Hour Empty Child

Vol. 6 Chapter 2- Old friends together again Part 4

The ame drove in leisure towards the capital, which upon reaching the massive gates that provided them entry into the city, left the party who has joined them to be in awe at the sight.

Once again getting back into the colorful atmosphere of the city, as the two looked out the window, Kudo glanced at Hinota who looked out in wonder. Her slanted eyes widened and her petite mouth gaping at the sight.

Seeing this image for the first time in a while was like a fresh breeze in a hot draught for Kudo, an ecstatic smile on his face.

"T-This is incredible, Kudo!" Hinota looked back, showing the same excited smile. "So you were living in here?"

"Yep," Kudo answered gleefully. "It gets kinda overwhelming at first, but this place has everything you need."

"Eh..."

Looking back at the window, Hinota's mind was already processing the kinds of items she would get being in this city. Then, a question arose from her mind.

"Where are we going?" Hinota looked back at him again.

"Mmh, we need to finish the quest, so we need to go back to the guild, but..."

"Ah, Master Kudo!" Through the small window on the wall that separated the driver's seat from the passenger's seats, Chui spoke up. "You can just leave the quest to me! I'll bring back the reward for both of your parties!"

"I-Is that okay? I don't want to bother you with such a thing..."

"Don't worry about it!" Chui let out a haughty puff of air out of her nose. "Let this be my compensation for making you all wait! Master Kudo, you should spend time to hang out with your new friends!"

Saying those words got Kudo to redden his cheeks. Somehow he felt so childish when she said it like that.

"A-Alright. Thank you, Chui."

"Please, think nothing of it, Master Kudo!" Responding with a bright smile, Chui went back to focus on her driving.

"Well, at least we got that covered, so now we can head on to the estate."

Getting back to his friends, Kudo smiled. However, Hinota caught something in her hearing a word that she never expected Kudo to say.

"Estate?"

●

Throughout the ride, Kudo left the topic in the air, despite that Hinota kept asking him about it for the next 2 minutes. Despite changing her question to his party members, Hinota could not get an answer from Raika nor Kuki as well.

Nearly losing her restraint, she was about to blow a gasket, only until finally—

"We're here!"

Chui shouted through the window, leaving the three EarthFire members to look up ahead, and all three were left slack-jawed.

They saw the large pearly-white mansion from the distance and entered through the gates to drive through the large terrace that could be mistaken as a wondrous flower field up in the grassy hills. The beautiful cherry blossom trees which its petals scattered about in the gentle breeze created such an amazing sight that it left stunned expressions on the members' faces. Those reactions were the reason why the StormPlus left the topic be.

"Pretty amazing, right?" Kudo asked, knowing that they were already amazed.

"S-So when you mean the estate, you really mean entire estate?" Hinota uttered out, her eyes were taken away by the majestic sight of the location.