Chapter 69: Only Huey Blade Can!

After Lyra calmed down a little, Huey told her about his meeting with the Professor.

"The Supreme Commander is your younger brother?! And the Princess is your niece?!" Lyra grabbed her hair and exclaimed in surprise.

Before her, Huey was leisurely lying on his side against the ground, rubbing his stomach. He had a casual look of boredom and even yawned a little as he watched Lyra blow her top. He raised a finger and Lyra paused. Then Huey added, "Correction. Cousin."

"Same difference!" Lyra fell to the ground, suddenly feeling exhausted. Wasn't all of this revelation too much for one day?

Huey, on the other hand, continued to stare emptily. He could only show this side of himself to Lyra because it was her. After clarifying the strange misunderstanding between them, he also found some peace he wasn't willing to admit. Without thinking, he dropped his fake mask and was instead behaving naturally toward her to some extent without fully realizing it.

Before, he would mostly behave this way whenever he spoke about the past and his family. Or when they were talking about him. Huey was a shameless show-off, so that kind of thing just made his already fat ego inflate even larger.

This time was a little different. He was trying to control his excitement on this topic. Huey observed Lyra's reaction as she sighed in succession over and over, then he said as he slowly sat up, "You seem like you're really familiar with that little brat and his little girl."

Lyra felt like she was imagining it, but there was some level of spite in Huey's words when he spoke of his cousin that way. She didn't think too much about it and said, "Of course I do. Everyone in the current civilization knows who Shiloh Blade is. He's Humanity's first Knight, and Mankind's Strongest after all. Our greatest Hero, and the one who led the battle against the Elder Gods during that time. One of the Five Heroes, and the first of them."

Lyra vehemently explained, and Huey silently listened. Or not. Lyra wasn't sure.

"So he's a war hero?" Huey eventually said, and Lyra nodded deeply.

"What's with that fangirl reaction?" he thought. To Huey, the news that his younger brother might still be alive was enough for him to easily disregard many other factors surrounding him. For example, he hadn't even thought about how Shiloh could still be alive or how old he probably was now. Neither had he really paid any mind to the stories surrounding him that Lyra busied herself narrating. She also mentioned something about Five Heroes, but Huey honestly couldn't care less.

"Judging by the way Lyra speaks of him, he still seems like he's going strong. He's a Knight now, right? Does that mean he has an extra-long lifespan too?" Huey silently pondered as he let his gaze wander emptily.

There was a strange feeling in his heart. It was mostly excitement, but the other part, he wasn't sure what it was. In any case, he wanted to meet him and find out what had happened as soon as he could.

At this point, Lyra noticed the lost and unusual look on his face and stopped talking. It was rare, but she had seen him wear such an expression before whenever he was deep in thought about something that was a mystery to him. But this time, Lyra felt like she could probably guess, and she could also sympathize.

She knew how it felt to have one's family all die, but in Huey's case, they might still be alive. Lyra lingered in the silence that now reigned. Huey was too absorbed in his thoughts to notice. She fidgeted, and after an extended period, she finally spoke up.

"So, what are you going to do now?"

Huey's red eyes regained focus, and his pale face raised to meet hers. He brushed strands of his black bangs behind his left ear and responded, "I was planning on taking a trip around the world, but clearly after this, things have changed."

"Don't say 'trip around the world' like you're going sightseeing on a vacation! It's an apocalypse with monsters out there!" Lyra thought, feeling grim. Only Huey could brush off Elder Gods as exotic animals.

"I've decided. I'll go to Allan Fort."

___ ___

"The first Knight of Mankind is your family. Hmm, despite everything, frankly, this is all so... somehow. So, what are you going to do now?" Huey recalled a part of the conversation he shared with the Professor before he left to find Lyra.

At that time, Huey had growled a response back, "Isn't that obvious? I'll find him."

...

And from that moment, Huey made up his mind on his next course of action. After that day, he rounded up the last few things he needed to take care of in the following days.

"Hmm, I already sorted out the thing with Lyra; all that's next is..." As Huey walked down the dimly lit hallway, he muttered his thoughts to himself. Then he frowned. "Getting into an advanced civilization isolated from the world by walls actually isn't that easy," he spoke as if it weren't obvious.

"Ah, well, if it were up to me, I'd probably just burst right in and demand to see Shiloh. But clearly, I can't do that." All of a sudden, Huey stopped walking, and then his expression changed as he raised an eyebrow.

"Why can't I do that again?"

"No! You can't just break into Allan Fort like that, you monster!" Lyra's loud exclamation reached his ears as she suddenly appeared next to him, panting with an almost pale expression. She happened to see Huey walking around with an unusually deep expression and decided to check up on him. She was lucky enough that he was speaking his thoughts out loud. For that, Lyra was deeply grateful.

Huey turned to meet her and smiled pleasantly. "Oh, Lyra. Good, you're here now," he said, completely casually dismissing his thoughts of possible terrorism.

"Don't smile so innocently like you weren't planning to do something!" Lyra quickly retorted, but Huey was no longer listening. The young man, with black hair like a dark waterfall down his back, grabbed her wrist, turned around, and began walking. Without knowing what was happening, Lyra was already being pulled along by Huey down the passage.

"Hey, what are you doing? Where are you going?" she stuttered and asked.

Huey didn't linger too long before he responded. He didn't stop walking but looked over his shoulder and said, "I met with the Head and already informed him I'll be leaving soon, and he insisted on throwing an unnecessary banquet for my departure." He sighed.

Lyra looked at him. "You don't seem like you really want to go, though."

Huey nodded. "If it were up to me, I'd be at Allan Fort as late as yesterday. But unfortunately, it's not that easy. Hathaway says I can't just show up above the airspace of the Fortress and expect not to be shot down..."

"Holy fuck... you really were planning to raid the Fortress," Lyra muttered in utter astonishment and dread under her breath.

"How rude. I was just going to make my presence known a little," Huey shot her a glance and rebuked before shaking his head and continuing. "In any case, Hathaway insists on forging me some new documents and identity, which will take a while. The Head found out, and now I'm invited to my own departure party." The more he talked about this, the more Huey realized how crazy it sounded.

"Weren't the Ntuli Tribe people who wanted to kill you at the slightest chance they could find?" Huey thought, bewildered. "Well, I already knew these guys weren't right in the head right from the moment I watched them massacre through to the Den."

"Okay, so what does that have to do with me?" Lyra asked.

Huey stopped right before a steel door and then turned around to face her.

"You're my date."

***

A/N: One Bonus Chapter, two to go. I'll do my best to release the second one today, but the last might come tomorrow, regretfully. My brick of a cellphone is tweaking. Was work to write this and edit it.