Monarchs of Above and Below (On Hiatus)

Chapter XVII: Back Home

Matthew had cast away his warriors before he exited the gate while holding the crying child.

The child nearly immediately scrambled from his grasp as he saw his mother and ran towards them.

A small hoard of flashes came from the crowd gathered around the gate. Despite the authorities trying to keep the crowd at ease, many had their phone camera's positioned on Matthew.

Matthew covered his eyes with a hand as he began back towards his car that still sat parked on the side of the road. He could hear several questions being tossed at him as a small group of people rummaged their way through the crowd heading towards the gate.

Most people moved aside for them. Matthew turned to see them as he walked. They were clearly hunters. There were six of them. Two wore heavy-looking plate armor and shields. Another two wore something reminiscent of mages robes. And the last two wore varying amounts of leather armor. One of which had a pair of daggers across the back of their hips.

One of them, the one with the daggers, stopped Matthew from walking away by grabbing his shoulder.

"What all was in there that you saw? Any hints on what the boss is?" He asked.

Matthew raised a brow before answering. "The kid was in the boss room. I've taken care of it. But it was lizardmen, if you're curious."

As if on cue, the sparking blue gate around the crowd began to sputter and pulse with energy before, in a flash, collapsing in on itself and disappearing.

A small moment of silence fell over both the crowd and the other hunters.

Matthew began to walk away again when the hunter grabbed his shoulder again. "Hey, what rank are you? You cleared that all by yourself?"

Matthew nodded as he pulled his hunter's license from his pocket and held up to the man's face. "E-rank, technically. And yes, I cleared it. But please, I need to get back to my car. I just got back from an unnecessarily exhausting vacation."

With that, the hunter let go of Matthew's shoulder and let him walk back to his car. Matthew felt the confused and slightly awed stare of the hunter as he got into his vehicle and began to drive off.

***

It only took about another half-hour to get home.

His home wasn't much, just one room of an apartment building in Dallas where his guild was. It wasn't necessarily in the nice part of town, but it was the only place he could even afford, even with the guild's benefits.

He fumbled for his keys in his pocket before finally unlocking his door and walking into his apartment room.

The room was small. It consisted of an unmade bed with a nightstand at its foot. There was a small television up against one of the walls. A door led off from the room, leading to the bathroom.

In the corner of the room next to the exit door was a kitchen consisting of little more then an oven, fridge, microwave, and a set of cabinets with any sort of supplies inside along with the small door to a measly pantry.

With a slight sigh as his meager room Matthew began to unpack his things.

Not too long after he felt his phone begin to vibrate in his pocket just as he had finished putting up his clothes.

He grabbed his phone from his pocket. Audri was calling him.

He accepted the call before holding the phone to his ear. Almost immediately he nearly dropped his phone as Audri's voice rang through the speaker.

"Oh thank God you're still here. I thought you were going to go into the gate." She rambled.

Matthew fell silent for a moment contemplating weather he should tell Audri about his adventure within the gate.