Chapter 16 - A Sad, Incomplete Reunion (II)

Chapter 16 - A Sad, Incomplete Reunion (II)

Once Maxmillan arrived at the door with total anticipation in his heart, he immediately knocked on it.

Knock! Knock!

As soon as he knocked on the door, everyone who were in their different rooms and were sleeping, immediately had their eyes snap open.

"Huh? But who could be knocking on our door at this hour of the night? Who could this be? Or could it be Maxie?" Nailah whose eyes were still sleepy, asked with annoyance in her tone. But at the mention of Maxie's name, her eyes instantly brightened up with the sleep immediately clearing away.

Then she abruptly dashed out of her room to open the door and see if her wild assumption was true.

As soon as she opened the door and the tall, impressively-built muscular figure of Maxmillan was presented to her, her mind instantly submersed in the sea of unbounded joy before she leapt at him to embrace him with a really loud cry of happiness ringing out from her mouth in the next moment.

Shocked at the loud, high-pitched cry that rang from the door and which seemed to be Nailah's voice, Taryell and Lylla immediately ran out of their rooms to see what had happened.

Then they saw Nailah and Maxmillan embracing each other tightly.

Shocked, and doused in the agitating flame of exceeding bliss, Lylla who had always looked into the far distance on the wide, dusty road path to see if Maxmillan would return, immediately also screamed in happiness and jumped at Maxmillan who caught her light figure easily with one arm and happily embraced both of them.

After embracing them for sometime, he delightfully kissed their foreheads and then detached from the hug to give his waiting ecstatic father a good long hug too.

However, it didn't take him a few more seconds to understand that something was wrong.

"Dad, where is mom?" He asked with great fear of what he didn't want to happen instantly surfacing in his heart and massively blooming.

"Maxie, when you didn't return home on the day that you went for the admissive exam at the Floating Lotus Academy, mom immediately set out the next day to look for you." Nailah said.

Bang!

Like an explosion suddenly went off in Maxmillan's head, his mind instantly plunged from a height of happiness to the unbounded churning sea of bleakness and exceeding worry.

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[Notice!]

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[New Mission Alert!]

[Mission Title: Returning Mother Home!]

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[Details: Host's mum went in search of Host for not returning home the same day after taking the admissive exam and could therefore endanger her life, as the road path to the city is filled with all sorts of unknown dangers — Transport Carriages could be attacked by vicious evil-scheming kidnappers and the passengers could be abducted for payment of huge ransoms, or simply turned into grieving wailing slaves for some ruthless Enslavers or tyrannous House Master Lords. So, Host is to find her and bring her home safely, no matter the cost.]

[Difficulty Level: Unknown!]

[Mission Class: Unknown!]

[Duration: Not Fixed Yet!]

[Completion Failure: Upon Mom's death, Host will be permanently stripped of all items and resources that he has obtained so far from the successful completion of various quests and missions.]

[Completion Reward: Unknown! - {But rewards will be added one after the other as Host gains understanding of what really happened to his mom. Mission Difficulty Level will also increase as Host makes progressive comprehensive strides in the particular event that took place and restricted his mom from returning home safely!} - ]

[Accept Mission: <Yes>/<No>]

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[Return] [Cancel] [Skip]

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As soon as this message popped in Maxmillan's head, Maxmillan skimmed through it with a gloomy expression appearing in his face.

But at the moment, his mind wasn't in a state to properly digest the content of the new mission notice. So, he simply said within himself, 'Return.'

The holographic screen in his vision immediately minimized. But he could re-visit this mission by going to the Tasks Log in the System Menu, which was the directory that he would find records of all the pending/successfully completed missions and tasks.

He then said to himself with both fear and worry radiating from his tone, "But I was in the city, she should have seen me."

"How is that going to be possible? The city is too large, like tens of thousands of times bigger than our town. So, how is that going to be possible?" Lylla said.

"I understand. But I know what I am talking about. Ugh!" Maxmillan said with dimmed eyes and unhappily groaned.

'If she made it to the city, she must have heard about me, being the cripple that the world was said to reject.' Maxmillan said within himself.

'I guess she didn't make it to the city then. Oh God. What have I done?' Maxmillan said.

"I guess I would have to return to the city to find her. I have to find her." Maxmillan suddenly said with a bright glow of determination emitting from his eyes.

"No brother, mom assured us that she would be fine. Besides, as a skilled Astra Mystralis user, even if she is not on par with old man Garrett who is an Astra Spellcraft Commander, she can still protect herself. She will definitely be fine. I believe in mom. Besides, this isn't the first time she would be going to the city all by herself to do something. She will definitely return safely to us once she can't find you. You should put your mind at ease, Maxie." Nailah said with confidence reeking from her voice.

Then she unexpectedly, softly knocked Maxmillan on the head and chastised him by saying, "But you are the instigator of all these, hope you know that? After the exam, why didn't you immediately return to us, huh? Now, you have put mom through great stress and distress in trying to look for you."

"I am sorry. Everyone should please forgive me." Maxmillan said with sadness and regret in his heart.

He then said further, "Actually, I failed at the exam and became a Reject. So, after seeing how a Reject was being discriminately and cruelly treated by every user of Astra Mystralis, I hardened my resolve to not to return and bring such wicked and unfair discrimination to you guys."

"I didn't want anything that I dragged along with me to enter into your lives and pull you down from your elevated places of self-contentment and happiness to the boundless, thorny forest of bleakness and forlornness. I just didn't want such a terribly sinister thing to happen."

"But after a while, the emotional wall that I built to keep myself away from you guys, became incredibly weak and collapsed to rubbles within my heart, which then showed me that I truly needed my family. It's the reason that I am here now, standing in front of you people."

"Hmm. That was incredibly thoughtful of you, Maxie." Nailah said and embraced Maxie once again with tears streaming down her glistening eyes at the agonizing, torture-like treatments that Maxmillan could have possibly experienced in the hands of the wickedly cruel, discriminatory people in the city.

She then said with a beautiful smile in her face after detaching herself from the embrace, "I am glad that it is all over now and that you have chosen to return home to us."

"Yes." Maxmillan nodded his head.

"But how come you came back looking like this? You look much more taller, more matured, have large well-defined muscles and your gaze is incredibly sharp, like that of a blade. And I can perceive this faint aura of valor, fierceness and fearlessness from you. What really happened to you, son?" Taryell asked with his brows furrowed as he sized up Maxmillan that looked totally different in physique and behavior to the Maxmillan that left their home many days ago.

Maxmillan only grinned and said, "Dad, it's a long story. I will tell you some other time. But for now, let's go into the house. It's cold outside. And yea, is there anything that I can eat? I am seriously famished."

"Yes, there is. Go to the kitchen and take rice, vegetables and either fish or assorted beef sauce." Nailah said while Maxmillan nodded his head.

"I will take both. Haha." Maxmillan said and laughed, while Nailah shook her head at him with the expression of 'gluttonous bastard' written all over her face.

Maxmillan then headed to the kitchen, albeit with a somber cheerless look in his face. He just wasn't happy that his mom wasn't at home and had gone to the city to look for him, where anything terrible could have happened to her.

"Floating Lotus Academy, Shining Lake City, I admit that it was totally my fault for not returning home, and therefore caused my mom to go out there to look for me where she could be exposed to the unbounded wickedness and severe harshness that linger at every corner."

"However, if anything should happen to my mom, I don't care if I will be banned from using any device or weapon, all I know is that I will bring total ruination to everyone and everything."

"I will become an unstoppable, havoc-wreaking and life-seizing ravenous beast of your making!" Maxmillan slowly and indignantly said with the raging flame of anger beginning to burning fiercely and ferociously within his gleaming icy-cold eyes.