Labyrinth of Legends - Part 1

“It’s for your grandmother. She wouldn’t want to see you alone,” my grandfather, the old coot, prodded me. “You need a girlfriend or two. Three would be best though, if not more.” He was in his robe, and his gray hair hadn’t seen a comb in weeks.

I sat across from my grandfather, trying to enjoy the little time we had left while I ate breakfast. I knew that I’d have to leave soon, and I wasn’t sure when I’d make it back to him.

“Grandfather. I am a young man. I just finished high school, soon to take the adventurer’s exam. I need to focus on making it into a good dungeon college.” I picked at my food with my chopsticks.

The old man always had his mind on women. But he’d already had his adventures. My eyes flickered to my bedroom door and my thoughts to one of the posters in my room.

When I was younger, I had idolized my grandfather. The poster was an old style of art, one that hadn’t been used for at least twenty years. But on it was a man garbed in high-level, blue robes with a headscarf that masked everything except his eyes.

Those eyes had a fierceness to them that I had only seen a handful of times. The last was after my mother had disappeared into the dungeon along with my father and their party. He’d gone in alone to bring her back, but instead, he’d recovered the entire party’s bodies.

After that, he and all but one of my grandmothers had disappeared for a time. It was after that settled that my grandfather started to train me, giving the lost boy I had become a purpose.

I’d been living with my grandparents since then. But that was behind me. Now, I was looking towards the future, one of becoming an adventurer and diving deep into the dungeon.

And despite the trauma of losing my parents, I wanted to become an adventurer like almost every kid in my high school. And I had a grandfather who had once been a professional adventurer.

© 2024 Gustavo Ruiz (Hljóðbók): 9798347889280

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Hljóðbók: 25 december 2024