt towards her was insurmountable.
"So what's up?"
"Yeah, what was so urgent that we had to come back so quickly? You know, we won't have time once the tournament starts." Ishaan would never stop being the big mouth complainer.
Kiro was still looking for a much better way to tell them. When he couldn't find any, he concluded that he wasn't as smart as he thought he was.
He looked at each of them, unaware and blissful in their ignorance. He didn't have that luxury, not anymore.