Aftermath of the Birthday

A sliver of light shined on the silent and waking city of Verin. Inside The Chosen's guildhall was a huge mess like a hurricane had barreled through the entire building. On the tables, scraps of food and sticky splotches of beer and ale would haunt whoever had to clean up the mess. People were passed out everywhere within the guildhall, some were on the floor while others were piled upon each other in various places like the tables.

Leon was the first to wake from the crowd of sleeping folks, only because even though he had drunk too much it was still a droplet compared to everyone else. A headache that didn't hurt as much as a migraine, but still managed to annoy and cause comfort to Leon hit him.

He groaned as he rubbed his eyes.

"Ugh, hangovers are the worst…"

Even with that statement, he looked at everyone else who was out stone cold and merely shook his head with sympathy.

"Poor fools, they'll all probably be out of commission for days."

Leon tip-toed as best as he could with the annoying headache towards the washrooms on the second floor of the guildhall as those would be inevitably cleaner than the ones on the first floor, which probably went through hell yesterday during the party.

When he reached the washroom, Leon splashed water on himself and attempted his best to wake up and clean himself from the chaos of smells that lingered downstairs. Afterward, he sat on a bench in the washroom and took a deep breath to calm himself, then suddenly Leon remembered the letter he received when talking to Erik.

At first, Leon became panicked as he looked everywhere on his body and couldn't feel it, but then after some thinking, he retrieved it from his boot where he had put it the other night. With a gentle touch, Leon slowly and delicately tore open the letter and retrieved the parchment inside of it. He took a deep breath and read what it said:

Dear Leon,

I wanted to talk to you in person, but my guild leader told me about your future plans to leave Verin for a decent period of time and I am unfortunately leaving very soon for another quest. Due to this, my guild leader recommended I write a letter. I just wanted to thank you for the beautiful gift, since usually, I don't receive gifts. Since you were so kind, I wished to get to know you better, to which I hope you wouldn't mind the next time we meet. I hope you didn't mind my stiff writing, since I don't usually do these sorts of things. Be sure to return from your travels nice and safe!

Sincerely, Emilia

Although the letter was incredibly stiff to any other person, Leon didn't even notice it as all he was thinking of was simple.

'She actually wrote me a letter and worried about my health!'

This was also Leon's first time receiving a personal letter, especially one from a girl. So Leon didn't even know how weird each of their reactions was, he merely thought everything was normal and was excited to be noticed by such a beautiful lady.

After he had settled that, Leon walked down the stairs to the first floor and left via the front door. From there, he walked towards the outskirts/rural parts of Verin and walked down a familiar cobblestone road. Unlike the last time he had visited, Leon managed to not tear up the moment he saw his childhood house and unlocked the front door via a key that was hidden near the front door.

With a creak, the door opened to reveal the house where Leon and his parents lived. Since it had been over a month since he came here, some dust was visible, but a few minutes of wiping left it back to its original condition.

Leon walked towards the picture he had talked to last time and this time Leon managed to hold back tears, but his lip quivered a bit as he still remained emotional every time he saw his parents.

He set the picture frame in front of him on the floor and sat down on his knees and looked at the parents in the picture.

"Mom, Dad. I know I haven't told you much of my previous adventures, but I thought you might be embarrassed by the scale of the adventures. But, I think I'm looking forward to spending more time talking with you."

Leon spent almost a couple of hours speaking to the picture of his parents about everything that he had experienced since he had been left with the care of Erik. He mostly glossed over the rest of the time he spent before he was an adventurer, but told everything he had experienced detail by detail to his parents in the picture.

"Plus, not only that. I even met a beautiful lady! Her name is Emilia and she might even be as pretty as you, Mom! Although, I know Dad's probably shaking his head and laughing at the idea, but I swear it's true!"

The time he spent talking with his parent's picture had further alleviated the subconscious pressure which weighed down on Leon. He could picture his Mom telling him to stay safe on the trip and his Dad saying if he didn't come back safe and made Mom cry. He would personally go and beat up Leon again. Although he merely pictured it, he still gave a smile at the thought.

"I'll be sure to try my best to stay safe."

With that, Leon left the house and put the key back in its hiding place. By the time he started to walk back into the city, the sun had peaked and shined brightly signifying the afternoon. He decided he would go check on the guildhall and to his surprise, everyone had at one point awoke and left. The only people he found were Erik and a couple of other adventurers who tried their best to stay afloat as their hungover buzzed from a night of partying. While the hungover people tried their best to help with cleaning up, they still didn't accomplish much, meanwhile, Erik was doing most of the cleaning.

To a stranger, the idea that the guild leader was cleaning the mess inside his own building would be preposterous, but Erik wasn't petty or selfish enough to let a title change him. Erik was a very generous person who didn't shy away from hard work. Seeing this, Leon went to help Erik clean up as well.