Rise of the Nightmare Crestmaster

His head was throbbing as if it was being continuously struck with a log. He quickly returned back to his apartment and threw himself on the bed as he lost consciousness.

After an unknown period of time later he opened his eyes, he was completely miserable. He was hungry and thirsty, he was very thirsty his insides were burning.

Worst of all the endless stream of information was not over. But the thirst was no joking matter, he had to drink water and quickly.

He tried to get off the bed but his balance was off and he fell down, slowly and carefully he crawled on the floor to the fridge, he kept a pitcher of water there.

Unfortunately he felt that he had to get back to sleep immediately otherwise something terrible would happen to his mind.

Aldrich luckily found another pitcher of water on the table in the common room, although it would be warm he wasn't exactly in the position to pick and choose.

He tried to reach for it but his hand slipped and the pitcher fell on the floor and broke, spilling the water on the floor.

"No…" He couldn't even exclaim properly.

Aldrich wanted to lick at least a drop of water but he could no longer fight the overwhelming pain, he felt the pendant around his neck heat up and a moment later everything went dark again.

****

Aldrich woke up and felt a presence besides him. His survival instincts took over and he had his hand strangled the neck of the unknown presence.

"Ugh!-"

Aldrich's ears registered the voice and he looked at the girl that he was chocking. The girl had medium blond wavy hair with light brown tones and soft green eyes, she was none other than Irene.

Aldrich didn't let go, he looked around suspiciously. It was his room, he was on his bed. He let go of Irene.

"Ugh! What's wrong with you?!"

She snapped at him angrily. Aldrich didn't flinch.

"What are you doing here? How did you get in here?" He asked sharply. He struggled to recall what happened…

He defeated the armored husk and got a Remnant and then he used his Eyes of Insight on it and then..!!

Aldrich held his head, a massive amount of memories and information was injected into his mind causing him to black out.

And finally he tried to drink water. And then, darkness.

"I saved your life and this is how you repay me?!" Irene glared at him.

"You… saved my life?" Aldrich repeated, dumbfounded. He certainly wasn't in the best shape but his life wasn't exactly in danger.

"You were about to die of dehydration? How can you not remember that?"

Aldrich had to admit that he was in desperate need of water the last time he regained consciousness. Perhaps he really was about to die…

"Wait, what is today's date?"

"The 25th."

"What?!"

Aldrich's jaw fell open, when he defeated the armored husk it was the 21st. This means that he remained unconscious for four whole days. Good thing he sent that letter to Ayemon.

The room was in awkward silence, Irene was sitting on the bed and he found it difficult to look at her.

"Ehem! Let me apologize for my actions. I was completely in the wrong, I was really out of it and I acted rudely."

"I get it. Here drink this."

Irene handed him a cup of water and he realized he was thirsty but not like before he fainted. She saved his life, this meant that she probably fed him some water while he was out.

"I heard the pitcher breaking and saw some of the water spill out from under the door. I was concerned so I knocked on the door, there was no answer, I tried opening the door and it was unlocked."

"I'm sorry, it was an unexpected accident and…" Aldrich found it hard to find a plausible excuse.

"It's fine, you don't have to tell me." Irene rolled her eyes and from that look Aldrich knew that she wasn't lying. This only served to make him ashamed further.

"By the way," Irene said as she suddenly stood up and looked at him warily, "don't you need to …uh, um, relive yourself?"

Aldrich was stunned by her words and his bladder was about to explode, he immediately shot off to the bathroom and before he could close the door a towel was thrown at him.

"Take a bath too, you stink!"

​ Aldrich came out of the bathroom thinking that this day could not get any more humiliating when he smelled something pleasant cooking from the kitchen's direction.

He was reminded of his empty stomach and driven by ungodly hunger he rushed absentmindedly to the kitchen.

He was practically drooling by the time he reached heated kitchen. There he saw Irene stirring a pot and adding some spices.

"Easy there tiger, the stew is not done yet."

"Stew?"

"Covas fish, very easy on the stomach and very delicious too."

"Well it smells amazing."

"Back in my hometown we had this shrubs shrimp, now if we could get that, then I could've made a real meal."

"Hey, I'm not complaining. I love sea food, though I still like meat better."

"Of course you do. My dad was the same back then, whenever he could get his hands on any type of meat we would be having a festival. Ironic since we lived in a fishing hamlet."

"Really? We only had a shallow stream in our village barely any fish to be had."

"Where are you from?"

"Wak-" Aldrich bit his tongue before he said something stupid, "Oakwood from up north, far far in the north. You wouldn't have heard of it."

The stew was ready and so the moved to the common room and ate at the table. The setting sun gave one last look at the world before it went down and the moss lamps replaced it's light.

"So, what's it like?" Irene asked as they were eating.

"Ueh, it's nothing, just snowing all year long."

"Ohh, I haven't seen snow before moving to Voryhrm."

"So," Aldrich cleared his throat to change the subject "where are you from?"

"Hmm, it's just a small no name fishing hamlet, you probably haven't heard of it. It's called Ebrict."

Aldrich stood up pushing the chair back roughly and it crashed into the wooden floor.

"What did you say?"

Irene looked confused, "what's the problem? I-I just said I'm from Ebrict."

Ebrict. Ebrict. That was the name of Cazmer's hometown where he said he buried his treasure and where his brother lived.

Finally, he found a clue. Although he searched for it and asked about it, no one seemed to have anything concrete to say about it but he finally found a clue.

No, she's actually from Ebrict which was even better.

"Ah, I get it, You must've heard of the legend of the Umbra monastery. You're going to be an adventurer obviously it attracted your attention."

Unexpectedly she found a convenient excuse for his outburst. Naturally he latched onto it.

"Oh, yeah, totally. Who hasn't heard of the legend of the Umbra monastery."

"Well, it's not really a famous legend anymore… sorry to disappoint you but the monastery doesn't exist, it never really existed. It was just a legend and nothing more."

"Oh, yeah well I still want to see for myself."

"That's fine but I've known people that went on the island, there's nothing there. Well if you don't count pirates, bandits, thieves and monsters that is."

They finished the rest of the meal while exchanging conversation and jokes. By the end of the meal Aldrich collected the dishes and took them to the kitchen.

When he was back Irene was ready to leave.

"Once again I'm sorry about all the troubles that I've caused."

"Can you stop apologizing? I told you it's fine. If you were in place you would've done the same right? Besides It's been so long since I've cooked for someone so it was a good change of pace for me."

Aldrich sighed, actually he didn't know what he would have done were he in her place. Some time ago he would have agreed with that statement with out a doubt but now… he just didn't know.

"Well goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Aldrich shut the door and sighed once again, to be honest he was troubled by this. She saved his life but he couldn't figure out a way to repay her. Not to mention he was extremely rude to her several times.

Wait a minute.

'What did she say just now? She said that she didn't have the chance to cook for someone else in a while, right?'

But.

Wasn't she living with her old and stubborn grandfather? She had an intense and loud argument with him that disturbed Aldrich's sleep one night.

She probably made a mistake. Obviously she wouldn't forget the fact that she lived with her own grandfather.

Come to think of it all this time he had never seen Irene's grandfather.