Chapter 1352 (2/2)

Distantly, the shouts of children reached the tucked away field where the duo lay. But still, for the moment, the world felt far away.

“Is Randidly Ghosthound a bad guy?”

Tim pushed himself up with his elbows and looked over at Delilah. She hadn’t moved from her position as she spoke, so her eyes reflecting the blue of the sky above. After thinking about it for a short amount fo time, Tim tried his best to answer her question. “...I mean of course not. This is his city, right? And this place is much nicer than where I used to live.”

“That’s just because the people here are nice. And rich. But Randidly Ghosthound… I mean, I always knew he was scary, but that thing last night…”

Delilah shivered. To that instinctual horror he saw in the young girl, Tim had no real answer. That terrible howling in the deepest part of the night had shocked Tim awake too. From what he could gather, most people woke in the middle of the night but didn’t really understand why. He had heard some of the teachers talking about it this morning while the children were finishing their first exercise block.

But Tim had immediately known what was going on when he had been ripped to consciousness. The Moss Spirits had been humming in resonance with that terrible sense of loss and hunger that Randidly’s image had released over the world. And for an instant, Tim had felt a suffocating sense of being drowned in those horrible emotions.

Even after the sensation had faded, what had kept Tim awake was the fact that Randidly carried those emotions with him all the time. Although he didn’t want to admit it, his initial thoughts had been very similar to what Delilah was saying right now.

How could someone who held so many dark thoughts be a hero…?

“He’s not a bad guy,” Tim said again.

Delilah nodded, her hair freely mixing with the grass beneath her head. “Okay, okay. I know that. But it was just… scary. Makes me wonder if we will be scary like that when we grow up.”

Again, Tim just stared at her. This time, Delilah hopped up to her feet. “Like, we want to be strong right? I’m going to be the strongest one day. But Randidly… he’s so scary! Like super scary. He’s too powerful to be any fun even when playing hide and seek. So when I become the strongest… will I have to be that scary too?”

“You don’t have to be scary to be powerful,” Tim argued. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that most of the people who bossed him around had a strange sense of scariness around them. His teachers, his dad, Miss Tatiana and Wolfram who ran Kharon...

For several seconds, both were silent. There were no clouds, so the sun was warm on their skin even as the temperature of the air continued to drop with the changing of the seasons. Yet despite the warmth, Tim shivered in a strange mirroring of Delilah’s earlier reaction.

“They want to build a statue to Randidly Ghosthound in the middle of the new square they are making,” Delilah suddenly said. “Before you could sneak away today, I was hiding on the outskirts of the older kids training grounds and listening to what they were saying. So many of them want to be strong like the Ghosthound so someday they can have their own statue built. They think he’s the perfect hero. They dream of being allowed into the Order Ducis.”

Tim kept his mouth shut. Especially because he had been dreaming about getting into the Order Ducis himself ever since his dad had become a member.

“When I’m that strong, I won’t be scary,” Delilah said stubbornly. She raised her hands toward the sky. Moss Spirits rapidly started to gather around her hands until they seemed to be encased in heavy emerald gauntlets. With the sun and gauntlets, Tim could almost see the valiant woman she would become. “I’ll be warm and friendly and everyone will love me! I’ll be the most adorable powerful person in the world! A princess too!”

Tim rubbed his chin ruefully. I think the older kids only follow you because of how much you scare them though…

Then Delilah shook her head in disgust. “But how can I become the most powerful if I can’t even handle more Moss Spirits than you! How are you so good at that?!?!”

This time, Tim grinned. “I mean there is an easy answer; the moss spirits were created by the Ghosthound and you spend so much time complaining about him. Doesn’t it make sense that they don’t like you as much as they like me?”

Snorting, Delilah conjured a ball of Moss Spirits and threw the emerald energy at Tim. It impacted his body and exploded in a nova of harmless light. Soon, both were giggling and flinging moss spirits at each other while taking cover behind trees. For the moment, the long shadow cast by Randidly Ghosthound was forgotten.