The Gentle Hero

Yuril laid in bed. It was already dark outside. The moon was full and so was his head, the previous nights he had been unable to sleep much, the little sleep that he did get was not pleasant. No matter what he tried to think about to distract himself his brain always lured him back to the same troubling problems in his life. He had been unable to get into a Familia and he was teetering on the edge of broke. He tossed and turned all night long, he had dreams of getting doors slammed in his face and being turned away from everywhere he looked. By the time he got up in the late morning his body was kinked, knotted and covered in sweat. He had less time to kill during the day the later he slept in and he also got to spend more time with Syr the later he stayed awake. At first, he saw it as a positive but it was starting to take a toll on his body to the point that even Syr had taken notice and made a few comments about the bags under his eyes and how he looked sleep-deprived. While he did sleep in later everyday than he normally would, his sleep was still unpleasant. Oftentimes he woke up several times in the middle of the night and he would just stare at the ceiling before he became too tired and went back to sleep.

He was able to wave off her concerns and convince her that he was fine and that he had just been having a few poor night's sleep. But the final straw had been when Syr caught him still sleeping past noon. She had to go to the attic to wake him up herself when he did not get up.

Syr helped by suggesting that he should count sheep when he is trying to fall asleep, however it did not help one bit when he tried the strategy several times. She made him a special tea that made him groggy, but it was not enough to put him to bed. She decided that more drastic measures were necessary. That was how Yuril found himself in the scene where he had been in only once before.

Syr sleeping next to him in bed.

He did not try to understand her logic and had initially refused, but she was very persistent that it would help him go to sleep if she spent a few nights sleeping with him in bed. She claimed that anytime children in the orphanage where she spent a majority of her free time had nightmares or a poor night's sleep it always helped them sleep easier. Yuril wanted to ask her if she was comparing him to a child but she just placed a finger over his lips and told him to just accept it. While he did not want to admit that he did find it rather calming, in the attic where it was only her and him it was easy to plead guilty to the fact that he found it rather relaxing.

She was facing away from him towards the window. Her back pressed up against his chest as she used his right arm as a pillow. He had offered the single straw pillow that the bed provided the two occupants, but she refused his suggestion, stating that his arm was far more comfortable and cosy than the lumpy pillow could ever hope to be.

laying next to her was enough to distract him from the outside world and his worries. When she eventually drifted off to sleep, she left him alone with only his own consciousness to keep him occupied. The fears that plagued his mind would return with a vengeance.

"No Familia."

"No Valis."

These were the two main concerns that tormented his mind almost every waking moment, the second being the more pressing of the two, as his debt to those around him only increased by the day. The young woman in his arms was the one that he was indebted to the most. She had given him a home, food, water and possessions. She also blessed him with the feeling that he had been searching for since his grandfather passed. He did not know how to describe the feeling, but it was a warm burning sensation inside his body and a tingling feeling throughout his nervous system whenever he thought of the waitress.

The waitress had extended a hand and offered him so much, yet he felt unable to return her kindness in any substantial way. Sometimes he did help around the Hostess when he could or Syr asked him for assistance performing a task. He washed the occasional mound of dirty dishes, swept the floors but compared to what she had handed him, that was nothing.

He wanted to do something for her, to pay her back for all the kindness that she bestowed upon him when he had nothing to offer her in exchange. He had no money and no items that he could give to her to show his appreciation for everything that she had done for him since he arrived in the city and it was starting to take its toll on his conscience.

Then it dawned on him suddenly one night while he stared out of the window that the moon cast its dim light into the attic. The Tower of Babel was directly in front of the moon from the window and below it lay his million Valis ideas. It was the perfect solution to his main problem, he needed Valis and the dungeon was the one place in all of Orario that he was certain he could get them quickly.

At the same time, if he did earn enough money he could buy himself a better set of armour, one that would give him better protection and also cover more of his body than just his torso. He would also be able to buy himself another knife, while the knife that he had been given by Syr would work for the time being and it would not last him forever. Unlike the blades made for combat the plain kitchen knife would not be able to last long against the pressure and strain put on the edge from monster attacks. He needed to get himself something that was built, handcrafted to slay creatures in the dungeon.

He had what he needed to delve into the dungeon, a weapon and armour. All he was lacking was a blessing from a God or Goddess. He doesn't need a blessing to kill monsters or pick up the small purple stones they dropped upon their deaths. All he needed to kill a monster was a blade, which he had in his possession with the generosity of Syr that came running to his aid as she always did.

Entering the dungeon killed two birds with one stone.

It was the perfect plan that had only one major problem that stuck out in his head.

It was illegal to enter the dungeon without a blessing.

While only being a single problem it was a rather massive problem, if he got caught he could be charged with a hefty fine that he would be unable to pay. That meant that he would have to become a dishwasher or busboy for Mama Mia, knowing the Dwarf, his cost of living would soon outweigh what he would be paid. He would be stuck working in the pub until he dropped dead.

There was a possibility that once he got caught. He could get thrown out of Orario, banned from the city for the rest of his life. That would be a fate worse than death to the albino boy, if that came to be, with no hope of ever being able to achieve his goal. He might as well just curl up outside the gates and die.

But he had been left with no other real options, he refused to become another employee at the Hostess and he refused to give up on his dream of becoming an adventurer so easily. So with his mind made up all he needed to do was decide when exactly he would brave the dungeon for the first time.

During the day did have its advantages, with more adventurers the number of monsters would be far lower and he could act more like a vulture picking off the remaining creatures they left behind. But the problem was that the dungeon was guarded and slipping through the guards in the horde of adventurers that would gather in the morning was possible. But with how bad his luck had been since arriving in Orario he did not trust himself to participate in the risky strategy.

So that left him with only one time, night. The security would be laxer; it was likely that with enough patience, he could sneak into the dungeon and be back ground before the sun rose. It was still a risk but it had the highest chance that he would not get caught in the act.

The last problem that was in his way was the girl sleeping beside him. Yuril thought of her as a problem. At that moment she was preventing him from getting up and putting his plan into action. She promised to sleep with him every night until he started to feel better, but he was not going to get better any time soon if he did not solve his problems. Mainly the woman that shared the bed with him at the moment. So he decided to slip away from the waitress for just a short while. He could be back before the morning and she would never be the wiser.

He felt dirty and guilty even thinking about doing such a thing. He lied through his teeth to the woman that had helped him so much. She was the only reason that he was surviving in the city and not living in the streets. He could always make it up to her in the future. He promised himself that he would do whatever she wanted to properly apologize once he was back on his feet.

He started slowly, moving his arm out from under her head only a few centimeters and then paused right as she would start to squirm around in the bed slightly. He repeated this agonizingly slow process over and over again until he was only mere millimeters away from freeing his arm from under her head. He raised his head off the pillow and used his left hand to place the pillow under Syr's head. He quickly pulled his arm out from under her head in a quick switch that he hoped she would not wake up from.

She let out a tiny cute whimper a moment later and rolled over to face Yuril. He was relieved to see her sleeping face and not her grey eyes gazing at him in the dark. With his right arm numb and feeling as if it was getting poked with countless needles. He waited to get his feeling back in his arm for a moment before he continued to move.

He slowly inched backwards on the bed while still facing her so that in the case she did wake he could simply pretend to be rustling in his sleep or make up an easy to believe excuse like he was just getting up to use the bathroom.

But thankfully she never awoke and stayed in her deep slumber.

He slipped out from under the sheets and kneeled on the floor, the boards creaking softly under his bare feet as he went about collecting his clothes and everything that he would need for the dungeon. First, he pulled his pants on over his trousers and pulled his long sleeve black shirt over his head, next came his new armour that he had purchased several days prior. He slipped it over his head the same as how he did his shirt and grabbed his coat that was hanging on the back of one of the half-broken chairs that were stored in the attic, he threw it on over his armour and checked to make sure that it still had his journal in the chest pocket.

Finding the journal to be exactly where it belonged he pulled on his pair of black boots one at a time, stood up off the floor and winced slightly as the floorboards under him creaked and Syr stirred slightly in the bed. Yuril reached over the mattress and pulled the blanket over Syr as it had slipped down with her made sure that she would be warm and comfortable. He snatched the knife off of the nightstand and grabbed his cloak from a hook on the wall.

Yuril turned his head around and for a moment he debated whether or not he should give Syr a kiss before he left. His grandfather had always said that when a beauty was sleeping it was a man's job to steal a quick kiss while she was in her deep slumber. He shook his head at the ridiculous idea of kissing Syr and instead he gave her a small wave goodbye as he whispered. "Bye Syr… sleep well and I will be back before you even know it… promise."